Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (161895)	5/13/2005 12:50:15 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

My thoughts exactly! I have been supporting him too. Those who want to get rid of Bushies would do best by supporting every decision Necons make, no matter how absurd.. With the possible exception of Federal judges. Those are lifetime appointments. Though I'd be willing to consider overlooking even that. Bush has already gotten 95% of his nominees. The remaining nominations that are being blocked or threatened to be blocked is nit noise. The Chief Justice. One conservative replaces another conservative. So what? Plus, with some exceptions it's hard to predict what happens to appointments to the USSC. All members are highly analytic in nature, and their long term outlook is subject to change. Justice Thomas...if he has an analytic capability, he's sure hiding it. jttmab

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (161895)	5/13/2005 1:05:35 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

U.S. officer blames superior over Abu Ghraib abuse _____________________________ Fri May 13, 2005 12:43 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former commander of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq blamed a ranking officer for introducing the use of human pyramids and dog leashes in the abuse of detainees and said in an interview on Thursday that abuse may be continuing there. Col. Janis Karpinski, a former one-star Army Reserve general who was punished in the scandal, blamed Gen. Geoffrey Miller for the methods that were used to humiliate detainees. Miller headed the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and was sent to Iraq to recommend improvements in intelligence gathering and detention operations there. "I believe that Gen. Miller gave them the ideas, gave them the instruction on what techniques to use," she said in an interview on the ABC News "Nightline" program. Asked if she was referring to the positioning of prisoners in human pyramids and putting dog leashes on detainees, Karpinski said, "I can tell you with certainty that the MPs (military police) certainly did not design those techniques, they certainly did not come to Abu Ghraib or to Iraq with dog collars and dog leashes." Karpinski, who has made similar allegations in the past, was the first high-level military officer to be punished in the abuse scandal. She was demoted from brigadier general to colonel on May 5. Army Col. Thomas Pappas, the former U.S. military intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib prison, was reprimanded and removed from his command as part of a punishment over the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, the Army said on Wednesday. reuters.com

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (161895)	5/13/2005 1:38:36 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Some great comments on The Bolton Nomination -- from a Guardian weblog... blogs.guardian.co.uk <<...Pushing for the appointment of a hard-right extremist like Bolton shouldn't necessarily be seen as a move which comes from a position of total strength on the part of the Bush administration. Consider the military disaster of the Iraq occupation, America’s growing exclusion from much of world diplomacy and the fact that the US economy is held hostage by oceans of external debt, much of it in the hands of its rival, China. Grand gestures like the Bolton nomination may be deliberately calculated to mask a weakening US position. Opponents of US hegemony need not feel overly intimidated by the drive to appoint Bolton. But nor should we feel overly encouraged by the obstacles being placed in his way. The fact that Bolton – a man who objects to the very existence of international law, much as a mafia don might object to the very existence of domestic law - is even being considered for the role of Ambassador to the UN says something rather alarming about how far US politics has lurched to the right. Furthermore, whatever impediments they face, the fact is that the neo-conservative ultras, of which Bolton is one, still hold sway in the government of the most powerful state in all history. The fanaticism of these officials was spelled out in this chilling quote given anonymously to the New York Times: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." A picture is now emerging of a hyperpower damaged by neo-conservative over-ambition. Perhaps grasping too greedily at the opportunities of the post-Cold War era it has, far from “creating new realities”, begun to discover the cold reality of its own limitations. But whilst it may have been weakened by the last few years of extremist government, Bush's Washington still wields massive power over the rest of the globe. Its capacity to use that power malignantly still represents the gravest danger facing the world today. The ongoing struggle over the appointment of John Bolton should be seen in this context...>> democratsdiary.co.uk Comments posted by: diarist at May 13, 2005 02:09 PM