The Birth of Jesus Luke 2: 1-40 NKJV
1.In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2.(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3.And everyone went to his own town to register.
4.So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5.He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
6.While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
7.and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
0.
The Shepherds and the Angels
8.And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9.An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10.But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11.Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
12.This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13.Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14."Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15.When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16.So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
17.When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,
18.and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19.But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
20.The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
0.
Jesus Presented in the Temple
21.On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.
22.When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
23.(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord" ),
24.and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."
25.Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26.It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
27.Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required,
28.Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29."Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.
30.For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31.which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32.a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
33.The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him.
34.Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against,
35.so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."
36.There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,
37.and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
38.Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
39.When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.
40.And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Two UN Votes this week by the USA, both NO, both UNBELIEVABLE
Tonight is Christmas Eve. Something happened this week that I find unbelievable. I have thought about it for a couple of days and finally decided this was the time to post it. Later I will post something else. But now, this is one of those, you really won't believe this stories.
From Care 2 Make a Difference
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights celebrated its 60th anniversary this month, which is a great accomplishment. It has raised awareness around the world and has been a touchstone for rights workers everywhere. What I can't understand is why my country, the United States, continues to vote against resolutions that one would think any civilized nation could support.
Two important resolutions at the UN General Assembly were opposed by the U.S. last week. Maybe it was just a matter of semantics, and with some different wording our representative would have voted for them. But then I looked at the votes cast and it seems clear to me that every other nation did not have issues with the wording. It left me kind of disgusted at the powers that be.
The first was a resolution on the right to food, which would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children continue to die every year before the age of 5 from hunger-related illness, when the planet can produce enough food to feed 12 billion people (twice the world’s population). One hundred and eighty nations voted in favor of making the "right to food" a basic human right, and the U.S. was the only country to vote against it.
The second was a resolution on the rights of the child, which asks nations to create an environment conducive to the well-being of all children, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, the right to food, the eradication of poverty and the right to education. Again, 180 nations voted in favor, and the U.S. was the only vote against it.
Is this contrary attitude just a carryover from the Bush administration? Will Barack Obama's government change the way we interact with the world?
I certainly hope so.
It's high time we woke up and became good neighbors with the other residents here on Spaceship Earth.
From another blog posted at Crooks & Liars: By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)
From Care 2 Make a Difference
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights celebrated its 60th anniversary this month, which is a great accomplishment. It has raised awareness around the world and has been a touchstone for rights workers everywhere. What I can't understand is why my country, the United States, continues to vote against resolutions that one would think any civilized nation could support.
Two important resolutions at the UN General Assembly were opposed by the U.S. last week. Maybe it was just a matter of semantics, and with some different wording our representative would have voted for them. But then I looked at the votes cast and it seems clear to me that every other nation did not have issues with the wording. It left me kind of disgusted at the powers that be.
The first was a resolution on the right to food, which would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children continue to die every year before the age of 5 from hunger-related illness, when the planet can produce enough food to feed 12 billion people (twice the world’s population). One hundred and eighty nations voted in favor of making the "right to food" a basic human right, and the U.S. was the only country to vote against it.
The second was a resolution on the rights of the child, which asks nations to create an environment conducive to the well-being of all children, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, the right to food, the eradication of poverty and the right to education. Again, 180 nations voted in favor, and the U.S. was the only vote against it.
Is this contrary attitude just a carryover from the Bush administration? Will Barack Obama's government change the way we interact with the world?
I certainly hope so.
It's high time we woke up and became good neighbors with the other residents here on Spaceship Earth.
From another blog posted at Crooks & Liars: By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Regulations Regarding Torture
I know I have been posting a lot about torture and the Bush Administration's culpability in it, but this is something I feel strongly about. I have somethings now that show the legalities of behind why we shouldn't torture.
Also, there has been discussion as to whether water boarding is torture or not but it has been known as torture since the Spanish Inquisition. It was just when the Bush Administration decided to change how the USA recognized the Geneva Convention that water boarding became not torture as far as they were concerned. However, they then changed their mind after the pictures of Abu Ghraib became public and say they have stopped doing it. So, if it isn't illegal, if it isn't torture, why did they stop?
Here are the rulings and laws that spell out the reasons and reasoning behind us not allowing torture and why they should be held accountable. Also, why are they, the ones who ordered torture to be done, by his own admission, VP Cheney did so, any less guilty than the ones who were punished earlier? Remember Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick,Pfc. Lynndie England, Spc. Sabrina Harman,Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr.,Spc. Jeremy Sivits, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Spc. Armin J. Cruz Jr., and Spc. Roman Krol?
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
advisory declaration adopted by
the United Nations General Assembly (December 10, 1948)
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
[emphasis added]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented after World [W]ar II. Its provisions made their way into the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as such, were ratified as norms of international law by the majority of civilized states in the world.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- in force September 8, 1992
Article 4. 1 . In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.
2. No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs I and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18 may be made under this provision. 3. Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of derogation shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant, through the intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermediary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.
