Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Waterboarding
U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett today [11 March 2008] spoke on the House floor on the override of President Bush’s veto of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008 that would have banned the practice of waterboarding.
In his remarks, Rep. Doggett cited the 1983 conviction of San Jacinto County Sheriff James C. Parker, who according to court records subjected prisoners to waterboarding.
Hear This Hammer Ring
by Sarah Browning
Don’t you hear this hammer ring?
I’m gonna split this rock
And split it wide!
When I split this rock,
Stand by my side.
– Langston Hughes
When we first began organizing the Split This Rock Poetry Festival about a year and a half ago, I told people that we’d chosen the date to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I can’t tell you how many asked us, “Oh, do you think the war will still be going on then?”
My first reaction was, “What are you smoking?”
But slowly it dawned on me that many people did not recognize what had happened in our country after September 11. Of the three wars the Bush administration is currently waging, the U.S. public is selectively aware of only the one that is devastating the country of Iraq, killing countless Iraqi civilians and thousands of U.S. service members. The public has a growing awareness of the administration’s second war – on U.S. foreign policy. The Bush administration and its neocon theorists have committed us to worldwide, perpetual, preemptive war. They have made the notion that we can bomb our way to “security” the main tenet our nation’s foreign policy.
The third war, however, has gone virtually unnoticed. The administration is at war with language.
Word War III
In this new paradigm the word is no longer valued for its power of negotiation, diplomacy, understanding, but only for its power to control, to pacify. It’s an age-old technique, to repeat the same flattened phrases over and over until they become accepted wisdom. But with a complicit mass media, propaganda is easier than ever to perpetuate. The latest “spin”: The surge is working. The surge is working. The surge is working. Repetition does not, however, change the facts on the ground.
Which is why we need poetry now, more than ever. We need poets to tell the complex human story. Poets cut through the fog of propaganda and remind us of the real consequences of our government’s actions. As the poet and essayist Martín Espada, who will be reading on the opening night of Split This Rock, says, we need poetry to give politics a human face. Poetry reminds us of what matters. It wakes us up. With its immediacy and idiosyncrasy and great heart, it shakes us from our despair.
Poets have taken up this challenge, uniting against the war in Iraq with unprecedented public action. Split This Rock originates in the Poets Against War movement, spurred by the leadership of Sam Hamill. Here in the capital city, DC Poets Against the War has been active for five years, reading at demonstrations, in schools, churches, libraries, community centers, night clubs, and cafes. We’ve published two anthologies and organized poets’ delegations to march in the national peace demonstrations, carrying lines of poetry through the streets of Washington.
As this election year approached and we were hearing more about the powerful activism of poets all over the country, we decided the time had come to step it up. Uniquely situated here in the nation’s capital, we felt it our obligation to provide a national forum that could bring poets together, celebrate and publicize their art and their activism, and build bonds across differences of geography, age, race and ethnicity, social class, gender, sexuality, physical ability, and poetic style. We hope to make Split This Rock a regular event – every other year, perhaps – and to nurture and support this nascent community that is just beginning to be born.
Read all of it here.
Silda Wall Spitzer : Not a Happy Camper.Or if we have to see the wife, couldn’t it be as she is throwing his suits, socks and golf clubs on the sidewalk while invoking the name of a ruthless divorce attorney?
I should think that behind the scenes, there has been sobbing, screaming and recriminations – all well deserved. Yet for reasons beyond my ken, the political wife must show the public that she can bury what any cheated-on wife must feel. She must act as if she is unfazed by personal betrayal.
If his apparent ties with a prostitution ring really were a “private matter,” as Spitzer claimed Monday, then couldn’t he have left his wife to deal with the news in private? Instead, the Democrat followed the lead of GOP Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter – and former Democratic New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey – and subjected his wife to an extra helping of gruel on a public podium.
I guess the point of the exercise is to show voters that Spitzer is not such a creep that his wife won’t stand by him. Problem is, by dragging his wife before the public, Client-9 shows himself to be an even bigger creep.
