I read somewhere that it was on page ten. And Judith Miller still has a job? Wtf?

Gunmen opened fire Saturday on three complexes used largely by Americans and other foreigners in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province and seized a large group of hostages, bringing the terrorist attacks that have plagued the country for the past year into the heart of its oil-producing region.

The official Saudi Press Agency quoted Crown Prince Abdullah, the country's de facto leader, as saying that 10 Saudis and expatriates had been killed. But sporadic gunfire continued into the night in Khobar, the town on the Persian Gulf where the attacks occurred, and the reports remained confused.

The death toll could climb higher, officials from Western embassies and local reporters said.

The gunmen took some hostages at the Oasis Residential Resorts compound in Khobar, a luxury complex of 220 to 250 villas and apartments that is home to many senior Western company executives, including those from Shell, Honeywell and General Electric. About 15 hours after the attack began, the reports varied on the number of people who might still be held. Some said the gunmen were holding 15 people hostage, but other reports, quoting a manager at the Oasis, said they were holding as many as 50.

WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals football player who died in April while a U.S. soldier fighting in Afghanistan, likely was killed by friendly fire, an Army investigation has concluded.

News of that finding was disseminated Friday to some members of Congress and some Tillman family members just as the Memorial Day weekend was to begin, including today's dedication ceremonies in Washington of the World War II Memorial.

"It does seem pretty clear that he was killed by friendly fire," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which was alerted to the information by the Army's Legislative Liaison Office.

Just another Disposable Hero in the war without end.

Earlier this week Attorney General John Ashcroft warned of an attack planned on America for sometime in the coming months. That may happen, but NBC News has learned one of Ashcroft’s sources is highly suspect.

In warning Americans to brace for a possible attack, Ashcroft cited what he called “credible intelligence from multiple sources,” saying that “just after New Year's, al-Qaida announced openly that preparations for an attack on the United States were 70 percent complete.… After the March 11 attack in Madrid, Spain, an al-Qaida spokesman announced that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete.”

But terrorism experts tell NBC News there's no evidence a credible al-Qaida spokesman ever said that, and the claims actually were made by a largely discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting propaganda on the Internet. [more]

Wasn't there an article in the Capitol Hill Times a year or so ago which has someone in the admin basically admitting that the terror alerts were for political reasons only? I.e. to instill fear and keep people crouched under the protective arms of Mister Can't-Eat-A-Pretzel-Nor-Ride-A-Bike? Are there any doubts this kinda crap will proliferate all the way up to the next election?

Example X: 'Day After Tomorrow' Hit Piece by Cato Institute Flack

Patrick J. Michaels--the aforementioned talentless hack--attempts to pull the hood over our eyes early on in his elementary hit piece by beginning with: "As a scientist," . . . As if, as a scientist, he will actually live up to their age-old credo of being married to the facts unveiled in the neverending curious probe of the dimensions around us. It isn't until the end where we see the real angle he's schilling from: the Cato Institute.

As Norman Solomon lets us in on:

Financial firms kicking in big checks to Cato include American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Citicorp/Citibank, Commonwealth Fund, Prudential Securities and Salomon Brothers. Energy conglomerates: Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Cato's pharmaceutical donors include Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc.

As Norman Solomon points out, the Cato Institute has also been a longtime paid supporter of the tobacco industry. Charming. We can always ask ourselves why some men and women take money from tobacco companies to promote their killer product, or why some men and women take money from oil and gas companies to try and discredit the overwhelming evidence as related to global warming. Could be money. Could be no soul. Could be some religious-fundamentalist grasp on the world which perverts their entire worldview wherein, among other perversions, Jesus and the red cow are coming so fuck the trees, fuck the A-rabs, etc.

Of course, Patrick J. Michaels, within the hallowed pages of USA Today, is writing for the stupid people. How else could you explain such phrases as "'Nuff said"? Patrick, I may be mistaken, but I don't believe you're an 8th grader writing from the eighties, are you? If so, I'm gonna book.

Why get into Patrick's prose? Typical Oil Company Sheeyeet: call everything else "propaganda," disparage the source, disparage by association, and go as deeply into Opposite Day as your shallow-ass pen will get you: "Lies cloaked as science should never determine how we live our lives."

This from the oil company employee. Well, buck up Bronco, 'cuz the people, armed with the truth, are coming to get ya.

(Update: the ever-resourceful Bill C. of TOTEOTA gives us this link which really says it all better than me: Pat Michaels: Scientist, Energy Industry Lackey . . . also, I understand that pointing out one piece in the river of crap that is corporate media might be a little absurd, but what the hell.)

Stephen Marshall of GNN takes a look back at the telling example of Scott Ritter's journey through the media looking glass during the run-up to the Iraq war.

(via American Leftist)

Sudan, Africa's largest country, is the scene of two separate but related civil wars. One, between north and south, pits the Arab, Islamist government against rebels who are mostly black African and non-Muslim. This war has been raging intermittently for half a century, but has come tantalisingly close to resolution in the past year: partly because of foreign pressure, especially from America, and partly because both sides, exhausted, wish to stop fighting and share Sudan's new-found oil wealth.

The other war, between the government and two rebel groups in Darfur, pits Muslim against Muslim. The divide in Darfur is ethnic, between Arabs and black Africans. This war flared up only last year. It was seen at first as a mere sideshow, but is now too vast and vile to be ignored. [more]

(via the invisible worm)

Newsday reports that "the U.S. military is holding dozens of Iraqis as bargaining chips to put pressure on their wanted relatives to surrender."

