destruction

Oh no no no... Nothing against being gay. I think your name is gay. That's why I called you a half a fag. Translation: Sure.... here's an article that was produced by a schmuck, blind 'leftie'... FOX NEWS Inquiry Finds Five Cases of Koran 'Mishandling' at Gitmo Thursday, May 26, 2005 WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have substantiated five cases in which military guards or interrogators mishandled the Koran of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (search) but found "no credible evidence" to confirm a prisoner's report that a holy book was flushed in a toilet, the prison's commander said Thursday. Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood (search), who commands the detention center in Cuba, told a Pentagon news conference that a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Koran in the toilet has told Hood's investigators that he never witnessed any form of Koran (search) desecration. The unidentified prisoner, re-interviewed at Guantanamo on May 14, said he had heard talk of guards mishandling religious articles but did not witness any such acts, Hood said. The prisoner also stated that he personally had not been mistreated but that he heard fellow inmates talk of being beaten or otherwise mistreated. The general said he could not speculate on why the prisoner did not repeat his earlier statement about a guard flushing a Koran in a toilet. The statement was contained in an Aug. 1, 2002, FBI summary of an FBI agent's July 22, 2002, interrogation of the prisoner. A partly redacted version of the summary was made public this week. The prisoner did not specifically recant his earlier allegation, since Hood said the prisoner was not asked in the May 14 interview whether he had made the specific statement in 2002 as reported by the FBI. Instead he was asked more broadly whether he had seen the Koran "defiled, desecrated or mishandled." "He allowed as how he hadn't, but he heard that guards at some other point in time had done this," Hood said, adding that this allegation from the 2002 FBI report was the only one Hood found that involved a toilet. "I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," Hood said. "We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Koran by Joint Task Force personnel. Ten of those were by a guard and three by interrogators." Of the 13 alleged incidents, five were substantiated, he said. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator. Hood said the five cases "could be broadly defined as mishandling" of the holy book, but he refused to discuss details. In three of the five cases, the mishandling appears to have been deliberate. In the other two, it apparently was accidental. "None of these five incidents was a result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in place at the time the incident occurred," Hood said. Later, he said there was no written version of a standard operating procedure during the first year prisoners were held at Guantanamo. Allegations of Koran abuse have stirred worldwide controversy. After Newsweek magazine reported earlier this month that U.S. officials had confirmed a Koran was flushed in a toilet, deadly demonstrations were held in Afghanistan, although it is not clear what role that story played in sparking the violence. Newsweek later retracted its report. Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said at the news conference with Hood that at this point it should be clear that any mishandling of the Koran was largely inadvertent. "I think it's safe to say that the policies and procedures down there are extraordinarily careful, and they're — as I said — policies that we've released, and people can judge for themselves. But I think people will see that the atmosphere down there is one of great respect for the practice of faith by detainees," he said. In an indication of the Pentagon's eagerness to discredit the allegation, Hood briefed reporters on the interim findings of his investigation even though the Pentagon's standard practice is to withhold comment on the progress of any official investigation until it has been completed. Hood did not say how much longer his inquiry would last. Earlier Thursday, he was Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress on this. Eight of the 13 alleged incidents of Koran mishandling that Hood has looked into were not substantiated. Six involved guards who either accidentally touched a Koran or "touched it within the scope of his duties" or did not touch it at all. "We consider each of these incidents resolved," Hood said. The other two cases in which the allegation was not substantiated involved interrogators who either touched or "stood over" a Koran during an interrogation, Hood said. In one case not deemed to be mishandling, an interrogator placed two Korans on a television. In the other case, which Hood did not describe fully, a Koran was not touched and Hood said the interrogator's unspecified "action" was accidental. "We've also identified 15 incidents where detainees mishandled or inappropriately treated the Koran, one of which was, of course, the specific example of a detainee who ripped pages out of their own Koran," he said. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157809,00.html PWN3D!! Thankies. Your propaganda aren't facts. Only America haters post propaganda. You hate America.

Igloo is done. My name is destruction for this reason. The destruction of igloo.

