June 2009 archive

Barack Obama bombed this baby.  This baby is one of the lucky ones, seeing as how it’s not dead.

Why did Obama maim this baby, when General Petraus has told us that there are ‘No more Al Queda in Afghanistan’?

I guess we just like to bomb babies for the sheer rollicking hell of it.   Gotta use all those weapons we bought for something.  You know, so we can order more, and keep the economy moving.  Keep the Corporate Welfare money going out to Raytheon and the other War Profiteers, no?

I’m becoming a huge fan of Jeremy Scahill.  The man speaks truth to power better than anyone I’ve seen in a good long time.  

Seeing some of these people online turning their profile pictures green “for Iran” makes me want to create a Facebook and Twitter application that turns profile pictures blood red, in solidarity with all of the Afghans and Iraqis and Pakistanis being killed by US wars today; wars that people in the US failed to stop and whose representatives continue to fund to the tune of $100s of billions.-Jeremy Scahill

Here is Scahill in an interview:

What people, I think, misunderstand about Barack Obama is that this is a man who is a brilliant supporter of empire–who has figured out a way to essentially trick a lot of people into believing they’re supporting radical change, when in effect what they’re doing is supporting a radical expansion of the U.S. empire.

(snip)

What we see with Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Arab and Muslim world, as well as his global economic policies, are a continuation of the most devastating and violent policies of the Bush administration–while placing a face on it that makes it easier to expand the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of the free market in a way that Republicans, I think, would have been unable to do at this point in history.

That, in so many words, is why Barack Obama is President.

Scahill has a blog, here:

http://rebelreports.com/

Gotta love this one:

“The Responsible Left:” Funding Obama’s Expanding Wars $100 Billion a Vote

The cowardly Democrats who checked their spines at the door to Congress when they voted Tuesday try to defend their flip-flop on war funding. Frankly, it is embarrassing.

I’m just gonna lose my damn mind. I’m reacting, partly, to some of the comments in the front page piece at dKos by Lithium Cola about forced feedings at Gitmo.

LC says:

President Obama has declared that America does not torture — an overly careful use of verb tense. However, even granting the present tense, and that the President’s claim is strictly about the current moment, the claim is false. According to the Red Cross report, force-feeding is never justified, is always torture. I am inclined to agree with the Red Cross. However, we need get into no debates about the morality of allowing a hunger-striker to die. It is inarguable that force-feeding a hunger striker who is not on the verge of death is a form of torture, and nothing other than a form of torture.  

There was a variety of replies, but this in an example of what set me off:

Force Feeding Is Torture (5+ / 0-)

I don’t believe that prisoners who starve themselves should be force fed.  If they die they die.

Well, only one installment in this subseries after this one, but it will be special.  Tonight we will explore this class of drugs, what they do, and how they work.

This class of drugs also includes LSD, but that material is so culturally important that it will have a post of its own.  Thinking about it, it may deserve two posts, so there may be two installment after this one.  We will have to see.

Welcome to the 14th installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week is a special edition of Considered Forthwith. Instead of examining a single committee, I will look at the committee system in general this week. For one thing, Congress is in recess for Fourth of July (funny, I only get one day off for that). For another Meteor Blades is launching the committee monitoring project, so this seems to be an ideal time to go over the basics.

from Sherwood Ross, June 28, 2009

The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.

“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.

“No criminal charges have ever been brought against any C.I.A. officer involved in the torture program, despite the fact that at least three prisoners interrogated by agency personnel died as a result of mistreatment,” Mayer notes.

An earlier report, by John Hendren in The Los Angeles Times indicted other torture killings. And Human Rights First says nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.