In other words, they're taking hostages. And as much as I hate to keep repeating myself, this, too, is old news.

"...how a can of corn or green beans can sit on your shelf in the cupboard for a year and still be good to eat? There are a few things to consider the next time you open a canned good. Let's explore why chemicals are added to our food."

American businessman Nicholas Berg's body was found on May 8 near a Baghdad overpass; a video of his supposed decapitation death by knife appeared on an alleged al-Qaeda-linked website (www.al-ansar.biz) on May 11. But according to what both a leading surgical authority and a noted forensic death expert separately told Asia Times Online, the video depicting the decapitation appears to have been staged.

"I certainly would need to be convinced it [the decapitation video] was authentic," Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, said from New Zealand. Echoing Dr Simpson's criticism, when this journalist asked forensic death expert Jon Nordby, PhD and fellow of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators, whether he believed the Berg decapitation video had been "staged", Nordby replied: "Yes, I think that's the best explanation of it."

Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution and rule of law.
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator — Howard Baker of Tennessee — famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago.

Will the ethical,Patriotic, America loving members of the Republican Party please stand up?

From today's Guardian:

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.

Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.

According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.

While it is important to get to the bottom of just what role Iran played in shaping the intelligence Chalabi passed off to the US, just as it's equally important to figure out what role Israel played (something very few in the US seem interested in), I worry that this investigation will distort the narrative of the Iraq war more than clarify it.

Let's be clear: Chalabi didn't con the Bush administration into war. Iraq was in the cross hairs all along, and the Bush administration used Chalabi because he was telling them what they wanted to hear. Of course, Chalabi was using the Bush administration too, but that was something I think everyone in the Defense Department understood and, in fact, welcomed.

I can't stress how important it is to not lose this point amidst whatever material comes out about Iran's involvement in the Iraq mess, particularly since the proponents of the war would just love it if their role in the march to Baghdad gets lost in the rubble of bureaucratic details.

(via counterpunch)

7x9 in. AmSam noir version

As if gutting the Constitution, bankrupting our nations economy and causing our troops to die unnecessarily are not enough... (the list of committed travesties is too long to enter fully here): Vote against Bush because he threatens our strip clubs.
He and his GOP ilk must be stopped. Register. Vote.

Very early in the day television news cameras and blow-dried corporate spokesman began to arrive. At one point, two of the ten activists were being interviewed by two different TV stations, while a third was on live talk radio via a cell phone. During one interview with an especially enthusiastic and young activist, the talking head asked, “You’re 17 years old. What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you at home watching MTV?” [more]

Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?

    A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy. When we rolled up, he was hiding behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and raised my weapon up, and he put up his hands. He ran off. I told everybody, "Don't shoot." Half of his foot was trailing behind him. So he was running with half of his foot cut off.

    Q: After you lit up the demonstration, how long before the next incident?

    A: Probably about one or two hours. This is another thing, too. I am so glad I am talking with you, because I suppressed all of this.

    Q: Well, I appreciate you giving me the information, as hard as it must be to recall the painful details.

    A: That's all right. It's kind of therapy for me. Because it's something that I had repressed for a long time.

    Q: And the incident?

    A: There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first. One of the Marines came running over to where we were and said: "You all just shot a guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about this. [more]

Clip:

The Cheney Gang embraces an unfortunate but fundamental truth: there are billions to be made and power to be grabbed through war, pestilence, and chaos; not so much to be made through peace, equality, and stability. You have admit that enslaving the richest and most powerful country on the planet to forward the business plans of, at most, three or four hundred people is a ballsy move. But make no mistake: true, effective homeland security is antithetical to their aims. This country, and control of its government, is their tool. Period.

Their success - both past and future - depends absolutely on the fear, greed, ignorance, and denial of millions of people. The Gang has been masterful at generating and manipulating these conditions. The greatest power they have is based in chaos. In the next few months, expect to see the degree of chaos increase geometrically - especially since their chances of being elected have diminished somewhat.

A 32-page pamphlet from Gush Shalom which aims to "demolish the myths, conventional lies, and historical falsehoods" related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US prison officials giving prisoners 20 dollars and a slip of paper stating "You have not been maltreated. Return to your home in peace and know that the Americans are working for a better life for the Iraqi people".

Could a spate of refinery mergers under the Bush Administration (reducing the number of refineries in America and allowing the top four a 67 percent share of the market on the west coast and control of 77 percent of the gasoline market on the east coast) worth 19.5 billion dollars be what is allowing our consumer gas prices to top two dollars a gallon?

As the article points out it may be easy enough for these energy concerns to lower gas prices by election time; they just need to refine more product- and being both major contributors to the Bush campaign as well as major beneficiaries I'm sure the can find it in their collective corporate hearts to do so. Record earnings for the first quarter ought to lessen the pain of lowering prices to ensure their benefactor's election. It seems counter-intuitive that if rising oil prices were the only reason for higher gas prices that oil company profits would skyrocket so.

Mr Bush, as Bob Woodwards book "Plan of Attack" points out, is shameless about conspiring with a foreign power to effect our Presidential election this fall- Prince Bandhar of Saudi Arabia has pledged to get gas prices lower by an increase of oil production.

When is Michael Moores film "Fahrenheit 9/11" coming out? .

Via Whisky Bar

It is unlikely that President George W. Bush or senior officials ever knew of these specific techniques, and late last week Defense spokesman Larry DiRita said that "no responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses." But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers—and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation—methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture."