Oh no no no... Nothing against being gay. I think your name is gay. That's why I called you a half a fag. Translation: Sure.... here's an article that was produced by a schmuck, blind 'leftie'... FOX NEWS Inquiry Finds Five Cases of Koran 'Mishandling' at Gitmo Thursday, May 26, 2005 WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have substantiated five cases in which military guards or interrogators mishandled the Koran of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (search) but found "no credible evidence" to confirm a prisoner's report that a holy book was flushed in a toilet, the prison's commander said Thursday. Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood (search), who commands the detention center in Cuba, told a Pentagon news conference that a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Koran in the toilet has told Hood's investigators that he never witnessed any form of Koran (search) desecration. The unidentified prisoner, re-interviewed at Guantanamo on May 14, said he had heard talk of guards mishandling religious articles but did not witness any such acts, Hood said. The prisoner also stated that he personally had not been mistreated but that he heard fellow inmates talk of being beaten or otherwise mistreated. The general said he could not speculate on why the prisoner did not repeat his earlier statement about a guard flushing a Koran in a toilet. The statement was contained in an Aug. 1, 2002, FBI summary of an FBI agent's July 22, 2002, interrogation of the prisoner. A partly redacted version of the summary was made public this week. The prisoner did not specifically recant his earlier allegation, since Hood said the prisoner was not asked in the May 14 interview whether he had made the specific statement in 2002 as reported by the FBI. Instead he was asked more broadly whether he had seen the Koran "defiled, desecrated or mishandled." "He allowed as how he hadn't, but he heard that guards at some other point in time had done this," Hood said, adding that this allegation from the 2002 FBI report was the only one Hood found that involved a toilet. "I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," Hood said. "We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Koran by Joint Task Force personnel. Ten of those were by a guard and three by interrogators." Of the 13 alleged incidents, five were substantiated, he said. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator. Hood said the five cases "could be broadly defined as mishandling" of the holy book, but he refused to discuss details. In three of the five cases, the mishandling appears to have been deliberate. In the other two, it apparently was accidental. "None of these five incidents was a result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in place at the time the incident occurred," Hood said. Later, he said there was no written version of a standard operating procedure during the first year prisoners were held at Guantanamo. Allegations of Koran abuse have stirred worldwide controversy. After Newsweek magazine reported earlier this month that U.S. officials had confirmed a Koran was flushed in a toilet, deadly demonstrations were held in Afghanistan, although it is not clear what role that story played in sparking the violence. Newsweek later retracted its report. Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said at the news conference with Hood that at this point it should be clear that any mishandling of the Koran was largely inadvertent. "I think it's safe to say that the policies and procedures down there are extraordinarily careful, and they're — as I said — policies that we've released, and people can judge for themselves. But I think people will see that the atmosphere down there is one of great respect for the practice of faith by detainees," he said. In an indication of the Pentagon's eagerness to discredit the allegation, Hood briefed reporters on the interim findings of his investigation even though the Pentagon's standard practice is to withhold comment on the progress of any official investigation until it has been completed. Hood did not say how much longer his inquiry would last. Earlier Thursday, he was Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress on this. Eight of the 13 alleged incidents of Koran mishandling that Hood has looked into were not substantiated. Six involved guards who either accidentally touched a Koran or "touched it within the scope of his duties" or did not touch it at all. "We consider each of these incidents resolved," Hood said. The other two cases in which the allegation was not substantiated involved interrogators who either touched or "stood over" a Koran during an interrogation, Hood said. In one case not deemed to be mishandling, an interrogator placed two Korans on a television. In the other case, which Hood did not describe fully, a Koran was not touched and Hood said the interrogator's unspecified "action" was accidental. "We've also identified 15 incidents where detainees mishandled or inappropriately treated the Koran, one of which was, of course, the specific example of a detainee who ripped pages out of their own Koran," he said. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157809,00.html Thankies.

http://bbs.clubplanet.com/showthread.php?p=2745425#post2745425 Assclown. Mental midget. Social reject. Monkeyfucking, cunt-lipped, cock smoking half-a-fag. You are as dumb as I predicted. First, get a grip on yourself. Your cock most preferably. Second, repeat to yourself, "he is not Mursa, he is not Mursa...." (squeezing it in synch with the chant). By the end of your session and after the reality finally settles in, you'll come to understand you're nothing more than a moronic jack-booted nazi cunt with a "BUSH IS GOD" poster tacked to the wall with semen stains on Bush's lips. Predictable. The usual hume (Brit's last name reminds me of puking) that comes from the "little turds" that fall from Bush's anal canal like yourself. Translation: Good for you. *cookie*. I know you are but what am I?

Translation: Anyone who advocates torture like you do hate this country. Get out! Well, for your information cock smoker, Bush is considering closing down Gitmo: I think how much the abuses have been exposed (such as your anti-americanism has been exposed) there has made gitmo a liability to him: http://bbs.clubplanet.com/showthread.php?t=273015 But I know the true reason behind it. Those secret prisons hmmmmm????

Then get the fuck out.

