Whole Bunch of Stuff
Yeller Dawg apologizes but had eye surgery Friday and have not been able to read them little bitty letters.
1. Did you see poor Marian the Librarian getting heckled on her overseas trip. I actually felt sorry for her. In the first place, do not send a librarian to do a president's job. She is real nice, but I doubt she knows a whole lot of foreign policy, kinda like Condie Rice, or Dubya for that matter. Dubya, why didn't you go? Afraid ?
2. The Houston Bar Association held their Judicial Evaluation Poll last week. According to the Houston Chronicle, you guessed it, our own dear little Priscilla Owen finished dead last on the Supreme Court, nosing out Brister and Hecht, two equally (almost) dismal jurists. Now I figgered out why Bush appointed her. She aint real smart, and Bush does not want to appoint a person smarter than him (and that's practically everybody) to the federal bench. You can read the entire Poll online at hba.org.
3. There is so much stuff, I aint got time to tell it. Lots more is coming out on the Newsweek Koran flap. The New York Times ran a couple of items by one of their top reporters that indicated the abuse is more flagrant and widespread then Newsweek reported, and it had already been reported by numerous detainees and news outlets before with no comment from Dubya. Funny to me, the only American soldiers getting disciplined are very low ranking except for that poor Reserve General. Why not Rummy? Why not Alberto? Hell, why not Bush? Truman used to say "the buck stops here." Bush says, "The buck stops with Lyndie England."
Yeller Dawg
posted by yeller dawg @ 2:02 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
yeller dawg clarifies yesterdays post regarding the article in NYT. It was by Tim Golden, and an excerpt follows:
"Two Afghan detainees died from their injuries in December 2002 after being shackled and beaten at the American military base in Bagram, Afghanistan."
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 22, 2005
"Despite autopsy findings of homicide and statements by soldiers that two prisoners died after being struck by guards at an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, Army investigators initially recommended closing the case without bringing any criminal charges, documents and interviews show."
THE BAGRAM FILE
Second of two articles
Part 1: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths (May 20, 2005)
The Bagram File
"Along the Chain of Command, Confusion and ContradictionWithin days after the two deaths in December 2002, military coroners determined that both had been caused by "blunt force trauma" to the legs. Soon after, soldiers and others at Bagram told the investigators that military guards had repeatedly struck both men in the thighs while they were shackled and that one had also been mistreated by military interrogators.
Nonetheless, agents of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported to their superiors that they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the detainees' injuries, military officials said. Military lawyers at Bagram took the same position, according to confidential documents from the investigation obtained by The New York Times.
"I could never see any criminal intent on the part of the M.P.'s to cause the detainee to die," one of the lawyers, Maj. Jeff A. Bovarnick, later told investigators, referring to one of the deaths. "We believed the M.P.'s story, that this was the most combative detainee ever."
The investigators' move to close the case was among a series of apparent missteps in an Army inquiry that ultimately took almost two years to complete and has so far resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers. Early on, the documents show, crucial witnesses were not interviewed, documents disappeared, and at least a few pieces of evidence were mishandled.
While senior military intelligence officers at Bagram quickly heard reports of abuse by several interrogators, documents show they also failed to file reports that are mandatory when any intelligence personnel are suspected of misconduct, including mistreatment of detainees. Those reports would have alerted military intelligence officials in the United States to a problem in the unit, military officials said.
Those interrogators and others from Bagram were later sent to Iraq and were assigned to Abu Ghraib prison. A high-level military inquiry last year found that the captain who led interrogation operations at Bagram, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, applied many of the same harsh methods in Iraq that she had overseen in Afghanistan."
Sorry, can't publish the whole article. It is revolting that the very soldiers resposible for the abuse in Afghanistan were transferred to Iraq to continue their abuse. Yet only the reservists seem to have been punished.
I mentioned the trip to the Mideast by Laura Bush. Today Reuters published an article decrying the use of Ms. Bush for the diplomatic mission because of her ignorance of Egypt and its problems,and her ringing endorsement of the current Egyptian regime, when many in Egypt feel the regime is hindering dissent and democracy. Evidently Laura just parroted what someone told her to say.
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