bandaidwoman

The other prisoners

Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq? Luke Harding reports

Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.

The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".

In November last year, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. "She was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped," Swadi says. "Several American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, 'We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly accurate. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humilation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees - who form a small but unknown proportion of the 40,000 people in US custody since last year's invasion - have also been abused. Nobody appears to know how many. But among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there are, according to Taguba's report, images of a US military policeman "having sex" with an Iraqi woman.

Taguba discovered that guards have also videotaped and photographed naked female detainees. The Bush administration has refused to release other photographs of Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although it has shown them to Congress) - ostensibly to prevent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, but in reality, one suspects, to prevent further domestic embarrassment.

Earlier this month it emerged that an Iraqi woman in her 70s had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who investigated the case and found it to be true, said, "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."

In Iraq, the existence of photographs of women detainees being abused has provoked revulsion and outrage, but little surprise. Some of the women involved may since have disappeared, according to human rights activists. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University who is researching the subject for Amnesty International, says she thinks "Noor" is now dead. "We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbours said her family had moved away. I believe she has been killed."

Honour killings are not unusual in Islamic society, where rape is often equated with shame and where the stigma of being raped by an American soldier would, according to one Islamic cleric, be "unbearable". The prospects for rape victims in Iraq are grave; it is hardly surprising that no women have so far come forward to talk about their experiences in US-run jails where abuse was rife until early January.

One of the most depressing aspects of the saga is that, unaccountably, the US military continues to hold five women in solitary confinement at Abu Ghraib, in cells 2.5m (8ft) long by 1.5m (5ft) wide. Last week, the military escorted a small group of journalists around the camp, where hundreds of relatives gather every day in a dusty car park in the hope of news.

The prison is protected by guard towers, an outer fence topped with razor wire, and blast walls. Inside, more than 3,000 Iraqi men are kept in vast open courtyards, in communal brown tents exposed to dust and sun. (Last month, nearly 30 detainees were killed in two separate mortar attacks on the prison; about a dozen survivors are still in the hospital wing, shackled to their beds with leather belts.) As our bus pulled up, the men ran towards the razor wire. They unfurled banners and T-shirts that read: "Why are we here?" "When are you going to do something about this scandal?" "We cannot talk freely."

The women, however, are kept in another part of the prison, cellblock 1A, together with 19 "high-value" male detainees. It is inside this olive-painted block, which leads into a courtyard of shimmering green saysaban trees and pink flowering shrubs, that the notorious photographs of US troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners were taken, many of them on the same day, November 8 2003. A wooden interrogation shed is a short stroll away. As we arrived at the cellblock, the women shouted to us through the bars. An Iraqi journalist tried to talk to them; a female US soldier interrupted and pushed him away. The windows of the women's cells have been boarded up; birds nest in the outside drainpipe. Captain Dave Quantock, now in charge of prisoner detention at Abu Ghraib, confirmed that the women prisoners are in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. They have no entertainment; they do have a Koran.

Since the scandal first emerged there is general agreement that conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved. A new, superior catering company now provides the inmates' food, and all the guards involved in the original allegations of abuse have left.

Nevertheless, there remain extremely troubling questions as to why these women came to be here. Like other Iraqi prisoners, all five are classified as "security detainees" - a term invented by the Bush administration to justify the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the war on terror. US military officials will only say that they are suspected of "anti-coalition activities".

Two of the women are the wives of high-ranking and absconding Ba'ath party members; two are accused of financing the resistance; and one allegedly had a relationship with the former head of Iraq's secret police, the Mukhabarat. The women, in their 40s and 50s, come from Kirkuk and Baghdad; none has seen their families or children since their arrest earlier this year.

According to Swadi, who managed to visit Abu Ghraib in late March, the allegations against the women are "absurd". "One of them is supposed to be the mistress of the former director of the Mukhabarat. In fact, she's a widow who used to own a small shop. She also worked as a taxi driver, ferrying children to and from kindergarten. If she really had a relationship with the director of the Mukhabarat, she would scarcely be running a kiosk. These are baseless charges," she adds angrily. "She is the only person who can provide for her children."

The women appear to have been arrested in violation of international law - not because of anything they have done, but merely because of who they are married to, and their potential intelligence value. US officials have previously acknowledged detaining Iraqi women in the hope of convincing male relatives to provide information; when US soldiers raid a house and fail to find a male suspect, they will frequently take away his wife or daughter instead.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, whose devastating report on human rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners was delivered to the government in February but failed to ring alarm bells, says the problem lies with the system. "It is an absence of judicial guarantees," says Nada Doumani, spokesperson for the ICRC. "The system is not fair, precise or properly defined."

During her visit to Abu Ghraib in March, one of the prisoners told Swadi that she had been forced to undress in front of US soldiers. "The Iraqi translator turned his head in embarrassment," she said. The release of detainees, meanwhile, appears to be entirely arbitrary: three weeks ago one woman prisoner who spoke fluent English and who had been telling her guards that she would sue them was suddenly released. "They got fed up with her," another lawyer, Amal Alrawi, says.

Last Friday, about 300 male prisoners were freed from Abu Ghraib, the first detainees to be released since the abuse scandal first broke. A further 475 are due to be released tomorrow, although it is not clear if any of the women will be among them. General Geoffery Miller, who is responsible for overhauling US military jails in Iraq, has promised to release 1,800 prisoners across Iraq "within 45 days". Some 2,000 are likely to remain behind bars, he says. Iraqi lawyers and officials aredemanding that the US military hands the prisons over to Iraqi management on June 30, when the coalition transfers limited powers to a UN-appointed caretaker Iraqi government. Last week, Miller said "negotiations" with Iraqi officials were ongoing.

Relatives who gathered outside Abu Ghraib last Friday said it was common knowledge that women had been abused inside the jail. Hamid Abdul Hussein, 40, who was there hoping to see his brother Jabar freed, said former detainees who had returned to their home town of Mamudiya reported that several women had been raped. "We've know this for months," he said. "We also heard that some women committed suicide."

