June 02, 2005
The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administrationÂ’s handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John KerryÂ’s presidential campaign.For more on why this is such a disgusting comparison, see my post here and contrast the worst allegations with what other released detainees are saying.Federal Election Commission records show that William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty USA, contributed $2,000 to Mr. KerryÂ’s campaign last year. Mr. Schulz also has contributed $1,000 to the 2006 campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.
Also, Joe W. “Chip” Pitts III, board chairman of Amnesty International USA, gave the maximum $2,000 allowed by federal law to John Kerry for President. Mr. Pitts is a lawyer and entrepreneur who advises the American Civil Liberties Union.
UPDATE: AI defends disgusting use of gulag comparison.
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I thought you were 2 different people at one point because of your mood swings or maybe that was just your alter ego, A Finn ( the sober one) ;0)An outspoken journalist known for his writings against Syria's presence in Lebanon was killed in a car bombing in Beirut today, raising tensions in Lebanon just four days after elections for a new Parliament began.The bomb was placed in a vehicle outside the home of the journalist, Samir Kassir, in the predominantly Christian district of Ashrafiya. Mr. Kassir's body lay slumped on one side after the blast as fire crews arrived on the scene, witnesses said. The blast shattered windows in the nearby area.
Mr. Kassir, a columnist at the Lebanese daily An Nahar, was known for his opposition to Syria's role in Lebanon. He blamed Syria for the assassination on Feb. 14 of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and railed about that country's need to pull out of Lebanon. He also led a call for the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs.
Popular demonstrations and international pressure after the killing of Mr. Hariri finally ended Syria's nearly 30-year occupation, but questions remain about whether security agents are still in the country.
In his last column in An Nahar on Friday, Mr. Kassir criticized what he said was the unwillingness of Syria's government to enact rapid change, noting that reform for the governing Baathist Party "does not mean accepting opposing views."
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ROBERT SPENCER, the director of Jihad Watch, is a writer and researcher...E-mail a terrorist sympathizer: muslimcreed@hotmail.comI believe he's already on the hit list, nothing new..
UPDATE: Site is down. Thanks to Jawa, Ace-o-Spades, Internet Hagganah, and LGF readers for e-mailing complaints (and for signing terrorist up for gay-singles and Jewish wisdom of the day spam!) more...
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Well, this piece from the Counter-terrorism Blog might go a ways toward undermining the wholesome image of Al Qaeda so carefully cultivated by the western left:
Yesterday, Israeli president Moshe Katzav warned in a speech that Muslim terrorists may plan on using neo-Nazi groups to carry out attacks in Europe. "Let's not be surprised if terror organizations use neo-Nazis for carrying out terror attacks," he told the German parliament.While there's little evidence thus far of operational links between Islamist terror groups and neo-Nazis, this is an intriguing possibility -- and some white supremacist groups have already made overtures toward the Islamists. For example, Aryan Nations leader August Kreis said of al-Qaeda earlier this year, "You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah." Going a step further, Kreis told CNN that he had a message for bin Laden: "The message is, the cells are out here and they are already in place. They might not be cells of Islamic people, but they are here and they are ready to fight."
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One of the most important things for a politician to know is when to declare victory. President Bush canÂ’t figure that out when it comes to dealing with the difficult issue of Social Security.
The president has done an admirable job of elevating the Social Security solvency issue to one that the public understands. He has talked about it repeatedly since the beginning of his second term in January, and the public now accepts that something needs to be done to keep this vital program solvent when it starts to run low on money in 2042.
The president could now join with Democrats in proposing some basic measures that will save enough money to keep the program solvent for at least the next 75 years. That would be a real victory for the administration and for Congress.
OK, let me stop right there and translate for you. "The President could now cave in on what he has been pushing for and do what the Democrats want: raise taxes and cut benefits. By continuing to do this, we can ignore the fact that the Social Security program is fundamentally flawed and must be changed." That is the only thing he could mean by "join with Democrats" because that is the only thing the Democrats have proposed. Now, whether or not private accounts are the way to go, I just don't see how paying more and getting less is a better deal. Maybe some of you libs out there can finally explain that to me? Nah, didn't think so.
Unfortunately, the president is incapable of declaring victory. He stubbornly persists in trying to sell the public his privatization scheme -- which has nothing to do with Social SecurityÂ’s long-term solvency and which the public roundly rejects. That was clear once again in his press conference on May 31.
