“ On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 p.m. in Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge. The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary [Kopechne], a former secretary of my brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom. I attempted to open the door and the window of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the backseat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police. ”
-Testimony of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Ted Kennedy's final gift to the American public was Barack Obama.
ReplyDeletehis testimony sounds reasonable...
ReplyDeletei believe him....
really....
after all how can one remember anything after drinking a 5th of gin...
It was not Teddy that gave US President Obama, no indeed.
ReplyDeleteIt was Lester Crown.
In addition to, of course, the voters in PA, FL and OH.
Don't forget the exalted legacy of GW Bush.
ReplyDeletere: detainee abuse.
ReplyDeleteIt does not appear to be the case that it was, as 2164th suggests, that it was rough men ready to do violence to protect US civilians at home but rather a top-down systematic treatment regime.
Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations
"The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program operated under strict rules, and the rules were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy.
snip
But the strong impression that emerges from the documents, many with long passages blacked out for secrecy, is by no means one of gung-ho operatives running wild. It is a portrait of overwhelming control exercised from C.I.A. headquarters and the Department of Justice — control Bush administration officials say was intended to ensure that the program was safe and legal.
Managers, doctors and lawyers not only set the program’s parameters but dictated every facet of a detainee’s daily routine, monitoring interrogations on an hour-by-hour basis. From their Washington offices, they obsessed over the smallest details: the number of calories a prisoner consumed daily (1,500); the number of hours he could be kept in a box (eight hours for the large box, two hours for the small one); the proper time when his enforced nudity should be ended and his clothes returned.
The detainee “finds himself in the complete control of Americans; the procedures he is subjected to are precise, quiet and almost clinical, ” noted one document. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/26prison.html?scp=1&sq=cia%20kept%20tight%20control&st=cse
of, there's even more:
ReplyDelete"rought to the “black site” in diapers, the paper says, the prisoner’s head and face were shaved, he was stripped and photographed and sleep deprivation and a diet limited to Ensure Plus, a dietary drink, began.
“The interrogators’ objective,” the background paper says, “is to transition the HVD to a point where he is participating in a predictable, reliable and sustainable manner.” The policy was to use the “least coercive measure” to achieve the goal. The harsh treatment began with the “attention slap,” and for three prisoners of the nearly 100 who passed through the program, the endpoint was waterboarding.
Waterboarding might be an excruciating procedure with deep roots in the history of torture, but for the C.I.A.’s Office of Medical Services, recordkeeping for each session of near-drowning was critical. “In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented,” said medical guidelines prepared for the interrogators in December 2004.
The required records, the medical supervisors said, included “how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment.” "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/26prison.html?scp=1&sq=cia%20kept%20tight%20control&st=cse
ring any bells - this highly detailed clinical approach?
The only thing they did wrong was they didn't, really, torure, and then, kill the dirty motherfuckers after they got the information.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ted, fucking, Kennedy: he sould have died a long time ago. Fuck him.
Nothing, but nothing, gets done without the lawyers, ash. I am speaking in a general sense, but it's absolutely the case. Whether you're talking about garden variety military operations or covert intelligence operations. Vetting and legal monitoring are everyday facts of life. For the protection of the individuals and the organizations involved.
ReplyDeleteSee rufus, it is that attitude that is so chillingly similar to that really ugly historical precedent. These people, in your view, are inferior humans, right?
ReplyDeleteHere is a little sampling about the past, note the "racially inferior" line.
"The coercive human experiments occurred during the German's racial war between 1939 and 1945. On the one hand, one needs to take account of the diminishing availability of stocks of experimental animals like rabbits and primates, used for "normal research". On the other, there was the availability of vast stocks of persons categorised as "racial inferiors". While priorities in terms of funding and facilities were allocated to research for military and racial ends, a wide variety of researchers, contexts and, consequently, victims were involved. Applying normal rules of confidentiality may serve only to prevent identification of perpetrators and concealment of the origins and extent of atrocities.
