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Catch up? Let go?

Catch up? Let go?

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I’ve been feeling a certain amount of (self-imposed) pressure to keep up with every action and every political development here. Obviously, I can’t do that. There are people who actually receive a salary to do so, and you can find them all over the web. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I would be disappointed in McCain and others for caving on the torture provisions, that I would probably rant on the strategy of seeming to attack the Geneva Conventions directly (knowing it wouldn’t fly) only to “settle” on grandfathered pardons for CIA torturers and the introduction of “alternative procedures” and the ability to label anyone they want to as a terrorist – which is what they wanted in the first place. America the beautiful, torturer in chief. So on and so on. A lot has been happening.

And of course, I have a number of backlogged announcements in my email. Attorney General Gonzales actually stood up to defend the actions of the US in the false imprisonment, rendition to Syria, and torture of an innocent Canadian. Baghdad’s Camp Cropper, which started out as a bunch of tents, is now a $60 million “state-of-the-art” prison, paid for by us. Another industry anti-regulation ideologue (Susan Dudley) has been nominated by the White House for a position that requires the opposite concerns of the person nominated. This time it’s at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office that makes decisions about the safety of the air we breathe, the cars we drive, the medicines we take and the water we drink. Top housing official (Alphonso Jackson) has been instructing staff to cut out Democrats when awarding HUD contracts – in violation of the law, of course. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) gets to keep his congressional pension after he serves his prison time for selling his votes for money. Government auditors responsible for monitoring leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover more than $30 million from energy companies that were cheating the government. The National Black Republican Association is running an ad accusing Democrats of starting the Ku Klux Klan. They also say Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Sigh. Medicare physician payment rates are set to be cut by more than 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2007, and by nearly 40 percent over the next nine years, just as Baby Boomers are starting to retire. The FCC destroyed their own study when it proved media consolidation reduces local news coverage. Yada yada.

I can’t keep up with the landslide of these kinds of stories, and even if I could, I’m not sure that it really makes much difference. So you may notice some changes in the blog. I’m not going to try to cover the whole range. I’m just going to address what I’m thinking about that day. It might be political, or cultural, or religious, or creative, or just silly. We’ll see.

I’m still looking for a full-time job, and increasingly disappointed that my Ph.D. hasn’t allowed me to net a job here. I’ve not limited my search to the fields of my training. I’ve not limited my search even to academia. I’ve always worked part-time, even while I was in graduate school, but I don’t have a “last salary” to enter on an internet form. I would be an asset in many ways, except perhaps in accounting or sales (it’s a little too much like “witnessing” for me). I’ve been applying for several jobs a week over the last two years. Bupkis! – a big nothing.

I’m just a bit discouraged. However, I have a lot to be happy about, too. One great thing about getting older is that you get better at dealing with life’s oddities.

Here’s the thing, though. Just when you might be feeling that you’re doing pretty well (all things considering), the big black boot in the sky appears to smash into your head. “Wake up and pay attention! Time to grow again! It’s GOOD for your CHARACTER!” It’s been a while since I really felt existentially shaken, and I guess it was time for me to take some kind of next step. It’s strange the way some things can affect you more than others. Sometimes, I’m calm and collected in the middle of chaos and disaster. Other times, something that doesn’t look like such a catastrophe can knock me down on my butt.

I’ve been knocked down in a way that has been affecting the way I respond to everything for the last couple of days. I’ve got to find a better way through it. It’s a challenge, something much more difficult even than I would have thought it would be (if I had thought about it). A family member has acquired some mistaken and surprisingly negative ideas about me. I spent much of yesterday trying to respond to an email that made me burst into sobs whenever I looked at it. I’m not normally much of a weeper – I’m more of a stoic, or maybe – in extreme situations – a cocoonist. The assumptions and views that were expressed – and what they implied – deeply, deeply hurt me in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t know whether or not we will be able to work out the problems and misunderstandings, and the repercussions of not doing so would be very sad for both our families. I’ve responded as best I can, but I suspect that it won’t make much difference. It feels like a fundamental loss, a kind of death. It might even be just mourning for something that was never really there in the first place. Right now, I couldn’t say for sure.

I’m blown back, yes, but there are other aspects of my life now that can’t be ignored or abandoned just because I got a big electric shock. That’s a funny image, but that’s what it felt like – one of those cartoons where a character gets hold of a wire or something, and big lightening-bolt images fly from their contact. I could almost hear the sound effect. ZAP-zappp-booOOOm.

So I’m just taking it a bit slower for the next little bit, taking those walks and baths and meditations that I often recommend to others. I’ve done what I can for now, and how it all turns out will be what it will be.

Not Just a Few Bad Apples

Not Just a Few Bad Apples

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ACLU Reveals New Evidence that Government Knew Abuse was Widespread Before Abu Ghraib Photos –

OK, we knew that just by following the tracks of Bush’s legal team…

Still, here’s some more proof for you.

Torture is UnAmerican. Sign the petition.

Army Documents Show Senior Official Reportedly Pushed Limits on Detainee Interrogations (5/2/2006)

NEW YORK — New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to “go to the outer limits” to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

“When our leaders allow and even encourage abuse at the ‘outer limits’, America suffers,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. “A nation that works to bring freedom and liberty to other parts of the world shouldn’t stomach brutality and inhumanity within its ranks. This abuse of power was engineered and accepted at the highest levels of our government.”

