Philadelphia Daily News Endorses Kerry Before Nomination Accepted

Philadelphia Daily News Endorses Kerry Before Nomination Accepted

It's very unusual to see an endorsement of this kind in the pre-election season. I wanted to share it with you because it is so politically unique. They explain that this endorsement is being made now, when the election is months away, because this race promises to be close and Pennsylvania is one of 18 swing states that can go to either candidate. I'm not sure if this is the first time in American history that such a strong endorsement is made this early, but it certainly stands out as significant and indicative of an expected tough contest to come this fall.

The endorsement is titled:
"KERRY FOR PREZ:
Why Him, Why Now-
And How To Put Him In The White House"

An excerpt:

The Case Against Bush

George W. Bush received - and deserved - praise for his leadership during the dark days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But since then, the Bush administration has been marked by failure - failure to shepherd the country through a tough economic downturn, failure to keep the nation focused on the true enemies to our security.

He has failed in even the one challenge he set out for himself at the beginning of his administration - to bring the country together. His has been one of the most ideologically driven and divisive administrations in recent times.

Instead of moving forward, the country has been on the wrong track. These last four years have been wasted.

Bush wasted the opportunity to lead an international movement against al Qaeda, the real terrorist threat. Instead he has led us, with false intelligence, into a senseless war. In less than two weeks, the United States will hand over control of Iraq to the Iraqis. But our troops will remain - and will have to remain for years to come.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, there was a sense of national unity. Bush wasted the moment by deciding to appease the most strident in his conservative base, opposing gay marriages, gagging abortion information and giving comfort to the more irresponsible voices in the National Rifle Association...


The Case For Kerry

Kerry acknowledges that his privileges left him with a responsibility to serve and an ambition to lead. And he has - from combat in the Navy, then as the cleancut (and therefore highly effective) leader of the Vietnam veterans' anti-war movement, as a prosecutor in Boston, and in four terms in the U.S. Senate.

He is not the indecisive waffler the Bush team would have you believe. Instead, he is offering a concrete, pragmatic direction for the nation.

On the issue of high unemployment he is proposing changing the tax laws that give U.S. companies incentives to outsource jobs to India and China.

Kerry promises to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 to help cut the federal deficit and help pay for his health-care program, which seeks to expand coverage. He will withdraw the special privileges given to polluting industries and the oil companies as we work toward freeing ourselves from dependence on oil from the Middle East.

On homeland security, Kerry understands that if we are attacked again, the first to respond will be firefighters and emergency medical teams, which have been largely ignored by the Bush administration. Kerry is proposing recruiting an additional 100,000 firefighters. Bill Clinton did the same with police during his term. Afterward, crime went down across the country. Coincidence? Hardly.

On Iraq, there's little evidence that Bush can enlist the international help necessary to bring more of our troops home. There's reason to believe that Kerry, who understands the human cost of war, will.....

Because he respects the intelligence of the American people, he rarely talks in sound bites.

He understands that sound bites aren't solutions.....



[LINK]

Plundered/Sabotaged: Iraq losing oil revenue all around

Plundered/Sabotaged: Iraq losing oil revenue all around


Is it any wonder there is so much anger amongst the people of Iraq?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Despite Allawi's words of assurance, the scene on the street suggested that popular revulsion against the U.S. occupation and the government is growing...."

--From a news report describing Monday's rioting in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, the worst since Baghdad fell in 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plundered by the Ones They See As Occupiers

Our Coalition Provisional Authority is positively scrambling to beat the June 30th date to give away $2 billion of Iraq's oil revenues in reconstruction bids to private contractors. The Bush administration knows the new Iraqi government is going to take the reins in just 14 days and they will then have a rightful claim on how their own oil revenues are used. It's ethically disgusting for the CPA (ie: Bush admin/Pentagon) to commit the money to their preferred contractors now. It's really no wonder they're despised and mistrusted by so many Iraqis. The money will come out of the Development Fund for Iraq. The UN Security Council resolution (passed on June 8) requires the new Iraqi government to satisfy all outstanding obligations against the Development Fund for Iraq made before June 30, leaving the new interim Iraqi government with no choice but to honor these questionable expenditures by the CPA.