Atrocities committed in the name of medical research, included:
-physiological experiments to assess the effects of extreme conditions (as cold, low air pressure), or the effects of abnormal diet (as saltwater), or toxic substances as nerve gases
-the testing of..."
http://www.bioethicsreview.uoc.gr/Vol1/Issue1/v1i1ae1_Weindling.pdf
"The only thing they did wrong was they didn't, really, torure, and then, kill the dirty motherfuckers after they got the information."
ReplyDelete"Hey, who wants to go to jail?! Are you guys with me, or what?"
yes, I believe you are correct trish, but the old "just following orders" still is taught, right? The whole top down bureaucratic nature of it is really worth examining and exercising justice according to the law worthwhile. I can understand the interrogator at the end of the line viewing the order structure and complying. I hope this does not degenerate into just leaving a few interrogators to hang out and dry but rather address the culpability of the top of the chain.
ReplyDeletethe old "just following orders" still is taught, right?
ReplyDelete- ash
Fuck, no.
And now I might as well add something that will just put most in a lather.
ReplyDeleteYesterday's dialogue had me thinking this morning about a line from A Man For All Seasons:
"When you cut down every law to get at the devil, what do you stand behind when the devil turns on you?"
The particular cases under scrutiny by the AG aside (and I do understand that to many, it is at worst nickle and dime stuff under the circumstances in which it took place) it is dismaying to listen to otherwise conscientious Americans advocate disregard for the law among those to whom it is given first of all to defend it. People are attracted to intelligence work for a variety of reasons, but especially among those who undertake the most hazardous and urgent, the patriotism is perhaps the deepest. It has to be. And a part of that patriotism is an almost fanatical regard for the laws which bind them and allow them to operate. Folks in the intelligence community, inventive and resourceful as they are, can't just wing it. The nation places its trust in them, and for the sake of that same nation, their profession, and their various endeavors, they must preserve it. There is no such thing as carte blanche to do what one wishes. Under any circumstances. Because as both a practical matter, and as a matter of law, there can't be.
Do you want your intelligence officers, agents, case officers, what have you, to be accountable to the law, and through the law, to you? Or do you want them to be free agents?
It's an important question.
A profession that exists largely in the shadows, unknown to the general public, depends even more for its very existence on adherence to the law than those that do not. And I don't think I have to explain why.
Mary Jo meet Ted.
ReplyDeleteTed meet Mary Jo.
So...Where shall we begin?
By the way, filibustering is not allowed. And there is no sixty vote rule; here, it's every soul for himself.
Re: "just following orders"
ReplyDeleteSome folks just don't get out enough. They are still locked into their Hitler/Stalin/Maoist youth days - ply and lie – America all bad, all the time, Comrade.
An oath is taken to follow all LAWFUL orders.
Here's a helpful hint: If someone ordered you to shoot your mother because she was in the kitchen, would you? Well, extrapolate: If someone orders you to shoot someone’s mother for being in the kitchen, would you? This is not quantum physics.
If the Congress (and therefore the American people) gave its explicit or tacit approval to unconventional/innovative techniques, we will just have to live with that.
Until I hear something to the effect that prisoners were thrown out of aircraft from 5,000 feet, I am not going to lose much sleep. Threatening murderous butchers with a dose of their own medicine does not rise to that level.
To those who wrap themselves in the Constitution, consider the tough love administered by our Founding Fathers to turncoats or perceived enemies. For starters, consider the case of Benjamin Franklin’s eldest son – not a pretty picture. But, you know, war isn’t bean bag.
"When you cut down every law to get at the devil, what do you stand behind when the devil turns on you?"
ReplyDeleteSimple. You Kill the fucking Devil.
Ash, you're a fool. These people killed 3,000 American citizens as they worked to provide for their families.
These Assholes wanted to kill tens of thousands more.
This has nothing to do with superior/inferior beings. This is about killing Rabid Animals.
We've all seem to have forgotten that the reason we got hit in the first place is the damned dems, and their "wall" making it impossible for the CIA (or, the operative branch of the FBI to get the information from Moussawi's computer.
ReplyDeleteYou watch, the Dems will get us hit, again.
I was having a moment of weakness thinking of Ted, until I remembered William Kennedy Smith.
ReplyDeleteThe hell with the whole clan.
Jacqueline had the best idea.
