Thursday, June 7, 2007

A Pentagon project to develop a 'Robot teddy bear' for use in Afghanistan and Iraq, "is expected to be ready for testing in the field in five years." [Cursor.org] 11:32:06 AM    comment []

Report: 39 People Disappear in US Custody. Six human rights groups on Wednesday released a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown, calling on the Bush administration to abandon such detentions. [t r u t h o u t] 11:27:32 AM    comment []

The Ninth Man Out: Was a U.S. Attorney Fired for Helping Cancer Victims?. When a Kansas City pharmacist was convicted of diluting drugs for cancer patients, former U.S. Attorney Tom Graves thought the victims and their families should be compensated. The FBI thought otherwise. [AlterNet.org] 8:12:20 AM    comment []

Paul Rieckhoff: As The Turkish Army Storms Into Iraq, CNN Is Stupider Than Usual. Yesterday, when I heard that thousands of Turkish troops may have crossed the border into Iraq, I was extremely concerned. Turkey has been building up its military forces on the Iraqi border for some time. There has been intense debate in Ankara among political and military leaders about whether to attack separatist rebels of the PKK. When I heard of Turkey's latest move, I feared that the Iraq war was quickly spilling into a larger regional conflict, so I turned on CNN for the latest. And here's what I saw: That's right, CNN's headline: "Teen, Sex, Prison." I guess the producers couldn't find an excuse for "Live XXX Girls." This story, about a teenager imprisoned for statutory rape, repeated throughout the morning. It wasn't until mid-afternoon that CNN provided any substantive coverage of the situation in northern Iraq. The coverage lasted for maybe five minutes - before CNN returned to footage of...yet another missing teenager. It was just as bad at CNN.com. There I found a brief story on the incursion between headlines including "Man tries to jump onto popemobile," "Jumbo squid swarming off California coast," and "Jericho' fans assail CBS with 25 tons of peanuts." I really, really wish I were kidding. Of course, Turkey has sent limited numbers of troops into Kurdistan before, as a part of its anti-terrorist policies. And, since reports are conflicted, it's not clear how many Turkish troops are in Iraq right now. But the possible consequences of foreign forces in Iraq are dire, according to the Iraq Study Group Report: [base ']Ä¢ "A broader regional war." [base ']Ä¢ "Humanitarian catastrophe... as more refugees are forced to relocate across the country and the region." [base ']Ä¢ "Ethnic cleansing" [base ']Ä¢ "A Pandora's box of problems--including the radicalization of populations, mass movements of populations, and regime changes--that might take decades to play out. If the instability in Iraq spreads to the other Gulf States, a drop in oil production and exports could lead to a sharp increase in the price of oil and thus could harm the global economy." I can only hope that if these terrible (and increasingly likely) events do occur, CNN will break away from the intense coverage of issues like the judge who fixed divorce cases for cigars, and Paris Hilton's latest shenanigans. And I don't even want to know what will be on Fox. [The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed] 7:42:03 AM    comment []

Joseph A. Palermo: Scooter On Ice. So Scooter Libby gets 30 months in prison for obstructing a federal investigation into the Valerie Plame leak case. But the man he was protecting, Dick Cheney, roams free to play with his new grandchild and to tell anyone who will listen that the time is ripe for a U.S. military attack on Iran. The $250,000 fine the judge also slapped on Scooter is chump change compared to the multi-million dollar book deal that awaits him upon release. During the Republican presidential debates, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter said they would pardon Libby but offered no viable reason for it other than the fact that he is a fellow Republican. Evidently, Republicans are very tough on crime unless they are the ones committing it. And Rudy "Thank-God-George-Bush-is-President" Giuliani says he believes the 30-month sentence is excessive, and "argues in favor of a pardon." Naturally, Rudy would like to see Scooter cleared since he would hate to have a federal prosecutor nose around his "business" ties with Bernard Kerik. As mayor of New York, Giuliani was in a perfect position to throw lucrative "security" contracts to companies connected to Police Commissioner Kerik in what appear to have been thinly veiled kickback schemes. At the time of 9/11, Commissioner Kerik was too busy swapping bodily fluids with the puff publisher Judith Regan in their secret taxpayer-supplied lover's lair to pay much attention to the "security" of New York City, other than to reap a personal fortune from the tragedy. (Not since Tristan and Isolde was there ever a more poignant love match than Bernard Kerik and Judith Regan: "So through the eyes love attains the heart/For the eyes are the scouts of the heart.") Rudy convinced President Bush to appoint Kerik Secretary of Homeland Security until Kerik abruptly withdrew his nomination after only a week fearing his organized crime connections might surface during his confirmation hearings. Kerik has since vanished like a ghost from Giuliani's past, rubbed out as thoroughly from the public mind as the late Jimmy Hoffa. The judge in the Scooter Libby case received letters in support of Cheney's former hatchet man from Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. That's kind of like John Gotti getting letters of recommendation from Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, and Tony "Big Tuna" Arcata. Scooter Libby is the first convicted felon from the inner sanctum of the Bush White House. Let's hope that he will not be the last. Shouldn't Cheney share the prison cell of his former underling for his role in driving the country into war based on lies and deceit? [The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed] 7:33:33 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2007 Patricia Thurston.