error

..There's no one getting kicked in this picture.

What gives with the lies?

STOP You online harassment.You are unloved and unwelcome.Don't waste you time here. Fuck off !!!

STOP You online harassment.You are unloved and unwelcome.Don't waste you time here. Fuck off !!!

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams.

As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded.

The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible.

Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties.
They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told.

The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy.

Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer’s pocket? At what cost — because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people — in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it.

A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear.

The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall — just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions.

God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another’s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers?

George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company.

Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company.

Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God’s work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him.

The CIA believes that “somebody” was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr’s cry: “That man tried to kill my Daddy.” But it’s still not personal, this war. It’s still necessary. It’s still God’s work. It’s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won’t tell us is the truth about why we’re going to war.

What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil — but oil, money and people’s lives. Saddam’s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn’t, won’t.

If Saddam didn’t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart’s content. Other leaders do it every day — think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, if he’s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes’ notice.

What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America’s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us — to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair’s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can’t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can’t get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain’s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that’s Britain’s tragedy, as it is America’s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

Blair’s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world’s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant’s head to wave at the boys?

Blair’s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it’s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect’s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men.

What he can’t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

“But will we win, Daddy?”

“Of course, child. It will all be over while you’re still in bed.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise Mr Bush’s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him.”

“But will people be killed, Daddy?”

“Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people.”

“Can I watch it on television?”

“Only if Mr Bush says you can.”

“And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?”

“Hush child, and go to sleep.”

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: “Peace is also Patriotic”. It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.

The author has also contributed to an openDemocracy debate on Iraq at www.openDemocracy.net

January 15, 2003
The United States of America has gone mad
John le Carré
Times Online

More excellent fiction from Mr. le Carré.

As for the Gitmo "torture", the detainees who have been released had to be given new clothes, because they all put on weight becuase they were being fed decently...for the first time in a long time.

Poor fellahs! Has anyone notified Amnesty International about this horrific abuse of human rights?

Aside from the fact that, in general, no one really gives a flying frog fart about what Le Carre has to say about ANYTHING, I would note his comment above...

"The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. "

He seems to suggest that Bin Laden is HAPPY with our response. ... I think Mr. Le Carre needs to get his facts straight. US News and World Report recently had a feature article on how the CIA is going after Al Queda. In that article Al Queda captives told CIA interrogators that one of the reasons UBL was confident about attacking the WTC was that he calculated a weak American respone, exactly as had been the case in the past. These captives stated that they were very surprised at the amount of force we used and how seriuous we were in our response. Our quick and forceful entry into the heart of their training camps is the primary reason tens of thousands of incriminating documents were left behind in their haste to flee.

So if Mr. Le Carre thinks "The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. " he is correct... except for exactly the opposite reason he supposes. But again, he's just a fiction writer writing more fiction. More drivel from the intellectually challenged Left.

if bin laden not bush is behind 911,how come ashcroft the christonazi hasn't indicted osama yet for 911,not even in absentia?

and how come bush has given up on looking for osama altogether?

mmmmmmmmmmmm......................................

Apparently Ashcroft is smarter than you. Ashcroft doesn't view that attack on the WTC, and more importantly, the attack on the Pentagon, as a criminal offense... he views it as a military attack using unconventional weapons. Al Qaida was effectively a military wing of the Taliban and they attacked the Pentagon, placing them squarely in military jusrisdiction. Further, in the unlikely event we captured rather than killed UBL you can be sure he would be charged and tried. That said, we have no intention of doing anything other than killing him. Charging him is a useless formality because his actions extend beyond mere criminal behavior.

Secondly, Bush has NOT given up on looking for UBL. That's a plainly stupid thing to say. We have about 8,000 troops in Afghanistan right now who conduct missions on a daily basis looking for UBL anjd his subhuman associates. And that doesn't include special groups such as Navy SEALs and CIA people looking for him.

Its sad that things this simple actually have to be explained to you.

Is this how Bush and Blair defend our civilisation?"

[Sky News (UK) - 1/20/02] Al Qaeda prisoners held in Cuba are being subjected to "sensory deprivation" by their American captors, shocking some observers and adding to international concern at their treatment.

Pictures released of the men show them blindfolded, tightly shackled and forced to wear surgical face masks, ear covers and gloves, denying them use of key senses.