The Emperors Club VIP. Ha. The escort service’s name says it all. Deep down, the reformer didn’t want to be the Sheriff of Wall Street – he wanted to be Nero.
For her part, Silda Spitzer exhibited the good sense not to put a happy face on her situation. She looked completely shocked. She has her own future and three daughters to consider -and deserves the time and space needed to decide where she wants to go from here, and whether her marriage is worth saving.
As a role model for girls, I hope she will think about what feminism has wrought. There was a time in America when husbands cheated on wives and wives stayed with their husbands because they were economically bound to them. Feminism, and the career track it spawned, was supposed to liberate women from unequal marriages. Clearly, it hasn’t.
Spitzer is a Harvard Law School graduate, who once worked as a corporate lawyer for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She likely has never earned the hourly rate an Emperors Club charges for its escorts’ services.
Hillary Clinton is a Yale law school graduate and former corporate lawyer, who like Tammy Wynette chose to stand by her man after he very publicly and repeatedly stepped out on her.
What’s the point? Are these women tigers in the board room who settle for leftovers at home? Did they become high-achievers in their careers only to allow themselves to become support staff in their own marriages?
Former Democratic presidential running mate Geraldine Ferraro has been taking heat this week for telling the Los Angeles Daily Breeze that if Barack Obama “was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.” Camp Obama called Ferraro’s remarks “divisive.”
If a male senator stood by his publicly unfaithful wife, he would not be among the top two Democratic contenders. This country may be ready to put a woman in the White House, but I don’t think Americans are ready to put a male cuckold in the Oval Office.
As the cigarette ad used to say: You’ve come a long way, baby. Look at the cream of the crop of my generation’s feminists. They fought hard to win workplace equality with men, and in many corners, women have achieved parity or come close to parity.
Sort of. Look at today’s political marriages among this first wave of widespread American feminism, and you see that in some marriages women are equal to men, but their men will always be dogs.
“The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigned Tuesday amid speculation about a rift over U.S. policy in Iran,” the AP reports.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Gates said the decision, effective March 31, was entirely Fallon’s and that Gates believed it was “the right thing to do.”
Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
Fallon, who is traveling in Iraq, issued a statement through his U.S. headquarters in Tampa, Fla.
“Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president’s policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region,” Fallon said.
“And although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” Fallon added.
Gates described as “ridiculous” any notion that Fallon’s departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said “there is a misperception” that Fallon disagrees with the administration’s approach to Iran.
“I don’t think there were differences at all,” Gates added.
As ThinkProgress notes, Fallon opposed the “surge” in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials’ saber-rattling “not helpful.” Privately, he vowed that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.”
A blockbuster Esquire article published last week predicted that Fallon would be removed to make way for a general who was more “pliable” to war with Iran:
If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it’ll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him “Fox,” which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. […]
Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon’s statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House.
Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon’s caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) quickly released a statement: “I am concerned that the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and a military leader with more than three decades of command experience, is yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts’ views are not welcomed in this Administration.”
More from AP:
Fallon has had a 41-year Navy career. He took the Central Command post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired. Fallon previously served as commander of U.S. Pacific Command.
President Bush issued a statement saying that Fallon “has served our Nation with great distinction for forty years. He is an outstanding sailor — and he made history as the first naval officer to serve as commander of Central Command. “
Gates said that until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate, Fallon’s place will be taken by his top deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey.
The secretary called Fallon a very able military strategist and said his advice will be missed at the Pentagon.
“I think this is a cumulative kind of thing,” said Gates, speaking of the circumstances leading up to Fallon’s decision. “It isn’t the result of any one article or any one issue.”
“As I say, the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, ‘ridiculous,’ ” he said.
From Janet Gilles / The Rag Blog
Warfare and Healthcare
by Norman Solomon
It’s kind of logical. In a pathological way.
A country that devotes a vast array of resources to killing capabilities will steadily undermine its potential for healing. For social justice. For healthcare as a human right.
Martin Luther King Jr. described the horrific trendline four decades ago: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
If a society keeps approaching spiritual death, it’s apt to arrive. Here’s an indicator: Nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance, and tens of millions of others are badly under-insured. Here’s another: The United States, the world’s preeminent warfare state, now spends about $2 billion per day on military pursuits.
