Bush and The Detainees

According to a bipartisan Senate Armed Service Committee report, Bush approved of the torture of the detainees at Guantanamo and stated that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Bush’s war with Al Qaeda.

The executive summary also traces the erosion of detainee treatment standards to a Feb,. 7, 2002, memorandum signed by President George W. Bush stating that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the U.S. war with al Qaeda and that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or legal protections.

“The president’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment,” the summary said.

Members of Bush’s Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed, according to the report.

As result of the policies of Bush, Rumsfeld and some other top Bush members, numerous detainee murders occurred.  According to autopsy results, some detainees died as a result of trauma.

It is probably inevitable that some prisoners who reportedly die of “natural causes” in truth died of homicide. However, the nature of Armed Forces’ medical investigations made this kind of error more likely. The AFME reported homicide as the cause of death in 10 of the 23 death certificates released in May 2004. The death of Mohamed Taiq Zaid was initially attributed to “heat”; it is currently and belatedly being investigated as a possible homicide due to abusive exposure to the hot Iraqi climate and deprivation of water.

Eight prisoners suffered “natural” deaths from heart attacks or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Threats, beatings, fear, police interrogation, and arrests are known to cause “homicide by heart attack” or life-threatening heart failure. People with preexisting heart disease, dehydration, hyperthermia, or exhaustion are especially susceptible.[11–15] No forensic investigation of lethal “heart attacks” explores the possibility that these men died of stress-induced heart attacks. There are a number of reports of “heart attack” following harsh procedures in rounding up noncombatants in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A typically sketchy US Army report says, “Detainee Death during weekend combat …. Army led raid this past weekend of a house in Iraq … an Iraqi who was detained and zip-locked (flexi-cuffed with plastic bands tying his wrists together) died while in custody. Preliminary information is that the detainee died from an apparent heart attack.[16]” Sher Mohammad Khan was picked up in Afghanistan in September 2004. Shortly thereafter, his bruised body was given to his family. Military officials told journalists that he had died of a heart attack within hours of being taken into custody. No investigation, autopsy, or death certificate is available.[17]

Instead of exposing the Bush administration for their criminal behavior, the media is consumed with the Blagojevich story.  It’s true that Blagojevich has done unethical and illegal activities.  No one died because of Blagojevich’s poor judgement.  Many Iraqis, Afgans and 4000+ Americans have lost their lives because of Bush’s illegal behavior and poor judgement.   The difference in the stories is sensationalism.  Our media is so focused on sensational stories that other more important news gets passed by.

Read more about this at Slate.com.  Glenn Greenwald has more to say about this lack of integrity by our media.

Special thanks to Buzzflash for the link to this story.  While you are visiting Buzzflash, check out their “Premiums“.

Guantanamo

From Kamelot “Human Stain”… that’s what Bush is leaving on the world.  His nasty stain.

Obama in Afghanistan

In Their Boots…

The Republicans talk about John McCain’s war experience. John McCain spent most of his Vietnam military time as a POW. Not to make light of that, but John McCain didn’t spend much time in direct combat. George W Bush spent his military time during the Vietnam War pretending to be a combat pilot and then when he tired of that, he went AWOL and was protected by his father’s rich and influential friends. Barnacle Dick Cheney, well, lets just say he had a “doctor’s excuse”.

And then there is “Support Our Troops” which is nothing more than a yellow ribbon magnet made in China. The media has been ignoring our troops and Bush and Cheney certainly don’t discuss the troops. And McCain, well, he was against the Webb military bill before he was for it and never showed up to vote for the bill. His fundraiser was more important than voting to support our troops.

For these veterans, there was no avoiding combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is their story.

There’s a new website, In Their Boots, which will have weekly live Internet shows. I’ll let the producer explain.

Over the past several months, as we gathered our staff and began to meet the men and women who have served, we knew that it would be a privilege to be able to share the stories of these servicemembers and their families so that the other 99% of the US population can better understand what is happening to our troops when they return from war.

We wanted to do something different than our usual short videos with this project, so we developed an idea for a LIVE internet-based show and decided to call it In Their Boots to let the audience know they would be hearing the information from the servicemembers’ points of view.

The show premieres today, Wednesday July 2nd, at 4pm Pacific/5 Mountain/6 Central/7 Eastern at www.intheirboots.com. The stories are riveting and the show will be broadcast LIVE. You will have the opportunity to hear the stories from these servicemembers, learn about organizations that are helping, and find out how you can help as well.

The show will be broadcast from our brand new studio (it was a beauty parlor just 2 months ago), not quite finished since we are still doing some fundraising, but looking pretty good. Since it is LIVE, we invite you all to join the discussion and become part of webcast history by asking our interview guest a question, live, “on the air.”

We are proud of what we have put together and we hope that you all tune in to see this. Please let us know what you think of it as well. And if you miss any part of the episode, be sure to check it out on our site: www.intheirboots.com. We plan on producing a new episode every Wednesday, live at 4pm Pacific.

I hope to hear from you soon. As always, thank you for your support.

Best,
Jim Miller
and the Brave New Foundation team

—-
Brave New Foundation is supported by members like you, please consider making a donation. Our videos are available via email, RSS, YouTube and iTunes here.

