Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's most senior civilian and military officials share a portion of blame for creating conditions that led to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, according to a report released Tuesday by an independent panel of civilian defense experts.
The findings were presented at a Pentagon news conference by James Schlesinger, the former secretary of defense who headed a four-person commission created last May by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"There was chaos at Abu Ghraib," Schlesinger said, and "sadism on the night shift." The report said the direct responsibility lay with commanders in the field rather than in Washington. Pentagon leaders, however, had an indirect role.
The mistreatment of prisoners, described by the commission as "acts of brutality and purposeless sadism," would have been avoided with proper training, leadership and oversight, it said.
In most cases, the abuse was not carried out with the purpose of achieving intelligence from prisoners, he said.
"There were freelance activities on the part of the nightshift at Abu Ghraib," he said.
The report did not suggest that Rumsfeld ordered any of the abuses or did anything to encourage them. But it indicated that his policies created some confusion at lower levels of the military.
"The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline," the report said. "There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels."
The commission was particularly critical of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time of the abuses, which occurred mainly between October and December 2003.
"We believe Lt. Gen. Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November when he realized the extent of the leadership problems at Abu Ghraib," the report said. It concluded that he "failed to ensure proper staff oversight" of detention and interrogation operations.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
~~~
On July 12, 2004, the Bush Administration announced a proposal to overturn a policy protecting nearly 60 million acres of our nation's last wild forests. Over 2.5 million Americans submitted public comments to protect our forests, yet the Bush Administration is doing everything it can to undermine the public's support from refusing to defend the policy in court to exempting our largest national forest.
With the Administration's announcement, millions of acres of our national forests are now at risk of destructive road-building, logging, and drilling. Tell the Bush Administration to stop! Send Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth a letter urging him to reinstate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and send a clear message to the Bush Administration that Americans want our national forests protected for future generations.
Please help us meet the environmental community goal of 1,000,000 comments. Help us send a clear and powerful message that we will not tolerate the Administration giving our national forests away. The comment period ends September 15.
Sincerely,
Betsy Loyless
VP Policy & Lobbying
OR
Let the Bush administration know you want them to protect our last remaining wild forests, here.
From MoveOn.org:
The Clinton administration issued a new rule protecting the last wild and intact roadless areas in our national forest system in 2001. The "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" was the product of more than two decades of broad debate and three years of official review and public participation.
According to then-Secretary-of-Agriculture Daniel Glickman:
Never before have the American people so actively participated in helping to decide how their public lands should be managed. The fact that more than 1.5 million comments were received from Americans shows that these truly are all of the people's lands, not just a few, and they care deeply about how they are cared for.
But the Bush administration's actions demonstrate clearly that they care only for the few and not the many. Since the year 2000, the timber industry has given $25 million in political donations to President Bush and his allies in Congress. [2]
According to The Salt Lake Tribune,
The proposed policy favors local loggers' interests over many Americans' justifiable expectation that their last surviving forests will be protected by federal oversight. The national forests are, after all, owned by all Americans, not merely those who stand to gain economically or politically from logging. [3]
Tell the Bush Administration that America's National Forests belong to all of us, not just the timber corporations. Let them know we won't be silent while America the Beautiful is threatened.
Click here to let them know how you feel.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
- Carrie, Joan, Lee, Marika, Peter, and Wes
MoveOn.org
August 24, 2004
[1] http://www.ourforests.org
[2] http://www.ourforests.org/fact/money.html
[3] http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07142004/opinion/183231.asp
~~~
~~~
Word of the Day for Tuesday August 24, 2004
fungible FUHN-juh-buhl, adjective:
1. (Law) Freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.
2. Interchangeable.
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Copyright 2002-2005, Howl-at-the-Moon Words
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I say all of this with love, of course, but there it is.