Translation: Admitting you hate this country Igloo? How dare you?? Fucking uneducated troll.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8737035 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush left the door open to an eventual closing of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday amid mounting complaints and calls for it to be shut down, including a broadside from former president and human rights champion Jimmy Carter. "We're exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America. What we don't want to do is let somebody out that comes back and harms us," Bush said in an interview with Fox News Channel when asked whether it should be shut down. Calls for closure of the prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba have risen over the past few days after Amnesty International set off a furor last month by calling it a "gulag" and comparing it to the brutal Soviet system of forced labor camps in which millions died. Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, added her voice to the criticism on Wednesday by supporting those calling for the closure of the detention camp, including Carter and Sen. Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I think that we need a fresh start, ... a clean slate for America in the Muslim world," Pelosi told reporters. The prison camp has been dogged by allegations of abuse since it was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan. The Pentagon this week ruled out closing Guantanamo. But adding to the controversy was the disclosure last week that American guards or interrogators at Guantanamo had mishandled the Koran, Islam's holy book, by stepping on it and soaking it in water. In one case, a guard's urine splashed through an air vent onto a prisoner and his Koran. Bush said the prisoners at Guantanamo were treated fairly and rejected as absurd the description of it as a gulag. "I will tell you that we treat these prisoners in accordance with international standards. And that's what the American people expect," he said. But Pelosi's support added weight to the argument that the prison is harming the United States' image abroad. Her comments came less than a day after Carter, a Democrat renowned across the globe for championing human rights causes, urged the United States to shut down the prison. He urged that detainees be treated fairly and given due process under the law. "To demonstrate clearly our nation's historic commitment to protect human rights, our government needs to close down Guantanamo and the two dozen secret detention facilities run by the United States as soon as practicable," Carter said. Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, declared the detention camp "the greatest propaganda tool that exists for the recruiting of terrorists around the world." The Guantanamo prison, which is located at a U.S. naval base on Cuba, was opened in January 2002. While many former detainees have already been released or sent back to their home countries, it still holds about 520 non-U.S. citizens, most caught in Afghanistan and detained without charges for more than three years.