Article 7. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.
Article 16. Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
[emphasis added]
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment - in force November 20, 1994
Article 3 . 1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. 2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.
Article 4. 1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
Article 16. 1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
2. The provisions of this Convention are without prejudice to the provisions of any other international instrument or national law which prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or which relates to extradition or expulsion.
[emphasis added]
The United States signed and ratified both the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
- entered into force internationally on January 27, 1980
Article 53. Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens). A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character. [emphasis added]
The United States has not ratified nor signed this treaty, supposedly because its contents were already accepted norms of international law.
In the Aftermath of World War II the United States was a participant in the Nüremberg Tribunal
Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950.
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
Also, there has been discussion as to whether water boarding is torture or not but it has been known as torture since the Spanish Inquisition. It was just when the Bush Administration decided to change how the USA recognized the Geneva Convention that water boarding became not torture as far as they were concerned. However, they then changed their mind after the pictures of Abu Ghraib became public and say they have stopped doing it. So, if it isn't illegal, if it isn't torture, why did they stop?
Here are the rulings and laws that spell out the reasons and reasoning behind us not allowing torture and why they should be held accountable. Also, why are they, the ones who ordered torture to be done, by his own admission, VP Cheney did so, any less guilty than the ones who were punished earlier? Remember Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick,Pfc. Lynndie England, Spc. Sabrina Harman,Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr.,Spc. Jeremy Sivits, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Spc. Armin J. Cruz Jr., and Spc. Roman Krol?
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
advisory declaration adopted by
the United Nations General Assembly (December 10, 1948)
Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
[emphasis added]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented after World [W]ar II. Its provisions made their way into the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as such, were ratified as norms of international law by the majority of civilized states in the world.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- in force September 8, 1992
Article 4. 1 . In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.
2. No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs I and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18 may be made under this provision. 3. Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of derogation shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant, through the intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermediary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.
Article 7. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.
Article 16. Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
[emphasis added]
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment - in force November 20, 1994
Article 3 . 1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. 2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.
Article 4. 1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
Article 16. 1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
2. The provisions of this Convention are without prejudice to the provisions of any other international instrument or national law which prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or which relates to extradition or expulsion.
[emphasis added]
The United States signed and ratified both the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
- entered into force internationally on January 27, 1980
Article 53. Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens). A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character. [emphasis added]
The United States has not ratified nor signed this treaty, supposedly because its contents were already accepted norms of international law.
In the Aftermath of World War II the United States was a participant in the Nüremberg Tribunal
Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, 1950.
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Obama White House task force on working families to be chaired by Biden
OBAMA TRANSITION TEAM ANNOUNCES WHITE HOUSE TASK FORCE ON WORKING FAMILIES
President-elect Obama Taps Vice President-elect Biden to Chair
By Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times
Washington, DC - Today the Obama Transition team announced the President-elect's intention to form a 'White House Task Force on Working Families,' to be chaired by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, effective January 20, 2009. The Task Force will be a major initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America. The task force will be comprised of top-level administration policy makers, and in addition to regular meetings, it will conduct outreach sessions with representatives of labor, business, and the advocacy communities.
"My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House. And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment. I think it can make a great contribution to our work, and I'm grateful that the Vice President-elect has agreed to chair it," said President-elect Obama.
The Vice President-elect said: "Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yard stick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families: Is the number of these families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around."
The Vice President-elect and members of the task force will work with a wide array of federal agencies that have responsibility for key issues facing middle class and working families, and expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families.
The President-elect has set the following goals for the task force:
· Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
· Improving work and family balance
· Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
· Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
· Protecting retirement security
Members of the White House Task Force on Working Families will include the Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Commerce, as well as the Directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
The Task Force will operate in a transparent fashion, with any submissions to it from outside groups posted online, and open, two-way dialogue directly with the American people. The Task Force will issue annual reports on its findings and recommendations, which will be made available to the public and will be posted on the internet.
President-elect Obama Taps Vice President-elect Biden to Chair
By Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times
Washington, DC - Today the Obama Transition team announced the President-elect's intention to form a 'White House Task Force on Working Families,' to be chaired by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, effective January 20, 2009. The Task Force will be a major initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America. The task force will be comprised of top-level administration policy makers, and in addition to regular meetings, it will conduct outreach sessions with representatives of labor, business, and the advocacy communities.
"My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House. And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment. I think it can make a great contribution to our work, and I'm grateful that the Vice President-elect has agreed to chair it," said President-elect Obama.
The Vice President-elect said: "Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yard stick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families: Is the number of these families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around."
The Vice President-elect and members of the task force will work with a wide array of federal agencies that have responsibility for key issues facing middle class and working families, and expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families.
The President-elect has set the following goals for the task force:
· Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
· Improving work and family balance
· Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
· Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
· Protecting retirement security
Members of the White House Task Force on Working Families will include the Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Commerce, as well as the Directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
The Task Force will operate in a transparent fashion, with any submissions to it from outside groups posted online, and open, two-way dialogue directly with the American people. The Task Force will issue annual reports on its findings and recommendations, which will be made available to the public and will be posted on the internet.
