Posted on 06/18/2004 9:38:01 AM PDT by Lance Romance
DOGS HAVE been such a hideous instrument of state terror that their use on Iraqi prisoners is cause alone for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.
Nazis used dogs for everything from intimidation to eating people alive. Bull Connor's dogs in Birmingham were an icon of the 1960s. South African police used dogs to enforce apartheid.
In 2002 Rumsfeld approved the use of dogs to inspire fear in detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The government claims that dogs were not used at Guantanamo. But they became a prime tool of cruelty at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, clearly violating the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. The Washington Post reported last week that it had obtained sworn statements of dog handlers who said they used dogs to instill fear in prisoners under orders approved by the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the prison, Colonel Thomas Pappas. Pappas obviously had the green light from Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the military commander in Iraq. According to the Post, Sanchez authorized intense interrogation tactics, including the use of dogs.
Dog handlers cornered prisoners with snarling dogs to scare them into urinating on themselves. Naked prisoners and prisoners with bags over their heads were forced within inches of barking dogs. US soldiers threatened to set the dogs loose on detainees. One detainee suffered 12 stitches from dog bites. One of the most galling photos from Abu Ghraib showed a smiling US soldier holding a prisoner by a leash.
If you leash people as dogs, it is easy to unleash dogs on them. This week the former commander of the military police at Abu Ghraib, Janis Karpinski, told the BBC that Major General Geoffrey Miller, then the commander at Guantanamo Bay, told her last fall: "They are like dogs, and if you allow them to believe at any point that they're more than a dog, then you've lost control of them."
Miller, who has since replaced Karpinski, denies saying that. Clearly the government did not care that many Muslims view dogs as unclean or how man's best friend is also equated with hate.
The Nazis put up signs saying "No Jews or dogs allowed." In the Deep South of the 1950s there were signs that said, "No niggers, no Jews, no dogs."
In the search for the bodies of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered in 1964, many other black bodies were fished out of local rivers. One resident said in "We Are Not Afraid," a 1988 book on the killings: "Why, we've been throwing everything in here for years. Radiators, tires, chains, dogs, cats, and niggers to feed the fishes."
Muhammad Ali refused to go to Vietnam, saying, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs . . . when so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?"
Senator Robert Byrd of Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote in 1945, "Rather I should die a thousand times and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." White supremacists today call Jews "mongrel dogs." Israeli police use attack dogs on Palestinians as Palestinians scream Jews are dogs. The barking, biting, and killing does not stop.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I bet Nick Berg wishes he had 12 stitches from a dog bite.
Even as a op-ed this has reached the level of kindergarten, the tenous line from dogs to Rumsfeld is absolutely embarassing. The only redeeming sentence is the one that points out Bob Byrd, but Derrick doesn't want him to reign. Amateur night at the Boston Globe.
"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
"Wouldn't you like to be a dog? I would. Dogs are friendly."
Didn't I just hear that from someone recently?
I'm going to see if I can find in the CG where it says dogs can not be used for interigation. Just because I don't take the globes word for it. They've been know not to do homework before. If someone else finds it first let me know.
Why did I have sex witn Monica, because I could, same reason you dog licks his privates.Much better link between Bill Clinton and dogs than this article has with Rummy
Kerry should resign, but not Bush? Boston Globe
SO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR Kerry Healey thinks that John Kerry should resign from the US Senate while running for president (Page A1, June 16). Does she hold the same view of George Bush? After all, the president has a much harder job than Kerry and has been absent from Washington frequently while in office. Bush has taken more vacation time than any other president in history and has spent more time using Air Force One to raise money for his campaign than any other president. Yes, Clinton bashers, even more than Bill.
Perhaps Bush and Healy and the rest of the Republican Party should pay attention to their own jobs and the very hard work ahead of them instead of throwing stones. It is the Bush administration's fiscal squeezing of the states, and the states' squeezing of the cities and towns that have led to cutbacks in services, as well as the layoffs of civil servants and teachers, and the very policemen and firemen the public counts on to protect it when something goes wrong.
ROBIN DOUGLAS
Beverly
Double standard on Kerry voting
HOW MANY times has the Globe run stories about state or county workers shirking their duty and not showing up for work? But where is the outrage over the fact that John Kerry has missed 87 percent of Senate votes in 2004 while campaigning for president ("Healey calls for Kerry to resign," Page A1, June 16)? Why is this story seen to be more about political "attacks" from the Republican side and not about the dismal job Kerry is doing as senator?
I was dumbfounded to hear Kerry's response to Healey's request that he intends to show up when his vote will make a difference. What if the voters took that stance? Let's stop the double standard. If it's bad for a county clerk to shirk his duties, it's fair to hold Kerry to the same standard.
BOB HATCHER
Newton
Seems to me that dogs were also used to locate the remains of Americans killed on 9/11 by islamic scum with box cutters...
Derrick, you ignorant slut. The Geneva Conventions only apply to uniformed prisoners of war, not terrorists. We could have shot the bastards on the spot if we had so desired.
What idiotic insipid drivel! No wonder Massachusetts has the two worst Senators in the nation. With lackwits such as this moron writing for a major metropolitan paper, surely the more merciful option is to cede this state to Canada. Perhaps they'd be interested in taking New York, as well. I would then fully support military action against Canada!
However, that's really irrelevant as TERRORISTS don't fall under the protection of the:
Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva from 21 April to 12 August, 1949; entry into force 21 October 1950
But we knew/know that.
I could find anything either. I love how press like the globe love to float the GC arround when it suits them. Has Johnson been given GC accomodations? Berg? any other American captive? They take a few civilians, because they can't touch our superior military, and slaughter them, and we here no cries for GC, even though one of the main tenents is to take no hostages.
of course my 'could' is supposed to be 'couldn't'
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