'Humane'

Amnesty International said the pictures were "shocking" and showed the men were being "softened up" for interrogation.

America rejected the criticisms, flying in another 34 prisoners on Sunday night, including some men with gun shot wounds.

There are now about 150 men being held at America's Guantanamo Bay "Camp X-Ray".

After release of the pictures, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked for an explanation and reminded the US of its human rights obligations. But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted the level of security at the camp was appropriate.

Mr Straw, responding to a growing chorus of condemnation from human rights groups and politicians, issued a statement saying: "Prisoners, regardless of their technical status, should be treated humanely and in accordance with customary international law.

"We have always made that clear and the Americans have said they share this view...As for the photographs of detainees published...I have asked our officials in Guantanamo Bay to establish with the US the circumstances in which these photographs were taken."

'Over-reaction'

Human rights groups have already expressed horror that the prisoners were shackled and blindfolded for the long flight to the camp in Cuba, destined for 6-foot by 8-foot (2-metre by 2.6-metre) enclosures with roofs and floors but only chain-link walls.

Britain said on Friday that a team of its officials had arrived at the Guantanamo Bay to visit three of the al Qaeda detainees there who claim to be Britons. An 'illegal combatant'

Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith warned against an over-reaction to the pictures, reminding people of the atrocities committed on September 11.

Mr Duncan Smith said the men were "immensely dangerous". "They must be held securely," he said.

'Below standards'

But even some Conservative-leaning newspapers expressed concern. The Mail on Sunday carried a front page piece asking: "Is this how Bush and Blair defend our civilisation?"

Tony Lloyd, a Labour MP and a former foreign office minister, said: "The treatment does seem to be way below the standards you would expect."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said the conditions were unacceptable: "What sort of effect will these pictures have in capitals like Cairo or Amman? I don't believe we will successfully fight a campaign against terror if we publicly treat people in the way in which these photographs suggest."

'Suicidal'

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross is at the US base on the eastern tip of Cuba to inspect the prison and interview each detainee. Their findings will not be made public. US officials, who consider the prisoners from Afghanistan dangerous and possibly suicidal, said some had made clear after reaching Guantanamo Bay that they still wanted to hurt and kill Americans.

America has denied the detainees prisoner-of-war status, a designation that would give them extensive rights under the Geneva Convention.

Both the Red Cross and UN human rights chief Mary Robinson have said they consider the captives to be prisoners of war.

The British Parliament's cross-party Human Rights Committee is pressing for a meeting with US ambassador to Britain, William Farish, over conditions in the prison camp and the legal status of the men detained there.

Is this how Bush and Blair defend our civilisation?"

[Sky News (UK) - 1/20/02] Al Qaeda prisoners held in Cuba are being subjected to "sensory deprivation" by their American captors, shocking some observers and adding to international concern at their treatment.

Pictures released of the men show them blindfolded, tightly shackled and forced to wear surgical face masks, ear covers and gloves, denying them use of key senses.

'Humane'

Amnesty International said the pictures were "shocking" and showed the men were being "softened up" for interrogation.

America rejected the criticisms, flying in another 34 prisoners on Sunday night, including some men with gun shot wounds.

There are now about 150 men being held at America's Guantanamo Bay "Camp X-Ray".

After release of the pictures, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked for an explanation and reminded the US of its human rights obligations. But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted the level of security at the camp was appropriate.

Mr Straw, responding to a growing chorus of condemnation from human rights groups and politicians, issued a statement saying: "Prisoners, regardless of their technical status, should be treated humanely and in accordance with customary international law.

"We have always made that clear and the Americans have said they share this view...As for the photographs of detainees published...I have asked our officials in Guantanamo Bay to establish with the US the circumstances in which these photographs were taken."

'Over-reaction'

Human rights groups have already expressed horror that the prisoners were shackled and blindfolded for the long flight to the camp in Cuba, destined for 6-foot by 8-foot (2-metre by 2.6-metre) enclosures with roofs and floors but only chain-link walls.

Britain said on Friday that a team of its officials had arrived at the Guantanamo Bay to visit three of the al Qaeda detainees there who claim to be Britons. An 'illegal combatant'

Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith warned against an over-reaction to the pictures, reminding people of the atrocities committed on September 11.