Just as bad as robbing the Iraqi people's revenues, the business of the State subsidizing corporations through the use of these private contractors (far out of the realm of the "free market") is little more than State-sponsored theft from the People of the U.S. America is providing the capital necessary to undertake Iraq's reconstruction projects. The organization known as the Program Management Office Concept of Operations has the responsibility to ensure Americans receive the best value possible from their investment into the Iraqi infrastructure for the benefit of the Iraqi people. What are they doing? Are you paying attention?


The whole story of the pre-emptive attack upon Iraq is nearly pornographic...one of the most obscene moral tales you could ever hear.


Sabotaged By Those Who Fight Occupation

Iraq's oil exports have been hurt badly by the Basra sabotage. It would take about $30 billion a year in income for the Iraqi state to run the country properly and repair everything that needs to be repaired, as well as servicing its debts and paying reparations. In the past year, Iraq has only been able to generate about $10 billion from petroleum. This is a real kick to Iraq "sovereignty's" credibility-kiester since the direct hit to oil-revenue will be an economy-buster for the new government. Reviving petroleum exports is the key to restoring Iraq's economy after decades of war, international sanctions and Saddam Hussein's tyranny.

If the instability-trend in Iraq spreads to Saudi Arabia (which it seems to be doing right quickly), prices at the pump are soon going to be devastating to us.

American citizens..have you considered that you are being robbed alongside the citizens of the new Iraq? Do you see where your tax-dollars are going?

And you thought IRAQ was terror-connected?

And you thought IRAQ was terror-connected?

The Bush administration and the right-wingers who love them have been desperately attempting to tie Saddam with 9/11 terrorists. VP Dick Cheney constantly tells us there was a connection while offering no proof. We just found out that Osama was rebuffed by Saddam, matter-of-fact. While the Bushites continue to lie (bald-faced) to us and then dig and dig for more fake proof of the slightest coincidental connection, we see stories like these from Saudi Arabia that SCREAM 'terror-harboring'.

We understand that Saudi Arabia knowingly harbors terrorists (voluntarily or not, it's sure terrorists exist fairly openly amongst them).
We understand that Saudi Arabia is a dangerous place for Americans.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has appeased terror-abiding Saudi Arabia by pulling our military bases out.
We've warned American citizens to leave the country.

Yet---
Saudi Arabia has promised George W Bush a re-election campaign boost by manipulating oil prices at the 'right time'.

This leads me to believe that if a government will cooperate with the U.S., it doesn't matter what their terror connections are.

If Saddam had played the U.S. game, he may have been sitting pretty still today. He was not a 9/11 terrorist nor was he "connected". He was a rebellious ex-friend of the Reagan era.

If American contractor Paul Johnson is murdered by these terrorists who hold him captive, we'd better get ruthlessly tough on Saudi Arabia if we're going to be consistent and credible. Saudi Arabia is no less than infested with terrorists and the Saudi government is not firm enough in their resolve. They are too bloody afraid of their own populace.

Why are we allowing them to get away with their inadequate responses? Why aren't we chasing Prince Bandar into a spider-hole?

The hypocrisy of our foreign policy is astounding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: If you think chasing Prince Bandar into a spider-hole seems a ludicrous idea for a civilized nation to propose, think about the proportion of 9/11 terrorists who were citizens of Saudia Arabia compared to the number that were from Iraq. The Bush administration has made a hypocritical circus of this war on terror...attacking a nation who played no part in killing so many of our citizens in NYC in 2001.

Ashcroft: Worst Attorney General in History

Ashcroft: Worst Attorney General in History

Paul Krugman says there's no question:
John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in American history.
(This particular column is focusing only on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror.)