While the abuse may have stopped, the US military appears to have learned nothing from the experience. Swadi says that when she last tried to visit the women at Abu Ghraib, "The US guards refused to let us in. When we complained, they threatened to arrest us."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/sto...1220673,00.html

Official Race Member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks

Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

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Rich46yo

""""""""While the abuse may have stopped, the US military appears to have learned nothing from the experience. Swadi says that when she last tried to visit the women at Abu Ghraib, "The US guards refused to let us in. When we complained, they threatened to arrest us."""""""""

Golly bandaid. Maybe we ought to just release them all. YaKnow, give them all hundred dollar bills on their way out, hand them AK-47s to shoot our troops again, maybe even link cards and US citizenship. Hell, I'll even let em sleep with my sister. Maybe we can reform these terrorists like we do our own criminals, get em jobs,pay for their lawyers, and give em foot rubs, award them huge settlements.

THEN, to be more politically correct, we can spit on our returning troops and call em all a bunch of criminals. Throw in a few flag burnings,toss manure at the cops, and have a few riots.

Boy you just made me feel so guilty to be an American............take care.............Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

Little Wing

boy Rich you REALLY don't like mondays and rain....

"MUSCLE IS TRULY GUARANTEED IF YOU WILL HONESTLY work out to BE YOUR VERY BEST -

GO FOR IT!!! BECAUSE YOU CAN!!!!!!

Take Care, John H."

Dale Mabry

I'm all about tossing manure at the cops, except dg of course.

If sense were common, everyone would have it.

4/2007-Current 75th Ranked most popular image 1 spot behind Prince's bulge...

bandaidwoman

These women were for the most part not terrorists, arrested by virtue of their relationship to some men, all apparently in violation of international law. There was no concrete proof of their compliancy with terrorists, nor were bombs found strapped to their bodies, no reports of plying guns out of their hands etc. ......they did not deserve to be raped. None of them had been convicted of terroristic activities. You really did have a bad day Rich46.

Official Race Member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks

Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

XX Feminine power

Rich46yo

""""""""boy Rich you REALLY don't like mondays and rain...."""""""

Ah Rock, Im a pussycat at heart. Im just going into a little overload with some of the homegrown mush-heads we have in the good ole US-of-A . Were a Nation at war, and Im fiercely protective of it and our troops. I make no apologies for it either. Look at it from my point of view. I spent almost two years under arms in the MidEast. If you think your getting the "real story" from press reports your living in dreamland.

Dale Mabry is you threw shit at me I'd knock you upside the head so hard your knappy hair would curl up into a "natural". Im just kidding tho kid. I think your alright.

Bandaid my thinly veiled sarcasm was framed in such a way to make a point. How do you know they "arent terrorists",or" "arent aiding and harboring terrorists"? Did the U.N. tell you they werent? How about the Red Crescant society? Did you hear it on Al Jazeera? Maybe Osama himself called you on your cell and told you they were innocent. Just cause they say they were raped you take it as "cause celeb" they were indeed raped. and you feel that way because it fits into your own personal,petty,liberal, political world view.

These guys and gals of ours are in a shooting war over there. If you cant understand that then at least admit you cant. You are not a jury of their peers cause youv never been in battle, never been in a gunfight, never been shot at or watched a buddy die, and never served your country. Instead like most liberals have just "taken" from it. ""These women were for the most part not terrorists"". For the most part? What is that like a handgrenade almost going off? We should let "everyone" go because "for the most part" they arent terrorists? Well what "part" of them actually are terrorists?

And the day you have comforted more rape victims, and hunted down and locked up more rapists then I you can lecture me about rape ok? Any breakdown of military discipline cant be tolerated. Most of all rape. But an allegation is an allegation. Its very possable these woman are terrorists and are making these allegations in order to inflame the populace against the Americans who are actually trying to help them.

My day is going just fine thank you. Much better then they went when I wore the uniform in various muslim dictatorships, when I visited Americans in THEIR jails and they told me about the constant beatings and torture. I hope Bush kept my name off his apology to these various Arab dictatorships,theocracys,terrorist supporting/harboring/rascist/fascist shitholes.

The only "Im sorry" we owe these monsters should be written on a 2,000 lb GBU thats "rideing the light" into their presidential palaces. Theres nothing wrong with being a humanitarian Bandaid. As long as you dont mix up to much "mush-headedness" with it..................take care.........Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

Dale Mabry

Hey rich, my hair isn't nappy.

I hear what you are saying, politics brings it out in folk. I imagine we would slug back a few brews and talk about other things in real life.

If sense were common, everyone would have it.

4/2007-Current 75th Ranked most popular image 1 spot behind Prince's bulge...

bandaidwoman

You should be careful how you paintbrush my political views just because I post a article on rape. I support our troops in Iraq and believe (for other reasons than pushing the impossible agenda of democracy) that we need to stay and finish the job, (see my post in watching Bush Free Fall).

I treat rape victims and know that their testimonies historically get brushed off as lies (despite physical evidence of their damage during my ER exams and sperm samples that I have taken.) Unlike the rape victims in this country, these women in particular have everything to lose and nothing to gain by admitting to being rape, especially since they will never go back to a life that accepts them....alive. They have no secondary agenda that I can see. Can this be propaganda? Of course, but its out there and the investigations are continuing. Unfortunately, we may never prove their cases because we won't have any physical evidence (the vagina efficiently rids itself of sperm in 48 hours ) , vaginal abrasians will heal and the only proof may be an inadvertant pregnancy.

Both parents, including my mom, were Air America operatives in Indochina until 1976. Both involved in freeing POWs as well as getting people out during POL POT genocides etc. We grew up in the midst of all the post war crap that went on I have seen war, death, and suffering (albeit through the eyes of a child) and remember starving for much of my life when my dad was a POW for 6 years (eurasian children are animals and the mother of them, even worse...whores and sluts). I still lived a good life thanks to the strength and intelligence of mom.


So no, I am not a soldier, although I engage in my own warfare 90 hours a week in the hospital emergency room and I take rape victim's testimonies and trauma very seriously (both men and women rape victimS) so this article hits home for me in much the same way it seems to have struck a defensive chord in yourself.

The article was posted to stand by itself. (offer a different look other than the psycological debasement of male islamic pride which may or may not be defended as a means of obtaining information in war time.) Just trying to show that "real" crimes rather than just the ugly business of war time interrogation or psycological warfare may be at play here as well.

