Category: Current Affairs

There’s a petition on-line to get Rumsfeld to resign. Sign it because I think a partial victory is better than a total loss. However, I don’t think Rumsfeld should resign. He should be fired. Joho comes to a similar conclusion. My take has more to do with the honor of America. The President should defend it and his administration should live it. Rumsfeld was given the chance to resign and to help keep America’s honor; he chose not to. He’s said that America, the American ideal, is unimportant; raping and torturing people of color is what is important. If he…

I don’t want to spend a lot of time analyzing the situation at Abu Ghraib; there are people who are doing it far better than I could – and they are linked on the side of the site. There are, however, some thoughts that are floating around that I just want to throw out and see if anything comes of them.

Yesterday Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized to Iraqis for the abuses of Abu Ghuraib…I think. Rumsfeld often speaks in a way that needs deciphering. Two of my favorite examples are: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” “There’s another way to phrase that…

According to today’s New York Times, Brandon Mayfield, the American convert to Islam [I’m painfully aware that nationality has nothing to do with religion, but that’s the way it’s being reported], who was detained yesterday for involvement in the Madrid train bombings of March 11, may not in fact be involved. The relevant graf is: The law enforcement officials said they were afraid that Mr. Mayfield, who is originally from Kansas, might become a fugitive if he knew he was under suspicion. So monitoring that was just getting started was abruptly halted. Mr. Mayfield was arrested before investigators had fully…

According to Josh Marshall, the man who thinks I’m Satan is in charge of interrogations in Iraq. If you had Satan in your custody, what would you do to him? Abu Ghuraib is his answer.

It was only a matter of time that this would occur. This story was not picked up by the major newspapers or media sources, but it is a story that needs to be told. Seven illegal immigrants [six Pakistani and one Indian] were murdered by the Macedonian police in order for the Macedonian government to show that it was fighting with the West on the war on terror. In order to win some points, the Macedonian police fabricated evidence and executed 7 people whose only crime was to seek a better livlihood. This is not the first time that the…

Dear Sir, Since the Presidential elections are coming up here in the US, I’ve decided to outline what I expect from the President, and in turn, what the President can expect from me. Like you, I too will pledge on your inauguration day to uphold the Constitution. That document is what will bind us together and act as our common language, regardless of our political persuasions.

Non-Muslims are uncaring people who are happy when they see other people being abused and tortured. At least that’s the impression I got from reading CNN.com today. Two stories talking about the images of torture at Abu Ghuraib prison had the following paragraphs: The images sparked anger among Muslims around the world… (link) The images have sparked anger among Muslims across the world… (link) I never would have thought that CNN reporters would dehumanize non-Muslims, but I guess there’s a first for everything. Just for the record, the second article actually does talk about Muslims across the world. The first…

From Friday’s MotherJones.com, the casualty figures in Iraq are: Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 19, 2003: 732 Number killed since George W. Bush declared an end to “major combat” on May 1, 2003: 594 Number killed this month: 136 Paul Wolfowitz, the man considered one of the architects of this war, doesn’t know that. Is it because we can’t hear the names of the dead? Or because we can’t see them? Despite the recent charges against the guards at Abu Gharib prison, the great majority of men and women in…