Gaining healthcare for all will require overcoming the priorities of the warfare state. That’s the genuine logic behind the new “Healthcare NOT Warfare” campaign.
I remember the ferocious media debate over the proper government role in healthcare — 43 years ago. As the spring of 1965 got underway, the bombast was splattering across front pages and flying through airwaves. Many commentators warned that a proposal for a vast new program would bring “socialism” and destroy the sanctity of the free-enterprise system. The new federal program was called Medicare.
These days, when speaking on campuses, I bring up current proposals for a “single payer” system — in effect, Medicare for Americans of all ages. Most students seem to think it’s a good idea. But once in a while, someone vocally objects that such an arrangement would be “socialism.” The objection takes me back to the media uproar of early 1965.
Today, we’re left with the unfulfilled potential of Medicare for all. It could make healthcare real as a human right. And it could spare our society a massive amount of money now going to administrative costs and corporate gouging. At last count, annual insurance-industry profits reached $57.5 billion in 2006.
On Capitol Hill, lobbyists for the corporate profiteers are determined to block H.R. 676, the bill to create a universal single-payer system to implement healthcare as a human right.
In the current presidential campaign, none of the major candidates can be heard raising the possibility of ejecting the gargantuan insurance industry from the nation’s healthcare system. Instead, there’s plenty of nattering about whether “mandates” are a good idea. Hillary Clinton even has the audacity (not of hope but of duplicity) to equate proposed healthcare “mandates” with the must-pay-in requirements that sustain Social Security and Medicare.
Read all of it here.
Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a “direct operational link” between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn’t due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.
President Bush and his aides used Saddam’s alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had “bulletproof” evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam’s secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.
As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. “The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims,” he said.
The new study, entitled “Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents”, was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a “painful” declassification review.
It was produced by a federally-funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, under contract to the Norfolk, Va.-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.
Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report’s authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.
Read the rest here.
Bush in December 2002: War “Inevitable”
From Democracy Now / March 10, 2008
One of the key architects of the Iraq war has revealed new information on the run-up to the invasion. In a new book defending the war and his own role in planning it, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith quotes President Bush as telling a National Security Council meeting in December 2002 that “war is inevitable.”
The statement came weeks before UN weapons inspectors reported their findings in Iraq and months before Bush delivered his ultimatum that Saddam Hussein leave the country or face invasion.
Feith also criticizes former Secretary of State Colin Powell for publicly cultivating an image as a war skeptic without ever expressing any private opposition. The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to release a long-awaited report this week on the Bush administration’s intelligence claims in the run-up to invading Iraq.
I mean, read the first sentence of what Junior says. Read it!!!
Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog
Be Afraid, Bush. Be Very Afraid.
By Jerome Doolittle
Still mongering fear after all these years of plummeting polls, America’s protector spake thus this week to his troops at the Department of Homeland Security:
We’re in a battle with evil men — I call them evil because if you murder the innocent to achieve a political objective, you’re evil.
The events of September the 11th, 2001 demonstrated the threats of a new era. I say “new” because we found that oceans which separate us from separate — different continents no longer separate us from danger. We saw the cruelty of the terrorists and extremists, and we glimpsed the future they intend for us. In other words, there’s some serious lessons on September the 11th that it’s important for all Americans to remember.
Two years ago, Osama bin Laden warned the American people: “Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished.” All of us, particularly those charged with protecting the American people, need to take the words of this enemy very seriously. And I know you do.
At this moment, somewhere in the world, a terrorist is planning an attack on us. I know that’s an inconvenient thought for some, but it is the truth. And the people in this hall understand that truth. We have no greater responsibility, no greater charge, than to stop our enemies and to protect our fellow citizens.
The wonder of it all is that the nation doesn’t collapse in laughter or shame or both when Bush trots out this evildoer stuff. Let us start by understanding that most fights are not between a good guy and a bad guy. Most fights are between two bad guys. The good guys aren’t hanging around bars looking for trouble; they’re home playing with the kids or watching other people fight on TV.
