Pinging stuff I care about.
They’re thinking of trying a guy known as “Chemical Ali” for gassing the Kurds. It was said to be next week it was going to happen but now I’m hearing that it’s not really going to happen until next year.
I like this nickname idea. “Depleted Uranium Donnie” for Rumsfeld maybe? “Napalm Dickie” for Cheney? I welcome suggestions. How bout “Estimated One Hundred Thousand Iraqi Civilian Casualties So Far for Lies About WMDs Georgie”?
US Marine claims unit killed Iraqi civilians. 08/12/2004. ABC News Online
US Marine claims unit killed Iraqi civilians
A former US Marine said his unit killed more than 30 innocent Iraqi civilians in just two days, in graphic testimony to a Canadian tribunal probing an asylum claim by a US Army deserter.
Former Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey appeared as a witness to bolster claims by fugitive paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman that he walked out on the 82nd Airborne Division to avoid being ordered to commit war crimes in Iraq.
Mr Hinzman, 26, claims he would face persecution if sent home to the United States, in a politically charged case which could set a precedent for at least two other US deserters seeking asylum in Canada.
Mr Massey told Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that men under his command in the 3rd battalion, 7th Marines, killed “30 plus” civilians within 48 hours while on checkpoint duty in Baghdad.
“I do know that we killed innocent civilians,” Mr Massey told the tribunal, relating the chaotic days after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Mr Massey said that in some incidents, Iraqi civilians were killed by between 200 and 500 rounds pumped into four separate cars which each failed to respond to a single warning shot and respond to hand signals at a Baghdad checkpoint.
At the time, US soldiers feared suicide bombers would try to ram checkpoints, he said.
Searches found no weapons in the vehicles or evidence that those killed were anything but innocent civilians, he said.
He also said Marines killed four unarmed demonstrators, and more Iraqis the next day during another spell of checkpoint duty in the occupied Iraqi capital.
“I was never clear on who was the enemy and who was not,” said Mr Massey.
“When you don’t know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?” asked the former Marine, later honourably discharged from the service with severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder.
Mr Hinzman earlier argued in the tribunal, which started on Monday and was due to end Wednesday, that he gradually realised after joining the Army in 2001 that he could not bring himself to kill another person.
“I was faced with being deployed to Iraq to do what the infantry does, kill people, and I had no justification for doing so,” said Mr Hinzman.
Mr Hinzman and his wife and two-year-old son arrived in Canada early this year, after deserting from his unit, an action which carries a maximum five-year term in jail.
The South Dakota-born soldier is claiming refugee status based on his contention that he was right to refuse to fight in a war which he says was illegal and violated human rights and the Geneva Conventions.
He also claims he would face persecution if returned home to face desertion charges.
Mr Hinzman first requested conscientious objector status in 2002 before learning he was to be posted to Afghanistan, where he eventually made 18 combat parachute jumps.
The following year, the request was rejected, and late in 2003 he learned he was to be deployed to Iraq, prompting his flight to Canada.
Odds against him winning the case are slim, as no such verdict has ever been handed to a US soldier here or to a combatant in a non-conscription army.
The IRB was set up to consider the merits of refugee claims at arms length from the Canadian Government.
Presiding member Brian Goodman signalled on Tuesday he would ask for written submissions from Mr Hinzman’s counsel, a government lawyer and a refugee officer, thereby ruling out a judgement on the case on Wednesday.
Mr Goodman will decide whether Hinzman would face persecution if sent back to the United States by dint of political or religious beliefs or his status as an objector to US military action.
The judgement will also question whether Mr Hinzman will face “cruel and unusual” punishment, during what would likely be a long prison term.
-AFP
Something weird is going on between Keith Olbermann, who is the only network journalist who is seriously covering the vote fraud situation, and Bev Harris, the most thorough and dedicated investigator of such fraud.
Harris has always struck me as completely with it, straightforward, sane. Olbermann (on the basis of what his staff has said about Harris) is writing her off as a freak.
Olbermann’s summary of the situation.
Harris’s summary of the situation.
Make of it what you will. I’m glad Olbermann is on the case, and I’m glad Harris is on the case, and I hope that they can help each other somehow.
BTW, check out Harris’s reaction to some people’s demands for voting reforms, and see if this squares with the idea of a screaming psycho activist:
We’re not done yet.
This is not the only election.
The 2004 election was never audited. No one really knows whether it was accurate or not. No one really knows whether:
a. There was no fraud
b. There was a little fraud but it didn’t change the outcome
c. There was a lot of fraud and the wrong people were put in office
- It’s still about auditing.
a. To do an audit, you start with spot checks.
b. To do spot checks, you start with documents. Those are what Black Box Voting requested on Nov. 2, from 3,000 election jurisdictions. They are coming in now. Some locations are more cooperative than others.
c. If we do not audit, we will be asking the same questions over and over
It’s time to get some answers. That’s what we are doing aT Black Box Voting.
It is premature to recommend specific legislation. Though several voting integrity groups and so-called “experts” are trying to do that right now, no one really knows what the problems are yet. Before reinventing the wheel (again) we should finish some of the audits and investigations that need to be done.
She’s a lot more measured in her rhetoric than a lot of bloggers out there [blush]. She’s just all about getting the facts, as far as I can tell. I wonder what the heck really happened between her and Olbermann’s staff and why it turned out the way it did.
US admits the war for `hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost – [Sunday Herald]
THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy� of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.
The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications� report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.
On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds�, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended�.
“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.�
Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedomsâ€?, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.
It’s kind of comforting that they realize this, I guess.
Boston.com / News / Nation / Aid cuts threatened by US over tribunal
UNITED NATIONS — The US government is quietly threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid aimed at combating terrorism, resolving conflicts, and building democracy unless countries agree to shield Americans from prosecution at the UN permanent war crimes tribunal.
An amendment to the 3,000-page budget bill before the House of Representatives would punish countries, even close allies in the war on terrorism, that have joined the International Criminal Court and have declined to promise they would not send American citizens to the court without US permission.
This is kind of like if the Federal Government withheld funding for local education unless the school board agreed never to press charges for child molestation against any employee of the Federal Government.
Since they have already committed a sizable number of war crimes, seeking immunity from prosecution for more is outrageous.