:lol3: Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents 'Mishandling' Cases Preceded Guidelines Established in 2003 By Josh White and Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, May 27, 2005; Page A01 Pentagon officials said yesterday that investigators have identified five incidents of military guards and an interrogator "mishandling" the Koran at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but characterized the episodes as minor and said most occurred before specific rules on the treatment of Muslim holy items were issued. Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said investigators have looked into 13 specific allegations of Koran desecration at the prison dating to early 2002 and have determined eight of them to be unfounded, lacking credibility or the result of accidental touching of the holy book. Of the five cases of mishandling, three were "very likely" deliberate and two were "very likely accidental," he said. But Hood declined to provide details, citing an ongoing investigation. Hood's comments marked the first time the Pentagon has confirmed mistreatment of the Muslim book at Guantanamo Bay. Captives and some military personnel there have made claims of Koran desecration, but in a statement last week, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said the Defense Department had received no credible claims of such abuse. Nevertheless, he said, officials were reviewing the allegations. Hood took pains to specifically deny a now-retracted report in Newsweek magazine's May 9 issue that said officials had confirmed a detainee's claim that a guard had flushed a Koran down a toilet. The White House, the Pentagon and others have linked that report to riots overseas that left 16 people dead. The news conference came a day after the American Civil Liberties Union released summaries of memos from FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay that reported detainee allegations of Koran desecration. Hood played down the mistreatment as a vestige of Guantanamo Bay's early days and said it occurred without any systemic frequency. He said most of the 13 cases involved accidental or inadvertent touching of the Koran by guards and interrogators -- such as someone bumping into the holy book, or one case in which an interrogator stacked two Korans on a television set. The five confirmed cases of Koran mishandling involved four guards and one interrogator, Hood said. Six other "resolved" cases involved guards, and two involved interrogators, he said. Hood said a soldier was reassigned after one recent accidental mishandling of the Koran, and another soldier faced an unspecified disciplinary action for an incident some time ago. He added that there were also 15 cases in which detainees mishandled the Koran, including one who purposefully ripped pages out of his own book. "I want to assure you that we are committed to respecting the cultural dignity of the Koran and the detainees' practice of faith," Hood said. "Every effort has been made to provide religious articles associated with the Islamic faith, accommodate prayers and religious periods, and provide culturally acceptable meals and practices." Pentagon officials said investigators did not look into the claim that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet before the Newsweek article was published. While looking into the desecration claims after protests erupted overseas, investigators re-interviewed a detainee who had told FBI agents in July 2002 that guards had put a Koran in a toilet. That interview, on May 14, with a prisoner the Pentagon identified this week as "an enemy combatant," led investigators to believe that the claim lacked credibility. The detainee said that he "wasn't beaten or abused, but that he had heard rumors that other detainees were," Hood said. "We then proceeded to ask him about any incidences where he had seen the Koran defiled, desecrated or mishandled, and he allowed as how he hadn't, but he had heard . . . that guards at some other point in time had done this," Hood said yesterday. "He went on to describe to his interrogator that that was a problem that was only in the old camp." Hood said "old camp" appeared to mean Camp X-Ray, the temporary cells where captives were held when Guantanamo Bay opened in January 2002. But he acknowledged that interrogators did not specifically ask the detainee this month whether a toilet had been involved, nor did they refer to the original statement the detainee gave to the FBI nearly three years ago. Hood emphasized that most of the confirmed incidents occurred before standard procedures were put in place in January 2003 for proper handling of the Koran. A broader investigation by the U.S. Southern Command into allegations of abuse and mistreatment contained in memos written by FBI personnel stationed at Guantanamo Bay is continuing. Hood and Di Rita declined to address the larger probe. According to U.S. Southern Command documents, officials at Guantanamo Bay were aware of the importance of the proper handling of the Koran in the facility's very first days. Responding to concerns from the International Committee of the Red Cross in January 2002, command officials wrote that they needed to make sure that detainees were allowed time to pray and that they were given appropriate ways to store their Korans. The "Koran must be kept neat and wrapped in something," according to a memo dated Jan. 21, 2002. "Can we get them a small green cloth to wrap it?" The FBI documents released Wednesday by the ACLU contained summaries of a dozen interviews in which detainees said they had witnessed or heard about mistreatment of the Koran by guards or interrogators. They also included new allegations of severe physical abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan. The FBI records provide at least one example in which a detainee may have lied about mistreatment of the Koran. According to a summary of an interview with one prisoner, an uprising in July 2002 had started with a claim by another detainee that a guard had dropped a Koran. "In actuality," the summary says, "the detainee dropped the Koran and then blamed the guard. Many other detainees reacted to this claim and this initiated the uprising." The FBI documents do not indicate whether this version of events is accurate, although Pentagon officials have recounted a similar-sounding incident. FBI officials have declined to comment. The ACLU also released more FBI documents yesterday, including a memo indicating that military interrogators posed as officials from the FBI and State Department while questioning detainees at Guantanamo Bay. One memo, from November 2003, refers to "DOD interrogators at Guantanamo representing themselves to be officials of the FBI and U.S. State Department." A previously released version of the same document had revealed the FBI impersonations, but the reference to the State Department had been redacted. State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher told reporters yesterday that he was unaware of the impersonation allegations. Another spokesman said the department does not employ interrogators or take part in interviews at Guantanamo Bay. Another newly released document, dated January 2004, suggested that the FBI would "finally make an arrest" in connection with "interrogations in June 2003 when an FBI agent was impersonated." No such arrest has been publicly announced. In several e-mails, FBI agents angrily complained about the impersonations and suggested that the ruse was aimed in part at avoiding blame for any subsequent public allegations of abuse. The earlier documents also included e-mails from FBI agents who said they had witnessed Guantanamo Bay detainees being shackled to the floor for days at a time, deprived of food and water and left to defecate on themselves. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/26/AR2005052601220.htm ....predictable .....keep swinging on Bush's left nut.