[LINK]

5.2 Earthquake in San Diego

5.2 Earthquake in San Diego

Today's earthquake in San Diego (a 5.2 earthquake) took a lot of people by surprise. You can read about the experience (and memories of a far more dangerous quake) at Moderate Voice. Kevin at Primary Main Objective, Lt. Smash, Cinediva, San Diego blog, and USS Clueless have reported in about the quake at their blogs as well.

Louis...if you're out there..how did you make out?

David Brooks and the Great Overgeneralization

David Brooks and the Great Overgeneralization

Someone please tell David Brooks that it doesn't matter that Dubya is a "Manager" and went to business school and drives a pick-up.

Bush is destroying America from the inside.

I don't really care that John Kerry plays classical guitar.

He might be able to turn America's disastrous tidal path. We're heading for the rocks.

Of Managers and Professionals

I worked for a major corporation most of my life as one of David Brooks' "Managers" in a "Professional's" skin. A false career for me, I suppose, when you consider my nature, although I did very well and derived a sense of personal satisfaction for a job well-done. After a post 9/11 career change, I now do the work that better suits my nature. 9/11 informed me in a way that no career-advisor could ever inform a client.

Life isn't very long.

We need to do what we can while were here.

Watching all Bush has done after 9/11..pick-up truck and classical guitar considerations aside...I know that part of what I need to do is to remind my fellow Americans that we have a dangerous man at the helm of a country so many of us love with breath and depth indescribably immense.

Brooks blames the citizenry

One look at a man like Lincoln Chaffee or Christopher Shays completely dilutes Brooks' pick-up/management overgeneralizations. Chaffee, Shays, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar...just a few examples of GOP men who do not fit Brooks' "Manager" overgeneralization. Brooks says, if not for the civil war within the educated class in America, this country would be far less polarized. I wonder why it is Brooks fails to fault leadership in Washington, D.C. for the absolutely shitty job they've done this past decade to show the American people what it means to intelligently argue their ideals without all the ad hominem attacks? These are the figureheads of our nation. If they are not charged with heavy responsibility for setting the tone of civility, who should be? To fail to assign blame where blame belongs is little more than delusional and misleading dissemination on Mr. Brooks' part.


America was born through the driving force of David Brooks' Professionals

David Brooks says:

"Managers are more likely to value leaders whom they see as simple, straight-talking men and women of faith."

Let me be blunt. Ben Franklin got more tail than a toilet seat. He loved the women. That wouldn't go over big with the faith-crowd in today's technological news age. Yet, Ben Franklin's abundance of ideas fostered the creation of our nation.

David Brooks says:

"[Managers] prize leaders who are good at managing people, not just ideas. They are more likely to distrust those who seem overly intellectual or narcissistically self-reflective."

Dear heavens. "Managers" would have HATED Ben Franklin.

If Brooks thinks he's broken some magical political code with this analysis, someone needs to know we're out here laughing...through our tears.

Less censorship! Not more!

Less censorship! Not more!

"One of the most important lessons everyone can take from 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' whether they support the war in Iraq, oppose the war or are undecided, is that we need less censorship in this country, not more!"

-- Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Releasing, which is distributing the film
[LINK-MoveAmericaForward is moving America backward]

See my story from June 11.

Blogger Tsuredzuregusa has some good ideas about how to fight the right-wing's campaign for censorship.

There's a great thread at Daily Kos..

*Discussion:

It was suggested to me by one of my good readers that this is more of a boycott than censorship since censorship is generally considered a government's action and not a function associated with the private sector. I explained that I begged to differ and that there is more to censorship than meets the popular desciption. I've heard many a Rush Limbaugh fan say "Censorship cannot be done by corporations...that's not censorship." I am here to remind them that they couldn't be more wrong.

