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Politics : The Iraq War And Beyond -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4892)	6/23/2004 3:24:53 PM
From: James Calladine	Respond to of 9018

"anything positive to come out of this war" Kid, it's up to you--give us some posts of anything positive to come out of this war. Others have established a "franchise" on the negative side (me included), so the "franchise" for the positive side is wide open..... Yours for the taking! Namaste! Jim

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4892)	6/23/2004 3:27:05 PM
From: James Calladine	Respond to of 9018

US war crimes immunity bid fails The US has given up trying to win its soldiers immunity from prosecution at the new International Criminal Court. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had warned the Security Council not to renew the measure, partly because of the prisoner abuse scandal. Washington withdrew its resolution after it became clear it would not get the required support. For the last two years it had secured special status for US troops, arguing they could face malicious prosecutions. "The United States has decided not to proceed further with consideration and action on the draft at this time in order to avoid a prolonged and divisive debate," said the US deputy ambassador to the UN James Cunningham. Blanket exemption is wrong. It is of dubious judicial value and I don't think it should be encouraged by the council. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "We are dropping action on this resolution." In the past, the US has threatened to veto UN peacekeeping operations if its demands for exemption from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague were not met. Mr Cunningham did not repeat the warning, but said the US would in future "need to take into account the risk of ICC review when determining contributions to UN authorised or established operations". The US offered a compromise to the Security Council on Tuesday, asking it to renew the existing immunity for just one more year. But it was not enough to gain the necessary support of nine out of the 15 council members. Earlier this month Mr Annan said if the exemption - which expires on 30 June - were extended, it would discredit the UN's claim to represent the rule of law. "For the past two years, I have spoken quite strongly against the exemption and I think it would be unfortunate for one to press for such an exemption, given the prisoner abuse in Iraq," he said. "Blanket exemption is wrong. It is of dubious judicial value and I don't think it should be encouraged by the council." Last resort The BBC's Susannah Price at the United Nations says Washington has refused to ratify the 1998 Rome Treaty authorising the ICC, fearing that US soldiers could end up in show trials overseas. But she says the 94 signatory countries point out that the court is only meant to be a measure of last resort - and that US troops could only be prosecuted if allegations were made against them in a signatory country, and US courts failed to take action themselves. Our correspondent adds that the impression that the US was trying to remove itself from international accountability was what upset some UN members. Even though US troops abroad may now be subject to prosecution at the court in The Hague, Washington has already signed bilateral agreements with 89 countries to ensure they do not bring cases against its personnel. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2004/06/23 17:55:47 GMT © BBC MMIV

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4892)	6/23/2004 3:32:06 PM
From: James Calladine	Respond to of 9018

KR: IF this is negative, give us the positive side.... Afghan Detainees Routinely Tortured and Humiliated by US Troops by Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg Detainees held in Afghanistan by American troops have been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process, in the same way as those in Iraq, a Guardian investigation has found. Five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation. The nature of the alleged abuse indicates that what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was part of a pattern of interrogation that has been common practice since the US invasion of Afghanistan. Yesterday, in an attempt to stem charges that senior officials in the Bush administration condoned the use of torture in the war on terror, the White House released hundreds of pages of documents outlining its internal deliberations on interrogation. The memos, which originated at the Pentagon, the White House and the justice department and date from January 2002 to April last year, were intended to show that the president and his aides insisted that detainees at Guantánamo Bay should be treated humanely. But one such memo leaked earlier this month said that Mr Bush had the legal authority to allow torture, giving new impetus to a campaign by human rights organizations and Democrats. Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic member of the Senate subcommittee on foreign operations, told the Guardian that prisoners in Afghanistan "were subjected to cruel and degrading treatment, and some died from it". "These abuses were part of a wider pattern stemming from a White House attitude that 'anything goes' in the war against terrorism, even if it crosses the line of illegality." Syed Nabi Siddiqi, a former police officer, said he was beaten and stripped. "They took off my uniform. I showed them my identity card from the government... Then they asked me which of those animals - they made the noise of goats, sheep, dogs, cows - have you had sexual activities with?" A second detainee, Noor Aghah, said he was forced to drink bottles and bottles of water during his interrogation. Another prisoner, Wazir Muhammad, was held for nearly two years, firstly in Afghanistan and then at Guantánamo Bay. "At the end of my time in Guantánamo, I had to sign a paper saying I had been captured in battle, which was not true," he said. "I was stopped when I was in my taxi with four passengers. But they told me I would have to spend the rest of my life in Guantánamo if I did not sign it, so I did." Parts of an inquiry by Brigadier General Chuck Jacoby into allegations of abuse in custody are to be made public next month by the head of the US forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General David Barno. Gen Barno said: "I will tell you without hesitation that intelligence procedures have got to be done in accordance with the appropriate standards _ all our forces will treat every detainee here with dignity and respect." The network of US detention centers around Afghanistan has largely avoided scrutiny, yet, according to the coalition forces last week, more than 2,000 people have been detained there since the war. "In some ways the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those in Iraq," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "While it is true that abuses in Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in Iraq, they were in many ways worse. "Detainees were severely beaten, exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water. Five are known to have died [two of natural causes]." commondreams.org

