Journal Entries
Guantanamo and Reagan
Posted Jun 8, 2004
"The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction."
- Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/politics/08ABUS.html
Now, the piece is full of ironies on its main topic, not least of which that we adhere to treaties except when we don't ('course, any Indian can tell you that) and that we propose regulations only for jurisdictions we don't enforce, but this last paragraph, which ends out the article, is the sweetest of all.
Anyway.
Why are we going on about the good graces of Ronald Reagan? He was a terrible president if you were anywhere near the poorest 80%, succeeding in presiding over a great heaping income and corporate tax cut while STILL making most people end up giving up more of their incomes in payroll taxes, destroying housing initiatives and social programs that hurt New York City and other cities unfairly, and being the man who set the dangerous precedent of federal deficits (not to mention the dangerous precedent of his cabinet) for the elder and younger Bushes to take to heart like the dogmatic devils that they are.
And besides, what did he do in his post-presidency? Why are we suddenly mourning a guy who was nigh-on incapacitated for a decade or more? I mean, here's Carter actually *doing* something for America other than writing best-selling autobiographies...
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Latest reply: Jun 8, 2004
Falluja (because it's important)
Posted Apr 1, 2004
Now I know I'm'a get a lot of flak for this, but nobody's innocent.
The contractors in question in the attack in Falluja were American-sponsored mercenaries. According to both the Guardian and the Village Voice, they were employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, which states that its mission is to "provide the client with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements."
According to the Voice, "Often, they have been seen in military garb but without the insignias that would formally designate them as U.S. military." The New York Times state that they were wearing flak jackets and that locals had retrieved dog tags from them. The locals interviewed from the mob labelled them as "spies" and said it was "necessary" to kill them. Under Geneva conventions, they /are/ an irregular force and as such can in fact be treated as spies.
No source, however, gave a reason as to why they were in a hostile territory without a military escort. But speaking of military escorts, the contractors are specifically targetted by the Iraqis because they pose an even more abhorrent occupation than the US Army does. The extremists, in this case Sunni loyalists who view the occupation as American dissolution of Iraqi sovereignty, may be acting on the view represented by a Baghdad construction manager last October: "US contractors are importing labor and expatriating the benefits. Where's the benefit accruing to Iraq?"
According to the Department of Commerce, all but a handful of the contracts were no-bid or closed-bid handouts to American companies. Only three companies were not American, merely one Arab (Jordan business Shaheen - the other two were UK company Foster Wheeler and Israeli manufacturer MDT Armor, a subsidiary of US company Arotech), and all granted within the last two months.
In an interview with two US soldiers on leave this past February by Jay Shaft, editor of the Coalition For Free Thought In Media, the sentiment expressed as much:
Soldier 1 - "We can't even go out in convoy with anyone from Halliburton or Bechtel without drawing a crowd of angry Iraqis. They hate the Halliburton and Bechtel guys worse than they hate the soldiers. It's like painting a target on your back just to travel with those contractors and try to protect them."
Soldier 2- "Let me jump in here. I want to say that I am extremely mad that Halliburton and Bechtel have better equipment than our own troops do. The contractors have fully armored Hummers and the best body armor. The have us escort them in our lightly armored Humvees and they ride in heavily armored vehicles...."
And in an article by the UK Financial Times, "General Janis Karpinski, who is overseeing the prison [reconstruction] program, says she has had "no single security incident" involving Iraqi [sub]contractors."
Fishy? It /all/ stinketh.
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Latest reply: Apr 1, 2004
Comic! Done entirely in smileys!
Posted Mar 25, 2004
*<X-^ | (]:-} | (]X-D | -~- @ (]X-D | ... | *<>:-}
Thus portraying NYC and Corrupt pertaining the untimely removal of a wall particularly necessary to the structural stability in her intergalactic bazaar. This has been an NYC production. =P
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Latest reply: Mar 25, 2004
Train karma redux
Posted Feb 11, 2004
So the one plowed by the A train was a woman who climbed down on the tracks to retrieve her dropped cell phone.
Which just goes to show, y'all - cell phones kill.
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Latest reply: Feb 11, 2004
What the @#$* is with my train karma?!
Posted Feb 9, 2004
So I decided, after two trash bags and a cockroach investation, that a new trash can is in order, but because I'm up in the hinterlands of Quiesqueya Heights the closest office store with some cool selections is the Office Max down in Times Square. So, I walk to the A train on 207th, and am barred from the entrance because a man threw himself or was pushed on the tracks and they were still washing him off an uptown train.
So's I go to the 1 train three blocks away, also on 207th, but nearer the bridge to the Bronx, and the booth attendant tells me, "Sorry, man, the station's closed for track repairs. If I were you, I'd walk down to Dyckman." *Shrug, curse* So, seven more blocks later, I take a packed 1 train to 42nd and get to the store just as it closes. Thank you, train delays.
But it doesn't end! I take the newly reopened A train back uptown, but it gets stuck for 40 minutes between 116th and 125th thanks to police action at the station. What is today, Terrorist Day? People dieing needlessly just to waste my time? Ugh!
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Latest reply: Feb 9, 2004
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NYC Student - The innocent looking one =P
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