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Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

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Rich46yo

"""" Unlike the rape victims in this country, these women in particular have everything to lose and nothing to gain by admitting to being rape, especially since they will never go back to a life that accepts them....alive. They have no secondary agenda that I can see. Can this be propaganda? Of course, but its out there and the investigations are continuing. Unfortunately, we may never prove their cases because we won't have any physical evidence (the vagina efficiently rids itself of sperm in 48 hours ) , vaginal abrasians will heal and the only proof may be an inadvertant pregnancy. """"""

How can you "see it" bandaid? You are here and they are "there". I was also a military policeman for 4 years. If you think "rape" isnt treated seriously in the US military you are sorely mistaken. Youv been around and know "whats what". You know better then to blindl believe all this stuff.

If you want to hear "horror storys" concerning woman I cant tell you how they are treated in countrys like Iraq. In Arab countrys they are little more then livestock. There is no concept of "rape" after marriage. Woman have very few, if any, rights. In some of these places a husband can legally kill them at his whim. I guess they left that out of your article. I know because Ive been there.

Your a nurse and thats close enough to a soldier to have my respect. But you have to start balanceing all this crap coming out of that country. We are at war, and war itself is an atrocity. We are fighting an enemy that will kill us all if given the chance. We have to stand together and back our troops and our leaders with the terrible decisions that will be coming up.

This war is far from over. Its inevitable that America is going to be hit by another terrorist attack. It might even involve WMDs. We may be forced to anhilate entire citys, as weve had to before. The threat of WMDs in the hands of rouge nations and terrorists is the greatest threat humankind has ever faced.

So keep things in proper perspective. We arent going to win this thing useing Marquis of Qeensberry rules..................take care of yourself..............Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

bandaidwoman

as a feminist, I am well aware of these social atrocities these women undergo in these countries. I donate and belong to alot of feminist organizations that continue the fight against such treatment and debasement of women. You and I definately agree on that one. I was railing against the Taliban long before 9-11 but our feminist organization fell on deaf ears until 9-11. Our medical school was sending female doctors to Afganistan in 1994 (One of them was Tom Brokaw's daughter) since the Taliban did not allow women to be seen by male physicians and no woman coould continue to be a physician At least we agree on that one.

Once again, the article was posted to stand on its own. Bad things happen during war and rape in one of our prisons by a supposedly more "civil" society may be one of the consequences, but it shouldn't. Some of these or maybe even many of these prisoners still were not combatants in the classic sense. Quite a few were just breaking local laws etc. The International Red Cross attests to such and I don't think they are exactly propaganda tools. It doesn't really matter that their men treat them far worse, many of these women are accorded alot of respect depending on the individual (I know female Iraquis and Iranians although they happen to be professionals that were educated here).


I'm not advocating tea and crumpets when dealing with enemy combatant soldiers tryiing to take your life (in which case, anything goes) , but the stories suggest quite a few were innocent civilians and do not deserve this at all.


I hope I haven't lost your respect but I'm not a nurse.

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Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

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maniclion

bandaidwoman I Love You! Aren't you a Dr.?

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

Little Wing

Okay Maniclion that's too weird , my Leo daughter constantly reads my mind n I was just going to write "Bandaidwoman I love you."

BAW don't let Rich stop you from posting things like this. I think you are brilliant woman and your posts are some of the best on the forum, thank you.

and Rich why should I a civilian with civilian sesitivities and sensibilities have to accept and stand behind an American soldier who commits crimes when his own fellow soldiers first of all turned him (them) in and secondly are letting it be known that they too detest the misbehavior of the few and are asking us to not judge all soldiers by the ones they too are ashamed of?

Why don't you stand behind what is best in our military and join the majority of American soldiers who act like men at war and not jump up and down supporting criminals. There is no question as to what happened at Abu Ghraib and if it was okay people wouldn't be facing court martial. There were 1,800 photographs of which one of the soldiers involved assured us the public has not seen the worst of. Give it a rest .

"MUSCLE IS TRULY GUARANTEED IF YOU WILL HONESTLY work out to BE YOUR VERY BEST -

GO FOR IT!!! BECAUSE YOU CAN!!!!!!

Take Care, John H."

nikegurl

couldn't have said it better. thank you for being here BAW.

If you want to achieve things that others can't...

You have to do things that others won't.

Rich46yo

"""""So no, I am not a soldier, although I engage in my own warfare 90 hours a week in the hospital emergency room and I take rape victim's testimonies and trauma very seriously """""

+

The name "Bandaid woman" = nurse right? Or are you a doctor? And yes you still have my respect. Anyone that can stand toe to toe with me in a Political debate is OK in my book. I dont want you to let Rich stop you from posting either. I just hope maybe you learned something from the many trials and travels Ive had in my life. And I got news for you, woman are treated like shit in every Arab/Muslim country. Not just Afghanistan.

Personaly, and one of the main reasons Ive always thought the United Nations was a cesspool of a whorehouse, I dont think America should have any "relations" with these shitholes that brutalize their people as a matter of course. We shouldnt have anything to do with the UN, cause thats where these Dictatorships have an official forumn to spread their disinformation. If a country doesnt have Democratic values, if their Govt.,Police, and Military, isnt answerable to the people. We shouldnt even be talking to them!!!!! Funny how these tyrants, and their forumn the UN, have so much ability to influence Liberal Americans thru their misinformation campaigns. Its just fascinating how easily, supposedly educated Yanks, are manipulated, and so much self loathing is promoted, by the Liberal, anti-American, media machine. Most of all when a Republican is in office. Now, "your poster boy", John Kerry is playing the big war hero. Of course that can change with the political winds. Mushhead just might go back to burning American flags with the hippies again.

Of course nevermind that he only spent 4 months in Vietnam, saw only a little bit of action, and skipped out on his comrades as soon as he got a little scratch big enough for him to use his Political phone call to get on the first plane back to the states. "And you wonder why he wont release his military medical records"? Then he goes on his flag burning tour calling ALL his fellow Vietnam vets war criminals, tho he himself admits he never saw such a war crime in his "extremely short" combat tour. I guess he just saw them in a Oliver Stone movie.

And Rock what in hell are you talking about? What are you talking about?????

