Oil and Blood - New York Times

“It is now generally understood that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has become a debacle. Nevertheless, Iraqis are supposed to have their constitution ratified and a permanent government elected by the end of the year. It's a logical escape hatch for George W. Bush. He could declare victory, as a senator once suggested to Lyndon Johnson in the early years of Vietnam, and bring the troops home as quickly as possible.

His mantra would be: There's a government in place. We won. We're out of there.

But don't count on it. The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war, which has taken a fearful toll in lives and injuries while at the same time weakening the military, damaging the international reputation of the United States, serving as a world-class recruiting tool for terrorist groups and blowing a hole the size of Baghdad in Washington's budget.

A wiser leader would begin to cut some of these losses. But the whole point of this war, it seems, was to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq to ensure American domination of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves, which have been described, the author Daniel Yergin tells us, as "the greatest single prize in all history."

You can run through all the wildly varying rationales for this war: the weapons of mass destruction (that were never found), the need to remove the unmitigated evil of Saddam (whom we had once cozied up to), the connection to Al Qaeda (which was bogus), and one of President Bush's favorites, the need to fight the terrorists "over there" so we won't have to fight them here at home.

All the rationales have to genuflect before "The Prize," which was the title of Mr. Yergin's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book.

It's the oil, stupid.…”

The point here is that the invasion of Iraq was part of a much larger, long-term policy that had to do with the U.S. imposing its will, militarily when necessary, throughout the Middle East and beyond. The war has gone badly, and the viciousness of the Iraq insurgency has put the torch to the idea of further pre-emptive adventures by the Bush administration.

Dreams of empire die hard. We're dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but there is a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. The global competition for oil reserves intensifies by the hour.
/

">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/opinion/28herbert.html

Reporter Malpractice, Texas Hold-em & the Plame Game

“It's not news that the U.S. has an intelligence agency, and it's not news that some of the agencies employees are double-naught spies. Further, the name of Valerie Plame isn't news, either -- there's nothing about her that makes her identity lede-worthy according to any standards of journalism I've ever seen. (If the agent were, say, Michael Jackson, that might be news, especially in today's Big Media world.)

At this point, there isn't a story in what the contact is offering (the New York Times never ran a story suggesting that this was news); the contact's actions themselves do constitute a story (‘Did White House official violate U.S. law in outing CIA operative?’ is showing serious legs); and finally, the contact has implicated the reporter in an expansive web of intrigue that may result in the reporter going to prison.

This last part is key because it goes to the core of the implicit contract between reporter and source. A great deal of attention has been focused on the misguided idea that naming Whitehouse would violate a sacred trust, but this view misunderstands the responsibilities both parties incur when such an agreement is struck.

When Bob Whitehouse dropped Plame's identity on Miller, he immediately breached his contract with her. An agreement of confidentiality binds both parties, not just the reporter. When the source swears the journalist to secrecy, he/she incurs an obligation to behave ethically, as well. A reporter's good faith oath isn't a license of indenture, and it may not be played in bad faith to place a reporter in undue jeopardy. If Whitehouse breaks that trust, the reporter is no longer under any obligation whatsoever to protect his name.

Miller needed to step back and say “thanks Bob, but no thanks -- you're the story now.” Reporters are obligated to the truth, and allowing themselves to be pimped by those who would use them as tools against the truth is a crime against the profession and the society it serves. Protecting that which you are bound to expose is malpractice.

As somebody who has given and honored his word many times, I can respect that somebody is willing to go to jail rather than do something they see as reflecting on their reputations. But in doing so, you may be acting on a personal principle, not an industry code. The distinction is important.

There are few things in our entire culture that are more essential than the freedoms codified in the 1st Amendment. Press freedom isn't just important to democracy, it's a prerequisite. Further, I'm all in favor of doing anything we can to encourage whistle-blowers in this age of high governmental and corporate kleptocracy. Most editorials and comments I'm seeing this last week or two insist that the Plame case is about just these issues.

I don't buy it. From where I sit, Miller went to jail not to protect the name of a source, but to protect the name of a former source who may be a felon.”

Former Intelligence Officers Hit White House on Plame Leak

Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national security.

In a hearing held by Senate and House Democrats examining the implications of exposing Valerie Plame's identity, the former intelligence officers said Bush's silence has hampered efforts to recruit informants to help the United States fight the war on terror. Federal law forbids government officials from revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence officer.

"I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief-- protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, who calls himself a Republican. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees."

When they thought it would die down they talked tough, but, when it came back to haunt them they suddenly were ‘helpless’ until the investigation was over.

Apparently, none of them imagined a prosecutor as relentless as Fitzgerald. He just kept dotting the i's and crossing the t's until he had a trail that lead him to the offices of the President and Vice President of the United States. So now, it's time to change the subject…, again…

http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980907&imw=Y

Just a Sound Check

“Like it says. This is just a sound check.” ‘’

…It should also help me claim my channel at Odeo.com…

http://www.archive.org/download/Sound_Check/difficult.mp3

Imagine

Imagine

It's that day of infamy in December of '41. If you can imagine congress declaring war on torpedo bombers instead of the Japanese, then you're beginning to see the problem I have with the war on terror.

When I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I turned around and said this is Al Qaeda's third attack. I expected immediate action against Bin Laden and the Taliban, but it took months despite nearly every military power on earth offering us their assistance.

An incredible amount of time was wasted trying to link the attacks to Iraq, Iran and even North Korea was dragged into the axis of evil.

In the end we declared war on the tactic instead of the enemy, making Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora almost inevitable.…

I think it's because too many people can't imagine an attack by anything but a state, but jihads, crusades, and holy wars don't need a state in the traditional way. In any case, Al Qaeda isn't state sponsored terrorism, the Taliban was a terrorist sponsored state.

At some point in the middle ages, I'm told they tried to outlaw archery. They went so far as to hang every archer they came across, but the sanctions didn't end the problem. Only a more effective tactic (guns) succeeded in replacing bows.