To: Kid Rock who wrote (4892)	6/23/2004 3:47:23 PM
From: James Calladine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9018

KR: give us the positive side...... Molly Ivins: Media's reaction to White House comments remains strange By MOLLY IVINS, Creators Syndicate June 22, 2004 pictureAUSTIN, Texas — As I.F. Stone used to say, "All governments lie," so that's no shockeroo. What's peculiar is the reaction in the media. — You may recall that when even the administration finally admitted Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction (with that adorable video of President Bush on his hands and knees searching under sofas in the Oval Office for the missing WMD — oh, it was so amusing. Eight hundred American dead.), we were treated to the following rationales: 1) Didn't make any difference because Saddam Hussein was a really, really bad guy anyway. He was, of course, and it was always the only decent rationale for getting rid of him. It was the argument made by Tony Blair but specifically rejected by the Bush administration. Paul Wolfowitz explained in Vanity Fair that human rights violations were not a sufficient consideration for invasion. 2) It was all Saddam's fault that we thought he had WMD. The wily coot fooled us by repeatedly denying that he had any, a fiendishly clever ploy. 3) He probably shipped them all to Syria just before we got there. 4) Get over it. We've heard enough from you people. — Torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere? 1) No worse than fraternity hazing. 2) Just some low-level, white-trash morons. 3) We haven't tortured nearly as many people as Saddam Hussein. 4) Al Qaeda never signed no stinkin' Geneva Conventions, so we have a right to torture them. 5) Shut up, they explained. — Torture was explicitly authorized at the highest levels of government. 1-5) See above, plus: 6) Did not. 7) So what? 8) "I'm going to say it one more time. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to the law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of laws. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might comfort you." Problem is the administration looked at the laws and decided to ignore them. — Ahmad Chalabi is not just a liar, con man, thief and faker of intelligence, but also apparently a spy for Iran. 1) Chalabi? Ahmad who? Never heard of him. 2) We cut off all ties with Chalabi some time ago. (Last week.) — The 9-11 Commission reports there is no evidence of collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and in fact Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were all much bigger players with Al Qaeda. 1) The 9-11 Commission didn't say that. 2) The media are overplaying the story and are also lazy and outrageous. (Never mind that it's the media's fault as much as the administration's that 69 percent of the American people were under the misimpression that Saddam Hussein was directly tied to 9-11.) 3) We never claimed he was behind 9-11. No, we never did — we may have implied it, we may have hinted, we may have suggested, insinuated, intimated, connoted, alluded to and said it between the lines, but we never said it, and you can't prove we did and we have no idea how the great majority of Americans ever got that silly idea in the first place. So stop reporting that it's not true. 4) We are tired of hearing from you people, this has been going on for almost 24 hours now and only Dead Reagan gets a week's worth of our undivided attention. Back to Kobe Bryant and Laci Peterson. All in all, I'd say these folks have their act down now. Dick Cheney gets bonus points for Best Lying With a Straight Face. On June 8, John Ashcroft was driven to the old Nixon defense — stonewalling. He not only refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with Justice Department memos justifying torture, he refused to explain why he refused. The Washington Post then helpfully posted the memo on its website so we could all enjoy reading how our "Justice Department" explains why the president is above the law and above the Constitution, and does not need to observe any treaties. Also, we learned it is not torture unless it is "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impaired bodily function or even death." Water torture (that's the one they politely refer to as "stressful conditions") was a particular favorite of the Gestapo against the French Resistance in World War II. Anal rape and shoving broken light bulbs up the rear end don't count at all. I'm so glad George W. Bush has restored honor and integrity to the White House. And I appreciate all his defenders in the media more than I can say. They are truly distinguishing themselves as patriots in this hour of need. URL: naplesnews.com