Friday, May 14, 2004

Posted here Friday, May 14, 2004 at 4:46:59 PM     Interview on line with teh soldier's lawyer in the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24592-2004May13.html Guy Womack: No. The best evidence of anything is a picture and The Washington Post published a picture Friday of last week that shows a civilian contractor intelligence employee gripping a naked Iraqi prisoner in a pile of three prisoners and it also shows four Army military intelligence personnel who are directing the setup of an interrogation. Spec. Graner is in the photo standing, watching. So we have visual proof of what we have been saying. If you read Sivits' statements given under oath to CID investigators, he denies any wrongdoing himself yet according to the government he is going to be pleading guilty to some crimes this coming Wednesday, May 19, so it is very clear that his sworn statements are false. I cannot imagine how the government can prevent the emergence of many other names and threads. ********

Posted here Friday, May 14, 2004 at 11:28:51 AM     Background on why Zarqawi survives shoing interaction betwen strategy and speech writing. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_03/003430.php ********

Posted here Friday, May 14, 2004 at 11:21:13 AM     Ralph Peters, a faurly military minded guy, wrote about Rumsfeld in the blatantly militarist new York Post where he is a columnist, http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20841.htm Differing opinions are punished in today's Pentagon - and every field general who has spoken plainly of the deficiencies of either the non-plan for the occupation of Iraq, the lack of sufficient troops (in Iraq or overall) or any aspect of Rumsfeld's "transformation" plan has seen his career ended. It isn't treason to tell the truth in wartime. But it verges on treason to lie. And Rumsfeld lies.... What of that much-touted transformation so beloved of the neocons? In fact, it's just a plain old con, with nothing neo about it. The Office of the Secretary of Defense hasn't canceled one of the real budget-buster weapons systems designed for the Cold War and kept alive by lobbyists.... Rumsfeld's "vision" was to lavish money on the defense industry and administration-friendly contractors, while sending too few troops to war, with too little battlefield equipment, inadequate supplies and no long-range plan.... Contractors grow rich. The Army grows exhausted. And every single prediction about the future of warfare made by the Rumsfeld gang proved incorrect..... Even if none of the above mattered, Rumsfeld needs to go because he has utterly lost the trust of the officer corps. He isn't a leader. He's an arrogant ideologue unfit to serve our democracy And read also the Military Times editorial. http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php ********

Posted here Friday, May 14, 2004 at 11:05:53 AM     Why has none of the Senators in the hearings asked the obvious _ whoauthorized this use of the hoods, they were ordered and delivered, planned for..? http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the now-infamous pictures and an even more damning report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed. But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership. The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes. ********