The inescapable fact that the U.S. has an oligarchical concentration of power through corporations (especially with so many mergers over the past 30 years) cannot be discounted when those same markets decide what will be marketed and what will be relegated to silence. The markets are directly responsible for many discriminatory acts...whether or not they could be deemed legally unconstitutional. Bush and Company need not do the censoring..they can sit back and enjoy their corporate partners doing the dirty work for them. What Disney did to Moore was censorship. Disney didn't boycott Moore. They refused to distribute his film. Disney feared governmental rebuke...not a loss of profits. It was censorship, sure as you're born.

Like our Founding Fathers, we need to understand that a concentration of power in the hands of a few is a dangerous game. I urge you to look at the big picture when it comes to the people who are deciding what you'll see and what you won't be able to see.

Linked HERE is a further discussion of the issue.

Eric Alterman Congratulates Iraq Hawks

Eric Alterman Congratulates Iraq Hawks

In a sarcastic way, mind you. I liked it enough to share it with you in case you missed it.

Take a look at this:

It’s hard to say which is the best representation of what this war is doing to and has done to this country. Is it the lies that were told to get us into it? Is the fact that we are picking up innocent people off the street and torturing them? Is it that we have suspended the most basic civil liberties in our own country? Is it that the work of professional intelligence agencies has been corrupted? Is it that we have drawn resources away from the fight against Al Qaida which has completely regrouped? Is it that we are creating more terrorists? Is it that more than seven hundred Americans have been killed and thousands have been seriously injured? Is it that thousands of Iraqis have been killed but nobody is keeping an account of the numbers of their deaths? Is it that we are now more hated around the world than we have ever been? Is it that we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars while actually decreasing our security? Is it that we are doing all this while starving the most crucial homeland security programs? Is it that everyone who told the truth about what was being planned has been dismissed and seen their characters attacked? The usually soft-spoken and moderate intelligence analyst and author Thomas Powers does not exaggerate when he notes that Bush and the neocons have "caused the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in modern U.S. history."

Congrats to everybody involved…
[LINK-Altercation]

U-Turn for Colin

U-Turn for Colin


"Terror attacks were way down!"


"Uh..Terror attacks were way up..."



"Sheeit, Colin, how come the fibs didn't work?"

*Seriously, people, do you believe anything this administration tells you anymore???

Halliburton/Cheney the focus of new MoveOn PAC Ad

Halliburton/Cheney the focus of MoveOn PAC Ad

MoveOn PAC has a new ad reminding Americans voters that Vice President Cheney's office helped ensure that Cheney's old company Halliburton would receive a $7 billion no-bid contract for rebuilding Iraq. Faced with a choice between serving our troops and helping out his corporate buddies, Cheney chose the latter.

Starting tomorrow, Congress will be holding hearings on whether Halliburton used its close ties to administration officials to get sweetheart deals, shortchanging both our troops and U.S. taxpayers. This is probably an opportune time to coordinate a political ad of this nature.

Halliburton has overcharged taxpayers millions for gas and charged hundreds of millions of dollars for meals for our troops that were never delivered. Last week, Time Magazine exposed this: newly disclosed internal Pentagon emails suggest that the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was instrumental in sealing an $18 billion no-bid contract for the Vice President's former company. In a Pentagon audit, Halliburton was warned that its food service facilities (which serve our troops in Iraq) were dangerously unsanitary, with "blood all over the floor" of its kitchens, "dirty pans," and "rotting meats..and vegetables." As Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) put it, Halliburton is ultimately "a company that arrogantly is overcharging when they can get away with it and not providing the quality of service that they agreed to do." Vice President Dick Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock options in the company. It's hardly surprising that the Administration's response has been anemic, even when faced with clear evidence that the company is bilking taxpayers.

See the MOVEONPAC ad here

Put This Photo on the Sawbuck

Put This Photo on the Sawbuck


Reagan's Envoy Rummy circa 1983

....to remind us of one of the top 10 American Presidents of all time who embraced a murderer..who created a monster...who looked the other way when Saddam murdered his own people..who supplied Saddam with the evil weapons we could no longer find when Dubya wanted to use them as an excuse to attack.