Postal Service changes Santa program
Postal Service changes Santa program
Volunteers will no longer have access to children's last names or addresses
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - A sex offender is responsible for taking away some of the joy of the Postal Service's Operation Santa program: Volunteers who answer children's letters to Santa can no longer deliver gifts in person — or even know where they're going.
The program resumed Saturday morning in New York and Chicago, three days after it was abruptly suspended after a postal worker in Maryland recognized one volunteer as a registered offender. A postal inspector intervened before the individual could answer a child's letter, but officials decided changes had to be made.
It was a shocking moment for the effort, which started in New York's main post office in the 1920s. Back then, postal clerks answered Santa's mail, buying food and toys for children. Over the years, the number of letters increased, and the program was opened to the public in post offices around the country.
For some gift-givers, one of the personal pleasures was to show up and surprise needy kids at home — after rifling through piles of letters and envelopes looking for a story that tugged at their heartstrings.
Now, those opportunities for face-to-face contact are gone. Volunteers will no longer have access to the children's last names or addresses.
Family name now blocked out
At New York City's main post office on Saturday, each letter had been removed from its envelope and photocopied, with the child's family name blocked out, if it happened to appear in the text. The addresses were replaced with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office.
What remained, though, was no less heart-wrenching.
In neat handwriting, a 10-year-old Bronx girl named Jennifer said her father couldn't work because his kidneys were failing and he was undergoing dialysis. For her and her two sisters, she told Santa, "anything you send me will make me happy."
After showing a photo ID, each volunteer was handed five letters at a time to choose from, tables where people also wrapped and boxed gifts for mailing.
"It's sad that people can't take their gifts to children and give personally anymore," said Brian Pavlock. The 25-year-old, who works in finance, went to the post office on Saturday to participate in the program with 11-year-old Tristin Ellis; the two know each other through a big-brother volunteer program.
Together, they wrapped toys to send to another 11-year-old "who is less fortunate than I am," Tristin said.
The boy didn't know why this year, the pair's second Operation Santa experience, they didn't get a name and an address. Pavlock explained to him that something "bad" could happen if, say, a robber got hold of a family's address.
It was an adult's effort to soften reality for a child.
‘Spirit of giving is still there’
While the program operates in many metropolitan areas across the country, most have finished answering letters for this year. But New York and Chicago still have enough volume to continue into next week.
In New York, where about a half-million letters from as far as China arrived this year, boxes of letters were sorted geographically by the city's five boroughs, with a special section for the large number of letters in Spanish.
One volunteer in the program, Brian Bates, a 45-year-old father from Manhattan who bought clothing and toys for three families, said he understood why things had to change.
"As a parent, I'm much more comfortable with people not having the personal information," he said. "I don't think the kids know the difference — as long as they have a present to rip open under the Christmas tree."
Going forward, the volunteers will still pick out the gifts and pay the postage, but a computer will match the letter to the right address, and the post office will deliver the package.
"The spirit of giving is still there, making somebody's Christmas a little brighter," said U.S. Postal Service spokesman George Flood. "But the times have changed. So the Operation Santa program had to change."
Volunteers will no longer have access to children's last names or addresses
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - A sex offender is responsible for taking away some of the joy of the Postal Service's Operation Santa program: Volunteers who answer children's letters to Santa can no longer deliver gifts in person — or even know where they're going.
The program resumed Saturday morning in New York and Chicago, three days after it was abruptly suspended after a postal worker in Maryland recognized one volunteer as a registered offender. A postal inspector intervened before the individual could answer a child's letter, but officials decided changes had to be made.
It was a shocking moment for the effort, which started in New York's main post office in the 1920s. Back then, postal clerks answered Santa's mail, buying food and toys for children. Over the years, the number of letters increased, and the program was opened to the public in post offices around the country.
For some gift-givers, one of the personal pleasures was to show up and surprise needy kids at home — after rifling through piles of letters and envelopes looking for a story that tugged at their heartstrings.
Now, those opportunities for face-to-face contact are gone. Volunteers will no longer have access to the children's last names or addresses.
Family name now blocked out
At New York City's main post office on Saturday, each letter had been removed from its envelope and photocopied, with the child's family name blocked out, if it happened to appear in the text. The addresses were replaced with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office.
What remained, though, was no less heart-wrenching.
In neat handwriting, a 10-year-old Bronx girl named Jennifer said her father couldn't work because his kidneys were failing and he was undergoing dialysis. For her and her two sisters, she told Santa, "anything you send me will make me happy."
After showing a photo ID, each volunteer was handed five letters at a time to choose from, tables where people also wrapped and boxed gifts for mailing.
"It's sad that people can't take their gifts to children and give personally anymore," said Brian Pavlock. The 25-year-old, who works in finance, went to the post office on Saturday to participate in the program with 11-year-old Tristin Ellis; the two know each other through a big-brother volunteer program.