She got the hell out, when she had the chance, and married a rich Greek.
Until I hear something to the effect that prisoners were thrown out of aircraft from 5,000 feet, I am not going to lose much sleep. Threatening murderous butchers with a dose of their own medicine does not rise to that level.
ReplyDelete- allen
Well, then, why would you make an issue of even chucking EPWs from an aircraft at 5,000 ft.? If I got, say, three really bad guys lined up in a Chinook; asked the first a question that he refuses to answer; then shove him off for effect; and subsequently get the other two to cooperate, would that be truly worthy of outrage? Dismayal? If so, why? Those guys are responsible in their small but still significant part for the outright murder of 3,000 of your and my countrymen and God only knows what shit they're hatching..
Where do you draw the line? How?
But see, the line's already drawn. And that was my point. We don't get to draw it ourselves as individuals. We don't get to do what we feel like doing, which, for starters, is slowly twisting a screwdriver into Major Assfuck's eye. But in most cases the only satisfaction/amusement we'll have is locating Major Assfuck and siccing the Speedo squad or the drone on his compound - with every living soul in it. War isn't a free-for-all. The fact that other countries and organizations treat it as such, does not and cannot make it so for us.
And you'll have to forgive my beating the dead horse: Interrogators are among the few that receive the full Law of Land Warfare/Geneva treatment - it's beaten into us mercilessly for days and days and days by instructors who hate us - and then you can't, as a general rule - just can't - make us let go of it.
Latest from Mary Jo Kopechne:
ReplyDeleteRequesting confirmation of Ted Kennedy's death. Reports, not having seen him "up there."
War is, most definitely, a Free for All. Occasionally, you make agreements with other governments to treat prisoners in a certain way, but we have no such agreement with Al Queda (or the Taliban.)
ReplyDeleteWe're playing ourselves for suckers.
The idiot lefties are not only trying to get themselves and their families killed, they're trying to get me and mine killed. And, That pisses me off.
"War is, most definitely, a Free for All."
ReplyDeleteNo, rufus, it's not. Saying it is might be satisfying, but it really is not. And despite all the howling, there was not a single Principal in the last admin that treated it as such. We don't operate that way. And it's part of our coin in trade.
That agreement forms a portion of our law, regardless of who it is we find ourselves up against.
Oh yes it is. Not a single member of the previous administration had ever been in a war. They were just (almost) as stupid as the present administration.
ReplyDeleteI am telling you right now, that war has no rules. Force Recon DID summarily kill prisoners during "deep" recon missions.
I never saw anyone thrown out of a helicopter; but I'm pretty sure it happened.
We DID firebomb Dresden, and Tokyo.
Our "lords and masters" have the luxory of making up silly shit, right now, because the fight isn't "Existential." Wait till it is, then see what happens to your "Rules."
Who was it that predicted a "Miraculous Remission" in The Lockerbie Bomber's Cancer?
ReplyDeleteTHAT didn't Take Long.
Uh, well . . . he might not have had, actual, . . . you know, . . . cancer, you see. It, uh, . . . . might have been a . . . uh .. . . . Libyan Doctor . . . . uh . . .
I know it happened, rufus. Uncooperative prisoners were indeed thrown out of helicopters.
ReplyDeleteAnd we did indeed firebomb Dresden and Tokyo.
And it is certainly not 1945 or 1967 anymore.
I'm sorry you think the rules are silly shit - sorry because I don't and I always appreciate the occasion when I am in agreement with someone else. This just isn't one of them.
We are so far and away ahead of everyone else, the existential threat will be some time in arriving. So I don't expect those rules to be discarded any day soon. Bent, stretched, folded, mutilated, yes. Discarded, no.
These laws are the restrictions we place upon our own actions. If they are truly that onerous, maybe we shouldn't be in the business. Maybe we should just take French leave of the world and its endless parade of troublesome dicks. Kick back. Be isolationist for awhile. Or noninterventionist. Or whatever. Give ourselves a good, long holiday.
What're the odds?
Is Kennedy really dead?
ReplyDeleteThe Answer Is:
This is just too good. I had to share it.