""""""and Rich why should I a civilian with civilian sesitivities and sensibilities have to accept and stand behind an American soldier who commits crimes when his own fellow soldiers first of all turned him (them) in and secondly are letting it be known that they too detest the misbehavior of the few and are asking us to not judge all soldiers by the ones they too are ashamed of?

Why don't you stand behind what is best in our military and join the majority of American soldiers who act like men at war and not jump up and down supporting criminals. There is no question as to what happened at Abu Ghraib and if it was okay people wouldn't be facing court martial. There were 1,800 photographs of which one of the soldiers involved assured us the public has not seen the worst of. Give it a rest .""""""""

Soldiers, and veterans, never expect someone like you to stand behind us pal. And you dont "know what happened" at that prison. Untill the trials are finished you dont know shit. If you can give OJ Simspson the benifit of the doubt then you can give it to a soldier whos risking his life for his country. People are innocent until proven guilty, and thats all Americans. Not just downtroddin/oppressed minorities. Soldiers and policeman are supposed to have rights too. Not that they are going to get a fair trial anyway, not with all the Liberal mush-heads screaming for their heads. I dont "stand behind" any criminals kid, how old are you???

YaKnow when I see two like you and the bandaid lady, and theres a lot more then you two, I start to seriously fear for the future of this country. Im beginning to have serious doubts we can win this war on terrorism. I just generally see a lack of moral fiber, toughness, and martial spirit amongst this current generation, most of all the draft age young. I havnt even met another military veteran in this forumn. I mean whats that tell you?

Were not going to lose this war. But we arent going to win it either...............take care...............Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

Dale Mabry

A)We can't win the war on terrorism, you are right. But that I sbecause we went into it without a plan. Syria and N. Korea should have been 1st on the target, not Iraq.

B)In Rich's defense, if there were pics of OJ killing his wife, I bet he still would have gotten off.

If sense were common, everyone would have it.

4/2007-Current 75th Ranked most popular image 1 spot behind Prince's bulge...

Sean0621

Come on man you're not the only one in the military here, I think alot of us just like to stay out of the political arguments, but for the most part you say what I feel, most of the guys in my unit feel the same way, but I mean you can argue forever, I've given up on the media, I don't watch the news anymore, cuz there's no point, they refuse to show any good news, all I see is debates much like this one and I've had enough, let them argue, I just keep my head down and do my job, I'm not gonna let this whole situation eat at me, day in day out, I have to go out there in the winter time, and I'll do all I can while I'm there, meaning I'm gonna do my damn job regardless. Listening to all this arguing just depresses me, so I block it out, the only one's that I'll argue with on this subject are other marines...period. Anyways that's my 2 cents and semper fi rich

"The First Rule of Fight Club is, You do not talk about Fight Club."

bandaidwoman

I think part of this whole thread is the fact that many, such as Rich, are upset over the media's obvious inherent biases and misinformation. (Wether our topic is or not, I concede that only time will tell so we will let time decide for us).

Like you Rich, I feel they do alot of disservice misinforming as well as informing. ( I can't tell you how they butcher medical clinical trials and scare the shit out of people or falsely reassure people about certain drugs or diseases so we both can agree on how pitiful our sensatiionalistic media is.)

Wether that bias is liberal or not, both sides will argue the other side. I believe the southern media (especially the newspapers) are very conservatively biased but that is my opinion.

Accuracy in Media claims the the news media are biased toward liberal politics.

Fairness & Accuracy in Media claims the the news media are biased toward conservative politics.

Supporters of these views see one group as right and the other as wrong. Yes, AIM and FAIR each point out coverage that appears to bolster their various claims.

At times, the media do seem to be biased one way or the other. The AIM and FAIR web sites are full of " material to help hapless Americans avoid the cognitive ravages of the "evil" conservatives or the "slandering" liberals and their media lackeys." I think the average American is quite capable of identifying problems with news coverage.

The real issue here in is the media's efforts to protect itself in changing political climates, even if it means looking "liberal" or conservative.

In other words, I don't think media is biased either way (depending on the issue it can look one way or the other) but they will do whatever makes them look good and keep the bottom line.....and that is what hurts all of us. I'm totally with you on this as well.

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Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

XX Feminine power

maniclion

I was in the Navy in comms, I had inside scoop on alot of Intel I know that alot doesn't make it past "Eyes Only" status.

I just want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

Rich46yo

""Come on man you're not the only one in the military here""

Outstanding. I dont feel as lonely. But its the responsability of every sailor,marine,soldier, and airman, both active and veteran, to stand behind our own. We know the "truth" so why should we by shy about saying it? The US military is the most prefessional and disciplined organization theres ever been. And the reason civilians arent dieing "here" is because they are fighting "there".

I make no apologys for defending "them". To wear the uniform of the American military is the finest honor a young American can ever have.

And Bandaid woman you are a pretty thoughtful and classy lady. If I came on a little to strong I apologize......................................tak e care..............Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

Sean0621

Damn right man, I'm motivated now, good timing too, I'm in the middle of Gopro's shock week right now and it's kicking my ass, I needed some good motivation.

"The First Rule of Fight Club is, You do not talk about Fight Club."

Little Wing

The Christian Science Monitor is known as the most reliable source of unbiased news. You can decide for yourself.
http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?s...monitor.com%2F

Rich, you failed to address the fact that that an American soldier reported the abuses at Abu Ghraib, that many CURRENTLY uniformed soldiers are speaking out against the accused abusers, demanding they be punished. Why have been court martialed? Men who are currently serving in the military have expressed that they themselves do not condone the crimes commited at Abu Ghraib, that they are ashamed of their fellow soldiers.
One of my earliest memories is of my Grandfather ordering a stranger to take his hat off when the flag was carried past us at a parade. Many of my family members have served in the military and continue to do so. Uncles, brothers. When I lived in Vegas 6 of my housemates worked at Nellis Air Force base. The only autograph my daughter ever asked anyone for was from a disabled veteran. She had noticed the special plates on his car and wanted to show her respect. I assure you I am no kid. I am an American who refuses to accept our military being allowed to become something shameful. Only a child would believe that simply putting a uniform on would make one worthy of wearing it.
I'm also curious as to whether you would have given up vital information if someone buggered you with a chemical light? Don't the police have problems with false confessions when even slight duress is present in an interrogation?