Together, they wrapped toys to send to another 11-year-old "who is less fortunate than I am," Tristin said.
The boy didn't know why this year, the pair's second Operation Santa experience, they didn't get a name and an address. Pavlock explained to him that something "bad" could happen if, say, a robber got hold of a family's address.
It was an adult's effort to soften reality for a child.
‘Spirit of giving is still there’
While the program operates in many metropolitan areas across the country, most have finished answering letters for this year. But New York and Chicago still have enough volume to continue into next week.
In New York, where about a half-million letters from as far as China arrived this year, boxes of letters were sorted geographically by the city's five boroughs, with a special section for the large number of letters in Spanish.
One volunteer in the program, Brian Bates, a 45-year-old father from Manhattan who bought clothing and toys for three families, said he understood why things had to change.
"As a parent, I'm much more comfortable with people not having the personal information," he said. "I don't think the kids know the difference — as long as they have a present to rip open under the Christmas tree."
Going forward, the volunteers will still pick out the gifts and pay the postage, but a computer will match the letter to the right address, and the post office will deliver the package.
"The spirit of giving is still there, making somebody's Christmas a little brighter," said U.S. Postal Service spokesman George Flood. "But the times have changed. So the Operation Santa program had to change."
Saturday, December 20, 2008
6 Questions for Matthew Alexander...author of How to Break a Terrorist
On Dec. 1, 2008 I posted this:
Here is more from Matthew Alexander, and please remember this is not his real name. He has had to hide his identity. This is cross posted from Harper's Magazine and was written by Scott Horton. He interviewed Matthew and asked him these 6 questions.
“The American Public has a Right to Know That They Do Not Have to Choose Between Torture and Terror”: Six questions for Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist
At 5:15 p.m. on June 7, 2006, two American F-16 fighters dropped 500-pound bombs on a farmhouse about five miles north of the Iraqi town of Baqubah. Within an hour, the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian street thug who had risen to become the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was confirmed. This resulted from one of the most important intelligence breakthroughs of the Iraq War. Matthew Alexander is the pseudonym for an American Air Force major who, through a series of skillful interrogations, secured the information that allowed the military to pinpoint al Zarqawi’s whereabouts and kill him. His book How to Break a Terrorist is a compelling account of the American military’s turn from highly coercive interrogation techniques, which proved consistently unproductive, to confidence-building approaches honed over decades in the American law-enforcement community, which achieved steady success.
Major Matthew Alexander 1. In the last weeks of the Bush Administration, they’re waging a campaign to convince the public that President-elect Obama’s plans to close Guantánamo, ban torture, and stop extraordinary renditions will make America less safe. Here’s how one of the administration’s apologists recently put things in an op-ed in the New York Times: “if we’d gotten our hands on a senior member of Al Qaeda before 9/11, and knew that an attack likely to kill thousands of Americans was imminent, wouldn’t waterboarding, or taking advantage of the skills of our Jordanian friends, have been the sensible, moral thing to do with a holy warrior who didn’t fear death but might have feared pain?” You actually did have “holy warriors” in your custody who were plotting to kill American soldiers and innocent civilians, and got the results that enabled U.S. fighter bombers to take out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. What do you think of these claims?
In Iraq, we lived the “ticking time bomb” scenario every day. Numerous Al Qaeda members that we captured and interrogated were directly involved in coordinating suicide bombing attacks. I remember one distinct case of a Sunni imam who was caught just after having blessed suicide bombers to go on a mission. Had we gotten there just an hour earlier, we could have saved lives. Still, we knew that if we resorted to torture the short term gains would be outweighed by the long term losses. I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantánamo Bay. My team of interrogators knew that we would become Al Qaeda’s best recruiters if we resorted to torture. Torture is counterproductive to keeping America safe and it doesn’t matter if we do it or if we pass it off to another government. The result is the same. And morally, I believe, there is an even stronger argument. Torture is simply incompatible with American principles. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both forbade their troops from torturing prisoners of war. They realized, as the recent bipartisan Senate report echoes, that this is about who we are. We cannot become our enemy in trying to defeat him.
2. One of the most controversial tactics that the Bush Administration adopted in the war on terror involves abusing a prisoner’s religious feelings to degrade or humiliate. Enforced nudity, the use of military dogs, sexually suggestive conduct, and forms of ritual defilement have all been documented as authorized techniques in Iraq and at Guantánamo, even though these techniques are probably illegal. Do you believe that an interrogator can make headway by trashing his subject’s religion or by using religion to degrade? Did you make use of religion in a different way?
First, there’s no doubt in my mind that these tactics are illegal. Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 specifically bans “humiliating and degrading treatment.” Trashing or degrading a detainee’s religion does not help convince a detainee to cooperate. It does just the opposite, reinforcing the reasons why the detainee decided to pick up arms against us.