Again, this author must have completly disconnected with reality. How is it that Bush's proposal to fix social security has nothing to do with social security's long-term solvency? I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is designed to fix. But of course to admit that would be to admit that people can control their own money and their own destinies. And the libs certainly can't have that. It would stop their resolute march toward socialism.
And where is this public that has roundly rejected the idea? I've seen union bosses reject the idea for no more good reason than it's not a Democrat idea. I've seen the AARP reject the idea for the same reason. I've seen some elderly people reject the idea of doing ANYTHING to social security because they've been lied to and told that someone is going to take their benefits. Other than that, I've talked with a LOT of people who seem to agree that change is needed and letting people manage their own retirement is a good idea.
The outline of an appropriate compromise has been obvious for months now. If Congress would do a combination of increasing the retirement age and increasing the amount of wages subject to Social Security taxation, the program would be solvent for the foreseeable future.
Well, at least he admits what I've been saying all along. The Democrats only idea to "fix" social security is to raise taxes and cut benefits. And yes, raising the retirement age is effectively cutting benefits.
Raising the retirement age will be seen as a cut in benefits and increasing the amount of wages subject to Social Security taxation will be seen as a tax increase, but no one ever said fixing Social Security would be easy. However, these changes are relatively modest when compared with tax increases or benefit cuts that would be necessary years from now if Congress and the president fail to act this year or next.
This is almost laughable. "Yes, this is raising taxes and cutting benefits, but not as much as we would have to if we don't do SOMETHING." DUH! But that doesn't mean that raising taxes and cutting benefits is the right thing to do. Again, I challenge the libs to tell me why taking more of my money and giving less of it back is a good thing. Do you just think I'm not responsible enough to plan for my own retirement?
I don't think Bush's plan stands a chance of getting passed. At least not by him. But I do applaud Bush for getting the Democrats to at least admit there is a problem. That's certainly more than they were willing to do before the election. Now we just have to come up with a solution that doesn't call for taking more and giving less, we'll have this whole thing licked. And who knows, it may take some sacrifice to get a new program rolling. But if, in the long run, the program is signaficantly better than what we have, I feel that it would be worth the time, effort and money. And any new plan couldn't be much worse than the status quo.
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June 01, 2005
This Winds of Change story by Bill Roggio has convinced me that we need to broach the subject of press censorship. Someone on the NYT staff ought to be prosecuted and do time for this. I wonder, however, if anyone has the guts?
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Sign over the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Labor in the USSR Is a Matter of Honor, Courage, and Heroism
Sign over the gulag camps gates.
[Right: A group of exiles prepares for mass deportation to Siberia]
Last week Amnesty International called the Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, detention facility (also knows as Camp X-Ray) where so-called 'enemy combatants' in the Global War on Terror are being held 'the gulag of our times.'
By invoking the term gulag, Amnesty International wishes to convey the notion that what is happening to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is somehow comparable to the Soviet labor camp prison system of the Stalinist era. By using the term gulag, Amnesty International wishes to convey images of political terrorism, repression, and harsh prison conditions.
Comparing Guantanomo to a gulag is a serious accusation.
This post explores three questions: What exactly is a gulag and how widespread was the gulag system? What were the Soviet gulags like? And how do the worst and yet unproven allegations of abuse at Guantanomo Bay compare to what happened in Soviet gulags?
None of these questions are fully answered here, but hopefully the reader will come away with a better understanding of the gulag system and the political motivations of Amnesty International in using the term.
Let's begin with the last question first.
What have the Guantanomo Bay prisoners alleged?
[Right: Gulag workers]
According to Amnesty International, there were about 520 prisoners altogether at Guantamo, of which 234 have been released or tranfered out. Many have claimed 'abuse' ranging from humiliating name-calling to guards punching the prisoners.
A videotape of alleged abuse is said to reveal:
the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down [in front of female guards].Al Jazeera calls this one of the 'worst cases' of abuse, presumably because it was allegedly done by a female FBI agent:
One document describes how an FBI special agent (SA) observed a female interrogator caress a shackled prisoner, whisper in his ear and then cause him to grimace in pain.An FBI memo cited by Al Jazeera reported the whopping number of:"SA [name deleted] asked what had happened to cause the detainee to grimace up in pain," the document said.