June 7th, 2005 1:32 pm U.S. lacks the troops to guard Iraq border By Tom Lasseter / Knight Ridder TAL AFAR, Iraq - U.S. Army officers in the badland deserts of northwest Iraq, near the Syrian border, say they don't have enough troops to hold the ground they take from insurgents in this transit point for weapons, money and foreign fighters. From last October to the end of April, there were about 400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrolling the northwest region, which covers about 10,000 square miles. ``Resources are everything in combat . . . there's no way 400 people can cover that much ground,'' said Maj. John Wilwerding, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is responsible for the northwest tract that includes Tal Afar. Rebel toehold ``Because there weren't enough troops on the ground to do what you needed to do,'' the insurgency ``was able to get a toehold,'' said Wilwerding, 37, of Chaska, Minn. During the past two months, Army commanders, trying to pacify the area, have had to move in some 4,000 Iraqi soldiers; about 2,000 more were on the way. About 3,500 fighters from the 3rd regiment took control of the area in May, but officers said they were still understaffed for the mission. ``There's simply not enough forces here,'' said a high-ranking U.S. Army officer with knowledge of the 3rd regiment. ``There are not enough to do anything right; everybody's got their finger in a dike.'' The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concern that he would be reprimanded for questioning American military policy in Iraq. The Army has no difficulty in launching large-scale operations to catch fighters in ``an insurgent Easter egg hunt,'' the officer said. ``But when we're done, what comes next?'' Control of the area is seen as key to stemming the insurgency in the rest of Iraq. More than 840 people have been killed since the nation's interim government took office April 28. ``This town is kind of like a staging point for the rest of the country,'' said Capt. Geoff Mangus, 25, of Milledgeville, Ga., an Army intelligence officer in Tal Afar. ``They know that weapons and foreign fighters can filter through here unscathed.'' Cat-and-mouse Army officials in northwest Iraq described a two-year cat-and-mouse game with insurgents who move from one outpost or town to the next, sustaining casualties but buoyed by an influx of fighters slipping across the Iraq-Syria border, which in many places isn't patrolled. From their sanctuaries in the area, the fighters then spread across the country, some volunteering to be suicide bombers. They funnel cash, arms and recruits to the insurgency, Mangus said. Repeated efforts to secure the area have failed. In Tal Afar, the police -- with only 150 officers left in what was a 600-man force -- are holed up in the only remaining police station. Insurgents destroyed three others last year. To the west, the mayor and police have abandoned the town of Biaj. To the south, in Rawah, a recent patrol found no evidence of the mayor, police or ``rule of law,'' said Maj. Bryan Denny, 38, of Oxford, N.C. Reinstall police Military commanders in the region said they planned to reinstall police squads and governmental leaders where possible to keep insurgents from overrunning the towns. Last Wednesday some 1,600 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers swept through Biaj and other nearby towns with long columns of Bradleys and tanks. When they arrived, most of the town was empty, and there were few military-age men visible. American soldiers on the scene assumed they had fled when they heard the tanks rumbling. A car had raced ahead of the convoy and fired an AK-47 in the air, presumably to warn of the impending American presence. ``When the U.S. forces got to this country two years ago they did not stay in the cities on the border. . . . They left it for these guys to walk free. It allowed the Baathists (members of Saddam Hussein's party) and the foreign fighters to organize themselves,'' said the Iraqi army division commander for the region, Maj. Gen. Khursheed Saleem Hasan. ``It's a city (Biaj) that has been taken over by insurgents.'' Sectarian and tribal tensions also have increased, putting American soldiers in the precarious position of navigating bloody disputes between warring factions with their own conflicting agendas and further straining resources. A group of about 25 U.S. soldiers and 100 Iraqi soldiers has moved into a Tal Afar neighborhood to separate two warring tribes. The Americans said one tribe was pro-insurgent and was targeting the other because it was pro-American. Others in town said the tribes -- one is Sunni Muslim and the other Shiite -- were fighting over jobs and territory. The mayor is suspected of sympathizing with the insurgents. `Incite violence' ``What the insurgents want to do, what the terrorists want to do, is incite ethnic and sectarian violence,'' said Col. H.R. McMaster, 42, of Philadelphia, who commands the 3rd regiment. ``The danger that all of us are concerned about is that these communities will fall in on themselves,'' McMaster said. ``If the tribes cannot work together, if they cannot make a deal, we can be here 20 more years and do nothing,'' Brig. Gen. Mohsen Doski, the commander of the Iraqi army brigade in Tal Afar, told the 3rd regiment Lt. Col. Chris Hickey, as the two spoke about how to deal with the violence in Tal Afar. https://registration.mercurynews.com/reg/login.do?url=http://www.mercurynews.com%2Fmld%2Fmercurynews%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F11833598.htm

Ok. I can see where you're coming from because Clinton was impeached over something that has nothing to do with his political record where Bush is impeachable because what he did has alot to do with his record as President. Anytime.

Sorry about the confusion... I have a tendancy to multi - quote so in the same message, I frame quoted, then quoted Igloo and in the same message quoted you at the bottom of the same the same message. In other words, I may quote more than one person in the same message. I like to take advantage of the UBB codes on this V Bulletin message board program. I never said you disagreed with me that Bush lied otherwise you would have refuted my points in that area. And what about this Igloo person. Is there something I need to know about him/her (or "shim")? And I never said you were Igloo. Besides, Igloo isn't spelled bigpoppanils. You ought to be thankfully happy about that. That "article" is a memo from 10 Downing St. that was leaked to the Sunday Times. Don't expect the mention of the oath of office of the president of the US in a British memo. C'mon.., lol. And to refute your point... Article. II. Section. 1. Clause 8: " Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html That is the oath of office. He is under oath for the duration of his presidency from the beginning of his term to the end of his term. Just like a witness and the defendant are under oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" for the durations of their testimonies in a court of law. Everyone knows that. Hopefully, the president takes THAT oath ("to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth") when he testifies in his own impeachment hearing. I hope for that day to come.