During training, we were told that religion was a taboo subject because of the types of illegal activities that had occurred at Guantánamo Bay. I disagreed and I often discussed religion with my detainees. I frequently brought my own copy of the Quran into the interrogation booth and asked religious questions, always treating Islam with respect. I’ve read the Quran even though I’m not Muslim. I found my detainees, even high level imams, to be very open to my inquiries. In this way I showed them that I respected their religion and their beliefs and it changed their attitudes towards me and helped me to win their trust. One of our great strengths as Americans is our religious tolerance, a founding principle of our country, and we should use that strength in the interrogation booth to help build rapport with detainees and foster cooperation. As I told my team in Iraq, the things that make you a good American are the same things that will make you a good interrogator.
3. In your book you detail “new approaches” which seem very familiar to me—they are techniques that the FBI has used in interrogation for several decades, focusing on confidence-building. Is that correct? Why did it take so long for tested and proven approaches from the law enforcement world to be used in a military intelligence operation?
You are correct that relationship- (or confidence-) building approaches are not new and have been known to law enforcement for decades. Even World War II interrogators used relationship-building approaches to great success, but we can build on that. Interrogation is an art and a science and, like every discipline, can be improved upon. My group began to integrate relationship-building with other criminal investigative techniques, always tailoring it to the culture at hand. This is what made our techniques new. I watched day in and day out as my group of interrogators used American ingenuity in adapting these approaches for each individual detainee and they were highly effective. Interrogation is about being smarter, not harsher.
Why these techniques have not yet been integrated into intelligence interrogation is a mystery to me. I made a list of criminal investigation techniques that would be effective in interrogations and included it in my “after-action” report. The next administration needs to institutionalize this approach by contracting a cadre of experienced law enforcement officers to help train our intelligence interrogators. This same relationship already exists between civilian and military criminal investigators.
4. You describe members of your team saying that Al Qaeda members did not care about their families, that they were committed ideologues. This was taken as a justification for the use of coercion (usually fear) as the key tool for interrogation. But most counterterrorism experts agree that recruits to radical Islamist groups may be brought in by many factors other than ideology—clan-based affiliations, family, a motive of revenge–even a desire to make some money. It would obviously be vital for an interrogator to get a fix on motivation in forming an approach to getting a prisoner to talk. Does that suggest that American interrogators are being hindered by a politically shaped and unnecessarily crude understanding of the adversary?
Yes. We do ourselves a great disservice by stereotyping our enemies. Al Qaeda is comprised of a variety of individuals each with their own unique motivations for having joined. I can only remember one true ideologue in all the interrogations I conducted or supervised (more than 1,300) and even he started to come around at the end because we treated him with respect. The overwhelming majority of Sunni Iraqis who joined Al Qaeda did so out of need, not want. For some the reason was economic, for others tribal obligations, and for a large number it was for protection from the Shiite militias–the militias that we allowed, after the removal of Saddam, to conduct reprisal killings. When my group of interrogators reached out to these Sunnis and offered them an alternative to fighting against us –fighting with us–they were easily convinced to cooperate and rejected Al Qaeda. Sometimes all it took was an apology from an American for the mistakes we made at the beginning of the war. General David Petraeus proved this point by facilitating the Anbar Awakening. Interrogations are best conducted in the spirit of cooperation and negotiation, not domination and retribution. This is a metaphor for how we should use all of our instruments of power in fighting this war.
5. You note that the Bush Administration insisted on 93 redactions from the text and you had to take them to court, winning only after the book had gone to press. Most of the redactions do not appear to be motivated by legitimate concerns about security; they seem instead to be an effort to derail publication of your book. What do you think this was about? How does your publisher plan to make the redacted texts available to the public?
I believe this was an attempt at censorship and, perhaps, retaliation. On appeal I won 80 of the 93 redactions, so only 13 remain in the book. The Department of Defense redacted an extraordinary amount of unclassified material, including the entire scene where I convinced the man who led us to Zarqawi to cooperate after only six hours of interrogation using a relationship-building approach. The old methods of interrogation had failed for twenty days to convince this man to cooperate. The American public has a right to know that they do not have to choose between torture and terror. There is a better way to conduct interrogations that works more efficiently, keeps Americans safe, and doesn’t sacrifice our integrity. Our greatest victory to date in this war, the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi (which saved thousands of lives and helped pave the way to the Sunni Awakening), was achieved using interrogation methods that had nothing to do with torture. The American people deserve to know that. In future printings or the paperback version of How to Break a Terrorist we will include the material that we have won on appeal. I am still appealing several remaining redactions of obvious unclassified material.
6. You write that the Bush Administration’s torture policy is responsible for the death of more Americans than perished on 9/11. Explain what you mean by this.
The number-one reason foreign fighters gave for coming to Iraq to fight is the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The majority of suicide bombings are carried out by foreign fighters who volunteered and came to Iraq with this motivation. Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics. Americans have died from terrorist attacks since 9/11; those Americans just happen to be American soldiers. This is not simply my view–it is widely held among senior officers in the U.S. military today. Alberto Mora, who served as General Counsel of the Navy under Donald Rumsfeld, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that “U.S. flag-rank officers maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq–as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat–are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.” We owe it to our troops to protect them from terrorist attacks by not conducting torture and we owe it to our forefathers to uphold the American principles that they passed down to us.