ReplyDeleteNew Element Discovered
LOS ALAMOS (PU) -- The recent fire at Los Alamos had one significant consequence. A secret scientific document was discovered in a bunker whose security systems were mostly destroyed by the fire. This document was leaked to the public last weekend. Actually it reveals nothing that we didn't already suspect. But it does show that the government has known all along that besides arsenic, lead, mercury, radon, strontium and plutonium, one more extremely deadly and pervasive element also exists. Investigators at a major research institution have discovered the heaviest element known to science. This startling new discovery has been tentatively named Governmentium (Gv) but kept top secret for 50 years.
This new element has no protons or electrons, thus having an atomic number of 0. It does, however, have 1 neutron, 125 deputy neutrons, 75 supervisory neutrons, and 111 team leader neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since it has no electrons, Governmentium is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of approximately three years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the deputy neutrons, supervisory neutrons, and team leader neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium sample's mass will actually increase over time, since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypocritical quantity is referred to as the "Critical Morass." You will know it when you see it.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons, but twice as many morons.
Governmentium: the heaviest element
Well, Trish, 1945, or not: any government that would rather see thousands of its Citizens killed, horrendously, than pour a little water up the Killer's nose Will be changed in time.
ReplyDeleteSo it's either waterboarding or mass slaughter?
ReplyDeleteRufus, that's patently absurd.
Waterboarding is just not the be-all, end-all of interrogation methods.
trish,
ReplyDeleteYou know very well the difference between threatening to blow a guy's brains out and actually splattering them all over the wall.
You also know that there are methods by which disorientation can lead a subject to believe you will purge his cranium of little gray cells. Indeed, without going into graphic detail, there are means by which to convince most subjects of just about anything.
I hope we don't really disagree. Of course we will take the high road, but we needn't let the bad guys know that we won't play by their rules. In fact, their projection works to our benefit.
He did seem a tad chunky, to be terminal cancer, IMHO, rufus.
ReplyDeleteBut I am no doctor, nor do I play one on television.
Spontaneous Remission,
by the grace of God.
"You know very well the difference between threatening to blow a guy's brains out and actually splattering them all over the wall."
ReplyDeleteAllen, you're not allowed to threaten them (explicity) with death. It doesn't make any difference that you are making a threat that will never be carried out. It doesn't.
You can suggest it by, say, threatening to turn them over to the authorities of their country of origin. Which just might also happen to be the one you're in.
But you can't come out and say, "Talk or I'll kill you."
Seems he's been fully redeemed, aye.
ReplyDeleteTrish, you've just got your head up your ass. Waterboarding is, BY Far, the most effective way of garnering Accurate Intelligence. In fact, it's just about the Only Way.
ReplyDeleteEvery Document we've seen Verifies this.
And, yes, at some point it, ABSOLUTELY DOES BECOME, "Waterboard, or Massive Horrendous Casualties". Only the most Obtuse State Dept. S******d could fail to see this.
Any Society, ANY SOCIETY that wouldn't pour a little water up a terrorist's nose, or threaten him with . . whatever . . . to save its Citizens is well down the road to Mass Suicide.
Oh, whatever, rufus.
ReplyDeleteI've had my say. It's all I can do.
You spoke (wrote) well Trish!
ReplyDeleteYou didn't have very good cards to play this time, Trish. Better luck with your next hand.
ReplyDeleteCampaign to change the law, rufus.
ReplyDeleteMake that one of the themes to the promote, in the next wave of change.
It could be marketed as progress.
That's what civilization is all about, effecting change, legally.
Wait till the city YOU live in gets hit, Ash. Then we'll hear what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteThe only ones that can change the law are the Terrorists, Rat. It'll change when they hit D.C.
ReplyDeleteBut, you know that.
"It'll change when they hit D.C..."
ReplyDeleteThat creates a tough ethical choice Rufus. If they hit D.C., do you then legislate revenge into law or just celebrate the "enforced term limits"?
Net Export Math
ReplyDeleteIt's, Really, not just all about us.
Hey, Q; Good to see you.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question?
Gotta admit, "I'm Conflicted."
