Department of Genocide, Torture, and Tyranny

(Version with links available here. I can't seem to get links included when I copy and paste texts.)

Mark Danner's Choice

A long standing staple of Fox News discourse claims that liberalism in the academy holds sway as a kind of semi-official ideology. This view is largely correct, though it should be kept in mind that it is the liberalism targeted in recent denunciations by Adolph Reed and Chris Hedges, not the "radical leftism" of teabaggers and other fantasists of the right. Read below the fold...

By David Swanson

The occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead. While this apparently constitutes an everyday act of kindness, far less intriguing than the vicious singeing of his pubic hairs by Captain Underpants, it is at least a variation on the ordinary American technique of murdering men, women, and children by the dozens with unmanned drones. Read below the fold...

By David Swanson

Let's face it, if James Cameron had made a movie with the Iraqi resistance as the heroes and the U.S. military as the enemies, and had set it in Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth, the packed theaters viewing "Avatar" would have been replaced by a screening in a living room for eight people and a dog.

Nineteen years ago, Americans packed theaters for "Dances with Wolves" in which Native Americans became the heroes, but the story was set in a previous century and the message understated. Read below the fold...

And why did all this happen? Because four Blackwater military contractors were killed. Not only that, but the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (yes, it's a government committee) "fault Blackwater in Fallujah ambush." (Unfortunately, this report came out 3 years after the fact. We never seem to know these things at the time, or our 'leaders' don't.) So, because four contractors were killed, we basically go into a city use depleted uranium and other toxic weapons and destroy the entire city, killing thousands. This is clearly a war crime, and people need to be taken to task for it. Read below the fold...

We're right back where we've really always been, aren't we?

"I share the President’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward and not backward when it comes to issues such as these. While this Department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked.

Read below the fold...

From the Daily Mail:

Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing with Britain if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Letters from the U.S. Secretary of State and the CIA to the Government warn they will cease co-operation with British counterparts if two judges release details about Mr Mohamed's alleged torture.

Human rights campaigners yesterday claimed the threat - which could put British lives at risk - was merely a ' smokescreen', but Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it was serious.

Read below the fold...

Salon has a full transcript. I'm just gonna hit the highlights here (hat tip to Athenae at First Draft, who is dead solid perfect in her reaction to Todd's half-coherent special pleading that if you have a trial, the Democrats will be perceived as "mean" and the world will end in all 32 wingnut flavors, again.) [ why does a TV News department need a political director?] Read below the fold...

New President, new Congress, new policy, new rules, new Joint Chiefs, new chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Read below the fold...

These are ugly images, so I'm warning you ahead of time.
The person who originally put them online has seen more and speaks about that in a posting at another blog.

Read below the fold...

is this one, and for those of you whose delicate sensibilities preclude a visit to DKos, this time you should go read it anyway, because it's not cross-posted anywhere else. Don't let it be the last thing you read at night, though. Read below the fold...

but it's one I found today re: Gen. J. Karpinski.

to be sent with the help of the ACLU.

Here's mine:

President Barack Hussein Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Dear Mr. President:

Today I read that you have changed your mind about revealing the photographic evidence of the torture and war crimes committed against detainees by contractors and American GIs in Iraq, Guantanamo, and other secret prisons.

I am so ashamed to hear that you have chosen to bolster the dishonesty and cover up the lawbreaking instituted by the previous administration during this wanton war.

Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

I will harp again on this point. We must not let George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Libby, Yoo, Bybee, Rove, Hughes, and the cabal with which they infested Washington, D.C. for eight years walk away scot free. We must not. Why?
Because these sorry excuses for homo sapiens made this happen: Read below the fold...

Can we indict w now? As if desertion wasn't enough, as if stealing the nation's highest office via lawsuit and riot wasn't enough, the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to have its personnel participate in interrogations George W. Bush's signed executive order authorized because the methods used were torture. (It's a PDF or I'd post it here. Invictus has a link.) Read below the fold...