"MUSCLE IS TRULY GUARANTEED IF YOU WILL HONESTLY work out to BE YOUR VERY BEST -

GO FOR IT!!! BECAUSE YOU CAN!!!!!!

Take Care, John H."

bandaidwoman

rich and sean, you both have my utmost respect. My husband was in the 82nd Airborne for 6 years and spent 4years in Turkey and the Middle East , ( but just missed going to GW1) and I concur that our military and soldiers are still the best in the world. I never wanted to think I was belittling our military. Let's hope the actions of the few don't tarnish the respect our soldiers need in this critical juncture of our world events.

Official Race Member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks

Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

XX Feminine power

Little Wing

Nice story about a spike in enlistments in Montana
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0518/p02s01-usmi.html

"MUSCLE IS TRULY GUARANTEED IF YOU WILL HONESTLY work out to BE YOUR VERY BEST -

GO FOR IT!!! BECAUSE YOU CAN!!!!!!

Take Care, John H."

Rich46yo

""""""""I'm also curious as to whether you would have given up vital information if someone buggered you with a chemical light? Don't the police have problems with false confessions when even slight duress is present in an interrogation?"""""""

Different game altogether. These terrorists arent Americans protected under the US Constitution. They arent even covered under the Geneva Convention because the GC only covers signatory nations whose soldiers are fighting under their flag. The terrorists arent fighting under any flag, arent fighting for any country. Even if they were, which they arent, Iraq is not a signatory Nation in the Geneva convention.

Be that as it may we decided to implemant the Geneva accords in our treatment of them because we are a good decent people. The cutoff point is actual physical torture. Haveing a dog bark at someone isnt physical torture. Neither is depriving them of sleep, or wearing a hood over their heads. The actual techniques being used in Iraq and Cuba are actually pretty tame compared to what their own people would do to them, or do to us.

What troubles me about some of these allegations, again if they are true and proved in court, is they seem just sick and perverted and have no methodology at all to them. They seem to point to a total breakdown in military discipline which is intolerable.

There are two types our military is dealing with over there. First are the remnants of Saddams regime. His intelligance operatives and his fedayeen Saddam. These are as cruel and inhumane a bunch of animals as a human mother ever produced. Next are the foreighn terrorists, Al Qaeda ..ect These characters dont need an introduction.

So what do you think we should do with them after we catch them after they killed, and attempted to kill, Americans and their fellow Iraqis? Do you think we should read them the 5'th amendment? Should we pay for their lawyers? Allow them to have lawyers present during questioning?

I sure hope you didnt answer "yes" to those questions. It would not only be stupid of us to give them these rights, it would also be extremely dangerous, as well as completely unprecedented. Its amuseing to see that the Nations that are screaming the loudest about the treatment of these terrorists are also the ones in which human rights its not even much of a concept. Im reminded of when the United Nations voted Syria to head the Human Rights commision. Type "Hama and Syria" into a search engine and you'll see how the Syrians deal with home grown terrorists.

Muslim nations ignored and even supported Saddams torture machine thruout the decades he was in power. They were silent when he gassed his own people and the Iranians with Sarin and mustard. and I dont remember much of a European or Russian reaction at the time either, other then to sell him more weapons and WMD infrustructure. So I take their current outrage, with the hillbilly girl and the leash, with more then a grain of salt.

When I was in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in the 70's they dealt with their domestic troubles pretty much just by killing all the troublemakers. In these countrys torture has evolved into an art form. So you would think the media could find more to write about then this current prison story........take care.........Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

kbm8795

As someone who now has twenty years experience as both an editor, reporter, columnist and feature writer in the media, I usually refrain from responding to generalized remarks indicting my profession. In every industry, people hold professional standards and sometimes there are individuals or groups of people within those industries who can make mistakes or abuse those standards. This means that parts of the military can violate their standards of conduct, just as the members of the medical profession can violate their own standards of conduct.

But when we contend that every story published by our media is somehow politically motivated, is anti-American, is designed to feed discontent, you not only do your country a disservice but refuse to take responsibility for your own role in absorbing and making decisions about what is going on in the world around you.
While it might seem as if there hasn't been any news about the "good" things going on in Iraq, that just isn't the case. I've seen large accounts of the schools we've rebuilt, stories about the money we've given villagers to help them rebuild and buy goats and chickens, about the shipments of books and supplies to towns to stock schools and libraries, and about medical supplies sent to help hospitals continue operating.

But if you are expecting every front page to always be filled with patriotic speeches and exhortation of our heroes, it's just not going to happen. For one thing, Americans EXPECT our professional soldiers to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects the values of our nation - when there are cases that deviate from that, it IS news - it means a breakdown in discipline and the need to find out who is responsible for that situation.

Part of living in a free society is supposed to be our right to receive factual information - but it is also about our responsibility, as individual citizens to process those messages with some degree of understanding and context. I can remember, back when I was just starting my career, doing an investigative series on an evolving controversy with an ROTC unit on my undergraduate campus. Even though I was still very much a young rookie, I had to pay so much attention to detail and balance that when I completed that story, both the editors and other staff members read the accounts and knew that I had not taken a side - only presented several sides to the situation. When it was published, it was interesting to hear complaints from the Administration on one side about how I gave the other side too much coverage. Of course, those on the other side said the same thing about too much coverage being given the Administration's side.

The point here is that you read into information and process it according to your own preconceptions about reality.

That being said, I take great issue with the concept that all journalists are sloppy and irresponsible. As in every industry, there are a few bad apples - and we tend to eat our sinners alive once they are exposed. When a few fraudulent reporters are identifies, not only are their careers ended, but often their superiors - except in the case of Jayson Blair, whose fabrications were so embraced by the rightwing that he had a market to write a book about his experiences.

Editorial policies involving news are not set by reporters - selection of stories is decided during editorial meeting, where they consider information that reporters have obtained during the course of a day. Are there occasions where information can be inaccurate? Sure - but I know from both my own training and years of experience, the pains taken to ensure that doesn't happen are exhausting, and the punishment for knowingly publishing unsubstantiated information is usually the end of your career.