"The marine said [she] had grabbed the detainees thumbs and bent them backwards and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals."
The document showed that the marine also implied that her treatment of that detainee was less harsh than her treatment of others.He said he had seen her cause other detainees to curl up into a foetal position on the floor and cry in pain.
26 agents at Guantanamo said they had observed some form of mistreatment, although not by FBI personnel.Only 9 of these were deemed serious enough to investigate.
Cageprisoners.com, an openly pro-jihadist website cloaked in a civil-libertarian dressing, documents the alleged abuses of 6 Bahraini prisoners of Camp X-Ray in this PDF document. Most of the allegations are nothing more than common prison horror stories, much worse could be seen in any prison inspired movie, but some of them do include the allegations of abuse by interrogators (including death threats), mishandling of the Koran, and the story of a guard who overeacted to one of the prisoners for religious reasons.
There are no allegations of out and out murder nor are there allegations that prisoners have been starved to death.
If all the allegations were to prove correct we would have the story of several hundred victims of being at the wrong place (mostly foreigners in Afghanistan their for 'religious studies') at the wrong time (captured within Taliban lines or at al Qaeda camps), taken to a far-off prison with little recourse to due process, and who find that while their lives are in no danger, the conditions at their new home are abusive and less than ideal.
If all of the above is true then Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a blemish on America's good name and a national shame which needs correcting.
I do not believe for a moment that the majority of the abuse stories at Camp X-Ray are true, especially in light of the recent revelation that al Qaeda trains its operatives to make abuse allegations. However, it is probable that some of the stories are true, even if the majority of those stories turn out to be the kind of routine behavior accepted at most US detention facilities. Abuse happens in prisons, and such abuse should be rooted out. But if you cannot accept any level of abuse at a prison then you cannot accept any penal system.
So then how do the abuses at Camp X-Ray compare to the Soviet gulags? Are such comparisons fair?
What is a gulag?
From the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office's Gulag study which investigates and seeks the return of the bodies of US soldiers held in the Soviet gulags:
The word “gulag” became a familiar term in the West with the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, The Gulag Archipelag, in 1973. A Russian acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerey (Main Administration of Camps), “Gulag,” is often used to mean any oppressive penal system.The problem with calling any penal system which is 'oppressive' a gulag is that it minimizes the enormity of the crimes committed in the Soviet gulag system. Still, the term is lightly thrown around among polemicists wishing to make a point.
It is important to recognize three distinguishing characteristics of the gulags that seperate them from other prison systems.
[Right: Graves of victims at Kolyma gulag]
First, the gulags were a form of political terrorism. These massive prisons were used to weed out those that were even remotely suspected of having all but the most enthusiastic of feelings toward the Soviet system. Solzhenitsyn, for instance, found himself in a Siberian gulag for making the mistake of making a joke about Stalin in a letter.
Can a single prison holding less than 500 people be considered a widespread tool of political terrorism?
Second, the gulags were a source of slave labor. It is not a coincidence that the massive increase in the number of prisoners in the gulags is timed precisely with the announcement of Stalin's first Five Year Plan. Although most of our knowledge of the gulag system comes from the intellectual class that survived them, such as the memories of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelego, most of the victims were simple peasants. The gulags were not prisons in the Western sense of the word. The gulags were massive industrial complexes of forced labor.
No prisoner at Guantanomo or at any other detention facility for war prisoners has alleged forced labor.
Third, while the purpose of the gulags was not necessarily to torture or kill prisoners, the gulags were a place where humiliation, torture, and genocide scale mass deaths occured. Unlike survivors of the holocaust, though, who have found voice in the state of Israel, in US based interest-groups, or who have captured the fascination of Hollywood, the story of the gulags remains largely unheard of for the vast majority of the American public. While we understand that the gulags were bad places in the Soviet Union, the horrors of the gulag do not seem to resonate with us in the same way.
Very few cases of death are alleged to have occured in any US war related detention facility, none at Guantanamo.
Just how widespread was the gulag phenomenon?
Only the crimes of the Holocaust can measure up to the sheer evil of the gulags of the Soviet empire.