The taliban weren't much of a state, and our military is geared up for war with states so we found one, pounded it into the ground, disbanded its army, defeated it in every way possible, while Al Qaeda metastesized throughout the entire Islamic world.

Al Qaeda can be defeated, but, where surgery would have been adequate, we now need chemotherapy and radiation and the patient might not survive. By the way, the patient has a large family that holds grudges, and they've already started planning the malpractice suit.

In the meanwhile, some are declaring success because it's been years since the attack. There were years betwween the embassy attacks and the U.S.S. Cole. Our interests and our servicepeople have been under constant attack. We have self inflicted wounds Bin Laden could only have dreamed of causing as we trade freedoms for “security.”

And the people of Iraq have the vote, but less security, less electricity, less gasoline, less health care, less water, but they're still giving us the benefit of the doubt. But even they aren't going to do that forever.

We've got to demand responsibility from congress, and accountability from the executive, because winning this war can't be a faith based initiative.

Since the London attacks eighteen of our twenty partners in our coalition of the willing and the billing have suffered terrorist attacks. Our soldiers, wounded in Iraq, who die in transit, or on arrival in other countries, aren't properly counted as war dead. This game of let's pretend is costing us dearly. Soon, we'll look in the mirror and won't recognize America at all.

Al Ingram (Updated July 11, 2005)

http://www.audioblogger.com/media/1468/209186.mp3

Hunting Ambassador Wilson via Valerie Plame?

Rove told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that ValeriePlame, CIA operative and wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was "fair game," according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek.

“This bumper sticker was spotted by Left in SF over the weekend -- disturbingly, on an SUV parked among a crowd of cars out for a gay-pride rally.

These "permits" have been around for awhile now, mostly circulating on the fringes of the far right, but they've been increasingly making their way into broader circulation. One of the Minutemen described in Andy Isaacson's mash letter to that extremist phenomenon sported just such a sticker on his rig.

The people sporting such stickers, no doubt, will contend that it's just a joke -- as though such a fig leaf could disguise the violent attitudes and beliefs required to find it humorous. Next they'll argue that stickers saying "Hitler Needed to Finish the Job" are just meant to be funny.

This is, of course, just another permutation of the rising tide of eliminationist rhetoric directed at liberals. It's everywhere -- including now, thanks to Karl Rove, the highest echelons of the Bush administration.

I can't say I was terribly surprised by Rove's remarks, but they are well worth noting for their precise content:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

...Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."”

Mystery of Karl Rove/Matt Cooper Connection Deepens

By E&P Staff

Published: July 08, 2005 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK The mystery deepened today over top White House aide Karl Rove's involvement in the Plame case and how strongly special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is interested in that. The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports today that Fitzgerald "still appears to want more answers about Rove's role" and apparently is "focused on" his conversations with Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has now agreed to testify in the matter.

Yesterday The New York Times reported that Cooper’s dramatic reprieve from jail, after his unnamed sourced freed him from their confidentiality agreement, came after he got a personal okay from Rove. At the same time, The Post reported that Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, denied that Rove had called him.

"Yesterday, however," Balz reports, "Luskin declined to comment on a New York Times report that the release came as a result of negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys, nor would he speculate that Cooper was released from his pledge in some other fashion than a direct conversation with Rove. 'I'm not going to comment any further,' Luskin said."

Balz also noted that Luskin's previous confirmation that Rove had spoken to Cooper two years ago "appeared at odds with previous White House statements. In retrospect, however, these statements -- which some interpreted as emphatic denials -- were in fact carefully worded."

Rove told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Valerie Plame, CIA operative and wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was "fair game," according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek. "At a minimum Fitzgerald could turn up embarrassing information that may yet become public about how the Bush White House operates," Balz writes today.
http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000975776&imw=Y

I think no more needs to be said.
Al Ingram

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/06/hunting-of-liberals.html

Contrary Brin misc aside: send books to soldiers/sailors...

We keep saying we're not at war with the Iraqi people. We're not at war with Islam. We don't even seem to be coherently at war with enemies who use terrorism. Instead we're at war with terrorism itself. We might have killed, detained, and yes, tortured fewer Iraqis and Muslims if we were at war with them. We might even apply the Geneva Conventions.

“Reasonable people can have diverse opinions about the war in Iraq. I have expressed doubts here over the way we have fumbled around over there. (As I say below, those who shamefully left Saddam in power in 1991 have no right to preen over sending our troops back 12 years later, to correct their fantastic blunder. At best, they are atoning for a horrible stain on our honor.)

Still, despite grotesque political meddling and the bad apple behavior of some horrid rogues, most our soldiers and beleaguered officers are doing their best in a very rough situation. They deserve support, whatever we think of the War Plan they are forced to execute.

I have long made a habit of mailing crates of books to military units around the world, doing my small bit as an author and reader to help ease the draggy ennui that spans the intervals between episodes of danger and courage. (Lately, the Navy Department gave me a lovely wall chatchki for donating $2,000 worth of hardcovers to ships at the San Diego Naval Base.) ”

War on Blitzkrieg.

War on Saturation Bombing.

How about a War on House to House Combat?

Isn't it time we stopped fighting a tactic and concetrated on defeating the enemy?

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/

Expert: Grokster Decision Won't Negate Sony 'Fair Use' Law

The entertainment industry has been fighting technology in court since the invention of the player piano. American courts have the unenviable job of preserving rights in intellectual property and maintaining an environment where innovation and ideas can flourish. It's a constitutional mandate that in this decision may have been misread.

“The Supreme Court's decision Monday that Grokster and other file-swapping services can be held liable for illegal downloading doesn't overturn the 'fair use' doctrine established in the early 1980s when consumers started buying videocassette recorders to copy television shows and movies, according to a Washington-based copyright attorney.