When "misinformation" is presented in a media outlet, it's up to those who know better to correct the situation - that is also part of your responsibility as a citizen in this nation. If you think the media source is only presenting one side or aspect of an issue, it's part of your duty to write them a letter or get them on the phone and make a case for the side you think they have excluded.

Every single story, no matter how small, has so many sides to it that it is nearly impossible for each aspect to be covered, especially by a reporter who has to quickly learn a lot about a subject and yet master of none. For that reason, our job has usually been to let the story tell itself through the words and the responses of those who experience a situation. During my own career, I've had to interview businessmen, prostitutes, both right and leftwing activists, military personnel (both enlisted and higher ranking officers), appointed and elected government officials, judges, ministers, homeless persons, small children, foreign dignitaries, medical professionals, scientists, shoppers, bodybuilders. . .this list goes on and on. I can remember days in which I bounced from a donkey's 30th birthday party to a meeting with a governor about fiscal policies. It hardly gives a reporter much time to engage in manufacturing a political agenda.

At the same time, the media is a business. That means the publishers and broadcast executives do pay attention to advertisers, circulation, ratings, and their image of the communities they serve. And many newspapers have a rather pronounced editorial voice on their opinion pages, although failure to provide balance usually can cost them both advertising dollars and subscriptions. But this general rightwing myth that the media is inherently "liberal" is just that - a MYTH. For every tirade contending that liberal bias, there are usually examples of inherent bias on the other side.

While I'm not trying to contend that we have no responsibility for content in the media, I will state that consumers have a lot to do with that content. And I've seen editors make mistakes, kill stories that I thought were valuable, take editorial stands that I was opposed to and repress information that I felt violated the ideas of fairness and balance. I've also seen them take difficult stands to produce copy on issues that will expose corruption in powerful people (and yes, "liberals" aren't the only ones capable of misconduct). And while I'm not professionally comfortable writing about my own involvement in exposing corruption over the years, I have never been reprimanded or contradicted for that work and I'm convinced that it has helped make the world a little safer place.

Don't think this doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions - obviously, I can hold pretty strong ones and could care less if they are labeled by extremists as "liberal" or "conservative." I take my responsibility as a citizen seriously, and I base my own views on my experiences, just as everyone else does. But when I shift into a work mode, my ethical code is so stringent that I am even more painstaking about making sure an opposing viewpoint is not only heard, but heard effectively.

When President Reagan went to Congress to deregulate the media and dispose of the Fairness Doctrine, his Administration claimed that the American public was now sophisticated enough to effectively choose among many news sources to get information and make good decisions. A competing market, in his eyes, would only make the media more responsible in it's practices. Unfortunately, I've seen the opposite occur. Consumers celebrate pseudo-journalists like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, prefering entertainment and reinforcement of their own ideas rather than a discussion of different sides of a story. Then they rage against the existence of the other, as if the ideal in a free society should be the elimination of any point of view that doesn't mirror their own.

It does little good to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and sacrifice our soldiers lives in the name of freedom if our mindset in this country continues to move toward repression. Our ideals are that ideas are supposed to be presented in the marketplace, not squashed or degraded or framed as absolute truth. If our society was as sophisticated as Reagan had claimed, we wouldn't have the kind of disrespectful fingerpointing that now exists between increasingly divisive elements in a manufactured "culture war." No one takes responsibility for thinking for themselves or for understanding that other points of view hold some value - it's much easier to demand their elimination and to blame the messenger for presenting those experiences.

By the way, the story BAW presented was published in the British press - not the American. Curiously, our media has been much more mild in what it has reported; partially out of deferment to national security interests, restrictions on some movement in Iraq by our own military, and the shrill demands of "conservatives" that we are supposed to only present patriotic slogans.

You don't defend freedom by repressing information. You defend it by encouraging it, because our ideals as a nation hold to the rest of the world that no matter how dirty our laundry may get, we aren't afraid to take it out and clean it up again. And what makes us different from most of the rest of humanity is that we hold that hope out to others as a symbol of how a nation becomes strong and successful.

You take that all away, and we'll have no reason to care about the torture or rape of prisoners. Instead, we'll just be another fanatical, flagwaving, self-absorbed tyranny that replaces one repressive regime with another.

In some ways, Iraq has it easier than we do - while to some it may appear as if we are imposing democracy on them, they at least have the chance to embrace freedom. Back here in the States, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves if we toss freedom aside because we'd rather be told what is easy and feels good rather than take responsibility for our nation.

Rich46yo

"""""But when we contend that every story published by our media is somehow politically motivated, is anti-American, is designed to feed discontent, you not only do your country a disservice but refuse to take responsibility for your own role in absorbing and making decisions about what is going on in the world around you.
While it might seem as if there hasn't been any news about the "good" things going on in Iraq, that just isn't the case. I've seen large accounts of the schools we've rebuilt, stories about the money we've given villagers to help them rebuild and buy goats and chickens, about the shipments of books and supplies to towns to stock schools and libraries, and about medical supplies sent to help hospitals continue operating. """"""""

Please point me to these storys. BTW whats the ratio of anti-American reports compared to balanced ones? 1,000 to 1 , 1,000,000 to 1?

"""""At the same time, the media is a business. That means the publishers and broadcast executives do pay attention to advertisers, circulation, ratings, and their image of the communities they serve. And many newspapers have a rather pronounced editorial voice on their opinion pages, although failure to provide balance usually can cost them both advertising dollars and subscriptions. But this general rightwing myth that the media is inherently "liberal" is just that - a MYTH. For every tirade contending that liberal bias, there are usually examples of inherent bias on the other side. """"""""

Bingo!! As to the other I dont agree with you. Liberalism in the media is something that feeds off itself. Ive known many reporters and some have told me that your "political views" have great influence over their careers. Just because YOU are balanced and professional doesnt mean your industry is.

"""""You don't defend freedom by repressing information. You defend it by encouraging it, because our ideals as a nation hold to the rest of the world that no matter how dirty our laundry may get, we aren't afraid to take it out and clean it up again. And what makes us different from most of the rest of humanity is that we hold that hope out to others as a symbol of how a nation becomes strong and successful. """"""

My friend theres only one way to defend freedom. Thats by fighting for it. Dont mix the two up, you were on a honesty roll when you admited that the news media was a "business" that "sells ad space". Im sorry but I dont see your industry as quite as "noble" as you describe it. The International press is even worse. Yes I know who published this article. The british press is right off the grocer racks and is almost laughable in its ability to conjur BS storys.

