Friday, September 16, 2005

Some Things Bear Repeating

More US Military dead in combat than being reported.

US Military Report: The High Death Rates exposed by Brian Harring

The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 52 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 1 through 15 May, 2005 – Official Total of 1,803 US Dead to date (and rising)

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are
just under 100,000
.
by Brian Harring, Domestic Intelligence Reporter

Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq.

The Bush administration is an Accessory Before the Fact to Murder.
If we don't act on this we're Accessories after the fact.
http://conceptual.blogspot.com/2004/10/concept-accessory-before-fact-to.html

Link: http://www.audblog.com/media/1468/107899.mp3

The Natural Talent of a Burning Bush

I think we all know a “Mr. Fix-it.” You know the type. They're the guys (and yes, they always seem to be guys) who'll burn down the house lighting the stove. They've got a million and one ideas for improving the world (all wrong), and they're natural born salesmen.

Link: http://www.audblog.com/media/1468/110098.mp3


I've Been Interviewed — Audio and Text Part 1

Link: http://www.audioblogger.com/media/1468/175699.mp3


http://conceptual.blogspot.com/2005/04/ive-been-interviewed-audio-and-text.html

Link: http://www.audioblogger.com/media/1468/175703.mp3

I've Been Interviewed — Audio and Text Part 2

…A.J. Liebling said,"Freedom of the Press belongs to those who own one." What passes for news in the conventional media is too often the mere opinion of the powerful. The answer to the speech of the few is the speech of the many. People feel that their freedom is at stake.

The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military
hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no
pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted. Bush has never attended
any kind of a memorial service for his dead soldiers and never will. He is terrified some parent might curse him in front of the press or, worse, attack him.

WASHINGTON August 5, 2005
Pentagon Agrees to Issue Photos of Coffins of Iraq War Dead
By JOHN FILES (NYT) News
Under the terms of a legal settlement announced on Thursday, the Pentagon will make available "as expeditiously as possible" some photographs of the coffins of service members killed in Iraq. The agreement runs counter to a longstanding Pentagon policy that bars the public release of such photographs. But in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the Pentagon has already released hundreds of such photographs this year, and it agreed under the settlement to continue to do so.

The agreement responded to a Freedom of Information Act suit filed in October in Federal District Court here that sought all photographs and video images that showed coffins or similar items that held the remains of American military personnel at Dover Air Force Base, Del., beginning in February 2003.

The Pentagon has strictly enforced a policy barring news photographs showing the coffins. That policy has been in place since the Persian Gulf war in 1991, and President Bush has said it protects the privacy of the families of the dead.

Ralph Begleiter, a journalism professor at the University of Delaware who was a lead plaintiff in the current suit, said the Pentagon's agreement to release the photographs represented a "significant victory for the honor of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in war for their country, as well as for their families, for all service personnel and for the American people."

The Pentagon issued a statement, saying, "As with all information, including images, the Department of Defense has an obligation and a responsibility to strike a balance between our strong desire to be as transparent as possible and the legitimate concerns to protect the privacy of military families and as necessary, operational security."

But there was no indication that the government would permit news organizations to begin taking such photographs.

Under President Bill Clinton, the policy against taking such photographs was not rigorously enforced, and Mr. Clinton took part in numerous ceremonies that honored dead service members.…

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/conceptual?id=11

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con·cept: Some Things Bear Repeating