Ohiocore

Well, in case you weren't absofrigginglutely sure how US military prisons operate, we now have the case of a Veteran MP Suffers Beatings and Brain Damage In Guantanamo Training. He dressed in an orange jumpsuit to look like a detainee, assuming an uncooperative role for the sake of training. The other MPs were not told it was a drill. He was beaten badly enough to cause brain damage and recurring seizures. As a result, he was medically discharged. Now, of course, the .mil denies a connection between his beating and his discharge, (while conceding the brain injury he suffered from them).

James Ridgeway at The Village Voice writes:

The Taguba report confirms that some women were indeed raped by American G.I.'s. There is one photo of an American soldier having sex with an Iraqi woman. And there is the by now infamous story of how American soldiers harnessed a 70-year-old woman and rode her around, calling her a donkey...

Last December... a note smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a female prisoner... said some of the women were now pregnant. [and] urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

... the Bush administration has refused to release photos of Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts—no doubt to spare Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld further embarrassment.

Then, quicker than you can blink, General Sanchez is gone.

2000 additional pages of Taguba Report kept from Congress.

The Globe and Mail says "a Time magazine report... said at least 2,000 pages were missing from the committee's copy of a military report into the abuse delivered by Major-General Antonio Taguba." The same article cites Capt. Robert Shuck (military lawyer for one of the accused Abu Ghraib MPs) that General Sanchez himself was present during interrogations and alleged abuses. This is, of course, entirely denied by the General.

Interesting case of a "patriotic hacker" getting into FAA data, including screening review info. Reference: SecurityFocus. He is now caught, btw.

Well, what do you know? They let that Portland lawyer go... BBC

Back to the "Sarin Bomb" via
Washington Post:
"Experts familiar with Iraq's chemical weapons program said the shell was likely a leftover from Hussein's pre-Gulf War stockpile."

Specifically, a 155mm "binary" artillery shell. How do you make an (note: add to aconym vocabulary) IED (improvised explosive device, aka roadside bomb) out of such a shell?

BTW, chemical battlefield artillery are not WMD, as an astute military guy on CSPAN once pointed out. Even those supposedly used on the Kurds are not WMD, lacking the lethality of, say, our multi-ton conventional bomb arsenal, or even the widespread undifferentiated public health detriment of DU exposure and cluster bombs. Clearly, however, being able to cite a chemical weapon of any kind in Iraq, regardless of origin or lethality would offer some benefit to the Administration's arguments for war. Meanwhile though William Safire takes this to refute those who believe Iraq did not have imminently threatening WMDs. He's still confident: they'll find'm yet.

Finally, the article relays from General Kimmett that "the explosion occurred 'in Baghdad a couple of days ago' and that he could not be more specific." Wait, you know it was sarin but you don't even know what day it was?

There is much to be curious over.
Seymour Hersh (yeah, the journalist who won a Pulitzer prize for his My Lai stories, the same guy Wolfowitz called "a terrorist") reports in the New Yorker that a Pentagon black ops project was formed to handle terrorist interrogation, and in fact was operating in Abu Ghraib prison. This report is going to be a showdown. Get ready to become familiar with the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, who was in charge of the project. Speaking of projects, this is another of the low-experience high-loyalty civilians grafted (so to speak) into criticial positions of authority, and another comrade from the "Project for the New American Century" . Specifically, he was the chief deputy to Douglas Feith. He's going to become rather famous rather quickly, I think, en route to his being canned. Check Alternet for a rundown.

Also, let's revisit WMD. The Pentagon is floating us a story about a "Sarin nerve-gas bomb". Reuters: "U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told a news conference in Iraq that the substance had been found in an artillery shell inside a bag discovered by a U.S. convoy a few days ago. The round had exploded, causing a small release of the substance." Add to vocabulary: binary shell.

They found it in a bag, and it exploded? (I'm guessing it was detonated by the troops themselves.) It is a rather curious question where it came from.

Newspapers take sides on Rumsfeld's resignation: "Many U.S. newspapers have demanded Rumsfeld's resignation, including The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, New York Newsday, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Detroit Free Press. The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and New York Daily News published editorials supporting him. "

For the record, the Wall Street Journal in on crack.

The Kansas City Star reports on the Brandon Mayfield case:
~ "Spanish forensics experts found only eight points of similarity... the FBI said it found 15."
~ "He has not been charged with a crime."
~ "Mayfield was booked into jail in Portland and is being held under a false name."

So the government can hold you without charges... someplace... as somebody. Pretty soon they'll just deny they're holding you, or anybody, at all!

This lawyer arrested in Portland as a "material witness" supposedly b/c his fingerprint matches one found in Spain related to the train bombing... I'm calling it now: total bullshit. It's a fishing expedition, and they've got nothing. I would say the charges against him will have to be dropped... but of course THERE ARE NO CHARGES. So who knows how long they'll hold him before they change their minds and release him quietly, like it wasn't a big deal?

I'd like to see countersuit against the government immediately.

"When the American President says something, you better mean it."
--G.W.Bush at the same Wisconsin event.

"Probably the best reason to put me back in there, is so that Laura can have another 4 years as first lady."
-- G.W.Bush in a campaign speech, Wisconsin, 5/7/04

"It's proof the system works."
Rumsfeld earlier this week regarding the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the way the .mil has handled it.

"They handled it perfectly."
Don Rumsfeld yesterday in front of a House committee, describing the Army's handling of the abuse reports, documentation, prosecution and public revelation.

The following is my favorite spam of the hour:
-------------------------------
Greetings, white man! :)
I hate to see things done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly, if it be wrong leave it undone.

Low rates on Software
Looking for not expensive high-quality software?
Our site might be just what you need.
[junk link deleted]
We ship worldwide.
There is death in the pot. [2 Kings 4:40]
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.

Yoshie Furuhashi has a better blog than mine. Today she hits on the US torture cases in Abu Ghraib prison, with a new piece of information. Apparently at least one case of photo-documented rape of an Iraqi boy was commited not by a US Soldier, but by an American contractor. Recalling the DynCorp sex-slave atrocities, in which contractors in Bosnia bought Eastern European girls as young as 12-years-old, this painfully reiterates the question what accountability do these people have?

As these pictures are republished around the world, there is no serious prospect for reclaiming "hearts and minds" in Iraq anytime soon. That war is lost. We just (proverbially) nuked ourselves.