This is the biggest scandal I've ever known.

[DrWeird]

It's just that most people are at the first stage of trauma: denial.

The army just confirmed there are those "worse photos" exist. The US army raping children and women. Iraqis being beaten to death..

But that really won't change anything, when you think about it.

The photos shown by 60 minutes were enough. They showed Iraqis beaten to death. They showed rape. And if you think it was just a fraternity prank, you're a damn apologist. What it showed was people being forced to engage in sexual acts, and that means rape, no means no. So if you think it was just humiliation you might as well be saying, "she had it coming, she shouldn't have dressed like a slut" "well, he bought her dinner, she should have expected it" or "he was just an excitable boy."

This is it. It's over. No more fence sitting.

[indepat]

1. It's enough to convince me GWB's temporary ratings will drop a tad

until some Rovian magic emerges, then he will be in the mid-50s.

[No2W2004]

2. Iran/Contra......

Secret "shadow govt." operating out of the white house basement with no oversight, no one's knowledge, making deals with Iran for weapons, using the money from the deal to fund our own little war in central America, over 30,000 killed, mass executions, mass graves, men, women, children, 4 Nuns who were US Citizens,all secretly murdered under the auspices and approval of the now approved ambassador to Iraq, US government funding cocaine production in Columbia for the drug lords cooperation with the CIA, all of this under the control of the man who just helped shrub and his hyper-fundy buddies with their 3 hr prayer-a-thon.

The neocons learned that if they keep it a secret, it looks much worse than if they just are blatant about their actions.

[Jane Austin]

6. I don't think people really understood Iran-Contra.

It was very complicated and it came out piece by piece.

People understand pictures, and they understand sex and sadism.

I think whoever said we're in step one, denial, has hit the nail on the head.

Soon, it will be impossible to deny.

[Karenina]

16. John Negroponte 95-3? (heh???)

Dyncorp? *cabal? porno? PRI$ON PROFIT$$$$??? I went digging for some links I have yet to find... Y'all be so much faster than I. PUHLEESSE
EDJUMACTE DIE VOLK!!! ;-)

[Tinoire]

3. The world will not stand by idly and let that mad man be re-elected

It's over.

Aside from normal decent people (who are outrgaed), I don't think world governments will allow him to be re-elected. He is ruining the game of imperialists everywhere because he's out of control.

The CFR & Trilateral Commission won't allow it. Kerry's their new man. He won't be out of control like Bush.

[DrWeird]

4. Hope you're right.

But the world governments let the German people elect Hitler.

[Tinoire]

15. If I'm wrong- we're hosed.

I can't bear the thought of being wrong on that one because that sociopath has just gotten started. If his cabal manages to get four more years, our country really will become AmeriKa.

[Kanary]

11. I also hope you're right.

I *do* think it will take a huge outcry from other countries.

I wish that the whole US had taken to the streets, but even that, I don't think would do any good.

It's going to take reprimanding from the whole world. That's just how walled in this country is now.

Kanary, who also thinks Kerry was "picked"

[Tinoire]

17. Can you imagine if they get 4 more? People will take to the streets

I don't believe it would go as calmly as 2000 because too many people are too angry.

This scandal could not have occurred at a better time because it's big enough to snow-ball until election day if we don't allow them to bury the photos and get their corporate media to minimize, white-wash the whole thing.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Watergate was child's play

This may not only bring a president down, it may bring the entire country down too? We have to wait and see.

Don

[Solly Mack]

12. I think America has finally crossed that proverbial line with

far too many , and that yes, America is now entering a phase she's never been in before...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. Watergate was the tip of the Nixonian iceberg. There was a lot more...

...going on that was never publicly exposed...things that involved the assassination of domestic and foreign leaders to mention but a small fraction. Nixon was in the middle of a lot of activity, activity that commenced when he became Ike's VP following the election of 1952.

[happynewyear]

7. that is what I said on 9/11

I knew that 9/11 signaled the beginning of the horrific reality we are now witnessing.

It is the biggest scandal/conspiracy ever know in our history.

And it is also the sickest. It wins the grand prize! :nuke:

[Blue_Roses]

8. I hadn't heard

that there was rape among women and children. Did the Army confirm this was on tape? If this is so, then they are no better than Saddam.
Sickening. Truely sickening.