Super Genius President STILL reading the SAME BOOK as LAST YEAR
ReplyDeleteEven Dubyah read faster than that.
A year or so ago I was reading about some new mind reading lie detecting devices/methods that might be coming on line. Can't recall how they were to actually work now, but the upshot was you could tell when a person was lying or not. The idea was even if the person was totally uncooperative, you could find out a lot just by asking a question and watching how the brain reacted to the question, then going from there. Kind of working backwards, getting more and more info. Haven't seen anything more about it, but it sounded like a good idea at the time, there would be no threat of violence at all, until one thinks it might end up in the hands of a government one doesn't much like, or in the hands of some Obamathugs. Where all this ends I've no idea.
ReplyDeleteWhat would the civil law say about this?
ReplyDeleteHow would a wise Latina rule?
We have the right to privacy in many court decisions, the right to privacy in our reproductive lives. So the courts have said.
We can't be forced to give evidence against ourselves.
How about placing some mind reading helmet on one's head, and taking a look to see if you are thinking the truth or not?
You may have "the right to remain silent" but what if they can read your thoughts even if your lips don't move?
This stuff sounds scary.
This stuff really does sound scary.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand there is a need to get at some social truths, like whether an idividual has a truck bomb and is going to blow up the supermarket.
On the other hand, if one is in a fight with one's wife in divorce court, and is being asked about infidelity, this seems to have much less importance for the group as a whole.
We may be needing a really really wise Latina.
yep, Bob, like I said before, heck, even made a video about it. Let's give local law enforcement the tools they need to get the job done. Rufus so eloquently told US not to commit MASS SUICIDE and the concept is a good one, no?
ReplyDeleteSo much negativity:
ReplyDeleteBoth the Lyon and Miss Mary Jo should be remembered for their WILL TO LIVE, and rejection of any mindset that would embrace DEATH PANELS.
The Lyon sought out the very best healthcare, regardless of price, and we can be assured, if not comforted, by the certainty that Miss Mary Jo fought for her life to the very end.
Anyone who has ever drowned an animal to dispatch it knows just what I mean.
You Say Tomatoe...
ReplyDelete"You may have "the right to remain silent" but what if they can read your thoughts even if your lips don't move?"
ReplyDelete---
A_h can't think w/o moving his lips, so in his case, it's irrelevant.
Rufus @ Wed Aug 26, 12:13:00 PM EDT:
ReplyDeleteSadly, my friend, you are mistaken.
Gorelick's Wall meant more than all the walls in both the towers:
It was The Law.
PBUH
(Correction:
ReplyDeleteall the walls *and the lives therein*)
But you can't come out and say,
ReplyDelete"Talk or I'll kill you."
So there, Allen!
And if you do,
I'll kill you!
(or at least shame you and run you out of serving the country)
Sig Heil!
ReplyDeleteDoug, I couldn't remember Gorelick's name. That IS the "Wall" I was referring to.
ReplyDelete"We are so far and away ahead of everyone else, the existential threat will be some time in arriving."
ReplyDelete---
Another 9-11, not being "existential"
...not worth the worry.
Disclosure of methods:
ReplyDeleteI put "9-11 wall" in Google.
Did wonders for my memory.
Google?
ReplyDeleteGoogle, rufus, that or yahoo or ask.com.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is number one for a reason, as far as search engines go. It's almost become a verb, like xerox did, back in the day.
Go xerox a copy ...
Google that, will you ...
I'm amazed we haven't had anymore terrorist attacks.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many targets of opportunity just around my backwoods area--the whole nation seems to be a wide open target. Those of you who live in more populated areas can write a list of targets of opportunity on the back of a postcard that I imagine would go past 20, easily.
We've either got better intelligence (I hope this is so) than suspected, or the threats is less than imagined.
Obviously I don't have any insight into any of this, but the world can turn topsyturvy.
I remember the day of 9/11, I got up a little drowsy, wandered into the kitchen, and it was all of a sudden "Dad Dad, haven't you been watching..."
grrr
Or do you have Google on the same list as the NYTimes, seeing as how their Corporate Officers supported Obama, some now working as Federals, I believe.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, we have this forum thanks to not only the efforts of deuce and whit, but that corporate giant of the internet, Google.