Anne Applebaum in Capitalism Magazine:
As a result, between 1929, when they first became a mass phenomenon, and 1953, the year of Stalin's death, some 18 million people passed through them. In addition, a further 6 or 7 million people were deported, not to camps but to exile villages. In total, that means the number of people with some experience of imprisonment in Stalin's Soviet Union could have run as high as 25 million, about 15 percent of the population.The Hoover Institute, which in 1999 began to publish their findings from newly opened original documents from the Lenin-Kruschev era, notes:
-Ten percent of the entire population of the Soviet Union lived in the camps.A single gulag complex, Kolyma, killed 3 million people.
-The Gulag administration was the largest single employer in all of Europe.
-The average life expectancy of a camp prisoner was one winter.
-At least twenty million people perished in the labor camps during StalinÂ’s rule.
-The camps dehumanized life and instituted a reign of terror throughout Soviet society.
In total, between 1937 and 1953, as estimated by Robert Conquest, Kolyma consumed almost 3 million lives, mainly natives of the Soviet Union.But foreigners were also victim. For instance, at the Chukhots camp?
No Polish prisoners at all returned of 3000 sent to Chukhots campsThe gulags, then, were a system of terror. When speaking of a single gulag, a person may be tempted to conjure up the image of German POW camp, perhaps Stalig 13 out of a 1960s WWII movie. Perhaps this is why European and American Leftists like to compare Camp X-Ray to the gulags. Such an image, though, would be far from the truth.
To understand the sheer enormity of a single gulag one would have to envision medium sized cities made up entirely of the victims of forced relocation campaigns surrounded by a series of smaller cities made up entirely of slave laborers. Some of the gulags were so massive in geographic scale that they are hard to imagine. For instance, the deadly Kolyma gulag was really a series of forced labor camps in and around the massive gold mine and not a single prison. Think the size of US states, and not just Rhode Island and Deleware--think Kansas.
The gulags were so enormous that they pervert the Russian economy to this day. Whenever the centralized government was forced to make the decision to invest in labor or capital, labor was chosen because it was nearly free and had certain advantageous political effects. To this day, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens live in communities founded by gulag slave-labor in arctic regions which have no business being there. Many of these arctic residents are the children of gulag survivors and exiles forced to the area.
[Right: Gulag slave laborers dig the Balamor canal]
Thousands of forced labor projects left millions dead. Here is just one example from the building of the Belamor Canal:
Over 100,000 prisoners equipped with pick-axes, wheelbarrows and hatchets - dug a 227-kilometre long canal linking the Baltic and the White Sea in 20 months between 1931 and 1933. Tens of thousands died in the process.Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray at its height had just over 500 prisoners. If Amnesty International is to be believed, then the maximum figure of total prisoners ever held by the US led Global War on Terror is around 70,000. But these figures include thousands that have been already released and thousands held by friendly governments. Further, the vast majority of those who were once detained were found on a field of battle either in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
Even if one were to compare the combined US War on Terror prisons to the gulag system one would be left with a drop of abuse next to a pool of horrors and mass murders. Such a comparison is unwarrented and immoraly minimizes the horrors of the gulags.
What were the Soviet gulags like?
While the prisoners at Guantanamo complain of periodic guard abuse, Koran flushings, and no judicial review by US civilian courts, the victims of the gulag were busy dying by the millions.
But what also needs to be remembered is that the gulags were not just a place for men, but for entire families.