So, in the interest of reason and common sense, let’s drop all this crap about what a rotten swine Saddam was. Of course he was. He deserved to die a thousand times over.
Let’s put him at ten on the evil meter, okay? And let’s assume that leaving this butcher in power over the last five years would have resulted in the murders of 100,000 innocent Iraqis.
Now let’s do the math, our unit of measurement being Iraqi corpses. According to every calculation of Iraqi casualties, even the Pentagon’s, George W. Bush outscores Saddam on the evil meter by at least five to one and probably closer to ten to one.
Set against that pile of corpses Bush’s good intentions will count for nothing when his personal End Time comes. St. Peter knows what the road to hell is paved with; if Bush actually believes in a Judgment Day, he’d better hope he’s wrong.
When Will Spitzer Finally Pull Out?
by Ward Harkavy / Village Voice / March 10, 2008
Will Eliot Spitzer resign in time for this evening’s network newscasts? I wouldn’t if I were him. I’d wait until right afterwards, so that my smiling face wouldn’t appear simultaneously on every TV set in the Western world.
This is not New York provincialism. Spitzer is practically the most prominent and powerful Democrat in a huge state — Hillary Clinton’s state, Wall Street’s state, the state of millions of Democrats.
Spitzer’s boner really sticks out, even in this day and age. He didn’t just get some on the side. He violated the law, if the federal complaint and published reports are true.
Yes, it will be more important to the country when Citigroup finally collapses. That will be a real disaster.
Still, there’s some meat to this Spitzer thing. In any case, the way it went down was a case of exquisite timing, coming on the heels of last night’s final episode of HBO’s The Wire.
My buddy and former colleague Adamma Ince just texted me:
Looks like Lester got Spitzer on the wire too.
She’s referring to Lester Freamon, the ace detective on that ace investigative entertainment series about political corruption. Lester, adept at tapping and taping politicians, lawyers, and drug dealers, was the shining cop of all “murder police” on that instantly legendary series.
Judging from the complaint that apparently involves Spitzer, there was some pretty good bugging going on against him too.
Lost in the babble over the Spitzer story are the dubious prostitution laws. Why exactly is prostitution criminalized? However, it is, and Spitzer just got finished with a long stint as attorney general, where he hounded others for breaking laws. And now he’s governor.
Is he just another Democrat who can’t keep his dick in his pants? Well, this situation is a lot worse than any sexual escapade of Bill Clinton’s. Spitzer hooked up with a hooker operation, if the federal complaint against him is accurate. And so he violated the Mann Act and other laws. How stupid is that?
Clinton, on the other hand, violated little more than Monica Lewinsky — and she would have paid him to have sex with her.
At least New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey had an excuse for playing around: He was a closeted gay. Yes, he did give his boyfriend a government job, but at least he didn’t break any federal laws, at least that we know of.
McGreevey finally came out and said, “I’m a gay American.”
Spitzer can only say, “I’m a laid American.”
Big deal. But why in the world would Spitzer use an escort service? They all keep records, and there’s plenty of free stuff out there for pols. JFK didn’t write a check to Marilyn Monroe, did he?
Spitzer must have really needed a pro to get his kink on — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And if the federal complaint is true.
In the end, Spitzer appears to be — based on what we know now, which could change any second — not only stupid but also hypocritical.
All over New York, sad-sack whores and chickenheads are being busted, and he doesn’t give a damn what happens to them. Not content with our state’s offerings, the governor of New York goes to D.C. to feast on some high-priced spread. At least that’s what the federal complaint says, if Spitzer is indeed who the feds are calling “Client-9.”
Spitzer’s resignation won’t erase that blow to our tourism industry.
Let’s hope the next governor doesn’t go out of state to get his ashes hauled. If you can’t keep it in your pants, at least keep it in New York.
Spitzer Said to Leave Deposits with Hookers
New York City is ablaze right now in the wake of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s self-confessed link to prostitutes.
