Bush Expresses "Deep Disgust"

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by lizbud
Well hey, you joined PT didn't you? LOL.


As to keeping the passengers safe,,,,,,


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ack/index.html

I didn't join, I was catnapped and brainwashed,
I don't have a huge brain, so it was an easy job.


I saw this story and looked into it....The 'party'
was going on at 2:45 in the morning and when I looked at the picture something struck me as strange.....the 'women' in that pic look like men.
I would have liked to havc seen some faces.....idle curiosity......

(why does the CNN news site freeze up my computer?
)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013551/

Here's another perspective....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...0848_2004may19

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ibordervillage


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...illedatwedding



You'll see that in the stories one house was destroyed, in another 100 shells were shot by the helicopter that turns into an AC 130 gunship and where did the jets come from??

And one guy says one house was destroyed, another witness states that 'they attacked until dawn and destroyed ALL the houses'......


And why are the dead taken to the hospital,
but buried near the attack sight?

And why are the dead considered martyrs??? Don't you have to be fighting for something in order to be a martyr?


Too many stories with too many conflicting facts.

I'll wait until the dust clears.

[popcornbird]

Originally posted by RICHARD


I saw this story and looked into it....The 'party'
was going on at 2:45 in the morning and when I looked at the picture something struck me as strange.....the 'women' in that pic look like men.
I would have liked to havc seen some faces.....idle curiosity......

The *women* in what picture? The people in all of the pictures *I* saw WERE men, mourning over the dead bodies of victims. As to having a wedding at 2:45am, that is VERY common in the Eastern part of the world. VERY common. When my cousin in Pakistan got married, they invited everyone at 10pm, and the wedding went on until 3am or so. Its just the way people are there. Go to any one of those countries, and go out in the streets at 2 or 3am. The streets are alive at that time, full of people. Because it is SO hot in those countries during the day, people often shop, celebrate, do things that WE do during the day, late at night. Not odd at all.

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by popcornbird
The *women* in what picture? The people in all of the pictures *I* saw WERE men, mourning over the dead bodies of victims. As to having a wedding at 2:45am, that is VERY common in the Eastern part of the world. VERY common. When my cousin in Pakistan got married, they invited everyone at 10pm, and the wedding went on until 3am or so. Its just the way people are there. Go to any one of those countries, and go out in the streets at 2 or 3am. The streets are alive at that time, full of people. Because it is SO hot in those countries during the day, people often shop, celebrate, do things that WE do during the day, late at night. Not odd at all.

Check the pic at the CNN website.

I'll have to remember that when I get married.

Does everyone shoot at airplanes??

[2kitties]

another relatively unrelated question:

Pops, I'd like to ask you this, and I apologize in advance if you feel the question is inappropriate.
But you are the only Muslim person I *know*, so I'm going to ask.
I know for a fact there are some pretty darn stupid and ignorant people in this world. No point in making apologies for them. And I am fairly certain that life for Muslim Americans changed a great deal after September 11. I am wondering if you or anyone you know has delt with racism (racism is probably not the correct term) but I mean any descrimination or hate crimes due to your skin color and religion since 9-11? Would you care to share?

[lizbud]

Richard,

CNN has your number. Check out this account of the
attack from BBC.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3732655.stm

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by lizbud
Richard,

CNN has your number. Check out this account of the
attack from BBC.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3732655.stm

If they really wanted to make a point--

Where are the pics of the hubby and wife?

The town that was leveled?

The tent where the ceremony was being held?

Terrorists always hide amongst the masses so when they
are challenged by a police action, innocent people get killed.

In the past , journalists would take pics of the whole area.

You know, houses, dead live stock and the aftermath.

I have grown immune to seeing scenes of dead people and the survivors, shaking their fists in the air, cursing.

I have grown immune to the scenes of a funeral procession, bodies draped in a flag hoisted aloft by hooded pall bearers, bystanders busting caps from full-on-auto Kalishnikovs....

I don't know why, but the scene reminds me of a disturbed ant hill-it's chaos.

The reason that we never get a good view of what is happening
in Iraq is that both sides print what they feel fit to show.

I just think that printing pictures of dead bodies doesn't do anything for the story. Pictures of dead bodies are just that.....Dead bodies.

No disrespect to the dead meant....
They are dehumanized in death...we have no concept of who they were, where or how they lived. It's just another dead body.

Had someone printed pics say, showing the wedding tent or the homes destroyed, I'd think different......
You sell more papers and get the masses a little more riled up when you print a picture of a puddle of blood amid the flowers and decorations of a wedding. Put a human spin on it....


I have been to a wedding. But not where bullets and bombs come flying thru the walls. I never have scratched out a
grave site in the dirt to bury any of my relatives......I have never shot off any of my guns to celebrate a marriage......

This is a perfect case for the media to show us exactly what happened.....Instead we get the "bubble-headed bleach blonde with a gleam in her eyes" pitching the tease right before the commercial......

"And we'll be back with more on the attack of the wedding celebration in Iraq......."

They show the same pics and you get a different body count, number of missles and number of houses destroyed....

Since I haven't seen any pics (that any credible new organization would run) of anything but dead bodies I don't have any proof
that there was a wedding going on.....or pics of the destroyed town.........Sorry, I am going to have to postpone my outrage on this story.......

I need just a little more info.

---------------------------------------

At times I listen to Rush Limbaugh (lol, it's great comedy).
Yesterday he had a soldier fresh from Iraq on the show..

The soldier made this comment when asked about his fear of being in Iraq. He stated that he was "more afraid watching the news reports on televison" than he was of actually being there.