However, how the law is interpreted by the courts will likely change, due to the massive use of digital technology to download, copy and share millions of music and video files, said Ralph Oman, former federal register of copyrights and currently an attorney in the intellectual property group of Dechert LLP, a Washington-based law firm.

The case of Sony Corp. versus Universal Studios, which established the fair use doctrine, 'is pretty much intact in, perhaps, a way limited by the facts,' Oman said. 'Three of the justices said the Sony decision is irrelevant in this case and three said [Grokster] had met the Sony criteria and by specific acts had violated those criteria of the Sony decision.'The court found that Grokster wasn't "merely selling a device that could be used for infringing activity. It was a device or software that was designed to encourage the illegal activity," Oman said.…

In that case, Grokster couldn't claim that its file-swapping service represented fair use as was deemed legal in the Sony vs. Universal decision.

Oman was one of a group of attorneys and law professors that filed a "friend of the court" brief with the Supreme Court, arguing the view that "Grokster is trading on the illegal activity of its subscribers," he said.

Removing competitors, building barriers to entry, doesn't solve the industries underlying problem. It just treats one of the symptoms.

Companies like Grokster aim to "induce the infringing activity of their customers, and they benefit from that inducement in terms of being able to sell advertising to increase the number of people who are viewing their site," Oman said.

Grokster's business plan "requires acts of infringement on a large percentage scale," and that use is "not shielded by the laws limiting liability in the Sony case," he said.

The key difference between the two cases is that the video players and recorders in the Sony case were analog devices. Owners couldn't easily use their recorders to produce hundreds or thousands of movie videos for their friends or for anyone willing to pay for them.”

So now they'll try to stuff the genie back into the bottle, right after they unscramble the eggs they had for breakfast.

The entertainment industry has been fighting technology in court since the invention of the player piano. American courts have the unenviable job of preserving rights in intellectual property and maintaining an environment where innovation and ideas can flourish. It's a constitutional mandate that in this decision may have been misread.

I think, that even if you could unscramble already eaten eggs, there's no one who will want any. You've got to sell what people want to buy, or persuade them to want what you have to sell. Removing competitors, building barriers to entry, doesn't solve the industries underlying problem. It just treats one of the symptoms.

BitTorrent files of Grokster & Betamax legal documents (from outragedmoderates.org)

On Saturday, I created a BitTorrent file of all of the briefs submitted to the Supreme Court regarding the MGM v. Grokster case, which the Court will hear tomorrow. Since then, over 170 people have downloaded the Grokster briefs, which adds up to over 378,760 pages of court documents downloaded in two and a half days. (Update - as of midnight on 4/1/05, over 580,000 pages of Grokster briefs had been downloaded.)

Below are BitTorrent links for the Grokster briefs and two new torrents: one containing documents from the 1984 Betamax case, and one containing mp3 audio files of the oral arguments in that case. (Click here for information about how to install a BitTorrent client; click here for more BitTorrent files containing government documents).

MGM v. Grokster Briefs [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: All of the briefs submitted to the Supreme Court re: MGM v. Grokster
Size: 20.7 MB (74 files)
Source: U.S. Copyright Office [copyright.gov]

Betamax Legal Documents [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: Court documents and briefs from the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax decision
Size: 4.7 MB (42 files)
Source: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Betamax case document archive [EFF.org]

Betamax mp3s [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: mp3s of the oral arguments in the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax decision
Size: 52.7 MB (3 files)
Source: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Betamax case document archive [EFF.org]

Thanks to these folks, and everyone else, who linked to the Grokster briefs torrent:
"Grokster Briefs demonstrating the point of p2p" [Lessig.org]
"Grokster briefs torrent" [BoingBoing.net]

I'm taking the Chinatown bus down to D.C. tonight, with hopes of hearing part of the oral arguments tomorrow morning. Check back here Wednesday for some blogging on Grokster. Journalists/bloggers interested in talking to someone about the political uses of P2P, please email me at info@outragedmoderates.org and leave a phone number.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1831982,00.asp?kc=ewnws062805dtx1k0000599

The War President - New York Times

America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.

“In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, ‘I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war’ - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.… ”

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.

Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that "fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24krugman.html

Class Matters - Social Class in the United States of America

“A team of reporters spent more than a year exploring ways that class - defined as a combination of income, education, wealth and occupation - influences destiny in a society that likes to think of itself as a land of unbounded opportunity.…

• Multimedia & Graphics From This Series
• Interactive Graphics: Where Do You Fit In? Poll Results
• Bibliography: Selected Readings Related to This Series

• Day 1: Overview
• Day 2: Health
• Day 3: Marriage
• Day 4: Religion
• Day 5: Education
• Day 6: Immigration
• Day 7: New Status Markers
• Day 8: The 'Relo' Class
• Day 9: The Hyper-Rich
• Day 10: Class and Culture
• Day 11: Up From the Projects …

Times Books will publish the Class Matters series as a paperback in September. A limited number of newspaper reprints will also be available in three to four weeks for $2.50 per copy. To order the reprint, call 1-800-671-4332.”

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/05/15/national/class/index.html?8dpc

Legal Guide for Bloggers

“Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don't want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that's under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.

The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you're doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn't help - in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven't yet decided how it applies to bloggers.

But here's the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn't use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That's why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.…”

‘’

Table of Contents…

Blogger Legal Liability Issues

The Overview of Legal Liability Issues FAQ briefly addresses some common legal issues that affect you as a publisher, especially situations where you may face legal claims or threats based on the information you published on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Intellectual Property addresses issues that arise when you publish material created by others on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Online Defamation Law provides an overview of defamation (libel) law, including a discussion of the constitutional and statutory privileges that may protect you.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Section 230 Protections discusses a powerful federal law that gives you, as a web host, protection against legal claims arising from hosting information written by third parties.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Privacy addresses the legal issues surrounding the privacy rights of people you blog about.