The Long Journey

The Long Journey

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God's given us years of happiness here
Now we must part
And as the angels come and call for you
The pains of grief tug at my heart

Oh my darling
My darling
My heart breaks as you take your long journey...

From a song by Doc Watson & Rosa Lee Watson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Valerie Reitman of the L.A. Times speaks to us about the language we use to prepare for the longest Goodbye. Whether the crossing is real or metaphoric, it's an inevitable mystic event.

Families and health care-workers hear words about the journey so often from the dying, conveying a sense of moving from one place to another, of being in transition...that a reasonable conclusion is that it must be a special language the dying have to communicate what they're experiencing.


[LINK]

Max has an idea

Max has an idea




Max Blumenthal has a counterproposal to Grover Norquist's HR 452. It's called the Ray Charles Memorial Act and it would save the ten dollar bill from Reagan's mug.

That would free the sawbuck problem and make room for my notion: to chuck the silly 'National ID card' idea and use the image of Reagan's head for National ID tattoos on each of our American foreheads instead.



Again, there's Anonymoses' idea: Change the name of the U.S. to "Reagan".

Krishnamurti-"Inquire"

IT IS NOT FOR THE TRULY FREE MIND
TO SIMPLY ACCEPT OR TO SIMPLY DENY

"One has to find out for oneself."


"This does not mean that you reject what others say...

___*______*_____*___

....but that you inquire without acceptance or denial."



^~^~^~^~^~^"An aggressive mind, a mind tethered to a belief, is not free.......


^~^~^~^~^~^

~^~^~^~^~^~and therefore it is incapable of inquiry."



"All this demands intensive inquiry, not acceptance."
____________________________________


KRISHNAMURTI

Turkey taking harder line on Ariel Sharon at OIC Talks

Turkey taking harder line on Ariel Sharon at OIC Talks

The foreign Ministers of a 57-member bloc of Islamic nations began talks in Turkey's commercial capital, Istanbul, over the future of Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict today. Turkey is the only Muslim member of NATO.

The foreign ministers will also elect a new secretary general for the Saudi-based grouping, known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or O.I.C.

In the Washington Post, it says the conference will likely emphasize the unity of Iraq amid Arab and Turkish fears the country could fragment along ethnic lines.

At BakuToday.com, it says that foreign ministers are expected to call for a speedy transfer of full sovereignty to the Iraqi people and emphasize the need to preserve the territorial unity of Iraq. Iran, Syria and Turkey, which share borders with Iraq, have expressed deep concern over a feared break-up of Iraq into separate, Kurdish, Shia and Sunni entities should the Iraqis' experiment with democratic self-rule fail. All three are especially worried that the emergence of a Kurdish state in Iraq could fan separatist sentiment among their own Kurdish minorities.


Last week, the leaders at the G8 summit adopted a compromise version of President Bush's plan for Middle Eastern reforms and tied it to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (one of the few Muslim leaders invited to the G8) has said: "Change should not be imposed from the outside. The character and traditions of each country must be taken into consideration." Before leaving for the U.S., Erdogan had told reporters that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bringing stability to Iraq were crucial issues for the current OIC.

It is believed that it would be a major coup for the Turks to get a Turkish head of the OIC, and although the Washington Post doesn't mention it, I read this in Baku Today (a less-western-flavoured news source):

Host nation Turkey has long been criticized by Arab nations for its strong military and economic ties with Israel. In recent weeks, however, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken out against the policies of his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, accusing the Jewish state of engaging in terrorism against the Palestinians.

To gain political ground with the OIC, Turkey is apparently being forced to take a harder line on Israel because of the Iraq war.

I wonder if this Sharon-dissing by one of the only democracies in the region was foreseen by the NeoCons who wanted this war so badly?

Quote:

"And I just, you know every so often I hear some people suggesting, well the right reaction for Turkey to this bump in our relationship is, well we should make more friends with Iran and more friends with Syria. Excuse me, that's absolutely the wrong way to go. The right way to go, as I say, is to think about where the real democrats, where does democracy need to be supported."