Sometimes I wonder.

[lizbud]

" At times I listen to Rush Limbaugh (lol, it's great comedy).
Yesterday he had a soldier fresh from Iraq on the show..

The soldier made this comment when asked about his fear of being in Iraq. He stated that he was "more afraid watching the news reports on televison" than he was of actually being there."


No doubt the guy might be afraid. he might just be in one of
the pictures or videos.


I don't think I'll post anymore on this issue. This whole mess in Iraq is very disturbing and sad. People can follow the news
anywhere, if they want to know what's going on.

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by lizbud
[B


No doubt the guy might be afraid. he might just be in one of
the pictures or videos.


I don't think I'll post anymore on this issue. This whole mess in Iraq is very disturbing and sad. People can follow the news
anywhere, if they want to know what's going on. [/B]

That's the spirit!!

All the soldiers are thugs.....

Iraq is disturbing.

It's better to understand the situation than it is to be burdened by the whole mess...


Thanks.

[carole]

I have not read through all of this thread, however just thought I would mention tonight I am going to watch the documentary, entitled 'SHAMED' a BBC panorama.

I have seen the shorts and it looks very interesting, the two women military personal are being interviewed and admitting worse became of the Iraqui prisoners., than what we have seen so far. I hate to think!!!

This programme may have already screened in US, so i would be interested to hear your comments, I will come back tomorrow after seeing it with my opinion.

[lizbud]

Maybe he just found the pictures disgusting, and not the
idea of torture.....


Small Comfort

By David Ignatius
Tuesday, June 15, 2004; Page A23


"The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you," President Bush said brusquely when questioned last week about a Justice Department legal opinion authorizing harsh interrogation techniques.



We can now see the August 2002 legal opinion for ourselves, thanks to The Post, which posted the complete text on its Web site Monday. Reading the memo's legalistic explanation of why "the mere inflicting of pain or suffering on another" is not torture, you begin to understand why Attorney General John Ashcroft refused last week to release the opinion himself -- and why Bush's description of it was so misleading. The document, in its dry, lawyerly way, is as shocking as the Abu Ghraib photographs.

Contrary to Bush's account, the Justice Department memo wasn't an affirmation of laws that ban torture. Instead, it was a legal interpretation explaining how CIA interrogators could avoid liability under those laws, even if they used methods that might commonly be regarded as torture.

To understand the memo, a little background is useful. It was requested by the CIA, which wanted explicit White House authorization before using harsh interrogation techniques against al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Basically, agency officials didn't want to be the fall guys for presidential policy, so they asked for it in writing.

The Justice Department's top in-house lawyer, Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, responded on behalf of the Office of Legal Counsel. His memo offered three basic arguments to reassure interrogators that even if they inflicted pain and suffering on captives, they could escape legal prosecution. First, the memo parsed the meaning of Section 2340 of the U.S. Criminal Code banning torture abroad -- defined as any act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering . . . upon another person within his custody or physical control."

With a lawyer's hideously bland precision, the memo countered that "mere" pain wasn't enough: "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

That was the first line of defense for White House-sanctioned torturers: They would be okay if they avoided "the most egregious conduct" and "extreme acts."

The second defense was that the president's warmaking powers transcend normal criminal statutes. "As commander in chief, the president has the constitutional authority to order interrogations of enemy combatants," the memo noted. Any legal effort "that interferes with the president's direction of such core war matters as the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants would thus be unconstitutional."

The third defense was that even if interrogators should someday be charged with torture, they could cite special mitigating circumstances, such as "necessity" or "self-defense." These factors "would potentially alleviate criminal liability," even if an interrogation method "might arguably cross the line drawn in Section 2340." In other words, even if you do something illegal, we can get you off.

The Justice Department memo was intended to reassure CIA interrogators about inflicting pain and suffering on captives. But if they were still squeamish, they could use a procedure known as "rendition." That dry term refers to the agency's practice of sending uncooperative al Qaeda suspects to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other nations that are known to use torture. Those folks don't have an Office of Legal Counsel, and they don't scruple about a few lost fingernails or broken bones.

Banning torture is a practical as well as a moral issue. Why? Note this threat last weekend by al Qaeda kidnappers in Saudi Arabia: "We have our legal right to treat [Americans] the same way they treat our people."

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, top Bush administration officials tried to dismiss it as the work of "a few bad apples." But it is increasingly clear that the problem is with the barrel, not just the apples. Abu Ghraib was a particularly graphic and appalling instance of an archipelago of cruel interrogation techniques that were explicitly authorized by the administration.

When we read the legalisms penned by a respected lawyer (Bybee is now a federal judge) we realize again how much America was put off balance by Sept. 11, 2001. Frightened by a deadly and ruthless enemy, the Bush administration embraced the anything-goes logic of total war.

America must regain that balance, three years after Sept. 11. We must restore meaning to the phrases Bush used to dismiss criticism last week: "We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you."

[RICHARD]

Originally posted by lizbud
Maybe he just found the pictures disgusting, and not the
idea of torture.....


The Justice Department memo was intended to reassure CIA interrogators about inflicting pain and suffering on captives. But if they were still squeamish, they could use a procedure known as "rendition." That dry term refers to the agency's practice of sending uncooperative al Qaeda suspects to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other nations that are known to use torture. Those folks don't have an Office of Legal Counsel, and they don't scruple about a few lost fingernails or broken bones.

Why not make them sit thru that 9/11 film by Michael Moore?

Or a J-lo Movie?

I've got it!!

A 'While You Were Out' Marathon!!!