Bloggers As Journalists

The Bloggers' FAQ on the Reporter's Privilege is useful to bloggers who report news gathered from confidential sources.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Media Access can help bloggers who need to get access to public records and government meetings, as well as secure press passes to help with newsgathering.

Other Legal Issues for Bloggers

The Bloggers' FAQ on Election Law addresses the legal issues you may face blogging about political campaigns.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Labor Law addresses legal issues with workplace blogging, including union organizing, protections for political blogging away from the workplace, and whistle blowing.

Blogger Legal FAQs

Legal Liability Issues
Overview
Intellectual Property
Defamation
Section 230
Privacy

Bloggers as Journalists
Reporter's Privilege
Media Access

Other Legal Issues
Election Law
Labor Law
…

http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Who Pays For This?

Who Pays? 1.6MB
Updated June 13, 2005 15:59 CDT

My apologies for an inaudible audio, problems with ourmedia seem resolved now. — Al Ingram

“I started getting pulled into something--something that craved other peole's pain. Just to make sure I wasn't regarded as a "fucking missionary" or a possible rat, I learned how to fit myself into that group that was untouchable, people too crazy to fuck with, people who desired the rush of omnipotence that comes with setting someone's house on fire just for the pure hell of it, or who could kill anyone, man, woman, or child, with hardly a second thought. People who had the power of life and death--because they could.

The anger helps. It's easy to hate everyone you can't trust because of your circumstances, and to rage about what you've seen, what has happened to you, and what you have done and can't take back.

It was all an act for me, a cover-up for deeper fears I couldn't name, and the reason I know that is
that we had to dehumanize our victims before we did the things we did. We knew deep down that what we were doing was wrong. So they became dinks or gooks, just like Iraqis are now being transformed into ragheads or hajjis. People had to be reduced to "niggers" here before they could be lynched. No difference. We convinced ourselves we had to kill them to survive, even when that wasn't true, but something inside us told us that so long as they were human beings, with the same intrinsic value we had as human beings, we were not allowed to burn their homes and barns, kill their animals, and sometimes even kill them. So we used these words, these new names, to reduce them, to strip them of their essential humanity, and then we could do things like adjust artillery fire onto the cries of a baby.

Until that baby was silenced, though, and here's the important thing to understand, that baby never surrendered her humanity. I did. We did. That's the thing you might not get until it's too late. When you take away the humantiy of another, you kill your own humanity. You attack your own soul because it is standing in the way.… ”

Excerpt from Hold On To Your Humanity: A Open Letter to GI's in Iraq by MFSO member Stan Goff.

Marine Cleared in Deaths of 2 Insurgents in Iraq

By By JOHN DeSANTIS, New York Times Regional Newspapers

Second Lt. Ilario Pantano was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the same two-star general who ordered a formal inquiry. “The killings occurred on April 15, 2004, near Mahmudiyah, as Lieutenant Pantano led a platoon to search a house suspected of being an insurgent lair. When the marines approached, two men left in a white sedan, according to testimony at the hearing, but were stopped on Lieutenant Pantano's order. No weapons were found on the men, who were handcuffed as a Navy corpsman checked their car for weapons. When he was told that weapons and other contraband were found inside the house, Lieutenant Pantano ordered the men unhandcuffed and then directed them to search their car themselves. Lieutenant Pantano supervised while the corpsman, George Gobles, and a Marine sergeant, Daniel Coburn, stood facing away as sentries. Lieutenant Pantano said that the men made a threatening move toward him after repeatedly talking with each other in Arabic and that he fired, emptying his M-16 rifle's magazine. He reloaded and emptied the second one, a total of as many as 50 bullets. He acknowledged placing a hand-scrawled cardboard sign reading "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" atop the car, against which the bodies lay. The sign and the number of rounds fired, according to lieutenant Pantano's statement, were meant to send a message to other Iraqis about what happens to those who join insurgents. The sign and its placement resulted in a formal accusation of desecration, in addition to the two accusations of premeditated murder.” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/national/27pantano.html?ex=1274846400&en=30f7492b75f8e1fe&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Soldier Charged in Iraqi Killing Is Acquitted

By By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A jury of four soldiers and two officers deliberated for less than three hours before finding Staff Sgt. Shane Werst not guilty of premeditated murder.

“Sergeant Werst testified that he did not regret shooting Mr. Ismail but acknowledged that his efforts to make it look like self-defense were wrong. "I would still to this day fire on that man, sir," he said.

He and a fellow soldier had gone into a house with Mr. Ismail looking for weapons. After shooting him, Sergeant Werst said, he fired the Iraqi's pistol into a couch and told the other soldier, Pfc. Nathan Stewart, to put the man's fingerprints on it.

Sergeant Werst said he had been scared because he had never shot anyone before.

The prosecutor, Capt. Evan Seamone, said the story did not make sense. "If this is a legitimate kill, if this follows the rules of engagement, why in the world would he have to create a lie?" Captain Seamone said.

He cited the testimony of Private Stewart, who said Sergeant Werst had gotten mad because he thought Mr. Ismail had lied about his identity. Sergeant Werst said, "Come on, Stewart, we're going to kill" him, Private Stewart testified.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/national/27forthood.html?ex=1274846400&en=81f0a9dbd7f09f24&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

We're sending a deadly message, but, not to the insurgents and not to Al Qaeda. We're sending this deadly message to those we profess to help.

Read Hold On To Your Humanity: A Open Letter to GI's in Iraq

by MFSO member Stan Goff.

" Bring 'Em On? " By STAN GOFF, Former Special Forces Soldier and Military Parent, as he responds to Bush's invitation for Iraqis to attack US Troops …

http://www.archive.org/download/Who_Pays_Audible_Version/WhoPays.mp3

A $250,000 Fine and 10 Years in Prison, Unless…

Ruling Limits Prosecutions of People Who Violate Law on Privacy of Medical Records

By ROBERT PEAR
“An authoritative new ruling by the Justice Department sharply limits the government's ability to prosecute people for criminal violations of the law that protects the privacy of medical records.