In addition to this I want to add another quote that Scott Horton had. He also talked to someone else and asked about a story that has been tossed around the last few days by the Bush administration. Here is the results of that question. I am not going to say anything...just add what he said in the magazine.
I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq
By Matthew Alexander
Sunday, November 30, 2008;
I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.
I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.
Here is more from Matthew Alexander, and please remember this is not his real name. He has had to hide his identity. This is cross posted from Harper's Magazine and was written by Scott Horton. He interviewed Matthew and asked him these 6 questions.
“The American Public has a Right to Know That They Do Not Have to Choose Between Torture and Terror”: Six questions for Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist
At 5:15 p.m. on June 7, 2006, two American F-16 fighters dropped 500-pound bombs on a farmhouse about five miles north of the Iraqi town of Baqubah. Within an hour, the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian street thug who had risen to become the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was confirmed. This resulted from one of the most important intelligence breakthroughs of the Iraq War. Matthew Alexander is the pseudonym for an American Air Force major who, through a series of skillful interrogations, secured the information that allowed the military to pinpoint al Zarqawi’s whereabouts and kill him. His book How to Break a Terrorist is a compelling account of the American military’s turn from highly coercive interrogation techniques, which proved consistently unproductive, to confidence-building approaches honed over decades in the American law-enforcement community, which achieved steady success.
Major Matthew Alexander 1. In the last weeks of the Bush Administration, they’re waging a campaign to convince the public that President-elect Obama’s plans to close Guantánamo, ban torture, and stop extraordinary renditions will make America less safe. Here’s how one of the administration’s apologists recently put things in an op-ed in the New York Times: “if we’d gotten our hands on a senior member of Al Qaeda before 9/11, and knew that an attack likely to kill thousands of Americans was imminent, wouldn’t waterboarding, or taking advantage of the skills of our Jordanian friends, have been the sensible, moral thing to do with a holy warrior who didn’t fear death but might have feared pain?” You actually did have “holy warriors” in your custody who were plotting to kill American soldiers and innocent civilians, and got the results that enabled U.S. fighter bombers to take out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. What do you think of these claims?
In Iraq, we lived the “ticking time bomb” scenario every day. Numerous Al Qaeda members that we captured and interrogated were directly involved in coordinating suicide bombing attacks. I remember one distinct case of a Sunni imam who was caught just after having blessed suicide bombers to go on a mission. Had we gotten there just an hour earlier, we could have saved lives. Still, we knew that if we resorted to torture the short term gains would be outweighed by the long term losses. I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantánamo Bay. My team of interrogators knew that we would become Al Qaeda’s best recruiters if we resorted to torture. Torture is counterproductive to keeping America safe and it doesn’t matter if we do it or if we pass it off to another government. The result is the same. And morally, I believe, there is an even stronger argument. Torture is simply incompatible with American principles. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both forbade their troops from torturing prisoners of war. They realized, as the recent bipartisan Senate report echoes, that this is about who we are. We cannot become our enemy in trying to defeat him.
2. One of the most controversial tactics that the Bush Administration adopted in the war on terror involves abusing a prisoner’s religious feelings to degrade or humiliate. Enforced nudity, the use of military dogs, sexually suggestive conduct, and forms of ritual defilement have all been documented as authorized techniques in Iraq and at Guantánamo, even though these techniques are probably illegal. Do you believe that an interrogator can make headway by trashing his subject’s religion or by using religion to degrade? Did you make use of religion in a different way?
First, there’s no doubt in my mind that these tactics are illegal. Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 specifically bans “humiliating and degrading treatment.” Trashing or degrading a detainee’s religion does not help convince a detainee to cooperate. It does just the opposite, reinforcing the reasons why the detainee decided to pick up arms against us.
During training, we were told that religion was a taboo subject because of the types of illegal activities that had occurred at Guantánamo Bay. I disagreed and I often discussed religion with my detainees. I frequently brought my own copy of the Quran into the interrogation booth and asked religious questions, always treating Islam with respect. I’ve read the Quran even though I’m not Muslim. I found my detainees, even high level imams, to be very open to my inquiries. In this way I showed them that I respected their religion and their beliefs and it changed their attitudes towards me and helped me to win their trust. One of our great strengths as Americans is our religious tolerance, a founding principle of our country, and we should use that strength in the interrogation booth to help build rapport with detainees and foster cooperation. As I told my team in Iraq, the things that make you a good American are the same things that will make you a good interrogator.
3. In your book you detail “new approaches” which seem very familiar to me—they are techniques that the FBI has used in interrogation for several decades, focusing on confidence-building. Is that correct? Why did it take so long for tested and proven approaches from the law enforcement world to be used in a military intelligence operation?