Rights group leader says U.S. has secret jails Top GOP senator says Gitmo hearings might be appropriate http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/05/amnesty.detainee/ WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chief of Amnesty International USA alleged Sunday that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is part of a worldwide network of U.S. jails, some of them secret, where prisoners are mistreated and even killed. William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty's Washington-based branch, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," defended the human rights group's recent criticism of U.S. treatment of detainees at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families," Schulz said. "And in some cases, at least, we know they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed." Schulz's comments were the latest in a volley of incriminations and denials between Amnesty and the White House. London, England-based Amnesty International's report, released May 25, cited "growing evidence of U.S. war crimes" and labeled the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times." (Full story) U.S. officials responded with outrage. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rebuffed such a comparison, saying a gulag was where the Soviets "kept millions in forced labor concentration camps." (Full story) President Bush said the comparison was "absurd" andVice PresidentDick Cheney said he was offended by Amnesty's assertions. (Full story) Schulz also answered questions about previous remarks in which he labeled Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as "alleged high-level architects of torture." "Any nation that is party to the Geneva Conventions ... is obligated under international law to investigate those who are alleged to be involved with the formulation of a policy of torture or with its carrying out," Schulz said. He went on: "The United States should be the one that should investigate those who are alleged at least to be architects of torture, not just the foot solders who may have inflicted the torture directly, but those who authorized it or encouraged it or provided rationales for it." Senators weigh in A high-ranking Republican senator said Sunday that hearings on abuse allegations at Guantanamo Bay might be appropriate, and a top Democratic senator suggested closing down the prison. "Look, it's very difficult to run a perfect prison," Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on CNN's "Late Edition." "But we have an open country. We have hearings on a whole lot of different subjects. We might well have hearings on this." Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he thinks the Guantanamo Bay prison imperils the nation and should cease operating. "This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world, and it is unnecessary to be in that position," Biden said on ABC's "This Week." He called for an independent commission to review operations at Guantanamo and other U.S. military-run prisons and make recommendations to Congress. "But the end result is, I think we should end up shutting it down," Biden said. McConnell, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, objected to some of the language used by critics of the prison -- particularly Amnesty's gulag comparison. "There is no country in the world that has stood for human rights more than the United States," McConnell said. "Does that mean that a given soldier in a given situation may have made mistakes? I think some were made at Abu Ghraib, maybe some were made in Guantanamo. Our people are not perfect." Other human rights groups have criticized activities at Guantanamo Bay, a station the United States has leased from Cuba since 1903. In a 2004 report, the Red Cross called the psychological and physical coercion used at Guantanamo Bay "tantamount to torture." Human Rights Watch said U.S. interrogators had inflicted religious humiliation on Muslim detainees, a violation of the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. military issued a report Friday that detailed four incidents where camp personnel mishandled the Quran at Guantanamo Bay, which holds about 540 detainees. (Full story) The report concluded that inmates -- not U.S. military personnel as previous reports claimed -- tried to flush the book down a toilet. The report was issued by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the detention center. The incidents included guards kicking a detainee's Quran; a guard stepping on a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine going through an air vent and splashing a detainee and his holy book; and a guard water balloon fight causing two detainees' Qurans to get wet. In a fifth confirmed incident, it could not be determined whether a guard or a detainee wrote a two-word obscenity in a detainee's Quran. White House press secretary Scott McClellan insisted Saturday the incidents were "isolated" and did not reflect the behavior of the majority of soldiers. The investigation was prompted by a Newsweek article citing unnamed sources who claimed U.S. personnel had flushed a Quran down a toilet in an attempt at intimidation. Newsweek later retracted the story. (Full story)

Translation: Exclusively for Igloo... Haven't read the memo have you, Igloo? British government officials acknowledge that Bush lied. Where did C get this information? The Bush administration itself. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607_1,00.html I have already pointed out who owns the Sunday Times in my earlier post and it's your favorite media mogul whose cable news channel Fox News also reported it. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,158228,00.html To point out, Bush was president at the time this memo took place (July 23, 2002). Bush was briefed on August 4, '02 by CDS. He was under oath then as he is currently, therefore impeachable. He lied. Hence the meaning of my earlier post.

Translation:

Stay tuned....