Among the documents released today by the ACLU is a May 19, 2004 Defense Intelligence Agency document implicating Sanchez in potentially abusive interrogation techniques. In the document, an officer in charge of a team of interrogators stated that there was a 35-page order spelling out the rules of engagement that interrogators were supposed to follow, and that they were encouraged to “go to the outer limits to get information from the detainees by people who wanted the information.” When asked to whom the officer was referring, the officer answered “LTG Sanchez.” The officer stated that the expectation coming from “Headquarters” was to break the detainees.

The ACLU also released an Information Paper entitled “Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan” dated April 2, 2004, two weeks before the world saw the pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The paper outlined the status of 62 investigations of detainee abuse and detainee deaths. Cases include assaults, punching, kicking and beatings, mock executions, sexual assault of a female detainee, threatening to kill an Iraqi child to “send a message to other Iraqis,” stripping detainees, beating them and shocking them with a blasting device, throwing rocks at handcuffed Iraqi children, choking detainees with knots of their scarves and interrogations at gunpoint.

The ACLU said the document makes clear that while President Bush and other officials assured the world that what occurred at Abu Ghraib was the work of “a few bad apples,” the government knew that abuse was happening in numerous facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 62 cases being investigated at the time, at least 26 involved detainee deaths. Some of the cases had already gone through a court-martial proceeding. The abuses went beyond Abu Ghraib, and touched Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca and other detention centers in Mosul, Samarra, Baghdad, Tikrit, as well as Orgun-E in Afghanistan.

“These documents are further proof that the abuse of detainees was widespread and systemic, and not aberrational,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We know that senior officials endorsed this abuse, but these officials have yet to be held accountable.”

Last week, the government authenticated that two videos released by the Palm Beach Post in March 2005 were videos that the government was withholding from the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act request. The videos are part of a set that has come to be known as the “Ramadi Madness” videos and were made by members of the West Palm Beach-based Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment. The two scenes the government authenticated are called “See Haj Run” and “Blood Clot.” They depict scenes of urban battle and persons being captured and detained by U.S. forces.

Among the more than 9,000 pages of Defense Department documents made public by the ACLU today are several investigations detailing cruel and degrading treatment and killings. The investigations include:

  • An investigation into the death of a detainee at Forward Operating Base Rifles near Al Asad, Iraq established probable cause to believe that several soldiers assaulted a detainee and committed negligent homicide, and conspired to cover up the death. The detainee died when a soldier lifted him up from the floor by placing a baton under his chin, fracturing his hyoid bone. It appears that the soldiers received written letters of reprimand and counseling. The full document is online at www.aclu.org/projects/foiasearch/pdf/DOD049269.pdf
  • A heavily redacted e-mail dated May 25, 2004 shows that a presumed officer or civilian government official was told of three reports of abuse of detainees described as “probably true/valid.” One detainee was “in such poor physical shape from obvious beatings that [name redacted] asked the MP’s to note his condition before he proceeded with interrogation.” Another detainee was “in such bad shape … that he was laying down in his own feces.” These cases seem to have occurred in Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper. The full document is online at www.aclu.org/projects/foiasearch/pdf/DODDIA000208.pdf
  • An investigation shows a doctor cleared a detainee for further interrogations, despite claims he had been beaten and shocked with a taser. The medic confirmed that the detainee’s injuries were consistent with his allegations, stating, “Everything he described he had on his body.” Yet, the medic cleared him for further interrogation, giving him Tylenol for the pain. There is no indication that the medic reported this abuse. The full document is online at www.aclu.org/projects/foiasearch/pdf/DOD052120.pdf

Today’s documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released detailing the torture and abuse of detainees. The ACLU recently launched a new powerful search engine for the public to access the documents at www.aclu.org/torturefoiasearch. The search engine allows people to uncover details about abuse that may not have been reported in the media, said the ACLU.

The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Amrit Singh, Jameel Jaffer and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The documents released today are available online at: action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/050206/

Expanding Prison Camps and Adding Troops

Expanding Prison Camps and Adding Troops

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BBC News Aug 18

Rolling in more troops for prison security, taking in more prisoners, building yet another prison camp.

As the insurgency continues, there are now nearly 11,000 prisoners in major US-run detention centres – twice as many as last September. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last month he would like to give Iraq’s government full responsibility for detainees as soon as was feasible. But the US has offered no timetable for such a handover.

A Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Lt-Col John Skinner, said detention operations in Iraq were expanding. The battalion, from the division’s 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, will be deployed to Iraq over the next two months, Pentagon officials said on Wednesday. It has already served once in Iraq, from September 2003 to April 2004, and before that in Afghanistan. The troops are being prepared to perform duties such as providing security around prison compounds and for transportation of prisoners.

PRISON CAPACITY

Abu Ghraib – expanded to house 4,000
Camp Bucca – 6,000, to take an extra 1,400
Camp Cropper – 100, to take 2,000 more
Fort Suse – to take 2,000

A fourth facility at Fort Suse in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya, 330km (205 miles) north of Baghdad, is expected to be completed next month. The three older prisons are being expanded.

The $50m (£28m) construction programme, announced in June, will eventually allow the US to hold 16,000 prisoners.