The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this system of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by NEWSWEEK.

Josh Marshall notes that the DOD changed their statement about Herst's New Yorker article. The initial statement was a "non-denial denial" and the follow up was a more firm denial.

Behind the Scenes,U.S. Tightens Grip On Iraq's Future
Hand-Picked Proxies, Advisers Will Be Given Key Roles In Interim Government
The Headline (above) of the Wall Street Journal gives you a condensed version of the article posted there explaining the Bush Administration's concept of Iraqi sovereignty. Read the whole thing and learn.

Now there's a conversation starter.

"They Rule allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004. The data was collected from their websites and SEC filings in early 2004, so it may not be completely accurate - companies merge and disappear and directors shift boards."

Whoo boy.

"According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank."

[snip]

"According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush."

Rest of the story here.

After a decade of containment...

...a new policy emerged

...so the inspection process restarted

...intelligence was carefully considered

...new connections were drawn

...a case for action was presented

...which the pundits debated

...while other threats were ignored

...of course the press held everyone accountable

...and the rest of the world weighed in

...still the Democrats stood strong

...'cause the seeds of democracy would be sown

...but time ran out; war was on

...soon the statue fell

...the looting began

...the search for WMD proceeded, unfettered

...then ack! no WMD were found

...so the rationale shifted

...and after some difficulties, the UN was revived

...but, alas, torture reared its ugly head

...and today, the future looks clear.

(thanks, as always, to Kirk Anderson)

"On May 5, Bush's Pentagon announced it will keep U.S. troop strength in Iraq at 135,000 through the year 2005. Mark that as the day the United States moved inevitably toward reinstating the draft -- no matter who's elected..."

"Since the Reagan era, the Pentagon has claimed we can fight two full-scale wars at once in two different parts of the globe. Iraq has proved that claim false. The premise was that the U.S. could bring overwhelming force to bear against any enemy and win any war quickly. Iraq and Afghanistan have taught that beating an enemy army and actually winning a war can be two very different things. We've learned the U.S. has neither enough combat-ready troops, nor enough supplies, to fight a protracted war -- even when we have complete air and weapons superiority. The Pentagon organized its forces for victory, not struggle. Now it's clear that if we can't get in and out quickly, we're in bad trouble. Iraq has proved us vulnerable, and the whole world knows it. This will inevitably require a complete revision of our military, beginning with procurement."

What the world... needs now... are fewer dire pronouncements. Individuals need to remember that they are the ones who will define their existence. We can choose an alternate path for ourselves. George Bush (or whoever sits in that Oval Office) is not the architect of reality. "We the people" means me. And I have no interest -- and nothing to gain -- in seeing kids that I've taught marched off toward the killing fields.

just a little disinformation

In an effort to court female voters, Bush now has wife Laura touting his failed education policy in a campaign ad. As I mentioned previously, I wrote an essay for Big Bush Lies about the unfunded mandate scam referred to in polite company as "No Child Left Behind." Edited by Jerry "Politex" Barrett of BushWatch fame, the book includes 20 essays about George W. Bush written by academics, legal experts, financial leaders, activists, and journalists. You can order it directly from the publisher, Riverwood Books.

In the meantime, if you want to know what's wrong with the ad and with Bush's education policy, this FactCheck.org article is a must read. And here's my "poetic" take on the same topic:
Mis-Education President
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Bush swore he'd leave no child behind,
A very worthy goal.
Instead, he left the states a great big budgetary hole.

States' rights must be preserved, Dub said.
The states know what is best.
Then signed a law he failed to fund, which makes them test, test, test.

Bush said they have to test to prove
That kids learn what they must.
Then handed out a budget that betrays our nation's trust.
The rest of my Mis-Education President is here.

If you think of Rumsfeld as a character in a Gulf Wars II musical, these are the songs he might sing. The seven songs show the Secretary not only holding forth from his press podium, but in introspective moments as well. We see Rumsfeld being haughty and impatient, but also caught by surprise -- even vulnerable. These extremes are the natural results of the situation in which Rumsfeld finds himself -- waging a war with no easy outcome and trying to sell a story that doesn't hold up, as the public can see now.

Reflecting these different moods, the songs are set in a variety of musical forms and show strong contemporary influences. The first song, The Unknown, has a jaunty beat and repeated rhythms more often associated with pop music. You may recognize the words ("As we know, there are known knowns…"). A Confession is a haunting ballad. Happenings is a Hungarian-style march but with pop influences. Other songs include a waltz and even a Baroque aria.

Since I'm plugging somebody else's album, I'll use this opportunity to point towards my own poetic excursion into Rumsfeldia, Skydiving with Rummy: A Fever-Dream in Prose...

A civil probe on this was already underway by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but now federal prosecutors are looking into possible criminal violations by commodities traders who may have received advance knowledge about the first U.S. case of mad cow disease and used it to reap profits in the cattle futures market. The disclosure of an investigation by criminal authorities was made today in testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee.

But how could any insider trading be possible here? After all, the USDA would've been the first to know if the test was positive, and they wouldn't have wasted one minute to let people know about this - wouldn't have allowed cronies to profit while they scheduled the release of potentially life-saving information for Christmas Eve, would they?

A friendly reminder from the December 27, 2002 edition of The Scotsman:

AL-QAEDA suspects captured by the United States have been handed over to foreign intelligence agencies for torture, it was claimed yesterday.

