Free Republic

LUBBOCK, Texas -- Because of the tortures and murders at the Abu Ghraib prison, Donald Rumsfeld must resign. He must leave his position as U.S. Secretary of Defense for the good of his boss, his war, his department and his country. And if he does not, Bush must fire him, which would be a rare demonstration for this administration of the rule that officials are responsible for their wrong actions. Mr. President: there comes a time when blind loyalty, however pigheaded, comes to a fault. That time is now. Sticking by your dad's friends is high virtue, but when this...

If you can't outwit the old guy, and you can't discredit him...you misdirect him with some demagoguery! But this old guy survived the Warsaw Ghetto! It will be a cold day in hell that he lets some pointy headed newsman get the best of him! Just take a look at how this guy just shreds every argument this hapless reporter puts in his way!

32 successive New York Times front page articles on Abu Ghraib. Since May 1 the New York Times has had a front page article every day, until today. April 29: TREATMENT OF PRISONERS; G.I.'s Are Accused of Abusing Iraqi Captives May 1: CAPTIVES; Bush Voices 'Disgust' at Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners May 2: DETAINEES; OFFICER SUGGESTS IRAQI JAIL ABUSE WAS ENCOURAGED May 3: PRISONERS; COMMAND ERRORS AIDED IRAQ ABUSE, ARMY HAS FOUND May 4: PUNISHMENT; ARMY PUNISHES 7 WITH REPRIMANDS FOR PRISON ABUSE May 5: INMATE; Iraqi Recounts Hours of Abuse By U.S. Troops May 6: THE PRISON GUARDS; Abuse...

History is useful. That, at any rate, is the theme of Alan Bennett's new play, The History Boys. History gets you into a good university. History gets you a good job. History is a key to cracking the secret of life.Or is it? I have been a dedicated history boy for 50 years but these past few months I have begun to wonder if history is any use at all. Britain and the United States have got into a difficult situation in Iraq and the entire Western media are reacting as if an unprecedented disaster is about to overwhelm their...

Abu Ghraib Reality Television Posted by Jeremy Robb Tuesday, June 01, 2004 With the explosive growth of reality television as of late, it was only a matter of time before Fox Television created a reality series centering around the hottest topic of the day – Abu Ghraib prison. Mark Burnett, creator of ''Survivor'' and ''The Apprentice,'' has already begun casting for the sure blockbuster. Twenty-four contestants will be selected to compete for a prize of $1 million dollars. Since many liberals locally and abroad have criticized the Abu Ghraib prison abuses by the U.S. military as being ''worse than when...

ABU GHRAIB PRISON, Iraq(May 25, 2004) -- Off the road, outside of the prison walls of Abu Ghraib, Iraqi families mill about, waiting to be cleared for admittance, hoping to speak to relatives inside. At the checkpoint, nicknamed "the Forward," Army military policemen check visitors for weapons and contraband before helping them on to a bus bound for the visitor area. There are also boys like Hamzi, an 11-year-old from a nearby village. "A lot of them come from nearby communities," said Lance Cpl. Jared Bierbaum, one of the Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment that stands...

We have reached a turning-point in international politics as well as in Iraq. President George W. Bush is widely seen to have gambled on Iraq and lost. The impact of that loss goes well beyond Iraq. The US has not been defeated in battle and is unlikely to be so but it can no longer impose its will on Iraq because it lacks the moral authority to do so. excerpt: This was not inevitable. The arrogance and hubris with which the Bush administration embarked on this war in the first place used up much moral capital. excerpt: The alienation of...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version May 28, 2004, 8:44 a.m. A New Attack on RushDavid Brock doesn't want American soldiers to hear Limbaugh. David Brock, the former self-described "right-wing hit man" turned "progressive" activist, is escalating his campaign against conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. Brock runs a new organization called Media Matters for America, which, according to Brock, was created to fight "conservative misinformation" in the media (see "David Brock is Buzzing Again," NR, June 14, 2004). Earlier this month, Brock and Media Matters produced a television commercial attacking Limbaugh...

Bush insists that 'a few American troops' dishonored the country. But prisoner abuse was more widespread, and some insiders believe that much remains hidden. Is Rumsfeld's Defense Department obstructing investigations into abuses at Abu Ghraib (pictured earlier this month)? June 7 issue - The meeting was small and unpublicized. In a room on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building last week, Condoleezza Rice grittily endured an hour's worth of pleading from leading human-rights activists who want to see a 9/11-style commission created to investigate the abuse of detainees in the war on terror. According to participants, the...

WARSAW (AFP) - Poland, one of the top US allies in Iraq ,rejected allegations that its troops serving with the US-led occupation forces there had abused prisoners. I categorically reject such reports," said army spokesman Colonel Zdzislaw Gnatowski referring to reports that originated in the United States and were carried by Polish radio stations. "They are unfair... no more than a desperate attempt to dilute the sense of shame after the incidents in Abu Ghraib prison," he said Friday of the notorious jail outside Baghdad at the centre of the prisoner torture scandal. US authorities have launched investigations into revelations...

BU GHRAIB PRISON, Iraq, May 28 — Raising their voices in slow, melodic chants of "God is Great," hundreds of Iraqis took over a highway in front of Abu Ghraib prison on Friday to greet buses carrying out 623 men and one woman after months of detention. The prisoner release was the fourth from Abu Ghraib this month and the largest since the publication of photographs showing American soldiers abusing prisoners there. Advertisement Women strained to glimpse husbands or sons through the dusty windows of each bus that bounced along the dirt road from the prison to the highway, bound...

May 29, 2004INTERROGATIONSCuba Base Sent Its Interrogators to Iraqi PrisonBy DOUGLAS JEHL and ANDREA ELLIOTT ASHINGTON, May 28 — Interrogation experts from the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were sent to Iraq last fall and played a major role in training American military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib prison there, senior military officials said Friday. The teams from Guantánamo Bay, which had operated there under directives allowing broad latitude in questioning "enemy combatants," played a central role at Abu Ghraib through December, the officials said, a time when the worst abuses of prisoners were taking place. Prisoners...

After weeks of repetitive wall-to-wall coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the American media have finally achieved success: U.S. soldiers are now being labeled as war criminals by some of their fellow Americans - just as their predecessors in Vietnam were. "I've been called a baby killer," ROTC recruit Alexia Regner told the New York Post on Friday, saying the insult was hurled by some of her fellow students at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. "I was pissed. I would never kill a baby," Regner explained. "I was thinking, I took an oath to defend their right to call...

When contemplating the Islamic terrorists' claim that their videotaped beheading of American Nick Berg in Iraq constituted retaliation for the evils perpetrated by a few rogue underlings at the Abu Ghraib Prison, we simply consider the source – depraved, demented (perhaps demonically possessed) men at war with God and therefore the creatures made in His image. These immoral men argue for a moral equivalence – your soldiers humiliated Iraqis, so we are justified in decapitating Americans ("And beware, all ye moderate Arab states!"). We expect, of course, thoroughly corrupt men to justify their thoroughly corrupt actions by employing such a...

Poland Angrily Dismisses Iraq Abuse Report By Pawel Sobczak WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland vehemently denied its troops had mistreated Iraqi detainees in their occupation zone in southern Iraq (news - web sites), saying on Friday recent internal army investigations turned up no evidence of any abuse. The Associated Press (AP) said overnight that accusations against Polish and other coalition soldiers had surfaced in investigations of the U.S. army's abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. "This is rubbish," Poland's deputy Defense Minister Janusz Zemke told reporters. "Our inspections didn't turn up anything of the sort." Graphic images of...

Wow! Thank God for the electoral college. Those founding fathers really knew what they were doing. Had the Constitution called for direct election of the president of the United States, a clearly mentally unstable man would be sitting in the Oval Office right now. That's my conclusion after watching, listening to and reading Al Gore's speech to the Moveon.org-New York University crowd this week. The man is unhinged. He's deranged. He's unbalanced. He had better get out of New York as quickly as he can because, as Ralph Kramden would say, "Bellevue is calling." Here are some of the descriptives...

=== Letter to Editor I am from Kelso, and a 2002 grad. I am a U.S. Marine over here in Iraq right now, and I am reading about all the things being said about the prisoners being mistreated and people trying to blame President Bush and everyone else higher. You all make me sick. You forget these people are trying to kill us everyday. The good people over here can't even wave at us or thank us any more, because they kill them also. We have lost lives here trying to make it a better place. When we get someone...

Polish soldiers together with soldiers from other coalition countries have been accused of abusing detainees sent to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reports Associated Press Agency. The Polish army however has denied these claims. According to the AP news agency, the information comes from a US sergeant, who told investigators that Polish soldiers had injured two detainees before they arrived at the prison. Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski rejected the allegations."This is all some unverified leak," he told Polish television. "It all gives an impression of not being a serious allegation." He said that Poland would ask Washington for...

May 28, 2004ABU GHRAIBGreater Urgency on Prison Interrogation Led to Use of Untrained WorkersBy DOUGLAS JEHL and KATE ZERNIKE ASHINGTON, May 27 — The interrogation effort at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq took on such urgency last fall that untrained personnel were pressed into service as analysts and even interrogators, according to accounts spelled out in documents and interviews.The pace accelerated last December, after the capture of Saddam Hussein, which led to a near-doubling of the number of two-person "Tiger Teams" assigned to an interrogation center at the prison, which operated under the control of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez's...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib said they were abused by troops from Poland and other coalition countries, according to copies of statements to Army investigators obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The witness statements also include new and more detailed allegations of abuse by military intelligence soldiers, including a civilian interpreter's accusation that an Army interrogator forced a prisoner to walk naked through a cellblock.One soldier has been convicted and six others are facing military charges for allegedly abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib last fall. All are enlisted military police who worked as guards.Most of the...