Susanna Pechuro retells the horrors of the gulags:
The most horrible thing I saw in a camp was how children were taken away from their mothers. Because it's something you can't live with. And there are some things I don't let myself remember, because if I do I get insomnia for several weeks remembering those screaming mothers after their children have been taken away from them, [screaming] because they will never know where these children are being taken, to what orphanages. I've never seen anything more horrible than that, even though I also saw people beaten up. But nothing more horrible than the separation of children and mothers. And this can never and should never be forgiven. No matter what communists say now, the social structure which made it possible will never be pardoned.Melana Zyla Vickers relates the following story from Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History. It is reminiscent of the Holocaust:
...millions of children were either imprisoned with their mothers, or were born in the Gulag. Babies were taken from their mothers to be watched in batches of dozens by rough-mannered nurses. The nurses "took off their nightclothes and washed them in ice-cold water. The babies didn't even dare cry. They made little sniffing noises like old men and let out low hoots. This awful hooting noise would come from the cots for days at a time," wrote political dissident Hava Volovich. Of her own baby, Volovich wrote: "Little Eleanora, who was now fifteen months old, soon realized that her pleas for 'home' were in vain. She stopped reaching out for me when I visited her; she would turn away in silence. On the last day of her life, when I picked her up (they allowed me to breast-feed her) she stared wide-eyed somewhere off into the distance, then started to beat her weak little fists on my face. . . . Then she pointed down at her bed. In the evening, when I came back with my bundle of firewood, . . . I found her lying naked in the morgue among the corpses of the adult prisoners."This story of the gulags reminds us of the periodic mass murders that took place. From Applebaum agian:
During the winter of 1937-38, "no hot food was given to the prisoners at all; the daily ration consisted of 400 grams of half-dried bread. [In March 1938], a new group of NKVD officers arrived from Moscow. The officers formed a 'special commission' and called out the prisoners in groups of forty. They were told they were going off on a transport. Each was given a piece of bread. The prisoners in the tent heard them being marched away --- and then [heard] the sounds of shooting."Karol M.Nawalicki remembers the horrors of the Kolyma gulag:
"-It was easier to get accustomed to seeing the dead or dying, than to the scenes of stripping the dead bodies, sometimes even before they had died. The inmates did this themselves in order to have more clothes. There was no place for the majesty of death in the gulags of Kolyma. I could not get used to naked bodies being dragged by their legs to a special store, some considerable distance from the barracks. The mortuary was emptied depending on the season of the year."Avraham Shifrin, the son of a gulag victim and gulag survivor himself, recounts his experience:
Until 1956, Shifrin and his fellow prisoners worked ten-hour days, seven days a week. Thereafter the work load was reduced to six days. Prisoners who attempted to escape, and were shot and killed some distance from the camp, were left to rot (though their index fingers were severed for purposes of fingerprint identification). The bodies of those shot close to camp were placed near the gate to terrorize and deter other inmates who might be contemplating escape....Shifrin also recalled a grisly incident involving a prisoner who cut off his hand with an ax and asked a fellow inmate to place the severed appendage inside lumber that had been loaded for shipment. When Shifrin asked the amputee why he had done this, he replied that the lumber would go to other countries, where the hand might help people understand the conditions under which the lumber was cut.
Hopelessness, desperation, and fatigue from the exhausting work schedule led to many instances of self-mutilation. Some prisoners induced infections by pulling thread through the plaque between their teeth, then running the thread through a few inches of flesh with a needle. Serious infection would develop within minutes and justify their transport to a hospital for a "rest."
Krakowiecki on the mine workers at the Kolyma gulag:
From there, from the gold mine, came a procession of human phantoms. These people were driven hard to work, like animals, through the entire (summer) season. The animals would have revolted or died. The man endures more than they do. The men exploited through the season changed into skeletons. One cannot understand how these people are still alive? Only skin and bones, without exaggeration. These past people, physically completely destroyed, are not needed in the gold mine anymore, because their productivity is nil; therefore the half dead men are directed to the task of maintaining the roads."
Conclusions
Making any sort of comparison, even as a rhetorical device, between Camp X-Ray and the Soviet gulag system is problematic at best and grossly immoral at worst.
For Amnesty International to stoop to the low of making such a comparison reveals their ignorance of history and their political bias against the United States. While the US, like all nation-states, is not perfect, her flaws do not begin to compare to the oppression of Communist states in general and of the gulags in particular.
Shame on you Amnesty International, I will never take your accusations seriously again.
Resources:
Perhaps the most complete account of the gulag system is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, but the enormity of the work makes it difficult reading. An easy afternoon read, and a better piece of literature, is Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which recounts the humanity of a single victim on a single day under the oppression of the gulag system.
Another account of gulag stories see Applebaum's Gulag: A History, which is really a narrative history and very readable.
For a great e-bibliography, see The Soros Foundation funded Gulag link site.
Parenthetically, I spent some time studying in Russia during the mid-1990s. For about a year I studied the Soviet system. To this day the Russian people have still not come to terms with the horrors of Communism. Even survivors of the gulags prefer to blame them on Stalin, rather than the Marxist-Leninist system which Stalin was inspired by.