-Paul Wolfowitz to CNN Turk May, 2003

We've Killed More Innocent Iraqis Than We've Been Told

We've Killed More Innocent Iraqis Than We've Been Told

It would shame us as good people to ignore the fact that the United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has ever been previously acknowledged. Knowing that some caused significant civilian casualties should give us pause to mourn the innocent victims of our war intended to "liberate" them. Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful. These failures were an early warning sign about the thinness of American intelligence on Iraq. The unspoken numbers of civilian casualties has not been acknowledged by the Bush administration.



The fervored Texas-style manhunt for the faces on that infamous deck of Iraq's "most-wanted" playing cards turned into an entire tome filled with innocent faces who were unlucky enough to be in the way when the shock and awe began.

I am ashamed of the government that would have led us in this iresponsible manner. If you aren't, I wonder if you possess a soul of basic human compassion. This is not to preach, but to ask you how there can be any form of national pride-in-responsibility when our leaders play "Deputy Dawg" and stomp on others' homelands with faulty intelligence and devastating bombs?


MOST WANTED


MOST GOTTEN

The reality of the awareness that every breath is shared with all life and that all people are brethren may never become a political asset...but it will always be true.

The war was unnecessary. Untold numbers of perfectly innocent souls are dead at our hands. The President may not wish to talk about it, but it will always be true.

[LINK]

About Wallace Turnage

About Wallace Turnage



WALLACE TURNAGE
Photo credit: NY Times

His story, written on blue-lined paper in a leather-bound notebook, probably sometime in the late 19th century, ended up with a neighbor, Gladys Watt, who discovered only by reading it that Mrs. Connolly was a former slave's daughter. Mrs. Connolly often described herself as "Portugee" to explain her dark complexion...Mrs. Watt kept the notebook in a closet for years, in a clamshell archival box, unsure what to do with it. And then last summer she took it to the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich....After the Turnage narrative was donated to the Greenwich historical society, the group hired two researchers to make sure it was authentic. "This is such a vivid and amazing story, the first thing we wanted to do was make sure it was not a fake," said Debra Mecky, the society's executive director. The researchers found that much of Mr. Turnage's account could be verified in census, Army and bank records...

Mr. Turnage's story tells..of the brutality of slavery, because most of his years of bondage were spent as a field hand in Alabama. He writes of near-crippling lashings of female slaves and describes four unsuccessful attempts to escape, some of them followed by severe beatings, before he finally succeeded in 1864 after hiding in a swamp for a week.

While hiding, he often slept in an unused Confederate lookout perch. One morning, he writes, as if he were witnessing a miracle, he saw the tide bring something in.

"Now when I got down there I seen a little boat very small indeed though the tide was going out," he says. "It stood like it was held by an invisible hand; so I got in the little boat and it held me."

A few hours later, as a storm threatened to drown him, he was pulled over the side of a Union gunboat by eight soldiers — and finally "had obtained that freedom which I desired so long."

He ends his story with a stern command to his readers not to regard his account as a "novel, nor a fable, but a reality of facts."

"My reader," he adds, "I will now leave my book to your judgement. The end."


[LINK: N.Y. Times- Journals of 2 Former Slaves Draw Vivid Portraits by Randy Kennedy]

Frank Rich- Bush is clearly no Reagan

Frank Rich-
Bush is clearly no Reagan

Not even close

Last weekend in Normandy, the president sat for an interview in which Tom Brokaw challenged his efforts to pull off a bigger flimflam than impersonating Ronald Reagan — the conflation of the Iraq war with World War II. "You referred to the `ruthless and treacherous surprise attack on America' that we went through during our time," Mr. Brokaw said. "But that wasn't Iraq who did that, that was al Qaeda." With the gravesites of the World War II dead behind him, the president retreated to his familiar script ("Iraq is a part of the war on terror"). Even if you think the lines make sense, the irritated man delivering them did not sound like someone who had ever experienced pain of the life-and-death intensity that comes with war. The problem is not merely that Mr. Bush lacks Reagan's lilting vocal delivery. As any professional actor can tell you, no performance, however sonorous, can be credible if it doesn't contain at least a kernel of emotional truth.