A US official was reported to have said intelligence agencies in countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Morocco and who are known to use brutal methods were used to get answers to questions posed by the CIA.

"We don't kick the **** out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the **** out of them," the official is reported to have said.

"If you don't violate someone?s human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," another said. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA." [more]

Today's NY Times led with a story about the CIA's torture of Al Qaeda suspects. It was featured as a major scoop, but I think everyone and their grandma knew this was going on.

What's highlighted above -- the outsourcing of torture by the US government -- is probably a much more common occurrence than the outright torture of detainees. And yet, it receives scant attention.

Justin Podur, writing for ZNet on May 10:

A beleaguered democracy beset by continual terrorist attacks by ruthless, depraved, and highly imaginative terrorists managed to foil a terrorist plot yesterday. By taking swift, decisive police action, a terrorist training camp full of foreign fighters and outside agitators were apprehended. Despite the depraved nature of the terrorist threat against democracy, the democratic country continues to hold itself up to higher standards of human rights and democratic process.

The country Podur speaks of is Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez claims his government is under assault from Colombian paramilitaries abetted by the United States.

The US has shown a recent proclivity for tampering with left-leaning governments in the Western Hemisphere, by funding previous coup attempts in Venezuela, fostering the recent coup in Haiti, and ramping up efforts against Castro's Cuba. Viewed in this context, Chavez's assertions hardly seem far fetched.

The beheading of an American contractor in Iraq by extremists thought to be linked to al-Qaeda has intensified attention on foreign terrorists in the country at a time when negotiations between local insurgents and coalition forces are being seen as a possible solution to the violence.

...

'The beheading comes after some signs that things may have been moving towards coming under control, so it may be intended to reignite the violence by provoking a US response,' Jonathon Stevenson, terrorism expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said yesterday.

The replacement of US forces in Falluja by Iraqi forces, and signs that negotiations may be opened with the militia loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, stand in marked contrast to the refusal by jihadists linked to al-Qaeda to even consider negotiations with western countries.

I doubt things were "coming under control," but this idea the beheading was intended to provoke an American military response is interesting.

The video can only embolden those who increasingly make no distinction between Iraqi civilians, Iraqi insurgents, Al-Qaeda, and whoever else is in the mix, an eventuality which serves Al-Qaeda's purposes more than anybody else's.

Sixty-five million Americans, or 24 percent of the population, have housing problems, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition in Washington. Some are elderly or unemployed. Others juggle two, even three low-paying jobs. Many are single moms. Some are disabled. All are scrambling, one way or another, to pay the mortgage or find the rent.


And it looks as though the scramble might get harder. President Bush's budget proposal for 2005 calls for cutting the Section 8 housing voucher program - the nation's principal low-income housing assistance program - by $1 billion, leaving it $1.6 billion short of what's required to maintain the program's current level of service. [more]

Quite a selection, John Negroponte as "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Iraq" (and no, I am not making that title up). He made a smashing impression in a previous Ambassador gig:

From 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras, where he helped prosecute the contra war against Nicaragua and helped strengthen the military dictatorship in Honduras. Under the helm of General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, Honduras's military government was both a close ally of the Reagan administration and was disappearing dozens of political opponents in classic death squad fashion.

... On Negroponte's watch, diplomats quipped that the embassy's annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like Norway than Argentina. Former official Rick Chidester, who served under Negroponte, says he was ordered to remove all mention of torture and executions from the draft of his 1982 report on the human rights situation in Honduras.

...Yet, according to a four-part series in the Baltimore Sun, in 1982 alone the Honduran press ran 318 stories of murders and kidnappings by the Honduran military. In a 1995 series, Sun reporters Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson detailed the activities of a secret CIA-trained Honduran army unit, Battalion 316, that used "shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves." In 1994, Honduras's National Commission for the Protection of Human Rights reported that it was officially admitted that 179 civilians were still missing.

Last week the United States Senate confirmed Negroponte's appointment 95-3, with 2 not voting.

John Kerry was one of the two to abstain. To be fair, it wasn't exactly a tight vote.

Among the leading lights of the Weenie Party who voted to confirm the appointment: Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein... Hell, except for three holdouts, they all went for it.

Nice bit of teamwork.

Democracy Now airs a recent speech by Noam Chomsky that notes Negroponte's experience as a "modern pro consul" was undeniably seen as a qualification, and that Honduras checked out of the coalition within days of his appointment.

This is an open call for articles, inks, digital media, or audio files on the topic of insurgency.

Submission deadline is May 15th for concepts and June 15th for a final product.

Your work will appear in the first issue of Galeropia, a digital magazine produced by Why War? Galeropia's vision is a nonviolent theory and practice more potent than the prevailing reliance on polemics and death. Our method will be a targeted expansion of the movement's self-knowledge, aesthetics, and practice. Each issue of Galeropia will be released without prohibitive copyrights.

We invite all interested individuals to send a proposal, thesis, or sketch to submissions@galeropia.org by May 15, 2004.

"Many of the people who are now in Iraq, especially those in the reserves are cops and prison guards. The treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib has the dark precedence in the prisons and police stations across America. According to journalist, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker there have been cases of sodomy against prisoners and killing. Shades of Abner Luima, huh? If you hate someone, if you disrespect them, if you fear them, how can you liberate them? ... It is somehow fitting that these depraved events have happened in one of the most dreadful prisons of the Hussein regime. It shows the continuity of torture and terror."

Mumia Abu Jamal, by way of Danny Schechter's News Dissector

The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.