Roger L. Simon comes to a conclusion similar to my own here. Malkin also has a nice reaction to the Gitmo flack here along with blog reaction and Babalu Blog reminds us that the very real gulags of Cuba still operate to this day. Austin Bay fisks Amnesty here. John Henke does a good job discussing the accusation here and how the US is rightly investigating them. Villanous Company puts it into perspective here.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is kind enough to link me and he has a good post of his own here. You might also want to check out the 'fatwas' issued below.
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or some asprin factory in Sudan.
I guess this just goes to show who the Democratic base really are these days - Jihadist appeasing, Islamofascist supporting, liberal lunatic looneys.THE white powder mailed to the Indonesian Embassy in Australia's first bio-terror attack contained bacteria from the same family as anthrax.Prime Minister John Howard linked the potentially deadly threat to hysteria over the Schapelle Corby jailing.
"It's not an innocent white powder, it's some kind of biological agent," he said.Fifty embassy staff were locked in their building last night as police and scientists investigated.
White powder spilled to the embassy floor when a staff member opened an envelope addressed to Ambassador Imron Cotan, who was out at the time. The envelope also contained a note.
Police and emergency services, including hazardous materials units, raced to the embassy.
Embassy staff are expected to stay locked inside for at least 48 hours until the powder is identified.
The PM was anxious about the results of the tests. "I'm not a scientist but they say it belongs to the bacillus group," he said.
The bacillus group includes various forms of bacteria, one of which is the causative agent of anthrax.
Mr Howard said he was staggered by the attack, an apparent reprisal over the jailing of Corby in Bali last week for drug smuggling.
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I'm starting to think Princess Leia was one of these Left wing idiotarians. Think of her foreign policy stance vis-a-vis the Empire. Governor Tarkin would never would never destroy Alderaan because it's a peaceful planet with no weapons that posed a threat to the Empire. If Abu Musab al Zarqawi could get a hold of the Death Star, do you think he'd spare France?
It's The Religion of Peace Update!
Images courtesy of Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and Gordon at Cranky Neocon.
Surprise: 40% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi.
South Africa's Ward Churchill: US reeping what it sowed. And speaking of Ward Churchill, it turns out that indicted al Qada conspirator and US citizen Tarik Shah was a big Ward Churchill fan who has no problem smiling at you one minute and slitting your throat the next.
PS: American terrorist pleads guilty.
Jihadists continue war against infidels. And by infidels, we don't exempt all the quasi-Buddhists in suburban Marin County, CA, who, you know, support the terrorists. Oh and any Muslim who is not our kind of a Muslim is an infidel too. And Christians in Indonesia who when we're not oppressing were busy murdering when they get a little uppity.
Shock: Amnesty International is headed by an Asian Muslim women, gives Islamofascists and Asian mass-murderers a pass.
Better make that nukular materials intercepted on way to Iran.
Hussein trial to begin soon, left wingers already spinning conspiracy theory that trial will never happen.
And as leftists talk about the 'illegal war' and 'Iraqi right to resistance' justifying terrorist attacks, the Iraqis fear that the US will cut and run too soon and the NYT could care less. Meanwhile, blast hits Iraq airport. The terrozombies released this video last week of the same target. The US led offensive explained by some one involved over at the Paratrooper of Love's place.
'Terrorists' holding another doll hostage claiming he's a CIA agent. I should have the video and pics later.
Islam disrespected? And deservedly so!
Finally, not Religion of Peace related but FUNNY: Fugitive Found Duct-Taped to Porch
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Hat tip: Gaijin Biker
UPDATE: Lawhawk notes about the 308 page AI report:
North Korea, which actually does have a gulag system set up in the old Soviet model, gets less space accorded to its human rights abuses than the US.
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The piece is titled "U.S. Has Long History of Waging Wrong Wars" and seems to assume that every war fought since the Civil war has been the wrong one. He backs up his theory with statements such as this:
In 1917, Wilson persuaded Congress to declare war against Germany, so that the U.S. could make the world "safe for democracy." By entering World War I on the side of France and Great Britain, Wilson enabled them to win a decisive victory and impose vindictive surrender terms on Germany. This move triggered a bitter nationalist reaction, generating political support for Hitler.
Anyone who has studied societies and/or economics knows exactly how Hitler came to power. He played himself up as a moderate to rise up through the ranks to the highest position he could attain. And the whole time he did it, he gave the people exactly what they were asking for. He built industry and created jobs, and he instilled national pride in the German population. The author of the piece above makes it sound as though the Germans were mad at everyone else and simply elected Hitler specifically to start the next World War. That, by itself is complete lunacy. He then goes on to talk about other nations as well.