The criminal penalties, the department said, apply to insurers, doctors, hospitals and other providers - but not necessarily their employees or outsiders who steal personal health data.

In short, the department said, people who work for an entity covered by the federal privacy law are not automatically covered by that law and may not be subject to its criminal penalties, which include a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison for the most serious violations.

The reasoning is that federal regulations establish the standards for medical privacy. The regulations apply just to "covered entities," including insurers and health care providers. Thus, only covered entities can be prosecuted for criminal violations of the law.

This interpretation is set forth in an opinion written by the office of legal counsel at the Justice Department. The opinion, dated June 1, is binding on the executive branch of the federal government, but not on judges. It was prepared over the last 16 months to answer questions from the criminal division of the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department.

The ruling was a surprise to many lawyers. Robert M. Gellman, an expert on privacy and information policy, said, "Under this decision, a tremendous amount of conduct that is clearly wrong will fall outside the criminal penalties of the statute," the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

If a hospital sells a list of patients' names to a firm for marketing purposes, the hospital can be held criminally liable, Mr. Gellman said. But if a hospital clerk does the same thing, in defiance of hospital policy, the clerk cannot be prosecuted under the 1996 law, because the clerk is not a "covered entity."

In December 2000, President Bill Clinton issued sweeping privacy standards that affected virtually every part of the health care system. President Bush allowed the rules to take effect with some changes.

The government has received more than 13,000 complaints of violations of the privacy standards in the last two years. The government has not imposed any civil fines, but it has secured one criminal conviction. A Seattle man pleaded guilty last August to wrongful disclosure of personal health information.

The man, Richard W. Gibson, admitted that he had improperly obtained a patient's name, birth date and Social Security account number while working for a consortium of cancer hospitals. Mr. Gibson used the information to obtain four credit cards in the patient's name. Using the cards, Mr. Gibson bought more than $9,000 worth of video games, jewelry, porcelain figurines, groceries, gasoline and other items for his use.

He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

The new Justice Department opinion appears to contradict the legal theory under which Mr. Gibson was prosecuted.

When informed of the new opinion, Gregory L. Ursich, a lawyer for the patient whose rights were violated, said Monday, ‘This is a very bizarre interpretation of the statute.’ ”

So,… will the one convicted thief get out of jail free? Has the Bush Justice Department gone nuts? Was it ever sane?

Tune in folks…, this one will be in the courts for the rest of our lives. It ranks up there with not letting the FBI check the firearms records of the 9-11 hijackers, or not supporting research that could take an innocent life, at least until after they're born, then all bets are off.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/politics/07privacy.html?ex=1275796800&en=b3a375374a7aa548&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Turn On, Tune In, ..., Start the Computer Revolution

Almost every feature of today's home computers, from the graphical interface to the mouse control, can be traced to two Stanford research facilities that were completely immersed in the counterculture.…

What the Dormouse Said tells the story of the birth of the personal computer through the people, politics, and protest that defined its unique era.

“What the Dormouse Said:
How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry” (Viking, 287 pages) is John Markoff's hymn to the 1960's, and to the social idealists and, well, acid freaks who wanted to use computers to promote an agenda of sharing, openness and personal growth.

John Markoff is a senior writer for The New York Times who has coauthored Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier and the bestselling Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America’s Most Wanted Computer Outlaw.

…

John Markoff has been writing about computers, technology and the Internet for The New York Times since 1988. Before joining the Times, Markoff covered technology for The San Francisco Examiner and Infoworld, and wrote a weekly column for the San Jose Mercury News.

Markoff started covering technology in 1977, one year after Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple computer, and just two years after two geeks from Seattle -- Paul Allen and Bill Gates -- first got together to write software.

Under Markoff's watch, the idea that everyone could own a personal computer has gone from fantasy to reality, e-mail has transformed how we communicate, and the Internet has given everyone the ability to publish their own version of the news.

Heroic New World? How heroic can you be, if your world is filtered through psylocibin? Could you, stand up for a changed world, stone cold sober. Hacker Culture by Douglas Thomas University of Minnesota Press 2003.

It's not as gripping as “Takedown”with Tsutomu Shimomura, but definitely worth the read.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/business/yourmoney/22shelf.html?ex=1274414400&en=86e9c0ac0409a700&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

White House Downplays Missing Arms

“The White House on Friday played down a report in which U.N. weapons inspectors documented additional materials missing from weapons sites in Iraq.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration had taken steps to ensure sites were secured, and he suggested it was doubtful the looted material was being used to boost other countries' weapons programs.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said that satellite imagery experts had determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles had been removed from 109 sites, up from 90 reported in March.

The sites have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, with the largest percentage of missing items at 58 missile facilities.

For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles -- or about 85 percent, had been removed, the report said.

Biological sites were the least damaged, according to the analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Iraq-Weapons.html

Disassembling The Truth

Amnesty International called Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our time". Bush was scornful of this report. Bush says that some people are "trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means to not tell the truth", happily showcasing his latest line of malapropisms. "'Dissemble' means to not tell the truth. 'Disassemble' is what we did to Iraq," Stewart says.

Cheney had a similar reaction when asked about the Amnesty International report during a Larry King interview. The normally robotic stoic of a man Cheney says he was offended by it. Stewart, everyone's favorite Southern belle cries, "Offended?! Why, he's so sensitive! I declare, fetch that man a faintin' couch and some lemon water. He's got the vapors!"
from http://www.tvsquad.com/2005/06/03/the-daily-show-june-2-2005/

Meanwhile…
Iraq: U.S. Checkpoints Continue to Kill

The failure of U.S. forces in Iraq to implement basic precautions at checkpoints has led to unnecessary deaths of civilians two years after these inadequacies were identified, Human Rights Watch said today.

The March 4 killing of an Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, at a checkpoint in Baghdad highlighted this failure.

