Free Republic

The same newspaper that crucified President George W. Bush for the Abu Ghrab scandal even though Bush was many, many layers of government removed from the American military guards at the heart of the Iraqi prison scandal has given President Barack Obama absolution for the gross incompetence of the Secret Service even though Obama is in direct contact every minute of every day with the agency charged with protecting his life. Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times has written a churlish, excuse-making article published Tuesday night that at once hints Republican lawmakers want to see...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

FORT HUACHUCA — Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast will be turning over the command of the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca on June 29 to Brig. Gen. John Custer. Fast will become the deputy for the Army Capabilities Integration Center at the Training and Doctrine Command headquarters at Fort Monroe, Va. Custer, who is on the promotion list to major general, will be returning to Fort Huachuca from his current assignment as director of intelligence for the U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. During his previous stint on the fort, Custer served as the Intelligence Center's deputy commander....

To my liberal friends: In light of the publication of what are purported to be photos of the torture of enemy prisoners by U.S. forces, I offer the following opinions: 1. Torture is illegal under both civil and military law. If these prisoners were tortured they were tortured in contravention of both law and regulations. This sort of thing was not and never had been official military policy. If these prisoners were tortured, it was a failure, yes-- but a failure of some small part of the system, not an indictment of the country or the military as a whole....

Lynndie England, the soldier convicted of abusing Iraqi detainees, was seriously burned in a prison kitchen accident at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, her mother said yesterday. England, who was pictured holding a leash to a naked and hooded Iraqi inmate at the Abu Ghraib prison, was sentenced in September to three years for her part in the abuse scandal, which sparked worldwide outrage. She has since been confined at the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar, which is on the base. The brig is the Department of Defense's only prison designated for women, said Brewster Schenck, a spokesman for the facility....

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Friday, in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, voiced Iran's concern over the increasing human rights violations of the US and Islamophobia in the West. In a letter to the UN secretary-general submitted by Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN, Mottaki criticized the US for its hidden prisons established all over the world, particularly in European states, and its use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners in such prisons, particularly terrorist suspects, as well as the increase in Islamophobia and mistreatment of Muslims in the West. Mottaki, in his letter, also called...

LONDON, July 22 (IranMania) - Iran accused the United States of extensive violation of human rights both inside and outside the US soil, IRNA reported. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi reacting to interfering statement of US President George W. Bush, said, "The United States is talking about violation of human rights in Iran, while the whole world is disgusted of extensive violation of human rights in USA and by US government around the world". Issuing a statement on Tuesday, President Bush expressed regret over continuation of Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji's imprisonment, asking for his "Immediate release" and proper...

The bloody attack on July 7 in London was a warning to the world to wake up against the evil of terrorism in all its forms. We have been hearing the cries of innocent victims of terrorism in so many countries, New York City, Karachi, Madrid, Beirut, Bosnia, Jakarta, Israel, Palestine and now London. Iraq is suffering from the sickness of suicide bombings every day. In 150 major terrorist attacks in the last 3 months, 2,400 Iraqis died and thousands more were wounded or handicapped. Mainstream Muslims helplessly find themselves as the main victims of terrorism. We still grieve the...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's government said Wednesday that President Bush shouldn't intervene in the case of a jailed Iranian dissident, particularly given allegations of U.S. human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. Bush called Tuesday for Tehran to release Akbar Ganji, a journalist jailed for writing articles linking government officials to murder. The White House statement came as some 300 Ganji supporters gathered in front of the Tehran University to demand Ganji's release. "The White House talks about violations of human rights in Iran while the world hates the U.S. violations of human rights in both Guantanamo...

The clip below is from an Oct 10, 2001 MRC special section on terrorism: Contrast Hoyt’s attitude to the one expressed by CBS’s Mike Wallace and ABC’s Peter Jennings during a 1989 forum on PBS. The two network stars agreed that if they were traveling with enemy troops and learned of an ambush planned to kill U.S. soldiers they would not provide any warning. A reprint from the April 1989 MediaWatch, a monthly newsletter then-published by the MRC: Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace Agree Reporters First, Americans Second In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter...