Mr Duncan Smith said the men were "immensely dangerous". "They must be held securely," he said.

'Below standards'

But even some Conservative-leaning newspapers expressed concern. The Mail on Sunday carried a front page piece asking: "Is this how Bush and Blair defend our civilisation?"

Tony Lloyd, a Labour MP and a former foreign office minister, said: "The treatment does seem to be way below the standards you would expect."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said the conditions were unacceptable: "What sort of effect will these pictures have in capitals like Cairo or Amman? I don't believe we will successfully fight a campaign against terror if we publicly treat people in the way in which these photographs suggest."

'Suicidal'

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross is at the US base on the eastern tip of Cuba to inspect the prison and interview each detainee. Their findings will not be made public. US officials, who consider the prisoners from Afghanistan dangerous and possibly suicidal, said some had made clear after reaching Guantanamo Bay that they still wanted to hurt and kill Americans.

America has denied the detainees prisoner-of-war status, a designation that would give them extensive rights under the Geneva Convention.

Both the Red Cross and UN human rights chief Mary Robinson have said they consider the captives to be prisoners of war.

The British Parliament's cross-party Human Rights Committee is pressing for a meeting with US ambassador to Britain, William Farish, over conditions in the prison camp and the legal status of the men detained there.

Yeah, we starve them and beat them continuosly. They are constanly shackled and blindfolded so that its easier to poke them with cattle prods. Its a miracle any of them have survived this long.

Oh wait... thats what Islamic terrorists do to THEIR prisoners.

Nevermind.

Still waiting for someon to explain the lie about the Iraqi getting kicked in the picture.

"ashcroft the christonazi"

You lose.

Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

Just a note about the photo... It appears to show someone laying on the ground with a soldier apparently about to 'step on' this guy. He certainly isn't kicking him. What he is actually doing is preparing to place his foot flat on the individuals back to keep him on the ground. This is a common and routine control technique when detaining people. Police use it all the time. There is nothing inhumane about it... its simply a method of establishing control. Hope this helps.

Of course!!! They have good CIA professors!!!

Of course!!! They have good CIA professors!!!

Is there anything you aren't willing to pin on Bush and the CIA?

Did they blow up the Columbia?

Did they torch those SUVs in California?

Did they make Davis write 38 billion dollars in bad checks?

Did they vote your favorite Survivor off the island?

Did they keep Gilligan from getting rescued?

Mandrake... You need professional help.

And I have no doubt that my explanation of the photo won't sink into your titanium skull either. But by all means, don't let basic facts cloud your 'mind'.

little boy, you must leave their cocoon of denial.

little boy, you must leave their cocoon of denial.

Mandrake, you've become pathetic... "cocoon of denial" Thats funny! Are you on some sort of medication for paranoid delusions?

BTW... I'll bet you a crisp 100 dollar bill that this "little boy" is older than you. And wiser.

"Just a note about the photo... It appears to show someone laying on the ground with a soldier apparently about to 'step on' this guy. He certainly isn't kicking him. What he is actually doing is preparing to place his foot flat on the individuals back to keep him on the ground. This is a common and routine control technique when detaining people. Police use it all the time. There is nothing inhumane about it... its simply a method of establishing control. Hope this helps."

Exactly. Yet somehow this becomes "kicking" the poor oppressed and occupied Iraqi saints.

You don’t become pathetic... you are JUST P.A.T.H.E.T.I.C. You bore me. Don’t waste my time talking about nothing. NAIVE.!!!

Yes, thats exactly the case. Its because leftists do not report what they see, but rather what they would like to see. To that extent they don't actually 'report' anything.

...consists almost exclusively of opinion and wishful thinking.

Truth need not apply.

While the conservative IDIOTS blather on about how the photo does not show an Iraqi prisoner being kicked.... consider this.

Thousands of Iraqis are being treated as this photo shows. Someone posted that the treatment is standard even with the LAPD handling of suspects... get them on the ground, face down, with a foot on the back of the neck to prevent resistance (clearly what is shown in the posted photo at the top of the page).

Now consider this you IDIOTS.

Islam requires that people touch their foreheads to the ground when praying as an act of total submission to God. NO ONE ELSE BUT GOD CAN MAKE A PERSON OF FAITH PUT THEIR FOREHEAD TO THE GROUND!