Even though the United States defeated Hitler in World War II, within five years more people lived under totalitarian regimes than before the war, as communists came to power in Eastern Europe and China. Millions ended up exchanging a Nazi tyranny for a communist tyranny.
And how exactly is that the cause of the US fighting WWII? Is it just because we didn't go in and set up democracies in all the countries that were ravaged by the war? Or should we have created US colonies out of them? I'm sure the rest of the world wouldn't have minded. Heck, they already see us as nation builders and we haven't even done anything of the sort.
Of course one could also take away from that statement that we shouldn't have fought Hitler in the first place. Especially given the title of the piece. And if that is the suggestion he is making, then he REALLY needs to go back to school. Not college, but middle school. Because that's where I learned what kind of man Hitler was. Certainly not the type you wanted to leave in charge in Europe. And make no mistake, without our help, Hitler would have been in charge of all of Europe.
Confident about America's overwhelming firepower, President Lyndon Johnson escalated the Vietnam War during the 1960s. But the North Vietnamese adopted guerrilla tactics to elude most of the bombs, and American soldiers were at a disadvantage in strange jungles. More than 58,000 Americans were killed. The quagmire forced Johnson to give up the idea of seeking re-election in 1968.
If Johnson had been so confident of our superior firepower, he would have allowed our soldiers to use it. If you really think that our soldiers lost simply because of guerrilla tactics and strange jungles, then you must have gotten your education at Berkeley.
The author then proceeds to wrap up with this gem.
If, in the name of fighting terrorism and reforming the world, the U.S. embarks on a policy of perpetual war, its ability to fight as effectively as possible when it really counts will be undermined. Already, the armed forces have had difficulty conducting operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. There's much concern about enlistment rates for a volunteer army because of the Pentagon's "stop loss" orders forcing tens of thousands of soldiers to remain on active duty perhaps a year longer than they had bargained for.
In addition, the U.S. invasion of nuke-free Iraq and its restraint with nuke-armed North Korea send a signal that other nations should secretly accelerate efforts to acquire nuclear weapons since they deter U.S. intervention. U.S. actions encourage the nuclear proliferation it is intended to prevent.
First off, I don't see us having a policy of perpetual war. Nor do I see what gives the author that idea unless it's just another fancy way of saying "Bush doesn't have an exit stragegy". I think that particular dog has been beaten enough.
Secondly, who said anything about Iraq having nuclear weapons? We thought they might have the fuel, but we never said they had nuclear weapons. Nor was that the reason for an invasion there. I'm not going to go into they whole "why Bush invaded Iraq" argument again, but comparing it to North Korea is comparing apples and oranges. What works with one won't necessarily work with the other. And when we can confirm that a country does have nuclear missles, don't you think a little more caution in dealing with them might be called for?
I have to assume, in allowing this article to run, that Fox is trying to uphold their "fair and balanced" mantra, but it would certainly be nice if they could get someone to get their facts straight before running off making accusations about how the US doesn't ever fight the right war. I'm guessing that there are millions of liberated people, not just in Iraq, but all across Europe who would say that we did fight the right wars.
Posted by: Drew at
07:41 AM
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May 31, 2005
Posted by: Rusty at
05:36 PM
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By no means is it certain that this is an act of bioterrorism, but it is alarming none-the-less.
A day after a suspected hazardous materials incident shutdown the Rainbow Bridge for almost five hours, Customs and Border Protection agents still donÂ’t know exactly what happened.However, NEIN reports that:What they do know is, during an investigation into three men trying to smuggle $180,000 in counterfeit cash into the country, a half-dozen agents suddenly became ill with flu-like symptoms and almost three dozen travelers ended up spending more time than they could have imagined trying to cross the border.
Customs officials said Monday that three Pennsylvania men, identified as Tommy Nguyen, Than Nguyen and Cuong Hong, were stopped Sunday afternoon as they attempted enter the country by crossing the bridge. All three are U.S. citizens.
During a secondary inspection of their vehicle, Customs agents found a plastic bag in the area of the rear seat. Inside the bag were 20 bundles of counterfeit $100 bills.