The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: 'It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing.'

He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.

'There is a reservoir of knowledge about these interrogation techniques which is retained by former special forces soldiers who are being rehired as private contractors in Iraq. Contractors are bringing in their old friends'.

Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan 'prolong the shock of capture', he said.

BAGHDAD -- The commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq said yesterday the military will continue to operate the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The decision comes despite calls from some U.S. legislators to close it because of a scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

However, Maj.-Gen. Geoffrey Miller said the U.S. plans to reduce the prison population.

He said 300 prisoners had been released last week and about 350 will be freed next week.

'Currently, we will continue to operate at the Abu Ghraib facility,' Miller said, adding interrogations at the prison will also continue.

During yesterday's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee concerning the Iraq prison abuse scandal, Donald Rumsfeld

warned the committee that the worst was yet to come. He said he had looked at the full array of unedited photographs of the situation at Abu Ghraib for the first time Thursday night and found them “hard to believe.”

“There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he said. “... It’s going to get a good deal more terrible, I’m afraid.”

Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys. [more]

I imagine this will be getting a lot of play in the media soon.

Racism, Imperialism, and Iraq.

Props to ddjango for pointing this one out. Some clips:

POINTING crudely at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi, the petite brunette with a cigarette hanging from her lips epitomised America’s shame over revelations US soldiers routinely tortured inmates at Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad.

Lynndie England, 21, a rail worker’s daughter, comes from a trailer park in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, which locals proudly call “a backwoods world”.

She faces a court martial, but at home she is toasted as a hero.

At the dingy Corner Club Saloon they think she has done nothing wrong.

“A lot of people here think they ought to just blow up the whole of Iraq,” Colleen Kesner said.

“To the country boys here, if you’re a different nationality, a different race, you’re sub-human. That’s the way girls like Lynndie are raised.

“Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you’re hunting something. Over there, they’re hunting Iraqis.”

In Fort Ashby, in the isolated Appalachian mountains 260km west of Washington, the poor, barely-educated and almost all-white population talk openly about an active Ku Klux Klan presence.

There is little understanding of the issues in Iraq and less of why photographs showing soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company, mostly from around Fort Ashby, abusing prisoners has caused a furore.

Like many, England signed up to make money and see the world. After her tour of duty, she planned to settle down and marry her first love, Charles Graner.

Down a dirt track at the edge of town, in the trailer where England grew up, her mother Terrie dismissed the allegations against her daughter as unfair.

“They were just doing stupid kid things, pranks. And what the Iraqis do to our men and women are just? The rules of the Geneva Convention, do they apply to everybody or just us?” she asked.

She said she didn’t know where her daughter was being held, but had spoken to her on the phone.

“She told me nothing happened which wasn’t ordered by higher up,” she said.

“They are trying to pin all of this on the lower ranks. My daughter was just following orders. I think there’s a conspiracy. “

A colleague of Lynndie’s father said people in Fort Ashby were sick of the whingeing.

“We just had an 18-year-old from round here killed by the Iraqis,” he said.

“We went there to help the jackasses and they started blowing us up. Lynndie didn’t kill ‘em, she didn’t cut ‘em up. She should have shot some of the suckers.”

It's useful to understand the context in which human rights abuses, such as torture, occur. In the case of the dingbat dominatrix of Abu Ghraib, ignorance and racial prejudice were likely already part of her background. Granted the racism inherent in Pvt. England and cohorts' actions is rather crude, but that same ignorance and racism (albeit in a more "refined" form) is inherent in the Iraq occupation from the get-go. Whether that racism manifests itself in the idealistic-sounding manifest destiny pronouncements of bringing Democracy to our little brown brothers and claims that we are occupying Iraq to "help" the Iraqis (which begs the question: who are we to assume they need our "help"?) or the more belligerent claims that the Iraqi people are "savages" who must be tamed by force as that's all they presumably understand, it is still a profound insult to fellow humans who would probably just as soon do without US interference. It is in this context that torture of human beings occurs. It is in this context that soldiers and mercenaries can bomb or shoot civilians without batting an eyelash.

Who are the savages really? My guess is that those who have been supporting Junior Caligula's war need look no further than their reflections in their own mirrors.

The UN Headline:

The 191-member United Nations General Assembly today overwhelmingly affirmed the need to enable the Palestinian people "to exercise sovereignty and to achieve independence in their State, Palestine."

The world community has voted to give Palestinians not only a voice and place at the table concerning control of their lands currently occupied by the state of Israel but affirming their sovereign rights over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

This comes as a slap in the face to Mr Bush who just last month told Ariel Sharon that Israel could hold West Bank territory. Although Mr Bush is appointed President of The United States he has no authority to represent the Palestinian people in negotiating their affairs with the occupying power. Mr Bush was snubbed by US ally King Abdullah immediately after the troubled President supported Sharon's attempts to annex Palestinian territory housing illegal Israeli settlements. He met with the King of Jordan yesterday:

After a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, the president did not repeat the assurances he gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last month that he supports Israel's retention of some population clusters on the West Bank as part of an overall agreement with the Palestinians.

All such issues must be negotiated against the backdrop of 1967 and 1973 UN Security Council resolutions that called for Israel to withdraw from captured land, Bush said at a joint news conference with the king.

"The United States will not prejudice the outcome of those negotiations," Bush said...

Reading media reports of this is very instructive. Compare the reporting of The Jerusalem Post with the more center Ha'aretz and then read the account in Maariv International. Just the distance between what is reported in each Israeli media source makes it appear that the reporters are witnesses to different but similiar events, especially in light of the UN headline offered above.