... "or the threats is less than imagined." ...
ReplyDeleteFinally figured it out, aye.
Your imagination, and that of many others, ran wild. While the reality, the border bandits are just that, border bandits.
They've raided once, they may raid again. Other border bandits raid in my area of the country quite often, just not as spectacularly, but the cumulative negative effect on the country has been much greater.
But there is little to no public concern about the threat. In fact it is not even considered a serious threat, the 40,000 deaths each year that can be attributed to border bandits crossing over our southern frontier.
I wouldn't have dreamed in my youth of such a communicative society.
ReplyDeleteToday I got something like 1ike 18 e-mails, a couple from my daughter, and five or six messages on my cell phone.
This is different than a stamp and letter society.
Whether it's better, I'm unsure.
Whatever else we may lack, seems to me we can sure talk.
I think you are right about that, Rat.
ReplyDeleteUnless something big happens, like a small nuke going off in LA.
Which is not out of the realm of possibility.
Hey, I was for Operation Wetback back in the Eisenhower days.
The immigration problem got out of control in the days of Kennedy and Johnson.
---
I've had a peace pipe I bought from the Nez Perce many years ago.
Let's both have a toke.
I was tryin to figure out what you'd been smokin, dropping, or shooting up.
ReplyDeleteYou should do it more often!
Don't think a single piece of legislation has ever had more effect than Kennedy's '65 immigration reform.
ReplyDelete...which he gauranteed would not result in millions of poor folk rushing into our cities, nor a whole block of folk from one country, nor would it result in a change of the ethnic mix of the country.
Obviously, he deserves all credit for what turned out to be a grand slam example of his truthfullness.
Too bad most of us have put our wealth in the wrong places.
ReplyDeleteLike Lynn’s about to:
Hi Garth, I’m an avid reader of your Greater Fool blog. As I fight the emotional urge to buy back into the real estate market, it is so refreshing to hear your common sense take on the real estate situation in our country, let alone in this silly little town I live in. ;-)
...
My dilemma is what or where do I put my cash. Currently it is sitting in a so called “high interest savings account” which has dropped considerable over the last year and now only earns .75%.
I’ve met with a couple of investment advisors but my lack of knowledge in this area is causing me to hesitate when it comes to investing. I’m leaning towards a portfolio that consists of 83.5% in Canadian bonds and 6.8% Canadian stocks with the remainder in Cash, US stocks, International stocks, and Foreign bonds.
Greatest Risk
I smoke shavings from Hawaiian coconut shells, when I can't my Kool 100s, Doug.
ReplyDeleteHakim's family emerged as one of the top threats to Hussein's regime during the 1970s. Hakim was imprisoned after a 1977 Shiite uprising and fled to Iran three years later.
ReplyDeleteHe was among the founders of the Supreme Council in 1982. Hakim led the party's militia, the Badr Organization, which many years later became one of the building blocks of Iraq's new army and police forces.
The Supreme Council did poorly in January's provincial elections and appears to have all but abandoned a project to create a semiautonomous region in southern Iraq.
Leader Lost
Doug, there were some court cases back in those days, that ruled that the schools had to educate those people, whether they were here legally or not.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the cites, but I remember dad talking about it.
I don't know what the legal situation is now, probably the same, but honest to God, what other nation on earth would do this?
Can I just walk into France, and have them pay for educating my kids?
I doubt it.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday arrested an important member of an international human smuggling network, who was also mentioned in the agency’s Red Book. Muhammad Saleem alias Jogi smuggled people to Iran, Turkey and Greece.
ReplyDeleteHe is a close associate of notorious human traffickers Muhammad Jamil alias Billa Qasai, Raja Iqbal alias Goli, Mazhar Iqbal, Shahid Baloch, Sadique Baloch, Hussain Haji Puri, Nadeem Butt of Gujrat, Nadeem Butt of Gujranwala, Muhammad Iqbal and Imran Jogi. Saleem was arrested by FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle Assistant Director Gul Sanobar.
