war. criminals.

In the preface to the Physicians for Human Rights report on torture by the United States, Retired Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba writes the following:

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. . .

The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. . . .

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.

But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.

And so do the American people." (Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba (USA-Ret.)

You can download the entire report on the medical evidence of torture by the U.S. here. Read it and weep, then get on the phone to Nancy Pelosi and demand that impeachment be put ON the fucking table and that these sociopaths in the Bush administration be arrested and imprisoned. There is no other way we can redeem ourselves as a nation.

US launches massive military strike against Iran

Not today, but there's cause for concern. I've written about it this morning at Sirens Chronicles. Some information and an opportunity for action. This month ~ September ~ must be the month that the American people launch an assault on Congress beyond anything we've done before. Call every day. Write every day. Make them listen to us.

why are we really in iraq?

Rolling Stone lays it out in gut wrenching detail.

paranoid

Since finding out about Bush's private mercenary army, far better paid and better equipped than our U.S. soldiers, I have been nervous. I bat away the nervousness by telling myself "never here, not in the US, never would we have a dictator who would simply usurp the Constitution and take over the country." I continue to be anxious about Blackwater, and today I find this from Chris Hedges of the Philadelphia Enquirer.. Read, then toss and turn all night.

"Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint. . .

If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown that triggers social unrest, or a series of environmental disasters, such paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could ruthlessly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to corporations, and to right-wing interests such as the Christian Right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets."

I have said before that I think the neocons and their puppet George Bush will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, and Blackwater, one of the babies of Donald Rumsfeld, is a handy tool. Most days I think I'm paranoid, and other days I imagine the death of the republic in my lifetime, something inconceivable five years ago.

torture, refined

Mr. Christian, you know, the born again do-right motherfucker in the oval office, that guy is putting the finishing touches on the United States' new torture plan. Well, that guy, the one who doesn't read, probably actually has no awareness of it beyond the dilute "here's what we're going to do" summary provided by the neocons in charge of what used to be a constitutional form of government. Read, weep, gnash and rend. When I think things can't get any worse under this asshat, they do.

god help us

Read, weep, gnash, rend.

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness. . . .Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

666

Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, discusses what may be the real reason behind the invasion of Iraq. The decline in Iraqi output due to the chaos of war has resulted in a tripling of oil company profits. More to read, weep, rend and gnash over this morning at OpEd News.

"The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the [Iraq] war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone by just over $666 billion," Palast wrote. What's more, Chevron Oil, "where [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice had served as a director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value."

You'd think the 666 alone would be enough to send the wingnuts shrieking off into an end-of-world death spiral. A consortium of oil companies working together to control oil prices would be an illegal act; that same consortium of oil companies buying politicians to manipulate us into war is a different matter. As much as I despise Bush and his band of thugs, and as much as I hate this war, I am revolted by my own tendency to think in conspiracies. It's getting harder and harder to avoid it, though. Just because I don't want to believe in a conspiracy, doesn't mean there isn't one.

50 years in iraq

Our leader wants us in Iraq on a permanent basis, just like the 50 years we've been in Korea. I guess it will take that long to drain the oilfields. Read it and weep. Or gnash your teeth, rend garments. Whatever.

boo hoo hoo, john boehner

John Boehner's tearful plea to congress to pass the Iraq supplemental funding bill indicates he remains grossly uninformed about 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. As his own emperor admitted:

In August, 2006, when President Bush was explaining how the 9/11 attacks inspired his "freedom agenda," Cox News reporter Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. And the president set things straight once and for all.

"The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East," said Bush.

"What did Iraq have to do with it?" asked Herman.

"What did Iraq have to do with what?" responded a confused Bush.

"The attack on the World Trade Center," explained Herman.

"Nothing," admitted Bush, who went on to say that "nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack."

For emphasis, Bush repeated, "Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq."

In response to Boehner's absurd and tearful plea, "when are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to defeat 'em? Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if we don't do it now, and if we don't have the courage to defeat this enemy, we will long, long regret it." Boo hoo hoo, Mr. Boehner, you idiot.

Listening to this jackass, I can only ask of the people of this country who care about democracy, who care about our soldiers dying every day in a pointless, fruitless, devastating war, when are we going to have the courage to defeat this enemy, this shameless, conscienceless band of idiots occupying Congress and the White House.