Reuters, a respected information source offers up a clear picture:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly, in a rebuke to President Bush, overwhelmingly affirmed on Thursday the right of Palestinians to sovereignty over their territory seized by Israel in 1967.
The 191-nation assembly voted 140-6, with 11 abstentions, to adopt a resolution that Arab diplomats said was meant to refute Bush's position that Israel could not be expected to give up all its West Bank settlements or accept the return of Palestinian refugees in a Middle East peace deal.

The resolution also made clear that Israel could not speak for the occupied territories at the United Nations, they said.

Palestinian U.N. Observer Nasser al-Kidwa said the measure was "of extreme importance" as it reaffirmed that Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East War was "territory under military occupation" and that the Palestinian people "have the right to self-determination and to exercise sovereignty on their territory."

The UN vote was 140 to 6- the US, Israel, and the tiny Pacific island countries of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau voting against world opinion supporting Palestinian soveriegnty. The countries thay abstained from the vote were Australia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Serbia and Montenegro, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.

The most comprehensive and unbiased reportage on this important UN resolution I found is at Electronic Intifada , where you can read about the process as well as the perspectives of different ambassadors and their votes given within the context of the "Quartet" (Representatives of the United Nations, Russia, the European Union, and the United States) "Road Map" to Middle East Peace.

"Starting Saturday, the minimum retail price of milk, which has been climbing steadily this year, will take a big jump. A gallon of whole milk will cost at least $2.90 -- 50% more than a year ago. And in major supermarkets, a gallon could command more than $4.

{Now more than ever, America must drink paddy milk.}

"Dairy farm expert Michael Marsh blames what he calls the 'pizza factor.' The improving economy has apparently unleashed pent-up demand for pizza and other items dependent on cheese, and a surge in cheese buying by food processing companies and restaurants has sent the value of most dairy commodities soaring on the futures market. California's regulated milk prices are tied to the futures prices of those commodities, especially cheddar cheese and butter, traded in Chicago.

"But there's more behind the fortification of milk prices. For starters, there's something of a dairy-cow deficit. Because droughts have made for poor grazing, many dairy farmers have balked at paying for extra feed and have instead sold some animals for slaughter, lured by record prices for beef, made popular recently by the high-protein diet craze.

"What's more, the discovery last year of a case of mad cow disease in Canada [uh, that cow was found in WA, guy] closed off the U.S.' biggest source of replacement dairy cows, doubling the price of milk calves. And because of manufacturing glitches, there's a shortage of the genetically engineered growth hormone that enables cows to make more milk [oh no! what will we do w/o rBGH?]; that alone is expected to reduce the nation's total milk output by 2% to 3% this year."

Huh. I just realized that this dairy situation, when viewed alongside the gov't's ambitions toward hegemony, now confronts us with the choice between producing more guns or butter.

The Iraq torture scandal just keeps getting worse. Much worse.

Contractors and the CIA are coming under close scrutiny for their role in all this, which should not be a surprise. The hallmark of this war has been the heavy dependence on private companies to provide just about everything.

And as for the CIA, torture is in their blood. Vikram Dodd points out in today's Guardian that we have every reason to believe that the operators of US detention centers are just following the same script that's been in place for over 40 years, the advice from two historic CIA manuals for "interrogation" -- one from 1963, the other from 1983.

Dammit. And this was one of the best, off-the-cuff collages I'd done in years.

"Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.

"The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

"Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration and its handling of national security since the attacks of 11 September 2001."

I usually link to or excerpt Rafe Colburn's comments because I have little to add to their incisiveness. But in this case, there is more to say:

"I want to talk about Ted Rall's latest effort, not because I want to join the huge chorus of people who love to bash Ted Rall, but rather because I want to bash cynicism.

Rall's cartoon, if you haven't yet seen it, says that Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who joined the Army in 2002, is basically an idiot who made the fatal mistake of choosing to serve in the military because he believed our lying President. In four short panels, he also manages to accuse Tillman of racism as well. Rall's cartoon isn't funny -- Rall is rarely funny -- but it also fails even to serve as pointed commentary.

You don't have to be a very good cynic to come up with ways to disparage Pat Tillman; honestly when I heard that he'd joined the Army a couple of years ago, and again when I heard that he'd died, the bad reasons (he) might have joined came to mind only a few seconds after the good reasons he might have joined. Ultimately, we have no way of knowing what motivated Tillman to enlist. Any of us can imagine impure motives that may have led to him doing so -- it doesn't behoove us to callously point them out.

Sometimes saying things that most people keep to themselves doesn't make you courageous or iconoclastic, it makes you an ass." [paragraph divisions added for readability — emg] rc3

First of all, Rall's cartoon has served an important purpose if it gets thoughtful people like Rafe Colburn to concede and discuss thoughts like that that they usually keep to themselves. Let me go on record; even though I don't have a clue about Tillman's motives for enlisting and hardly knew who he was until he died, the thoughts I kept to myself were about how his death serves as a graphic illustration of the consequences of misguided patriotism. There is a venerable tradition in antiwar literature and film of rendering the tragic, misguided emptiness of the high-minded ideals for which young men are swindled into becoming cannon fodder in old men's wars. I am surprised Colburn doesn't appreciate this.