Your comments remind me of another flim-flam visited upon the American people. Somehow the media, and liberal politicians, have convinced the American Public that by protecting gangs and criminals they are actually protecting themselves. Youv made the entire criminal justice system the kind of joke that often leaves "us" just shaking our heads. It worst in the large citys, where narco-terrorist street gangs are so bold,vicious, and fearless, it just appalling.

Any "high moral thoughts" on that? Please say them slowly because unlike you I survive on the streets and not in between the pages of some fanatasy print-land where the "deep thinkers" look down on us mere mortals and give us their leftist manifestos. Tho I'll give the media credit, they will go after crooked politicans. Most of all republicans!

In ending I'd say there are very few "newsies" who arent "to the left", very few who are balanced, and even fewer who are capable of leaveing their personal political views outside of their stories. Almost to a letter I have found them to be anti-police, anti-republican, anti-military, and even anti-American. Most of the powerful "newsies" today were getting their heads cracked in 1968, by the police and National Guard, for preaching revolution and violence.

This is the kind of knee jerk reaction I get from the media when I criticise it for its handleing of the Iraq prison story.
"""""""""You take that all away, and we'll have no reason to care about the torture or rape of prisoners. Instead, we'll just be another fanatical, flagwaving, self-absorbed tyranny that replaces one repressive regime with another""""""""

Why dont you go back to admiting the media "is a business" that 'needs to sell ad space". Its not quite as noble a stand, and the pulpit is not raised quite as high, but at least you have my respect for honesty.

I noticed that nobody gave an opinion when I asked them exactly what we should do with these terrorist prisoners. Its much easier sitting "up high" and passing judgements on those who actually have to deal with these savages......take care.........Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!

maniclion

The other day watching Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Al Franken started to quote an article in a way that made his perspective sound good when Colin called his bluff immediately and set the story straight.

All these conflicting stories are like mental sodomy
I find myself skipping tragedy in search of comedy
but I'm still glad the troops are ensuring my autonomy

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison: In conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone

Sean0621

See this is where I tend to disagree to an extent with the media. I believe alot of the problem is a loss of tact and an itchy trigger finger to put out information faster than the other reporters. A good example of this in my city Toledo, Oh a bridge collapsed about 3 months ago and it crashed over I-280. Well only five were killed, but the Toledo Blade printed on the front page a picture of this, and after reading the article it listed their names and jobs, and I glanced back at the picture and I could see the dead bodies smashed and laid out in a birds eye view from the helicopter photagrapher above. Now this created quite a serious uproar, seeing how the names of these men had not been released to the families yet, and now it was out for all the world to see, including pictures of them laying dead.
As far as tact the media has none to me, there are certain things that I consider to be private for me and for most other people. The scandal with Clinton to me was ridiculous, I blame both lawers and the media for that debacle, as much as i disliked him, that should not happen to any citizen of the US, let alon the President.
I don't even want to tell you how I feel about reporters at war with us. In fact I won't say anything you can probably guess how I feel, and you should damn well know why I feel the way i do about it. We don't need distractions, and that's all you are, if it were up to me, no reporter would be aloud over there unless they enlisted in the military for 4 years.
I'm sorry I know not every person in the media is out there to do what I have stated, but as a whole that's how you come off to me. I seem to have developed a guilty by association attitude towards the media over the last couple of years, and I'm the first one to admit it's wrong, but I can't help but feel that the media is pitted against us at evry corner, and it upsets me. But I don't feel guilty about attacking the media, I feel justified, I think you are the main problem in this country right now, even bigger than terrorism. Of course that's just my opinion.

"The First Rule of Fight Club is, You do not talk about Fight Club."

kbm8795

Rich, I'm not sure who told you what being an American is all about, but (and I may be wrong) it sounds like a pretty narrow definition. I admire you if you think you've spent your life meeting that criteria, but it doesn't mean the rest of us are required to do so as well. As much as I can respect your service to this country, it doesn't make my professional service any less valuable.

Yes, the media is a business, which is exactly what you would expect in a free, capitalist society. This concept is probably embraced more by the conservative-leaning newspapers I worked for - but it didn't mean they walked away when corruption was found. We write about street gangs and street violence, and we also write about the occasional cop taking the bribe, the occasional politician covering up lies or stealing taxpayer's money, the occasional irresponsible military member who isn't doing his job.
Why? Because they are public servants - they chose careers where they were supposed to elevate honesty and nobility above the norm in the society. We do it because they claim to have a special calling to serve the public. And when one of them doesn't live up to their claims, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, they get crawled on the carpet.

You've had your own career, as a professional soldier and a professional law enforcement officer who spends his work time protecting and serving the public. These are choices you made, and while it means you get a particularly interesting viewpoint of the world because of those experiences, it doesn't mean you have seen everything. No one told you to become a police officer...no one drafted you into the military. In making those choices, you used certain personality traits to determine what your particular contribution would be in this society. It doesn't matter if you assume reporters are always left of your point of view...most of them probably are, but then most Americans are. They haven't duplicated your choices nor should you assume their experiences are any less noble or valuable than your own.

You don't have an easy profession - but then a lot of us don't. And I've met police officers who embrace their training and their duty with a dedication that I admire, because they really like helping people. I've also worked with officers who are burned out and jaded by both internal problems in their department and the crap they have to deal with everyday. Not every policeman is incorruptable - to say that every journalist is inherently or politically so, or that MOST of them are, just isn't fair. Of course, there have been many occasions when the reporters investigative abilities were more efficient than the police department - and the police department goes after the reporter for sources.

At the same time, we are so anti-police that we give free space to local police departments to advertise fund drives for charity causes, make sure we give coverage to police community service groups, encourage the public to participate in police-sponsored neighborhood watches and make sure the public sees accounts of positive police work in both community service and charity.