We are located at 10510 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 and info@bravenewfoundation.org

Take the time to visit and make a donation.’

UPDATE: Then there is this…

A Dollar Fifty Patriot

A Dollar Fifty Patriot

 

(

 

or why I don’t celebrate memorial day)

 

Monday is officially Memorial Day. This weekend, however, our nation’s beaches will be full of laughing half-naked tourists looking to shake that pale, white tone of skin they earned through a winter full of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Superbowl dinners. The stores will be full of shoppers eager to make a penny on a buck savings on cheap, dime-store plastic items they really don’t need. Backyards will be spent grilling and barbecuing cholesterol laden foods which will inevitably cause a night’s worth of painful indigestion. Alcohol will be consumed by the gallons to be rewarded by a Monday or Tuesday morning hangover. All to remember our fallen dead.

Memorial Day is to be celebrated as a day of remembrance; to honor those who have fallen in the service of our country. Originally started to remember the dead of the Civil War, the holiday has grown to encompass all of the wars of the 19^th, 20^th ,and now 21^st century. Overall, including the Revolutionary War, some 1.2 to 1.3 million men and women have answered the call and have paid the ultimate price for their country.

On Memorial Day, everyone feels patriotic. Flags, not ordinarily seen during the year, will come out in droves. Kids will paint their faces in red,white and blue colors and people will pat a veteran, one whom they probably never would have talked to otherwise, on the back to say, ‘good job’. Everyone can be a patriot and for a ‘buck fifty’ you can buy those cheap yellow decals to put on your car that says, “I support the troops”. For one day, everyone can feel as if they’ve done their part.

But have they?

It’s nice that you take a day to honor our serviceman who’ve died for our nation, even when our nation was in the wrong, but what about the other 363 days?

Ask anyone on the street if they know what happened in Iraq today and you’ll get a “I don’t know” answer. Ask about Afghanistan and you’ll get a response of ‘where’s that’?

Ask a person on the street how many have died in the Iraq War and you’ll get a range of answers from about a hundred to ten thousand (4,069 as of last week). But while they cannot remember how many fell in battle this month they sure as hell can tell you who is still standing on American Idol or how many rebounds a NBA player made or homeruns their first baseman hit.

You see, I don’t think that America is feeling the sting of this war enough. Other than having to pay over $4 bucks for gas, they just aren’t feeling this war as our parents and grandparents did in Viet Nam or the Second World War. I don’t see rationing of any kind. I don’t see posters asking you to buy war bonds. I don’t see recruiters on the streets or a lottery being held to determine the draft. I do, however, see a lot of people at Starbucks and with heavy shopping bags at local malls.

Where’s the love?

“I support the troops” this funny, little decal, made in China, says but do you really? When is the last time you even visited a military base? When is the last time you ever visited a hospital to comfort the wounded? Do you even know that many returning veterans are still not receiving the care they deserve? How about our troops in the field? How are they?

While we come home to the safety of our homes, our soldiers live in the field, sleeping on the ground, in the cold, dusty, hard sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. Showering is a luxury and hot meals ever more while people back home are stopping off at McDonald’s on their way home or stuffing themselves at Red Lobster.

Patriotism is much more than waving a red, white and blue flag or having a yellow decal on your car. It’s much more than voting Republican or joining the American Legion. It’s much more than talking big at a bar, fueled by alcoholic liquid courage, about how many Iraqis you’d kill if you were there. If you belief in it that much, you should do something about it.

Talk, my friends, is cheap.

Patriotism, my dear, unforgiving countrymen, is about sacrifice which very few are willing to perform.

Sacrifice means giving up something freely for another. In America, I just don’t see much of that. You may call me bias, but as I walk through the Center City portion of Philadelphia, that famed City of Brotherly Love, I am still ashamed of the growing number of homeless people which many of us here pass on by without a second glance. By the way, the number of homeless veterans (Iraq and Afghanistan) is growing at an alarming rate. It stands currently at 1 in 4 but looks to go even higher.

So, I ask, where is your support?

Employers continue to look the other way at a returning vet. Why? Because they are afraid of having to pay the bill if our returning soldier should suffer effects of PTSD or incur a recurring health problem. It’s better just not to hire them than to have to get involved. So, our vet, our returning hero, comes home to no job, finding himself collecting unemployment and welfare. In an instant, he went from hero to bum.

Where is your support?

Why are there no cries when our President refuses to grant a GI Bill to repay those who’ve served their country with benefits to go to college? Why are people not ringing the phones off the hooks of our Senators and Representatives? Why aren’t people holding our politicians responsible for how our vets and soldiers are being treated?

I just don’t think you are getting it people.

But, I guess people need to feel their comforts; to be a part of something even when they are not. They need to drown themselves in a 12 pack of Bud or a face full of hamburger. They need to walk around with blinders on. To continue living their lives as if nothing is wrong. To wrap themselves around their flag and bang their drums and talk their talk of devotion and duty from the safety of their home.

That dollar fifty patriot must sure feel good about themselves.

I can’t celebrate Memorial Day anymore. It’s a fake holiday with a fake sense of patriotism. I won’t celebrate it because I feel that we should be remembering our soldiers every day and not just once a year.

America, be proud!

Welcome home boys! Fire up the grill!

phillyblues@paforchange.com