[LINK]

Sanchez Approved Torture; White House May Be Linked to Decision

Sanchez Approved Torture; White House May Be Linked to Decision

Daily Kos diarist DHinMI provides us with an analysis which leads us to expect we'll soon be easily able to connect the Abu-Ghraib dots from Gen. Ricardo Sanchez directly to the Pentagon and to the White House. An article in the Telegraph (UK) tells us:

New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House.

[Telegraph- Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels']

We should face the fact that most Americans have highly suspected the torture at Abu Ghraib was not the work of just a few "bad apples." It would seem terribly naive to think otherwise.

[LINK-DHinMI at Daily Kos]

Also--new in today's N.Y. Times--the Red Cross has said it alerted American military commanders in Iraq to abuses at Abu Ghraib in November. But the disclosures that the military's own interrogators had alerted superiors to abuse back then in internal documents has not been previously reported. LINK/NYT- Unit Says It Gave Earlier Warning of Abuse in Iraq


Michael Moore saw prisoner abuses long before 60 Minutes' revelation

Filmmaker Michael Moore allegedly kept silent about prison-abuses of Iraqi detainees for fear he'd only be blamed for publicity-seeking.

From SFGate.com-

Filmmaker Michael Moore said Friday he wasn't sure he did the right thing by saving footage of U.S. American soldiers' cruelty toward Iraqis for his controversial documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' instead of releasing the evidence earlier when it might have helped halt such abuse.

"I had it months before the story broke on '60 Minutes,' and I really struggled with what to do with it,'' Moore said in a telephone interview with The Chronicle. "I wanted to come out with it sooner, but I thought I'd be accused of just putting this out for publicity for my movie. That prevented me from making maybe the right decision.''

The footage, eerily similar to film of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison, shows GIs laughing as they snap photos of each other putting hoods over Iraqi detainees.

In the same scene from "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' which opens Friday at Bay Area theaters, an American soldier fondles a prisoner's genitals through a blanket.

"The stuff with the detainees in my movie is even more shocking than what we saw in that prison because it happens outdoors and is more commonplace,'' Moore said.

[LINK-Documentarian kept quiet after filming U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqis]

Other articles:

WP- General Granted Latitude At Prison; Abu Ghraib Used Aggressive Tactics

Detroit Free Press- U.S. forces lose track of Iraqi prisoners; Men and boys vanish; families search in vain

U.S.News.com- Hiding a bad guy named triple X; How the military treated some inmates at Abu Ghraib like 'ghosts'

Editor and Publisher- Exclusive: Shocking Details on Abuse of Reuters Staffers in Iraq

Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy

Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy

Heavy-hitters in Diplomacy and Military (many from Reagan era) aim to see Bush defeated in 2004

Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, a group of retired ambassadors and senior military officers, will hold a Morning Newsmaker news conference Wednesday, June 16, at 8 a.m. EDT at the National Press Club (Zenger Room), 13th floor, 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

The topic will be "The Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy."

The group includes former ambassadors Jeffrey Davidow, William DePree, Charles Freeman Jr., William Harrop, Arthur Hartman, H. Allen Holmes, Samuel Lewis, Princeton Lyman, Jack Matlock Jr., Donald McHenry, Richard Murphy, David Newsom, Phyllis Oakley, John Reinhardt, Ronald Spiers, Nicholas Veliotes and Alexander Watson; and Adm. William Crowe (former chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Reagan), Gen. Joseph Hoar and Adm. Stansfield Turner.

[LINK]

See: NYT- Former Officials to Criticize Bush Foreign Policy