Do you have a link to this?

[DrWeird]

9. Yes, I do. And no, we're not better then Saddam.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519448

[Blue_Roses]

20. very hard

to read. It makes me sick to my stomach:puke:

[Solly Mack]

10. In one report, it's mentioned that an interpreter

rapes a young boy. Also that an inmate, a woman, was raped by an American soldier.

I don't have a link at my fingertips but I did read about it. (my "favorites" is beginning to look like a large library)

I'm sure many people have the link handy, however, and they will be forthcoming with it.

[bobbieinok]

13. EU (minus Blair???) decides to do all international deals in euros????

[Karenina]

18. Now THAT

would certainly "checkmate" a LOTTO shit tout-de-suite as they say, eh?
Wonder if that EURO THANG had anything to do with the toppling of that "evil dictator" the *Amis have photograpically proven themselves to be so "morally superior" to...

[bobbieinok]

14. Americans prevented from entering countries??? - might wake up religious

right

although religious right colleague said her European relatives did not understand this is a holy war to preserve 'christian civilization' (said this fall 2002) ....... yes, that's what she said

[Shopaholic]

19. Will the media have the balls to show these new photos & videos?

I'm not optimistic that they will--and the country needs to see all of this evidence-no matter how ugly it is and we all have begun to get a pretty good idea of just how brutally ugly it all is. But we're talking about a country that got it's collective panties in a wad over a quick glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple in the Super Bowl Halftime show after all!

What's really disturbing me are the little euphemisms that the media have found to describe these photos:

Prisoner Abuse = TORTURE

Military Contractors = MERCENARIES

Having sex with = RAPE

Inappropriate behavior with a corpse = NECROPHILIA


Could the media start leveling with the American public by beginning to call these photos & videos what they really are instead of trying to sugar coat them?

[Skittles]

23. balls are not required for courage

nt

[mopaul]

22. it's in a catagory all by itself, that's for sure

but i see the overall slo mo scandal beginning in 1980, with a slight slowdown from 92 to 2000

[Tinoire]

24. Bar Association: Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon Appointees

Bar Association: Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon Appointees
Salon is reporting that a report compiled by the Committee on International Law of the New York City Bar Association has found that the American military's treatment of detainees and prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq violates international law — and the compilers of the report say that the techniques employed by interrogators at prisons such as Abu Ghraib were "sanctioned by Pentagon political appointees."

Joe Conason of Salon reports that Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler and chair of the Committee on International Law was told by "senior" members of the Judge Advocate General Corps that high ranking political appointees were behind the abuse. Says Conason:

http://www.warblogging.com/

Lack of protection

<snip>

Indeed, Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Douglas Feith, President Bush's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy — and number three man at the Pentagon — reportedly summed up Protocol One of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 as "law in the service of terrorism".

In the past, Conason writes, all interrogations conducted by military personnel were monitored by a member of the Judge Advocate General corps from behind a two-way mirror. All interrogations were monitored, and the JAG officer was "emplowered to stop any misconduct". But senior Pentagon officials removed that requirement. :wow: Not only did JAG officers no longer monitor interrogations, but private military contractors were allowed to conduct interrogations.

<snip>

After hearing the complaints of the JAG officers, Horton and his bar colleagues wrote to Haynes and the CIA's general counsel in an effort to clarify U.S. policy on the treatment and interrogation of detainees. Those inquiries, he recalls, "were met with a firm brushoff. We then turned to senators who had raised the issue previously, and assisted their staff in pursuing the issue directly with the Pentagon. These inquiries met with a similar brushoff." The Bush administration wanted no meddling by human rights lawyers as it brought democracy and human rights to the benighted region.

<snip>

Horton says that career military officers at the Pentagon were "greatly upset" by what they regarded as the deliberate destruction of traditions and methods that have long protected soldiers as well as civilians. Those officers, and others who may have evidence to offer, are obviously reluctant to step forward and speak because they fear reprisal from the Pentagon and the White House. They have been instructed not to talk to anyone about these issues. It is to be hoped that in the investigations to come -- whether or not Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Feith keep their jobs -- those conscientious officers will be able to tell what they know about the decisions that led to this national disaster.


<snip>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/07/rights/index.html

They're going down. The entire house of cards is CRASHING down.