(State Dept. Report Leaves Out U.S.) Never let it be said that the U.S. State Department lacks chutzpah. The department recently issued its annual report on human rights practices of nations around the world, pointedly criticizing perennial violators as well as allies, including the U.S.-sponsored interim Iraqi government. But the report doesn't discuss accusations of human rights abuses at the U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Gharib, Iraq, where prisoners of war and terrorism suspects are held. Curtis Cooper, a State Department spokesman, explained that the report does not indulge in self-criticism. It leaves it to others to...

As the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, we hear a speech by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on torture from Guantanamo to Abu Gharib to Vietnam.Hersh is the author of 'Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Gharib.' He spoke last month at the Wise Free Synagogue in New York.'The amazing thing is that we have been taken over by a cult of eight or nine neo-conservatives that have somehow grapped the government.' 'Just how and why they did it so efficiently, we will have to wait for much later...

FORT HOOD, Texas - Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, was convicted Friday of abusing Iraqi detainees in a case that sparked international outrage when photographs were released that showed reservists gleefully torturing prisoners. Graner, the first soldier to be tried on charges arising from the scandal, was convicted of all five charges and faces up to 17 1/2 years behind bars. The jury took less than five hours to reach the verdict. The verdict came after a five-day trial in which prosecutors depicted Graner as a...

SAN FRANCISCO (News Frontiers) – The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a man required to wear a signboard stating "I stole mail. This is my punishment," outside a San Francisco post office was unreasonably sanctioned. The 9th Circuit overturned a lower federal court's order that required mail thief and activist George Soarass to wear the sign, noting the public humiliation was intended to "break" him of an illusion he had committed a “victimless” crime. Paired with requiring Soarass to write apologies and lecture at a high school, the "somewhat crude" condition he wear the signboard provided...

July 27, 2004 Pg. 1 Senators Satisfied With Their 'No' Vote On Iraq ‘We were all firmly convinced we’d done the right thing’ By Lauren Shepherd By 1 a.m. that Friday morning, almost every senator had left the Capitol for home. Three Democrats, though, were still on the Senate floor, waiting for the final vote count on a resolution that would allow President Bush to launch a pre-emptive strike on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) — had voted against the resolution along with 18 other Democrats, one independent and one...

Fake SEAL accuses soldiers of torture 21 DEC 2004 VeriSEAL TAMPA, Florida - A former California National Guard soldier who accused others in his unit of torturing Iraqi prisoners may have military justice problems of his own. Frank "Greg" Ford claims to have witnessed members of his National Guard battalion torturing Iraqi prisoners while his unit was stationed in Samarra in 2003, according to David DeBatto, a former National Guard Tactical HUMINT Team (THT) member and author of a story titled "Whitewashing Torture" published on a far left web site in early December. DeBatto says that Ford reported the alleged...

SIERRA VISTA - Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast is being made a scapegoat by some of the nation's most senior civilian and military leaders by their refusal to let her take command of the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, a retired Army lieutenant general said. To Claudia Kennedy, who retired in 2000 as the Army's senior intelligence officer, Fast "is a fantastic, great leader." The talents of Fast, who returned to Fort Huachuca on July 30, is being lost because the Army is afraid to let her take command of the center and fort, even though the two-star was previously named...

BG Karpinski, the EX-Commander of the 800th MP Bde cries "IT'S A CONSPIRACY!" snip------

BAGHDAD, Aug 18 (AFP) - US soldiers killed two prisoners when a fight got out of control at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, at the heart of a US prison abuse scandal earlier this year, the US military said. The disturbance broke out at 5:45 am (0145 GMT) when guards saw a large group of detainees attacking a fellow inmate with rocks and tent poles before the fight swelled to more than 200 people, a statement said. Non-lethal ammunition failed to disperse the group, so lethal force was authorized when the life of one detainee was deemed still at...

Recently, several high-ranking Iranian leaders, among them Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Muhammad Khatami, expressed views on the achievements of Iran's Islamic Revolution and the legacy of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, and on the relationship between Islam and Western culture and values. Both men attacked the U.S. for its handling of affairs in Iraq. Along with stressing the need to instill Ayatollah Khomeini's legacy among the younger Iranians who never knew him, Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei stated that not only is Khomeini's political thought appropriate for all of humanity's needs, but that the source of human suffering is "liberal democracy."...