According to a report sent to agency Director General Tariq Khosa by Punjab FIA Director Muhammad Azam Joiya, Saleem had been involved in human trafficking for seven years. He recruited hundreds of people seeking illegal immigration in exchange for around Rs 700,000 and sent them abroad.
Human Trafficker
The Butt's accomplice, Seymour, remains on the run.
The kids do not leave the country, bob. So if we do not educate 'em, or at least try, the result would be a fully ignorant underclass. That would have to be worse than what we have now.
ReplyDeleteWhile the French can use their nukes to power their "City of Light", it takes more than electricity to illuminate a "Shining City on the Hill".
That is an energy we do have, in abundance.
Human energy. People power.
There are citizens and people.
The Constitution utilizes both words and does not use them interchangeably, both having distinct and different meanings.
“Take Korean, for example. There are only about three Egyptian tourist guides that can speak Korean.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, there are a lot of Korean tour groups coming to Egypt, so what is the solution? Should we let them work on their own?
It is better for them to work under our supervision through this translation permit, which is through an Egyptian guide that accompanies the group and talks about the site in English. Then the Korean tour leader translates from the English to the group.”
Foreigners Invade
And the closed minded French still suffer from the car-b-que pandemic, or no?
ReplyDeleteFrance's New Year's Tradition: Car-Burning.
By Bruce Crumley / Paris Friday, Jan. 02, 2009.
A quick Ask.com search showed articles going back to 2005. Did a cursory review, looking for the latest, most timely article. This was the third look, so the terror campaign continues into its' fourth year.
So much for the French model of social integration. Their results in the famous social melting pot of equality that is France, not an encouraging course to follow.
Despite repeated assurances to restive pro-reform groups, however, it remains to be seen when and how hard President Barack Obama really will push to repair a system that practically everyone agrees is badly broken.
ReplyDeleteObama campaigned in 2008 promising that comprehensive immigration reform would be on his first-year agenda, but during a trip to Mexico this month, he said it had to be put off until 2009, an election year.
The administration is certain to call for swift action on health care reform as a tribute to Kennedy. But it also should accelerate work on immigration reform in his name.
Honoring Kennedy
As often is the case, the worst-hit areas were the disadvantaged neighborhoods that sit beyond the suburban peripheries of most French cities. A total of 422 cars were burned in Paris-area housing projects, compared to 12 in the relatively well-policed Parisian intra muros. Other cities whose unemployment-racked, racially tense banlieues also lived up to their reputations for frequent car-burning included Strasbourg, Lille, Toulouse and Nantes. Across France, police arrested a total of 288 people on New Year's Eve (vs. 259 the year before) — though not all were charged, and many were apprehended for offenses unrelated to arson.
ReplyDeleteIn a country where car-burning isn't a common symptom of socioeconomic unrest, news of so many automobiles being torched would be alarming — if not a sign of brewing insurrection. In France, however, word of the destruction that accompanied the evening the French call Saint-Sylvestre was met with a mix of Gaulic shrugs and low-grade peevishness.
In revealing the figures on Thursday, French Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie acknowledged that the tally of car-burnings had indeed increased over the previous year. Yet Alliot-Marie also said the enormous fleet of now carbonized vehicles shouldn't darken a New Year's Eve that was "unanimously considered mostly calm."
Ask.com provides this, too:
The Paris metropolitan area population is 9.4 million people.
A raucous crowd of almost 700 gathered in Greenville Tuesday night to hear U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis express his opposition to “Obamacare,” which he said was “not the right prescription” for Americans.
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Shouting matches broke out as other issues surfaced at the 90-minute meeting, including the war in Iraq and illegal immigration.
According to Inglis, the Greenville Hospital System said 11 percent of the care it provides is to illegal immigrants, whom he called “free-riders” in the American health care system.
Not the Right Prescription
The French have that problem of Greater France, historically, on the other side of the Mediterranean. They seem to be paying the price now. The Mexicans are Catholics mostly, the French have the problem of the muslims. Both problems are bad, ours may be the easier one to handle.
ReplyDeleteGood night, big day here tomorrow.
We've had the latest harvest in my memory.
If it wasn't for these big combines, the farmers would be in a lot of trouble.
Nite, Bob.
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