After the fall of Baghdad, Human Rights Watch expressed concern to U.S. army ground commanders about excessive civilian deaths at checkpoints. The commanders told Human Rights Watch that they had identified many problems in their checkpoint procedures and were taking steps to correct them.

Again, in its October 2003 report, "Hearts and Minds," Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. military in Iraq to take further steps to better mark checkpoints with lights and large signs in Arabic, initiate a public-service campaign to inform Iraqis of proper checkpoint behavior, and make available interpreters and soldiers with Arabic skills at all times.

"The military should immediately take the basic steps to ensure that Iraqi civilians, as well as U.S. soldiers, are safe at checkpoints," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "The fact that soldiers who man checkpoints are at real risk is not an excuse for complacency. These risks should not be transferred to civilians."

The checkpoint killing of an Italian intelligence officer shows that the army still hasn't taken basic precautions to protect civilians. On May 2, the Pentagon released a classified investigation into the checkpoint shooting death of Nicola Calipari on March 4. The Italian intelligence officer was gunned down at a U.S. Army checkpoint while escorting an Italian reporter to the airport after she had been released by Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped her. The U.S. military investigation exonerates all U.S. military personnel involved in the shooting, but it shows that the army has failed to implement lessons learned during two years of manning checkpoints.

Checkpoints in Iraq pose dangers to both soldiers manning them and persons crossing them. The U.S. military calls the type of checkpoint where Calipari was killed a "blocking position." Blocking positions are checkpoints where military units attempt to turn vehicles away without searching them. According to the U.S. investigation, the military unit in question had been given the Tactical Standing Operating Procedures, but this set of procedures for checkpoints "does not provide guidance on blocking positions."
"There is no evidence to indicate that the Soldiers were trained to execute blocking positions before arriving in theater," the Pentagon report admitted.

The investigation found that instead of following written guidelines, the unit used informal procedures that were passed from unit to unit over time. In fact, according to the investigation, the unit was never trained in the proper procedures to operate a blocking checkpoint.

"Using untrained troops for operations as sensitive as checkpoint duty makes no sense," said Garlasco. "These practices put U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians at risk."

The recommendations of the U.S. military's report mirror many of the issues that Human Rights Watch discussed with U.S. military commanders in Iraq immediately after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. A senior officer with the Third Infantry Division had told Human Rights Watch that the importance of using signs and barriers to slow vehicles was among the lessons from the war being implemented to minimize civilian casualties at checkpoints.

Yet according to the U.S. report, on the night that Calipari was killed, the army company operating the checkpoint did not employ signs warning vehicles to slow down, nor had it deployed rubber speed bumps. These items can be easily carried and placed by the troops as they set up checkpoints. The report recommended establishing a program to inform all Iraqis of how to behave at checkpoints, to require soldiers to consider the perspective of drivers and what they might see, and to implement a "more driver friendly alert signal."

According to the Pentagon report, procedures that should have been in place for checkpoints (though not blocking positions) the night of the shooting included, "an Alert Line, a Warning Line, a Stop Line, a Search Area, and an Overwatch Area." According to the Tactical Standing Operating Procedures, the Search Area should be "a well-lit checkpoint, provide standoff from neighborhood structures, allow a sufficient area to accommodate more than one search team, the establishment of warning signs with sufficient distance for drivers to react, the use of physical barriers to force vehicles to slow down, and other barriers like tire poppers, to block movement of vehicles attempting to continue through the search area."

Furthermore, the report said that units operating checkpoints should have equipment that includes "warnings signs, triangles, sawhorses, traffic cones, and/or tire poppers." None of these items was apparently used the night of this shooting. While some of the procedures for a standard checkpoint were in place, many that may have prevented the shooting of Nicola Calipari were not.

Storm Brews Over Encryption 'Safe Harbor' in Data Breach Bills

“You can encrypt the data with a trivial algorithm and get around [the law]," Schneier said. "If you can get around a law by doing something stupid, it's a badly written law.”

By Caron Carlson

“Spurred by the ongoing flood of sensitive data breaches this spring, nearly a dozen states may have breach notification laws on their books by summer. In turn, makers of security software and companies in several other industries are pressuring Capitol Hill for a federal law pre-empting the states' measures.

In Congress, more than a half-dozen bills requiring a range of data security measures and breach notification rules are pending, and at least two more are slated for introduction in coming months.

These measures—including one under consideration by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and one in the draft stages by Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio—illustrate one of the most contentious questions in the debate: Should there be a notification exemption for businesses that encrypt their data?

Not surprisingly, industries for the most part are pushing for an encryption exemption to notification, a safe harbor that is included in California SB (Senate Bill) 1386, a notification law that went into effect in July 2003. The growing security software industry, a major ally in this effort, is trying to convince lawmakers that when encrypted data is stolen, the theft poses no meaningful harm to consumers.

"If the data is encrypted, it's gibberish. They don't know what it is. They can't use it," said Dan Burton, vice president of government affairs for Entrust Inc.

Some data security experts contend, however, that an encryption safe harbor could reduce data holders' incentives to implement strong protective measures in the first place. Criticizing the California notification law, Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., said it lets data holders bypass disclosure without necessarily protecting the data.

‘You can encrypt the data with a trivial algorithm and get around [the law],’ Schneier said. ‘If you can get around a law by doing something stupid, it's a badly written law.’

Entrust supports an encryption exemption to notification but not without other security requirements, said Chris Voice, CTO at the Addison, Texas, company. ‘Like any technological approach, it's going to require more than just encrypting the data,’ Voice said. ‘I think security controls will have to be in place regardless.’”

…Anti-Spyware Bills Pass House, Move to Senate
“The U.S. House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly passed two separate anti-spyware bills, but as the measures now move to the Senate, legislators will find most of the hard questions unresolved—a familiar scenario in Congress, where similar House bills withered last year following Senate inaction.

The SPY ACT (Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass), authored by Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., takes the more active approach, requiring a conspicuous notice to users before transmitting spyware.