Details are numerous, but at the same time they’re hazy. The New York Times broke the story today, but the brothel operation Spitzer allegedly was hooked up was the Emperors’ Club, apparently in D.C., and it was the target of a federal complaint filed last week in New York’s Southern District.
Spitzer apologized mostly to himself in a hasty, brief press conference this afternoon. The 47-page criminal complaint is much juicier, if press reports are to be believed that Spitzer is who the complaint calls “Client-9.”
Hell, Spitzer even set up a tryst just before Valentine’s Day, if the complaint is to be believed.
Also from the complaint: “Client-9” left generous deposits with the hooker operation — no, not that kind, but the ones that ensure that you will leave that kind at some subsequent point.The governor is even quoted, again if you believe that he was indeed Client-9. From the complaint:
Lewis [one of the defendants, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, a k a “Rachelle] asked Client-9 what time he was expecting to have the appointment. Client-9 told Lewis maybe 10 p.m. or so, and asked who it was. Lewis said it was “Kristen,” and Client-9 said, “Great, OK, wonderful.”
It was at that point, the complaint says, that Client-9 haggled over how big a deposit to leave so that he could continue to make regular deposits.
Spitzer’s confessional confab with reporters wasn’t much. But this governor who has railed against moral turpitude will no doubt have to answer many more questions.
To which you can only say: T.S., Eliot.
— Ward Harkavy
And all the skinny on The Emperor’s Club at The Smoking Gun.
From Jim Baldauf / The Rag Blog
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
Winter Soldier Hearings
By Aaron Glantz
10/03/08 “ICH” — – Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven’t heard it before. For four days, from March 13 through March 16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will descend on Washington and testify in the “Winter Soldier” hearings about what they really did while they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren’t pretty.
The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Paine was trying to keep Washington’s army from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lawless Atmosphere
“The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, argued former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector. “So when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity.”
Laituri explained that precedent of lawlessness makes itself felt in the rules of engagement handed down by commanders to soldiers on the front lines. When he was stationed in Samarra, for example, he said one of his fellow soldiers shot an unarmed man while he walked down the street.
“The problem is that that soldier was not committing a crime as you might call it because the rules of engagement were very clear that no one was supposed to be walking down the street,” Laituri said. “But I have a problem with that. You can’t tell a family to leave everything they know so you can bomb the shit out of their house or their city. So while he definitely has protection under the law, I don’t think that legitimates that type of violence.”
Not Just Numbers
Aaron Hughes, a former member of the Illinois National Guard who spent a year running convoys in Iraq, is getting involved too. “We’re trying to create a space for veterans to speak out and change the rhetoric around the war,” he said. “There are human beings on both sides. There are not just numbers. That’s what missing in our culture.”
Hughes grew up in a basement apartment in Chicago and joined the National Guard when he saw how successfully it provided relief during heavy flooding on the Mississippi River.
But after being sent to Iraq, he came to see the military in a different way. An art student at the University of Illinois at the time he was called up, Hughes went back over the photos he took while deployed in Iraq and altered them in an “attempt to interpret the posture assumed as a soldier/tourist in the surreal space of Iraq.” Hughes’ work was been shown at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago.
“I think it’s wrong, looking back at it,” he said. “How can you not perceive it as a step away from your humanity? They automatically start isolating you. They tell you your girlfriend or your husband is not going to be there. They tell you not to trust anyone but the military and they really start fostering that as your sole relationship in life.”
Equally Criminal Wars
The veterans also want to stress the similarities between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The exact same units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are getting sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan,” explained Perry O’Brien, a former U.S. Army Medic who became a conscientious objector after his tour in Afghanistan. “What we’re seeing is a lot of similarities between practices in both countries and both are equally criminal.”
O’Brien even witnessed the abuse of dead bodies during his tour. “When a patient would die, we would hear over the PA system an announcement through the clinic saying ‘Who wants to learn how to do a chest tube?’ or ‘Who wants to know what a human heart looks like?,’” he said. “Rather than giving the proper treatment of the dead, the body would become a cadaver for medical practice with no consent from the victim.”
Read all of it here.
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
