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 Sunday, March 21, 2004
Different takes on Yee. There are a lot of ways to tell the latest story of U.S. Army Capt. James Yee, a Fort Lewis-based soldier who served as a chaplain to detainees at Guantanamo Bay before being arrested on suspicion of espionage. Here's a look at the different tacks taken by newspapers around the country. [seattlepi.com Buzzworthy]
More on James Yee. The military has dropped all charges against James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay prison who they had accused of being part of an espionage ring. It's been clear for quite awhile that the charges were ludicrous... [Body and Soul]
Lot of info on James Yee, West Point grad, who was placed in solitary confinement for 76 days, threatened with the death penalty, and called a terrorist. All charges have been dropped. Isn't that nice? Sure makes me comfortable with letting the government have increased abilities to harass and arrest its own citizens. Why was this man targeted? If he had not been able to have someone provide a defense, if a lawyer had not had access to him, would he still be under arrest? After releasing 3 Brits from Gitmo after holding them for two years, again with no charges, it makes you wonder how many others are being held improperly. 9:56:32 PM 
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Bush gear made in Burma. Even Bush campaign gear is outsourced. And not to China,... [Daily Kos]
A pretty bad mistake. Selling gear made in a foreign country, and one with horrible civil rights protections, on a campaign website. What a nice symbol of their compassion. 9:18:14 PM
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Bush's war continues unabated. 36 US killed this month already. 161 wounded. Too bad... [Daily Kos]
Something else we are not hearing about much anymore. Are they being forgotten for giving their lives in the service of their country? 9:17:02 PM
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Why We Don't Have Enough Armored Humvees. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, the excellent Greg Jaffee explains why we don't have enough armored humvees. One of many reasons is that the Pentagon believed the year-2000 campaign claims of George W. Bush that the era of "nation-building" and "peace-keeping" was over:
WSJ.com - Cold-War Thinking Prevented
Vital Vehicle From Reaching Iraq: A decade ago, the Army began producing an armored Humvee capable of providing protection from many roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. Like most soldiers in Iraq, Capt. Cameron Birge hasn't set foot in one of those vehicles. Instead, he leads convoys through one of the country's most violent regions in a Humvee -- the modern successor to the Jeep -- with a sheet-metal skin that can't even stop bullets from a small-caliber handgun. To shield himself, Capt. Birge removed his Humvee's canvas doors and welded on slabs of scrap metal. He spread Kevlar blankets over the seats and stacked sandbags on the floor. On the eve of the war in Iraq, just 2% of the Army's world-wide fleet of 110,000 Humvees were armored, and the Army was planning to cut back its purchases. As late as last May, the Army saw little need for the armored Humvee, saying it needed only 235 of them in Iraq. Only in October, with its soldiers under daily attack, did the Army decide it needed 3,100 armored Humvees. Today, the requirement stands at 4,500 and climbing -- a number the Army doesn't expect to hit in Iraq until late this summer or early fall.... [Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)]
Read the entire article. Another example of poor planning. After Somalia, how could we send anyone over there for ground combat in cities without having the vehicles armored? Why are we just now hearing about this, after a year? 9:14:45 PM
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I Don't Bake Cookies. I'm sure this quote will set off a media firestorm as it did when Senator Clinton made a similar remark.
"I don't bake cookies," Laura Bush says now, after three years of wrestling with how she will define and be defined by the mantle of first lady, a job with pressures but no instructions and a title she says she detests.
Oh, and she just loves her live gay friends who should "welcome the debate" about whether or not discrimination should be enshrined in the constitution.
She defended her husband's call for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, while acknowledging that she and her husband have gay friends. "They ought to welcome the debate," she said of gays who saythe amendment would relegate them to second-class citizenship.
[Eschaton]
What, is Laura somehow channeling Hilary? Why is it okay for a Republican wife to say this but not a Democratic wife? 9:04:37 PM
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Arlen Specter Lies to the American People. From the campaign of Joe Hoeffel:
PHILADELPHIA, PA: On CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, Sen. Arlen Specter told America that the Bush Administration NEVER CLAIMED a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
I hope that Mr. Specter just wasn't listening to his friends in the Bush Administration, because it would be simply incredible if he was willing to go on national television and lie for them,Hoeffel spokesman Tom Hickey said today.