The SPY ACT largely resembles the Senate's SPYBLOCK (Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge) bill, sponsored by Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. The sponsors are awaiting a date for a committee hearing on the bill and hope to have one before the end of the summer, an aide to Burns said.

Alternatively, the Internet Spyware Prevention Act, authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., focuses on penalties for fraudulent or deceptive behavior without targeting any particular technology—an approach favored by the IT industry.

Goodlatte's bill, which passed the House 395-1, makes it a crime to intentionally access a computer without authorization by causing code to be copied onto the computer and using it for malicious purposes.

From the industry's perspective, the Goodlatte approach avoids the possibility of ensnaring legitimate software downloads, such as security patches.”

I'm afraid we're going to get another CAN-SPAM act. Good only for saving legilators ‘phoney baloney jobs.’ Lets make a movie about it.

We an call it ‘Blazing Firewalls.’…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1822182,00.asp?kc=ewnws060105dtx1k0000599

Say It Plain A Century of Great African American Speeches

These speeches start with Booker T. Washington and end with Barack Obama. They include Clarence Thomas who isn't on my list of great anythings. Missing conspicuously are W.E. B. DuBois, El Haj Malik Al Shabazz (Malcolm X), or any of the “Black Panthers.” It's a start, but it's far from comprehensive.

“The transcripts on this Web site were drawn from the accompanying recordings. In some cases, we were able to start with existing transcripts in the public domain and check them against the recordings. In other instances, we produced the transcripts ourselves with the help of dedicated colleagues.

On some occasions, the available text of a speech differed from the recording. Speakers commonly diverge from their written texts, which are sometimes speeches they give repeatedly, but no one takes the time to document the extemporaneous remarks. ”

Booker T Washington
A former slave and the most influential African American at the turn of the 20th century Listen to the speech

Marcus Garveys
A Jamaican immigrant who urged black Americans to form their own nation in Africa Listen to the speech

Mary McLeod Bethune
A prominent educator and leading civil rights figure in the New Deal era Listen to the speech

Dick Gregory
A popular comedian and activist in the 1960s involved in the 1963 marches in Birmingham Listen to the speech

Fannie Lou Hamer
Helped lead the fight for black voting rights in Mississippi Listen to the speech

Stokely Carmichael
A young civil rights organizer who popularized the slogan, "Black Power" Listen to the speech

Martin Luther King Jr.
The most prominent leader of the non-violent civil rights movement in the 20th century Listen to the speech

Shirley Chisholm
The first African American woman to be elected to Congress Listen to the speech

Barbera Jordan
U.S. Representative who made a historic speech during the 1974 Watergate hearings Listen to the speech

Jesse Jackson
A civil rights leader, disciple of Martin Luther King, Jr., and two-time presidential candidate Listen to the speech

Clarence Thomas
A Supreme Court Justice appointed by President George H. W. Bush Listen to the speech

Barack Obama
U.S. Democratic Senator from Illinois Listen to the speech

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/index.html

Is There No Shame

“Rambling about truth, justice and Bush ”

…to be continued …
http://www.archive.org/download/Is_There_No_Shame/Is_There_NoShame.mp3

An Iraqi Police Officer's Death, a Soldier's Varying Accounts

By MONICA DAVEY

“The American soldier and the Iraqi police officer were on patrol together outside a flea market south of Baghdad, chatting from time to time, when one of them suddenly started shooting.

What prompted the gunfire is a matter of dispute, but one thing is not: The soldier, Cpl. Dustin M. Berg, fired three times at his Iraqi partner, Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood al-Zubeidi, and killed him. As Corporal Berg ran away, he picked up Mr. Zubeidi's AK-47 and shot himself in the side.

In the days that followed, Corporal Berg lied about what happened, saying Mr. Zubeidi was the one who had shot him. And for months he went right on lying, after he recovered from his wound, after he left Iraq, even after he received a Purple Heart he did not deserve with his parents watching at a solemn ceremony back home in Indiana.…”

Unlike the prisoner abuses that have alarmed and riveted the public, these lesser-known cases have created divisions over the definition of murder in a fluid war zone. In Iraq, these stories have caused bitter resentment and distrust of the troops. Among Americans, they have strained units, leaving some Army supervisors saying troops seem reluctant to carry out their duties, and have led to an outpouring of anger in hometowns across the United States.

"These guys go out and do what their country asks them to do, and now they're being told they did it wrong?" said Rich Hendrix, a Vietnam-era veteran who spent a recent afternoon inside the American Legion Hall in Ferdinand, Corporal Berg's hometown of 2,300 in Southern Indiana, where residents overwhelmingly say they support him. "I say they're doing the best they can. You can't even be sure who's your friend and who's your enemy over there, so what are they supposed to do?"

Since the war in Iraq began more than two years ago, more than 20 American soldiers and marines have been accused of crimes in connection with the deaths of Iraqis, including the small number of cases in which service members have claimed self-defense. Navy personnel are also being investigated in the deaths of two detainees, though no charges have been filed. At least 10 service members have been convicted, but in most cases on less serious charges than those they originally faced.

No two wars are alike, making it impossible to compare these cases with those of past conflicts, and some people with military experience disagree over whether anything is different in the Iraq prosecutions.

In Vietnam, after a much longer involvement, 95 American soldiers and 27 marines were convicted of killing noncombatants. Gary D. Solis, who teaches law at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said many of those cases are similar to descriptions of killings in Iraq now being prosecuted.

"Look, there are guys who go out and for whatever reason murder defenseless people," Mr. Solis said. "They're crimes. And we're hearing the same arguments now that we heard then: that in the fog of war, you have to make instantaneous decisions. We heard exactly the same thing back then."

In some of the 20 cases, prosecutors allege that flagrant acts led to death. One soldier was convicted of murder in the death of a 17-year-old Iraqi whom he allegedly had sex with in a guard tower. Four others are accused of suffocating a detainee in a sleeping bag during an interrogation. Another was accused of shooting an unarmed Iraqi as he ran from a truck and, some witnesses said, waved a white cloth.