Soldiers Tell War Stories in Rap Album By KRISTIE RIEKEN, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 1, 5:21 PM ET As Staff Sgt. Terrance Staves dodged bullets recovering a burned-out Humvee in Baghdad's Sadr City, he heard a rocket-powered grenade zooming toward him. All he could do was hold his breath, he recalled, when it crashed into the armored Bradley vehicle sitting just feet in front of him. Back at camp, Staves went to his makeshift recording booth to vent his anger and fear by spitting rap lyrics. Some of those lyrics were used on "Live From Iraq," an album he and a few other Fort Hood soldiers wrote, recorded and produced while on a one-year deployment in Iraq. On the 15-track album, soldiers voice frustration at what they call shabby equipment and the lack of support they feel from the American public. The album vigorously defends soldiers charged with crimes for actions committed during the conflict. "I was outside the gate a lot and had a lot of stuff happen to me," said Staves, 26, of Houston. "So for me to ... be able to get in the booth and let all my anger out was wonderful. Because sometimes you can't let all your anger out there because you might endanger yourself, your brothers or do something you're not supposed to do. It was a beautiful outlet." The group, led by Sgt. Neal "Big Neal" Saunders, includes Sgt. Edward "Greg-O" Gregory, Staves, Spc. Michael "Paperboi" Davis, Sgt. Ronin Clay and Spc. Michael Thomas. They were deployed with Taskforce 112 of the 1st Calvary Division at Fort Hood on March 12, 2004, and returned exactly one year later. Within two weeks, the CD was mastered and the group had 2,000 copies made. The group has sold about 1,000 copies through its Web site and a regional music store chain has agreed to sell it. Saunders, who spent nearly $35,000 on the project, said the soldiers don't have a group name and didn't include their names or pictures on the CD because they wanted to focus on their comrades, both dead and alive. The album opens with "The Deployment," a heartbreaking tale of the moments before they left and their emotions as they approached Iraq. Several soldiers' wives cried when they heard the song, Saunders said. "You would have really thought the world was coming to an end and for some of us it was," Saunders says in the song. "You were literally prying your loved ones off of you so you could make it out the door to the bus. I've never seen so much emotion in one place before." Another track, "Holdin' My Breath," discusses how they conceal the horrors of war from their families and a song called "Dirty" is about a soldier dealing with a cheating spouse back home. "`Live from Iraq' is the writing on the wall," said Davis, 21, of Lanett, Ala., "It's that magnifying glass to that huge picture that's been painted since this whole thing has begun. It's the attention to detail that has been overlooked in everyday life." Saunders, from Richmond, Va., said the soldiers often found inspiration for their music during missions. But some of the songs recorded immediately after battle had to be redone after the men had cooled down. "A lot of times the first draft might not have been what you really wanted to say," he said. "You may come off stupid because you didn't have your thoughts together and you're just kind of rambling. So we would take time to think because we didn't want to put out a stupid album." The album's title track recounts a particularly bloody day last April when eight of their fellow soldiers were killed in a fierce gunbattle: "This here is blood of soldiers of which the streets are paved ... And there is no reimbursement for the price that we pay." Most of the rapping soldiers didn't know each other before they went to Iraq, but all say they had an interest in music. Saunders planned to put his musical aspirations on hold while he was deployed, but soon after arriving at Camp War Eagle near the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, he came up with the idea for the album. "I'd been trying to find my angle my whole life as an artist," he said. "If I can't take this opportunity and have anything to say about probably the most influential year of my life then I could never really consider myself to be an artist." Many soldiers answered his call for participants, but most lost interest when they heard what he had in mind. "Everybody wanted to do their own thing," Saunders said. "And when I gave them the guidance and said, `This isn't gonna be about 23-inch rims when you're over here riding a Humvee ... they didn't like it." Staves said some people actually laughed at the group and told them no one would buy a rap album about Iraq. "I told them it's not about the money. It's about the music," he said. Thomas initially resisted the idea too, but relented when he realized how serious they were about the project. But first they had to get professional recording equipment to Iraq — a task that took almost nine months. Saunders said he contacted dozens of companies before he found one willing to ship the equipment. His bunkmates gave up space for the improvised studio. Soundproof foam for the room was too expensive, so the crew used exercise mats adorned with flowers and foam padding used for shipping packages. Saunders, whose job in Iraq was to provide personal security for the commander, said the soldiers' superiors knew about their project but underestimated the seriousness of the recordings. "They just thought it was going to be a regular rap album," he said. "But it wasn't. I think if they would have known the type of CD I was putting out they wouldn't have let it come out." ___ On the Net: http://www.4th25.com/ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050601/ap_en_mu/music_live_from_iraq;_ylt=Apb_VlC5BwBsEbQmSebDseFxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Yup. It's good to know that when Clinton lied he gets impeached, but when Bush lies he's unimpeachable. Way to play the double standard card. Here's the official quote from the government memo that was leaked to the Sunday Times, which is owned by Ruppert Murdoch of News Corp. The same guy who owns Fox News, who also reported it and linked the same memo from their site to the Sunday Times: -----> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html They committed to war even before they used up all other options and used false intelligence by taking old data and selling it off to the global community as new to justify their reason to go to war. This has been long since exposed and has already been debunked by Bush's own weapons inspector, Charles Duefer in his key findings. The WMDs Bush claimed were non-existant. Key Findings. CIA document: -----> http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html#sect1 There is no question that he lied considering a documented memo coming from 10 Downing St., released by a Ruppert Murdoch owned newspaper and reported by a Ruppert Murdoch owned cable News Channel says he did. Donations? I'll take any, large or small.