You are correct that relationship- (or confidence-) building approaches are not new and have been known to law enforcement for decades. Even World War II interrogators used relationship-building approaches to great success, but we can build on that. Interrogation is an art and a science and, like every discipline, can be improved upon. My group began to integrate relationship-building with other criminal investigative techniques, always tailoring it to the culture at hand. This is what made our techniques new. I watched day in and day out as my group of interrogators used American ingenuity in adapting these approaches for each individual detainee and they were highly effective. Interrogation is about being smarter, not harsher.
Why these techniques have not yet been integrated into intelligence interrogation is a mystery to me. I made a list of criminal investigation techniques that would be effective in interrogations and included it in my “after-action” report. The next administration needs to institutionalize this approach by contracting a cadre of experienced law enforcement officers to help train our intelligence interrogators. This same relationship already exists between civilian and military criminal investigators.
4. You describe members of your team saying that Al Qaeda members did not care about their families, that they were committed ideologues. This was taken as a justification for the use of coercion (usually fear) as the key tool for interrogation. But most counterterrorism experts agree that recruits to radical Islamist groups may be brought in by many factors other than ideology—clan-based affiliations, family, a motive of revenge–even a desire to make some money. It would obviously be vital for an interrogator to get a fix on motivation in forming an approach to getting a prisoner to talk. Does that suggest that American interrogators are being hindered by a politically shaped and unnecessarily crude understanding of the adversary?
Yes. We do ourselves a great disservice by stereotyping our enemies. Al Qaeda is comprised of a variety of individuals each with their own unique motivations for having joined. I can only remember one true ideologue in all the interrogations I conducted or supervised (more than 1,300) and even he started to come around at the end because we treated him with respect. The overwhelming majority of Sunni Iraqis who joined Al Qaeda did so out of need, not want. For some the reason was economic, for others tribal obligations, and for a large number it was for protection from the Shiite militias–the militias that we allowed, after the removal of Saddam, to conduct reprisal killings. When my group of interrogators reached out to these Sunnis and offered them an alternative to fighting against us –fighting with us–they were easily convinced to cooperate and rejected Al Qaeda. Sometimes all it took was an apology from an American for the mistakes we made at the beginning of the war. General David Petraeus proved this point by facilitating the Anbar Awakening. Interrogations are best conducted in the spirit of cooperation and negotiation, not domination and retribution. This is a metaphor for how we should use all of our instruments of power in fighting this war.
5. You note that the Bush Administration insisted on 93 redactions from the text and you had to take them to court, winning only after the book had gone to press. Most of the redactions do not appear to be motivated by legitimate concerns about security; they seem instead to be an effort to derail publication of your book. What do you think this was about? How does your publisher plan to make the redacted texts available to the public?
I believe this was an attempt at censorship and, perhaps, retaliation. On appeal I won 80 of the 93 redactions, so only 13 remain in the book. The Department of Defense redacted an extraordinary amount of unclassified material, including the entire scene where I convinced the man who led us to Zarqawi to cooperate after only six hours of interrogation using a relationship-building approach. The old methods of interrogation had failed for twenty days to convince this man to cooperate. The American public has a right to know that they do not have to choose between torture and terror. There is a better way to conduct interrogations that works more efficiently, keeps Americans safe, and doesn’t sacrifice our integrity. Our greatest victory to date in this war, the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi (which saved thousands of lives and helped pave the way to the Sunni Awakening), was achieved using interrogation methods that had nothing to do with torture. The American people deserve to know that. In future printings or the paperback version of How to Break a Terrorist we will include the material that we have won on appeal. I am still appealing several remaining redactions of obvious unclassified material.
6. You write that the Bush Administration’s torture policy is responsible for the death of more Americans than perished on 9/11. Explain what you mean by this.
The number-one reason foreign fighters gave for coming to Iraq to fight is the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. The majority of suicide bombings are carried out by foreign fighters who volunteered and came to Iraq with this motivation. Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics. Americans have died from terrorist attacks since 9/11; those Americans just happen to be American soldiers. This is not simply my view–it is widely held among senior officers in the U.S. military today. Alberto Mora, who served as General Counsel of the Navy under Donald Rumsfeld, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that “U.S. flag-rank officers maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq–as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat–are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.” We owe it to our troops to protect them from terrorist attacks by not conducting torture and we owe it to our forefathers to uphold the American principles that they passed down to us.
“My friend,” I say. “Let me ask you this. What can I do for you?”
“Sir?”
“You’re helping me so I want to know how can I help you?”
“I have one favor to ask.”
“Of course. What can I do for you?” He seems embarrassed.
“I do not like showering naked in front of the guards.”
I nod and tell him, “I wouldn’t like that either.” That relaxes him a little.
“Would it be possible for me to wear boxer shorts in the shower?” He could have asked for a lot more than that.
“That won’t be a problem. I will let the guards know.”