Tillman's case is useful precisely because most of the other deaths in Bush's misguided lethal adventurism have been anonymous faces, and because the relentless dysadministration spin about the usefulness of these deaths, empty rhetoric that it is, has been so persuasive. Rall is grappling, I think, with the devilish problem opponents of the US invasion have, of how to open the eyes of the American public to the horrors that are being done in their name ... to Afghanis and Iraqis and, yes, to American young men and women as well. The desperation many of us feel at the fact that this nation of sheep stands a good chance of reelecting Bush (oops, I forgot for a moment of course, he wasn't elected the first time) despite (or because of?) all it should by now be clear he has done calls for desperate measures. Rall's is a cry of that despair and outrage. If this be cynicism, then there is probably no higher calling at the moment.

If Rafe accepted that Rall is using Tillman as an icon, because of his name recognition, for all the faceless U.S. GIs, then he wouldn't think Rall is calling him racist per se. The American premise for the war effort is racist, Rall is saying. Debasing American ecumenism by inciting a once-great nation to collective anti-Arab hatred will turn out to be one of Bush's most execrable legacies. If you have any doubts about that, look again at the Abu Ghraib photographs.

Finally, Rall is making the precise point that needs to be made about the degradation of the notion of heroism. It is tragic, not heroic, to die for the neo-conservatives' delusions of grandeur. They have shown in spades that they are willing and eager to sacrifice Americans of all walks of life for their misguided aims — GIs dying in a war based on lies and all the US civilians who are exposed to vastly heightened risk of terrorist attacks because of the rage the US has engendered in the eyes of all the angry dispossessed of the Third World, the monumental squandering of any good will and credibility the US had by one deceitful, intellectually crippled, morally decrepit and grossly incompetent leader. The adulation of every hapless American victim — from 9/11 onward — as a hero is a malignant effort by the leadership of the country to absolve itself of its responsibility for the pointless deaths.

One may think it cruel to Tillman's family and friends to diminish the worship of the fallen hero. But the families who, grieving the loss of their loved ones on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, increasingly are embracing and proclaiming the pointlessness of it all and the emptiness of George Bush's grand designs are equally heroic.

Agitprop artists like Ted Rall have done their job if they stimulate precisely this sort of troubled and troubling discussion among the rest of us.

By Adam Greenfield

I'm currently watching Mosaic on Worldlink. Abu Dhabi TV interviewed one of the released Abu Gharib prisoners. He had his head covered to disguise his identity. Here's a translation of his statement:

"They brought us a bucket of water, and the American men urinated in it, so we did not drink from it. So they brought Hajj Muhammad - they beat him to death. They did not know how to control us ... hitting and putrid smells. Then after about two days or three - God have mercy - two or three days, one guy came and he urinated on us and then left. After a while, they took one of us - they put us inside a room, naked. I swear, this is the truth. God is my witness. The American soldiers came in, and one of them would sodomize a prisoner. The Americans would sodomize the Iraqis. They would yell at us. They would masturbate on us, and urinate on us. They urinated on a guy whose name was Sheikh Ali. They urinated on him. They hit us."

The person being interviewed was clearly fighting back tears as he spoke, and finally broke down and sobbed.

The program can be viewed on the web. Click here and select "Monday, May 3rd" from the "Recent Coverage" bar on the left side of the page. The account is about 5 or 6 minutes into the broadcast. (Quicktime required.)

"...will document and correct conservative misinformation in each news cycle. Media Matters for America will monitor cable and broadcast news channels, print media and talk radio, as well as marginal, right-wing websites that often serve as original sources of misinformation for well-known conservative and mainstream media outlets." (via)

"The chief of the U.S. Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.

"The proposal, which the agency's acting director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34, up from 25.

"The issue of a renewed draft has gained attention because of concern that U.S. military forces are stretched thin because of worldwide commitments.

"Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes, U.S. forces have fought and won [won? really?] two wars, have established a major military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are now taking on peacekeeping duties in Haiti [not to mention maintaining bases in more than 100 countries].

"The plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, highlights the extent to which agency officials have planned for an expanded military draft in case the administration and Congress authorize one in the future.

[Congress needs to spend less time planning wars and spend much more time providing justice, just treatment and monetary assistance to poor nations. There won't be waves of jihadis to fight off if our country stopped exploiting and killing people (directly, or by proxy) and fill their bellies instead. This is my full moon wish*.]

"'In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory (ah, yes, evidence that the gov't regards our bodies as simple units of labor) of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills,' the agency said in a Feb. 11, 2003, proposal presented to Pentagon officials.

"The agency acknowledged that they would have 'to market the concept' of a female draft to Congress, which would have to authorize such a step. Agency spokesperson Dan Amon said the Pentagon has taken no action on the proposal.

"'These ideas were only being floated for department of defence consideration,' Amon said. He described the proposal as 'food for thought' for contingency planning."


* -- Meditation for the May 4th Lunar Eclipse: "If you pick the wrong path, just backtrack and try a new one."

U.S. officials have for months publicly promoted the notion that foreign fighters and terrorists are playing a major role in the anti-American insurgency in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq.

By blaming foreigners, U.S. authorities hope to quash the idea that Iraqis are rising up against military occupation and frame the conflict as part of the wider war on terror. However, foreigners play a tiny role in Iraq's insurgency, many military experts say.

In Fallujah, U.S. military leaders say around 90 percent of the 1,000 or more fighters battling the Marines are Iraqis. To date, there have been no confirmed U.S. captures of foreign fighters in Fallujah - although a handful of suspects have been arrested.

