[ See also this DemocracyNow! segment (5/10/04) on the regular physical and sexual abuse in American prisons with Paul Wright, former MP and prisoner, and editor of Prison Legal News. –BL ] May 8 / 9, 2004 | CounterPunch by ALEXANDER COCKBURN and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Torture’s back in the news, courtesy of those lurid pictures of exultant Americans laughing as they torture their Iraqi captives in Abu Ghraib prison run by the US military outside Baghdad. Apparently it takes electrodes and naked bodies piled in a simulated orgy to tickle America’s moral nerve ends. Kids maimed by cluster bombs just […]
Daily Archives: May 9, 2004
4 posts
[ For a fascinating treatment of torture in and by the U.S., see this piece. Thanks to Popi and Tom Natsoulas for passing these articles along. –BL ] May 7 2004 | The Mirror by JOHN PILGER WHEN I first went to report the American war against Vietnam, in the 1960s, I visited the Saigon offices of the great American newspapers and TV companies, and the international news agencies. I was struck by the similarity of displays on many of their office pinboards. “That’s where we hang our conscience,” said an agency photographer. There were photographs of dismembered bodies, of soldiers […]
[ If the public in the U.S. were to read this Saudi woman’s column with an open mind, untainted by the Administration’s promotion of arrogance, fear, and xenophobia, it would understand that this battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East has been lost, and cannot possibly be won by Bush. She underscores Bush’s blindness, unnoticed by most Americans, which prevents him from seeing the plank in his own eye even as he points out the splinter in his neighbor’s. In Bush’s Al-Hurra interview, he told the Arab world that the US soldiers accused of abusing prisoners were considered […]
[ With the approved $422.2 billion, Bush would spend more on the military than the next 25 countries combined … while reducing funding for programs that address vital human security and environmental needs at home and abroad. Add proposed spending for foreign military aid and training and mandatory spending on military retirement and health care, and the cost would rise to $470 billion. [Friends Committee on National Legislation] Nor does this include the bulk of the Administration’s to-be-requested additional Iraq and Afghanistan war funding, not expected until after the November election (on top of the more than $166 billion already […]