Specter Claim:
The Bush administration never made any claim that there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.? âo[base "] Senator Arlen Specter, 3/21/04
Bush Administration Claims:
You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.? President Bush, 9/25/02
There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.? President Bush, 9/17/03
'There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there.' - Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04
There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.? Vice President Cheney, 9/14/03
'Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal nonaggression discussions.' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 9/26/02
'There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented.' National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, 9/25/02
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ATTACHMENT:
Full text of the exchange on CNN's Late Edition from March 22, 2004:
BLITZER: Well, the 9/11 commission, Senator Specter and Senator Rockefeller, will be hearing testimony this coming week from Clinton administration officials, potentially significant testimony from the former secretary of state, the former national security adviser.
But Richard Clarke also writes this in his new book. He writes: "I think they wanted to believe there was a connection" -- referring to Bush administration officials -- "a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. But the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We have looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked for a connection, and there's just no connection. There's absolutely no evidence Iraq was supporting al Qaeda.'"
You're the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Was there evidence -- and you brought in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that name just a little while ago, widely associated with Ansar al-Islam, believed to be associated in some way with al Qaeda. Isn't that a connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda?
ROCKEFELLER: No, in that he was up in that Kurdish area, Ansar al-Islam, which was not under the control of Saddam Hussein.
He now has connections with al Qaeda. He might have had temporary connections with al Qaeda then. Now he has a lot of them. In other words, that's what not finding WMD, not finding, you know, terrorism, not finding a variety of things that the president said, this is the reason to go to war...
BLITZER: So your bottom line is, there is no evidence of any serious connection...
ROCKEFELLER: No, only...
BLITZER: ... between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden?
ROCKEFELLER: The only -- no, they hated each other.
BLITZER: All right.
What about that, Senator Specter?
SPECTER: I agree with Senator Rockefeller. There had been a lot of talk about one meeting in Eastern Europe, but it never panned out. And the Bush administration never made any claim that there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. If there had been, if it could have been proved, it would have been dynamite, but there just wasn't any evidence to support it.
[Eschaton]
How can these guys get away with such blatant misrepresentations of the truth. When the President of the US says that 'You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam' any right thinking person would believe that there is a connection. When the Vice President of the US says 'There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda', any right thinking person would believe that there is a connection.
When Clinton parsed all those words about 'sex' and the defintion of 'is' he was crucified by the politicians. But no one was sent off to die because of those obfuscations. Now these guys are parsing the exact meaning of what the President said. trying to confuse the issue, on something that continues to kill people daily. Everyone knew exactly what Clinton meant when he spoke his words, just as we know what Bush meant when he spoke his. Which is the worse crime? 9:01:33 PM
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Richard Clarke's Book. I didn't see the 60 Minutes interview yet, though I will shortly. You can buy his book here - currently #5 at Amazon!
... Okay, watched. It was really pretty devastating, with no actual factual rebuttal. I thought Stahl did okay. What I object to most is the perpetuation of the idea that even disagreeing with the president is somehow treasonous or disloyal. Stahl did flirt with this, but much less than most of the Heathers do these days. [Eschaton]
I saw it also. what I found very interesting is that Clarke's position as head of terrorism was lowered from a Cabinet level position to a staff one by Bush well before 9/11. Clarke worked for Bush for another 2 years but how can anyone say they were focussed on terror before 9/11, yet reduce the importance of the main office responsible for it. This, in combination with the Administration's attempts to prevent several hundred million dollars from being spent on anti-terror efforts in the DAYS before 9/11 sure seems to demonstrate that terror was not very big on the radar screen, even though the experts were telling them so, and had done so even before they took office.
Clarke is even more devastating describing what the Administration was doing after 9/11. No wonder they do not want the 9/11 commission to have much access. The commission is being run by the very people who were involved. Talk about the fox watching the hen house. I can see why someone who had spent his whole life working for 4 different presidents would be rightly pissed when he saw the sham that was being foisted.
It now appears that the old Spanish government finally had to quite stonewalling and admit that Al-queda might have been involved in the train bombing because the independent investigators threatened to resign if that farce was kept going. The problem with leading people on is some in very high position will not let you do that for very long. Some people have too much honor for that. 8:46:03 PM
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Photographer and QTVR enthusiast 