The fact that U.S. Soldiers are humiliating thousands of Iraqis in this manner may mean nothing to pea brained American couch potato morons... but the Iraqi victims of this humiliation ARE NEVER GOING TO FORGET OR FORGIVE.

Yeah... so this is "liberation." This is "caring" for the Iraqi people.

"observer'... You said...

"While the conservative IDIOTS blather on about how the photo does not show an Iraqi prisoner being kicked.... consider this. "

... You assume, like your Pro-Saddam supporters before you that, based on the photo, he IS being kicked. But the simple fact is that you CAN'T ACTUALLY PROVE THAT, CAN YOU? All you ACTUALLY SEE is a foot position, isn't that right? Do you know, FOR A FACT, that this man is being kicked by the soldier in the photo???? DO YOU? PROVE IT.

You said... "Thousands of Iraqis are being treated as this photo shows."

Yup, thats right. It's called SURVIVING IN COMBAT. Have YOU ever been in combat??? And yes, placing your foot on an individuals back (NOT his neck, as you incorrectly describe) is a standard control procedure. The photo does NOT "clearly" show a foot on the back of the neck. Are you, sir, incapable of an honest interpretation of a photo?

Then you rant on about how forcing this man to put his forehead to the ground is an insult to his religion.

Yup, Islam is pretty strict about that. I know that because I've spent plenty of time in the Middle East, including the first Gulf War (how much have you spent in the Middle East???). But the fact is, this individual wouldn't be in that position unless there was a damn good reason. And you can be sure that Saddams troops did exacty the same (and far worse) to Iranian, Kurdish and Shiite prisoners, all of whom are Muslims. Were you on this board, or ANYWHERE, defending Muslim sensitivity then?

So before you start your politically correct self masturbation over how we might have offended this individual, you had better wake up to reality... This individual is on the ground for a reason. He isn't being humiliated... you can be damn sure he's more concerned about being caught.

Before you start yelling at people about what "IDIOTS" they are you better be damn sure you're an infomed individual.

And if you think, as you suggest, that American troops don't care about Iraqi civilians then you are deeply uninformed or, as I suspect, openly and freely, of your own free will, chose to remain ignorant.

Are you all done "blathering", as you put it?

"Islam requires that people touch their foreheads to the ground when praying as an act of total submission to God. NO ONE ELSE BUT GOD CAN MAKE A PERSON OF FAITH PUT THEIR FOREHEAD TO THE GROUND! "


How can I put this?

Fuck Islam.

What an entirely moronic and typically assinine statement.

Last week Sen. Ted Kennedy made some rather unsober statements of President Bush's Iraq policy. "This whole thing was a fraud," he fulminated. "My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops."

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/261/nation/BOSTON_AP_The_case_for_going_t:.shtml

I didn't bother mentioning Kennedy's remarks, on the theory that paying them any attention would only encourage him. But I did wonder where he gets these crazy ideas. Well, here's a possibility. From a "report" by KCNA, North Korea's state "news" agency:

"Countries and people aspiring after independence should be well aware of the crafty ways of the U.S. imperialists' bribing operation and its dangerous nature and wage an active struggle to foil their psychological operation, said Rodong Sinmun yesterday in a signed article. It went on:

The U.S. imperialists are using the bribing operation as an important leverage for their psychological warfare in launching aggression and realizing their strategy for domination over other countries.

They are bribing heavyweights of some countries in particular in a bid to put them under their control and attain their goal for aggression with ease."

http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

(See: U.S. Dangerous Bribing Operation Flailed)

Hey, if they're bribing "heavyweights," maybe there ought to be an investigation to see if old Ted has taken any bribes.

Since you useless idoits on the left are worried about not properly submiting to Islam. Islam states that you must kill yourself. If you truly respect the religon you will kill yourself right now. Go do as you ask troops to do, dont worry no one will miss you.

Hey... where did you guys go? Several people have argued against your claims and you disappeared.

"finch head" posted the photo and hasn't been seen since. Where is "finch head"?

And where is "observer"? Did "observer" observerthe replies to his claim and subsequently defend them?

Apparently not. AS USUAL Leftists make an accusation and then run away when confronted with counterpoint, utterly incapable of actually defending their accusations.

Thanks again for demonstrating that the political left is intellectually bankrupt and intellectually cowardly.