As a business, it means the information that is delivered is a variety of news, opinion, entertainment - and there is a strict formula not only for constructing news stories but in how information is gathered. News is not only the chronicle of major events happening every day, but part of the history of the events of a community. If you ever bothered reading a journalism history book, you'd be rather surprised how conservative the profession has been over the years. There was no woman anchor in broadcast journalism until the 1970's. No minority representation on any major newspaper during the race riots of the 1960's - in many respects, the media was behind other industries in allowing minorities to report and cover the news. Doesn't sound too inclusive or liberal to me.

But before I get off topic here, let's consider your particular point of view. There isn't a single thing that has indicated that 130,000 soldiers in Iraq are committing atrocities. No one I know in the media would write that - and no one feels that the public believes that because of those prison scandals. We've reported concerns about the number of units that are receiving extended tours of duty, about leaves cancelled, about inadequate supplies. We've furnished cell phones for troops to call home, filmed and transmitted greetings between families, sponsored material drives to send packages to troops and to Iraqi citizens. We've taken several looks at problems injured soldiers have had coming home getting adequate medical attention, run reports on overcrowding at VA hospitals and problems new veterans are having receiving benefits. There have been films and sponsorship of homecoming celebrations, cases where families were flown (or soldiers) to rejoin their loved ones, and large coverage of Iraqi children who were rescued by our military and were sent to this country for medical attention.

At the same time, if there is a group involved with that prison situation, the public does have a right to know about it - especially if those responsible extend upward in the military or CIA and outward into the large number of independent contractors being employed by the government over there. And yes, you are going to see stories when superiors in the military mess up - and not rely on public relations releases by the government for all our information.

So while we are in a business, that business involves credibility and accuracy and balance and an attempt to present as many sides to a situation as possible - even if you don't like any side but your own. If you don't have credibility, you don't keep subscribers or advertisers. You lose your respect among peers. And I not only disagree that I employ any conscious bias in reporting, but I scrutinize my work so diligently that I count the damned quotes and number of words I give to each side of a story. And I won't file a story unless I know I've had contact with all the parties involved. I have had years of interview training - I so carefully construct my questions that when I engage a subject, it isn't ME talking with them, with my own thoughts and opinions - it's the Me who is a reporter. That's what professionalism is all about. I don't have to construct an agenda or political viewpoint - people who are lying usually manage to give it away by themselves. Then they get on my grill.

But if you want to trust all of your information to Rush Limbaugh, go ahead - there are types of people who have always been more susceptible to deliberate and intentional propaganda. And Rush, by the way, was a failed broadcast journalist. He couldn't gather information without peppering it with his political viewpoint, so he was sent away from the newsroom just like anyone else who likes to invent information that isn't there.

I'm not necessarily a media champion - I've seen problems in this profession just like I've seen issues and imperfections in a lot of others, including the military. Just today I started looking at six discharge cases in which the rather ridiculous Clinton-era "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy served as an avenue for alleged entrapment and another witch hunt of our gay soldiers. They didn't have sex - they didn't proposition anyone. They were caught in a gay nonsexual online chatroom by agents assigned to search for them, or so their story goes. They might be distinguished soldiers with years of service to their country - they might have fought for "freedom" and trained and dedicated themselves to duty, but their perceived sexual orientation is ending their careers. That story won't make it to the front page. We won't bother wondering how sexual orientation could be so bothersome to the military, especially when our soldiers conduct themselves as ladies and gentlemen in their public dealings overseas and never engage in any kind of activities with each other or the civilian population. And we won't hear the rest of you heroes standing up for their rights, either, or acknowledging that those American personnel serving in Iraq have to stand by and watch their gay British comrades receive mail from loved ones, but they have to wait for coded letters from their own. Or that their British comrades can receive support benefits while they get to hear their commander-in-chief back home demand a constitutional amendment relegating them to second class citizenship. You ever wonder what their story of fighting for freedom might be all about? That hasn't appeared on the front pages - it would be anti-American.

Ah...and here's something in the same vein - from early in my own career. You might remember a man who grabbed this woman years ago and intervened when she fired a shot at President Reagan. He was called a hero. . .for about two days, and then the "liberal" media found out he was gay. You guessed it - he disappeared real fast from the radar screen. No honors for his valor, no recognition, no letters of thanks and appreciation from Congress and the White House. Yep - we ignored it, just like good righteous Americans would expect us to do.

We almost ignored one of the passengers on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania - the gay rugby player who joined with other passengers to fight the terrorists onboard and prevented the jet from getting to Washington.

But I'm wandering away here - I've studied the media, both as a researcher, and as a participant. And I've certainly conducted some bias studies that indicated some issues involving agendasetting by higher editors - and usually their view was more conservative about their community. I've studied where entire groups of Americans were completely excluded from the newspaper pages (go look at a paper from, say, 1958....and count the places where you see photographs and articles by and about women or African-Americans). Look at how many news stories were written by women. Look at the obituaries and see that there weren't even photographs of African-Americans with those obituaries, if they received any notice at all. Or move forward about 15 years and look at how the government's own Kerner Commission, assigned the task of looking at the urban riots of the 1960's, had to recommend to the media to start HIRING those Americans. Damned liberals.

Now, about those MAYBE terrorist prisoners - have you seen a list of their names and their charges? Or are you just assuming they are guilty because we, in all the confusion of the invasion and occupation, decided it was best to put them away. And that we had an adequate number of translators with each unit to make sure we were making a sound decision each and every time. If we weren't sure - we probably picked them up. Or relied on neighbors who pointed fingers, and who knows what motives those people might have had as well. I haven't seen a list yet - all I know is that none of them were on that little deck of playing cards we distributed to our troops. But I did wonder, when we saw the reports about the prison abuse, WHY we weren't being told who those prisoners are and what significant information we expected we could gain from them. Again, my concern with that situation was much more about the role of independent contractors and what power they had in directing those troops who have been acccused. The last information I have is that one contractor may be indicted... but that the military may not be in position to prosecute him. I wondered most about the role of the contractors because, since they weren't directly military, their supervision would be less structured. In other words, if they were intermediaries between some C.O's and troops in issuing directives, it's possible that is where a breakdown in policy and authority happened.

Rich46yo

KBM maybe one day, if I can read your post long enough, I'll figure out what your talking about. I think its about time I left this thread.............take care...........Rich

"Death to Tyrants"!