I'd say no matter what your opinion is of the war, you'd think that a president that purposely misleads you is worth impeaching.

Pentagon details mishandling of Quran Detainees’ copies of holy book kicked, splashed with urine The Associated Press Updated: 11:13 p.m. ET June 3, 2005 WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran and was later fired for “a pattern of unacceptable behavior.†In other confirmed incidents, water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard’s urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran. The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report — later retracted — that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee’s Quran down a toilet. The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan. ‘Respectful handling of the Quran’ Hood said in a written statement released Friday evening, along with the new details, that his investigation “revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost 2½ years.†Hood said that of nine mishandling cases that were studied in detail by reviewing thousands of pages of written records, five were confirmed to have happened. He could not determine conclusively whether the four others took place. In one of those four unconfirmed cases, a detainee in April 2003 complained to FBI and other interrogators that guards “constantly defile the Quran.†The detainee alleged that in one instance a female military guard threw a Quran into a bag of wet towels to anger another detainee, and he also alleged that another guard said the Quran belonged in the toilet and that guards were ordered to do these things. Hood said he found no other record of this detainee mentioning any Quran mishandling. The detainee has since been released. Reprimand in urine splashing case In the most recent confirmed case, Hood said a detainee complained on March 25, 2005, of urine splashing on him and his Quran. An unidentified guard admitted at the time that “he was at fault,†the Hood report said, although it did not say whether the act was deliberate. The guard’s supervisor reprimanded him and assigned him to gate guard duty, where he had no contact with detainees for the remainder of his assignment at Guantanamo Bay. As described in the Hood report, the guard had left his observation post and went outside to urinate. He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the cell block. The incident was not further explained. In another of the confirmed cases, a contract interrogator stepped on a detainee’s Quran in July 2003 and then apologized. “The interrogator was later terminated for a pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership,†the Hood report said. Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. “These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran,†Hood’s report said. It offered no possible explanation for those alleged abuses. In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18, 2005, allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several of the guards witnessed this, Hood reported. Last week, Hood disclosed that he had confirmed five cases of mishandling of the Quran, but he refused to provide details. Allegations of Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay have led to anti-American passions in many Muslim nations, although Pentagon officials have insisted that the problems were relatively minor and that U.S. commanders have gone to great lengths to enable detainees to practice their religion in captivity. Hood said last week that he found no credible evidence that a Quran was ever flushed down a toilet. He said a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Quran in the toilet has since told Hood’s investigators that he never witnessed any form of Quran desecration. Desecration allegations Other prisoners who were returned to their home countries after serving time at Guantanamo Bay as terror suspects have alleged Quran desecration by U.S. guards, and some have said a Quran was placed in a toilet. There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network. Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have denounced an Amnesty International report that called the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our time.†The president told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the report by the human-rights group was “absurd.†On Wednesday, Rumsfeld called the characterization “reprehensible†and said the U.S. military had taken care to ensure that detainees were free to practice their religion. However, he also acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated, even “grievously†at times. © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. © 2005 MSNBC.com URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8090656/

:laugh::laugh:

A London newspaper rocked British elections when it leaked a top intelligence official's report that President Bush was intent on invading Iraq long before he sought Congress' approval. Bush called Iraq an urgent threat, but the memo says "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." British officials are not denying the memo's accuracy, and a former senior American official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired. This revelation nearly cost Prime Minister Tony Blair his re-election, and it was all over the British press. But American newspapers barely mentioned this new evidence that Bush twisted the facts to justify war. The major newspapers ran one or two stories rehashing the British reports. Worse, TV network news shows haven't covered the memo at all. Readers of the New York Times recently demanded coverage of the British memo, and the newspaper finally wrote a full story. We can do the same for network news. So with that I wrote 4 e-mails and sent them to Peter Jennings of ABC News... CBS News NBC News and... PBS. And demanded them to cover this very important story. The effect is working. Why? Because recently, people have written letters to the New York Times and demanded them to cover the story. The NYT responded and has done so. http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/thepubliceditor/publiceditorswebjournal/index.html?oref=login you will need to suscribe to the NYT to view it from there. It's free. If you want to read the memo, go here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html Here's the result of pressure by the people to get the media off their duffs to report this important story. 'Downing St. Memo' fizzling in U.S. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002278761_memo18.html http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/ Fox News also reported it... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,158228,00.html And more sources here: http://news.google.com/news?q=Iraq+memo&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial_s&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr Bush is fucked!

I am not surprised.