Those who have spent time inside Fallujah have described a city consumed with the fight - fathers and sons fighting for the local mujahedeen and wives and daughters cooking and caring for the wounded.

"The whole city supports this jihad," said Houssam Ali Ahmed, 53, a Fallujah resident who fled to Baghdad when his neighborhood was caught in the fighting. "The people of Fallujah are fighting to defend their homes. We are Muslim mujahedeen fighting a holy war."

Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. military commanders say foreigners have an even smaller role in the insurgency. [more]

From today's Washington Post:

In the Style section last summer we profiled a Los Angeles writer named Micah Ian Wright, who'd just published a shrill antiwar poster book called "You Back the Attack! We'll Bomb Who We Want!" In his book, he described himself as a veteran of combat, a former Army Ranger whose experiences during the 1989 invasion of Panama turned him into a peacenik. In interviews with The Post and other media, he played up that background.

Wright, it turns out, is a liar. He never served in the military -- and confessed that last week to his publisher, Seven Stories Press, after we insisted on evidence of his service. Pursuing a tip from real Rangers who'd never heard of Wright, we filed three Freedom of Information Act requests with separate Army commands -- and last month finally confirmed that Wright never served.

"I feel awful about it. It was a lie that just grew and grew and grew," Wright, 34, told us Friday. He said mounting combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, including that of Ranger Pat Tillman, compound his sense of remorse: "I plan to make a public apology on my Web site [www.micahwright.com]."

Even if you haven't looked at You Back the Attack!, you've probably seen Wright's posters somewhere on the web. This is a damn shame.

"The short answer is no-one knows, but even the oil industry suspects the world 'peak' is now approaching.

"The industry says it has 40 years of proven reserves at the moment -- but it also said that 30 years ago."

TIME.com
Timothy J. Burger
Sunday, May. 02, 2004

According to sources, Bush said Clinton "probably mentioned" terrorism as a national-security threat "but did not make it a point of emphasis." Clinton earlier told the panel that he had ranked bin Laden as the No. 1 problem the new Administration would face; he made the same point in a speech in New York City last October.

How did I know this was going to happen? It's plainly obvious these 'gentlemen' need to testify in public, and separately.

A top Administration aide explained this was one reason Cheney accompanied Bush at the session—"because they were both a part of that day."

And any law officer or prosecuting attorney will tell you the reason they interview people who were together at the scene separately. I know I'm only stating the obvious here, but this just annoys me to no end.

Oh, Happy (belated) Loyalty Day.

If you didn't get a chance to catch this week's Frontline on Dubya's religious views and their effect on his politics, you can now watch it online.

I've been somewhat surprised by the amount of outcry the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have evoked. Yes, the images are shocking and disturbing, but not any more so than other events which have dotted the landscape of America's post-9/11 crusade to rid the world of evil.

The happenings at the Baghdad prison need to be viewed in a larger context. I fear that the focus on this single atrocity comes about only because there are pictures to pass around. In reality, the term "war crime," like it or not, is pretty much synonymous with how the US has waged its alleged "war on terror."

Take what happened in Afghanistan. The carpet bombing of the Afghan countryside "softened up" ground targets, but the military realized soon enough that there really weren't many "high value" targets that could be hit. It was concluded early on that the only way to wage the war would be to insert small, mobile units that could fight the Taliban's ground soldiers and, more importantly, enlist rival warlords to join the fray. So in addition to Special Operations forces, the US sent in a mini-army of CIA operatives packing guns, satellite phones, and suitcases full of cash.

And what did these operatives do? For the most part they went around buying off warlords and prominent figures in the tribal regions of Afghanistan, as I suggest above. They also were charged with the bulk of intelligence gathering, primarily by interrogating suspects who were seized by the US military or warlords (more often the latter). And, lo and behold, these interrogations were frequently akin to torture. You know the drill: guns to the head, beatings, and promises to be released into the hands of enemy warlords, where prisoners would no doubt face even harsher degrees of torture. This is, after all, precisely why "American hero" Mike Spann was killed. He pushed detainees to the brink, and, well, they pushed back.

There's also plenty of evidence that torture was/is rather routine at the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. A number of released captives have testified to it, and the US military even acknowledged that two prisoners died from beatings received during interrogation.

As for the infamous events at Dasht-E Leili and Qalai Janghi, I won't go there right now. I think they speak for themselves.

And I won't even venture a guess as to what's going on at Guantanamo. Frankly, nobody knows what's really happening down there, although released prisoners have described torture and abuse as being par for the course, as one would expect.

Turning to Iraq, it's been clear for some time that the war was illegal and unjustified. In a sane world, the Anglo-American architects of the assault would be standing before the dock, similar to what we saw at Nuremberg. So in one very important sense, the entire military operation is a "war crime."

But if you don't find that compelling, let's just focus on what has happened in the past month. Reports from the ground and the non-American (particularly Arab) press indicate that massive war crimes have taken place in Fallujah. Nasty stuff, like sniping civilians, occupying hospitals and preventing the treatment of wounded, shooting at ambulances, using cluster bombs, and so on. The fact of the matter is that the events of the past four weeks are what should have Americans in an uproar, not the release of a few relatively tame photos.

Thus, anyone shocked at the display at Abu Ghraib should know that it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Thankfully, those of us living in this great land of liberty do not have to put up with such unpleasantries in our media too often. And, when they do appear, as in this case, they are swiftly seized upon, isolated, and dealt with by the "proper authorities," no doubt so Americans can continue believing in the nobility of "the cause."