In other cases, service members have admitted their roles in the deaths, but have claimed that their actions were akin to "mercy killings," striking final blows to wounded Iraqis who were suffering.

But perhaps the most contentious cases are those of the handful of service members like Corporal Berg, who claim that they acted only to protect themselves from what they considered threats to their lives, as allowed by military rules. Some witnesses, however, say they saw something else entirely.

A marine from New York says he shot and killed two Iraqis he had just captured in a house raid because they made a hostile move in his direction; but why, then, did he empty his weapon, reload and shoot some more? A private from Louisiana said an Iraqi cowherd lunged toward another soldier in a field, so he shot and killed him; but the unarmed cowherd was in handcuffs, a fact, the soldier insisted, that he did not notice at first.

Jack B. Zimmermann, a Texas lawyer who has defended service members in similar cases and who also was a prosecutor and criminal judge in the Marine Corps, said he considers these cases "the closer questions - the troublesome ones."

And some military lawyers say they believe that those cases are being investigated more often in this war. Perhaps, they say, round-the-clock news media coverage of the fighting in Iraq has also meant increased scrutiny. Perhaps such cases are simply more likely to arise in a war complicated by urban combat and the fear of suicide bombers, hidden explosives and an uncertain enemy.…

Patterns of Abuse
President Bush said the other day that the world should see his administration's handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison as a model of transparency and accountability. He said those responsible were being systematically punished, regardless of rank. It made for a nice Oval Office photo-op on a Friday morning. Unfortunately, none of it is true.

The administration has provided nothing remotely like a full and honest accounting of the extent of the abuses at American prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It has withheld internal reports and stonewalled external inquiries, while clinging to the fiction that the abuse was confined to isolated acts, like the sadistic behavior of one night crew in one cellblock at Abu Ghraib. The administration has prevented any serious investigation of policy makers at the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon by orchestrating official probes so that none could come even close to the central question of how the prison policies were formulated and how they led to the abuses.

When we lie
We set up our frontline troops for exactly the kind of prblems we're beginning to see. We lie about the reasons for war. Like the rest of our population most soldiers believe ther was Iraqi involvement in 9-11. they think Iraqis were on the planes. They believe that there were and are weapons of mass destruction. Their leaders rally them, encourage them in disrespecting the ‘ragheads’, the ‘hajis.’ Above all we don't even count Iraqi dead unless there are cameras rolling.

The same behavior can get a soldier a medal or a court martial, and if they're guilty what about those who sent them there, armed with lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/national/23soldier.html?ei=5088&en=69ff18fde681150a&ex=1274500800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Decoding Health Insurance

By ROBIN COOK

"Where are all the touted breakthroughs, the miracle drugs and diagnostic tests, predicted five years ago? Finding out that humans have about the same number and some of the same genes as a worm may be interesting to somebody, but it's hardly a health care revolution, much less worth the more than $3 billion that have so far been spent on decoding."

The genomic case for universal health coverage.

“We now know, for example, that a vast majority of our genome is composed of repetitive nonsense sequences, and that instead of humans having the 100,000-plus genes previously predicted, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000, many of which we share with all other living things, a fact that anchors us firmly in the process of evolution (whether a creative intelligence was involved or not).

Of course, people can perhaps be forgiven for not wanting to recognize that they don't have many more genes than round worms or fruit flies - a blow to humanity's ego that's about as powerful as Copernicus's discovery that the earth revolved around the sun instead of vice versa.

As a doctor schooled to some degree in science, I believed (and still do) that decoding the human genome might be the most important milestone in the history of medical science. To borrow Mr. Clinton's metaphor, the full genome offers researchers the sequence of all the letters of the human book of life, a monumental resource despite our imperfect understanding of the book's overarching, mind-boggling complexity. As decoding gathers speed, it promises to change just about everything we know about medicine in the form of understanding, prediction, prevention, diagnosis and the treatment of disease. And in so doing, it also offers us a remarkable opportunity to solve the huge and nettlesome problem of paying for health care in the United States.…”

Knowledge of the genome has greatly improved our ability to predict an individual's predilection for a host of diseases. Thousands upon thousands of markers have been identified throughout the genome and linked to particular mutated, deleterious genes associated with specific medical problems. The presence of these markers can be determined by placing a single drop of blood onto a particular type of slide called a microarray. Microarrays, in turn, are read automatically by laser scanners and the results, thanks to bioinformatics, can be analyzed instantly by computers armed with appropriate software and statistical data.

The importance of a rapid increase in prognostic ability is underlined by the growing understanding that every disease has a greater or lesser genetic component. Patients can now avail themselves of preventive measures or treatment even before symptoms occur. But there is a down side. First of all, we can predict more and more diseases that are associated with progressive disability and death and which have, as of yet, no treatment. Finding a marker linked to such an illness is thus the cruel equivalent of an extended death sentence. Understandably many people would not want such a test and would hardly classify having one as a positive health care breakthrough.

Another, and possibly more important, negative consequence of this new ability to predict illness is the potential for discrimination in one form or another if confidential health information is released. Unfortunately the chances of such a breach of privacy occurring, despite lip service by politicians to prevent it legislatively, are probably inevitable. Not only is microarray technology easily accessible, but for-profit private insurance companies have strong incentives to use it to protect their bottom lines by denying service, claims or even coverage.

It is precisely this danger, however, that may lead to a great breakthrough: the inevitable movement to universal health care. In this dawning era of genomic medicine, the result may be that the concept of private health insurance, which is based on actuarially pooling risk within specified, fragmented groups, will become obsolete since risk cannot be pooled if it can be determined for individual policyholders. Genetically determined predilection for disease will become the modern equivalent of the "pre-existing condition" that private insurers have stringently avoided.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/opinion/22cook.html?ex=1274414400&en=247cc5098b0bd558&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss