July 2009
The Hell of War Comes Home: Newspaper Series...
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about, in the case of Marquez, how in Iraq he had used stun guns and that, ultimately, he used a stun gun repeatedly on this man before he killed him, back in Colorado Springs or back in the United States.
DAVE PHILIPPS: Right. When we started this story, which took about six months to report, we thought this would be a story of inadequate healthcare and civilian problems at home, or problems in the administration of the base at home that led to these guys falling through the cracks.
What we started to find when we talked to them in prison is that there were widespread—I guess you would call them violations of the rules of war. They start with some small things, like several soldiers I talked to used hollow-point bullets. These are bullets that people usually use for deer hunting that spread when they hit their target, and so they can damage more flesh. These are banned by international treaties, but a number of soldiers I talked to said that they were getting them sent from home through the mail and that while it wasn’t openly talked about, it was sort of something that they did without fear of retribution.
The other things that they were ordering from—getting through the mail include drugs, liquor, although people said that liquor was easy to get in Iraq, as well, but if you wanted good liquor, you’d get it mailed to you. They were also ordering stun guns, 500,000-volt stun guns, through the mail and getting them sent to them. And soldiers told me that a number of soldiers would carry them on raids. Now, this isn’t just one bad platoon. We talked to soldiers in multiple platoons in two battalions that reported the use of these stun guns.
It goes on from there. Soldiers talked to me about randomly shooting cars driven by civilians. They talked to me about interrogating suspected insurgents and dropping them off of bridges.
I want to stress here that we don’t know how widespread this is. This could be a severe minority, and certainly there are a lot of people in this brigade that probably, when they hear about this behavior, are disgusted with it. They’re honest, good people who are doing an almost impossible job.
But what these soldiers told me is they were stuck in an insurgency fight they were not trained for, where there was no clear enemy. The main killer of these soldiers in this brigade was, by far, the improvised explosive devices, essentially roadside bombs. They were getting blown up without ever getting to try and fight back at the people that were killing their friends. And so, what they told me is that this anger and distrust for the entire population just burgeoned, and they thought that anyone was a potential enemy. And so, that’s why you saw them lashing out at the civilian population.
“At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.”
– Albert Camus (via bluechameleon)
Yet another developer furious with Apple and AT&T
by Steven Frank via @zinf, @jstrachan
Steven sez: I’m furious with Apple and AT&T right now, with regard to the iPhone.
Let’s talk quickly about Google’s official client app for Google Voice. It’s not the only thing I’m mad about, but it was the final straw.
To recap: Not only was the app rejected, but Apple pulled several other third-party Google Voice apps that had already passed the...
Greasemonkey script to replace all Youtube... →
—via ericmortensen:bellicosity
vruz: all sorts of awesome in a box
fallacy: "living in the present is good for you"....
there’s only future. changes can only be made in the future. ergo there’s only progress in the future. your present is only the result of a chain of events.
it is, however, possible to create a bearable present by offloading, hiding, ignoring or negating the consequences from the decisions you take, but that’s not really to ‘live the present’. it’s not a true...
Bush Weighed Using Military in Arrests -... →
—via ledgergermane:
WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.
Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had...
Obama, the Great Wealth Creator? →
—via azspot:
In early March, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank to about 6,500, CNBC stock analyst Jim Cramer blamed Barack Obama for “the greatest wealth destruction” ever, citing declines in “all indices, since the inauguration of the President,” an attack theme that resonated across the right-wing and much of the mainstream U.S. news media.
The numbers were hard to refute. When...
Devotchka ~ New World
bunnynico sez:This is one...
“The attribute ‘Jewish’ does not refer to concrete human beings, be it Ariel...”
– Antisemitism and the (modern) critique of capitalism (via anthropophagous)
“It is but equity…that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the...”
– Adam Smith (via azspot)
vruz: the current incarnation of oligarcho/pluto-corporatism is to capitalism what stalinism was to socialism: the implementation of a perverted, rotten to the core ideology that had nothing to do with the original philosophy.
“Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of...”
– Robert Henri (h.t. unburyingthelead)
“There have been men who loved the future like a mistress, and the future mixed...”
– W.B. Yeats, on William Blake. From William Blake and The Imagination (via thebronzemedal:elvira)
Note to White House: Netanyahu is Obama's... →
By Steve Clemons, Talking Points Memo
Netanyahu is poking the Obama White House, ridiculing his foreign policy team, and launching preemptive strikes at the very necessary deal-making that Obama must move forward in the region to shore up America’s power position and global relevance.
…
Obama needs to politely crush Netanyahu — and do it with a smile, without losing his...
Jindal takes credit for stimulus, presents... →
Think Progress, via thesmarttart:
“Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) reemerged on the national stage yesterday, penning an op-ed in the Politico to slam efforts to reform health care and declaring the Economic Recovery Act a failure… However, less than 24 hours before Jindal published his op-ed, Jindal traveled to Anacoco, Louisiana to present a jumbo-sized check to residents of Vernon Parish. The funds...