The three men were placed under arrest, but as the agents began examining the money, they began to experience irritation in their eyes and throats. The three arrested men and then other people in the immediate vicinity of the counterfeit cash also began to get the flu-like symptoms.
“At that time, a decision was made to by Customs and Border Protection to declare the area a possible hazardous materials incident scene,” Customs and Border Protection Public Affairs Officer Kevin Corsaro said.
The bridge was closed and cleared, along with a section of the southbound Robert Moses Parkway from Findlay Drive to the bridge.
That was followed by a swarm of federal, state and local law enforcement and emergency services agencies arriving on the scene. They included the Niagara Falls Police and Fire Departments, the Niagara County HAZ-MAT Team, the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station Fire Department, the Niagara County Department of Emergency Services, the Erie County SMART Team, a group of specially trained doctors, Rural Metro Medical Services, the Niagara and Erie County Health departments, the New York State Police, the New York State Park Police, the U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, as well as agents from the FBI and the Secret Service.
Thirty-four travelers on the bridge and a half-dozen Customs and Border Protection agents initially were isolated after their exposure. Twenty-one people, including the Customs agents, were quarantined and decontaminated.
The civilians were all released from the bridge after being examined by medical personnel. The agents were taken by ambulance to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where officials said they complained of symptoms such as coughing, sneezing and dizziness.
A blood screen of all the agents failed to identify the cause for their symptoms. Medical officials said the blood screens were “negative.”
“Our examination indicated no evidence of exposure to any toxins or biological agents,” medical center spokesman Patrick Bradley said.
Another witness reported seeing a puff of brownish-white smoke, “similar to a small smoke bomb,” “go off” near the vehicle that was being inspected, or somewhere near the underside of the pavilion. The origin of this smoke remains unknown at this time.This seems to indicate that the source of the smoke wasn't the money, as the news report indicates, but from a secondary source.At that point, at least to customs agents began coughing and at least one stooped to the ground. “I thought someone set off tear gas or a smoke bomb,” stated the witness who asked not to be identified. “Someone yelled for an ambulance, and a few other agents in the area began coughing and having trouble breathing, some walking with their hands over their mouths and noses,” stated the witness.
Again, this may be nothing but it also should remind us just how vulnerable those that guard our borders are to terrorist attack.
Posted by: Rusty at
05:20 PM
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An al Qaeda handbook preaches to operatives to level charges of torture once captured, a training regime that administration officials say explains some of the charges of abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp....Very interesting indeed. This goes along way in explaining a lot of allegations. Especially from the likes of al Qaeda linked terror suspect Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who you will recall accused the US of torturing him.In a raid on an al Qaeda cell in Manchester, British authorities seized al Qaeda's most extensive manual for how to wage war.
A directive lists one mission as "spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy."If captured, the manual states, "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison."
The handbook instructs commanders to make sure operatives, or "brothers," understand what to say if captured.
"Prior to executing an operation, the commander should instruct his soldiers on what to say if they are captured," the document says. "He should explain that more than once in order to ensure that they have assimilated it. They should, in turn, explain it back to the commander."
Posted by: Rusty at
04:55 PM
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A lawyer for a jazz bassist from the Bronx who was charged in a terror case today claimed his client and a co-defendant arrested in Florida had been ensnared in a trap set by government investigators.Wow, this guy better get a new lawyer fast-like. Yes, Anthony, this was a sting operation. I think the word your looking for was entrapment. A sting operation is when the good guys set up the bad guys so that they're caught doing something bad. Entrapment is when the good guys put another good guy into the position that they have no choice but to do something bad. The former is a legitimate police tactic, the latter is not. more..."It's a sting operation," Anthony Ricco, a lawyer for Tarik Shah, 42, told reporters after Shah appeared before a federal magistrate in Manhattan and was ordered held without bail.
Posted by: Rusty at
04:43 PM
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Israeli police have discovered a ring of about 20 local neo-Nazis, young emigrants from the former Soviet Union, but are uncertain how to proceed against them as Israel has no specific laws against supporting Nazi beliefs, the Israeli daily Maariv reported Tuesday.more...
Posted by: Rusty at
04:17 PM
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When this report is taken with others that I have (I have a mountain of stuff) it appears that the "terrorists' were being shepherded by the Israelis and the FBI.The Left wing in American begins to sounds more and more like the Klan every day.
Posted by: Rusty at
04:08 PM
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