—A passage the Bush Administration attempted to censor from How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq
Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Free Press. Copyright (c) 2008 Matthew Alexander
I see the world in terms of tolerance. Ignorance versus knowledge. Fear versus understanding. These two videos [of beheadings] are displays of hatred so fierce that it drives men to depravity. It is the hatred that I hate…
Pure hate. Pure malice. Torture and cruelty are their tools. To fight them, should I resort to hate? To bitterness and jaded contempt? Is that what it means to be a veteran ‘gator around here?
—From How to Break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander
In addition to this I want to add another quote that Scott Horton had. He also talked to someone else and asked about a story that has been tossed around the last few days by the Bush administration. Here is the results of that question. I am not going to say anything...just add what he said in the magazine.
FBI Director Calls Cheney on Torture Lies
By Scott Horton
The Bush Administration’s swan song consists of a series of increasingly absurd claims designed to cover its crimes and failings. The most persistent of these is the claim that torture was necessary to save lives, and that attacks were in fact averted through the use of torture techniques. Vice President Cheney continued his crusade for torture yesterday insisting that torture is the “moral” thing to do (helping to explain the origins of Cheney’s Washington nickname, “vice”). Vanity Fair’s David Rose takes a look at the administration’s case for torture, and specifically its claims that torture averted attacks or at least produced actionable intelligence of some sort. He walks us through all the claims, one by one, and finds that they are all contradicted by the facts. Some of the sources did produce useful intelligence, but in no case was the application of torture the reason why, nor did it even contribute to the result. In the final lines of his article, he has this exchange with FBI director Robert Mueller:
I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been
disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?
“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”
Mueller is “reluctant to answer” because he knows that Cheney and other administration spokespersons have repeatedly made that claim. And he knows that it is a lie which has been advanced for a specific reason: to cloak their criminal conduct.
Friday, December 19, 2008
You Just Can't Make This Up, Part II
You Just Can't Make This Up, Part II
Remember when the campaign was going on and the rallys were so heated and Palin was stumping and the crowds were getting loud and yelling things and people were whispering that there were racist undertones there?? At the time people even said it was possible Gov. Palin was possibly a tad racist herself. That she didn't support the natives in Alaska, she had no record of supporting the African Americans in Alaska and there were none on her staff. This was later disputed when it was pointed out by Bill McAllister, her spokesperson that he was actually African American.
Well, from the You can't make this up file we find this today....reported by the AP:
Alaska Checking E-Mailed Slurs About Obama
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Alaska officials are investigating e-mail messages that included racist jokes about President-elect Barack Obama and were circulated on state government accounts by state employees.
Officials say that the messages apparently originated in a private account but that about 10 state employees appear to have “taken action” on them, like forwarding them to others.
Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Sarah Palin, said Thursday that none of the 10 employees worked in the governor’s office and that to his knowledge no one in the office had received any of the messages, which, he said, Ms. Palin condemns.
“They violate state policy — at least that’s the prima facie view of things,” Mr. McAllister said in a telephone interview. “They’re not state business, and obviously they are offensive, and clearly she doesn’t support that. And she does not support racism, and she does not support attacks on the president-elect.”
The messages were first reported by The Associated Press, which did not say how it had learned of them. The news agency said it had obtained five messages with racist comments, including one that summarized the significance of Mr. Obama’s election victory as “another black family living in government housing.”
Annette Kreitzer, the state commissioner of administration, told The A.P. that the employees who forwarded the messages could be reprimanded but that it was unlikely they would be dismissed. Ms. Kreitzer did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for an interview.
Remember when the campaign was going on and the rallys were so heated and Palin was stumping and the crowds were getting loud and yelling things and people were whispering that there were racist undertones there?? At the time people even said it was possible Gov. Palin was possibly a tad racist herself. That she didn't support the natives in Alaska, she had no record of supporting the African Americans in Alaska and there were none on her staff. This was later disputed when it was pointed out by Bill McAllister, her spokesperson that he was actually African American.
Well, from the You can't make this up file we find this today....reported by the AP:
Alaska Checking E-Mailed Slurs About Obama
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Alaska officials are investigating e-mail messages that included racist jokes about President-elect Barack Obama and were circulated on state government accounts by state employees.
Officials say that the messages apparently originated in a private account but that about 10 state employees appear to have “taken action” on them, like forwarding them to others.
Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Sarah Palin, said Thursday that none of the 10 employees worked in the governor’s office and that to his knowledge no one in the office had received any of the messages, which, he said, Ms. Palin condemns.
“They violate state policy — at least that’s the prima facie view of things,” Mr. McAllister said in a telephone interview. “They’re not state business, and obviously they are offensive, and clearly she doesn’t support that. And she does not support racism, and she does not support attacks on the president-elect.”
The messages were first reported by The Associated Press, which did not say how it had learned of them. The news agency said it had obtained five messages with racist comments, including one that summarized the significance of Mr. Obama’s election victory as “another black family living in government housing.”
Annette Kreitzer, the state commissioner of administration, told The A.P. that the employees who forwarded the messages could be reprimanded but that it was unlikely they would be dismissed. Ms. Kreitzer did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for an interview.
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