This is the new gulag

Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian--This is the new gulag:

Bush has created a global network of extra-legal and secret US prisons with thousands of inmates

"My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," said Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."
He confessed he had still not read the March 9 report by Major General Antonio Taguba on "abuse" at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Get with the program: Ghost Town Orange has already read the report. Rumsfeld hasn't read the Taguba report? Bush should fire him! Back to the quote:

Some highlights: " ... pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape ... sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick ... "

The same day that Rumsfeld added his contribution to the history of Orwellian statements by high officials, the Senate armed services committee was briefed behind closed doors for the first time not only about Abu Ghraib, but about military and CIA prisons in Afghanistan. It learned of the deaths of 25 prisoners and two murders in Iraq; that private contractors were at the centre of these lethal incidents; and that no one had been charged. The senators were given no details about the private contractors. They might as well have been fitted with hoods.

If the Bushites keep power, this sort of talk will be called "premature anti-fascism;" we're not allowed to criticize our dear leaders until the "war on terror" has been won. Mr. Blumenthal worked at the White House in the good old days (i.e., when Bill Clinton was President.)

And phony Ralph Nader will claim there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

New Lewis and Clark postage stamps

I need a break from the bad news; unfortunately the United States Postal Service is making me unhappy with their attempt at picking my pocket:

To commemorate the bicentennial of the official launch of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the U.S. Postal Service will issue three 37-cent self-adhesive stamps. One stamp features an image of the two valiant leaders of the expedition standing on a promontory surveying the countryside, available in a pane of twenty stamps. The two additional stamps feature individual portraits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark painted by Michael J. Deas in a style reminiscent of early 19th-century portraits of the two explorers. Ten each of these stamp portraits are included in a special 32-page prestige booklet entitled "Lewis & Clark: The Corps of Discovery, 1804-1806," available for $8.95. In addition to the stamps, the booklet contains informative text, historic illustrations and scenic photographs. Ron Fisher, a Lewis & Clark enthusiast who visited many of the expedition's sites and first wrote about the Corps of Discovery in 1970, wrote the text.

Why do I say they are trying to pick my pocket? The face value of the 20 stamps in the booklet is $7.40. They charge $8.95 for it--$1.55 above face value. Even if I do not want the booklet--I just want the stamps to use on my mail--I do not have the option of just buying the stamps at face value. And the limited printing and distribution of this issue will create an artificial scarcity, so I will never see this stamp on incoming mail. So I'll just have to be satisfied posting the hastily cut-and-pasted picture of the stamps here at Ghost Town Orange.

The frames of these stamps look like the classic engraved US postage stamps of the 1920s and early 1930s; the vignettes of these stamps feature paintings by Michael J. Deas, who also designed the stamps. Aren't they beautiful? Pity I won't see them in the mail.

We were slaves in the American kitchens

Here is another story (this is from the Independent of South Africa) we will not find in the SCLM*:We were slaves in the American kitchens:

New Delhi - A group of 20 Indians who ran away from a United States military camp in Iraq, where they worked in the kitchen, claim they were abused for nine months, it was reported on Tuesday.

The men from southern Kerala state paid 75 000 rupees (about R11 700) each for visas to Kuwait in August 2003. They were cheated by employment agents and landed in Baghdad.

One man, Hameed, said they were taken to a US military camp in Mosul where they were told that they had been bought to work in the kitchen, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

"We were slaves in the American kitchens. We barely got two hours of sleep. Any slip-ups and we were tortured for days," Hameed said.

While Hameed alleged they were often used as shields when their camp was attacked by Iraqi militia, his brother Shahjahan said they were forced to cook pork despite being Muslim.

The men said they were not allowed to call or write home, but were told 12 000 rupees (about R1 800) would be sent to India every month.

They got their chance to escape when their camp was attacked at the end of April. An Iraqi truck driver took them to Baghdad from where they travelled to Fallujah, Jordan, Doha, finally arriving in Mumbai on April 28.

* So-called liberal media

Afghanistan: US coalition leaflets put aid workers at greater risk

The Guardian is again proving to be one of the best newspapers in the world. Here's a report by Ewen MacAskill--Pentagon forced to withdraw leaflet linking aid to information on Taliban:

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has distributed leaflets calling on people to provide information on al-Qaida and the Taliban or face losing humanitarian aid.
The move has outraged aid organisations who said their work is independent of the military and it was despicable to pretend otherwise.

[snip]

The leaflets were distributed by US forces in Zabul province, which borders Pakistan and where the Taliban have regained control of several districts.

One of the leaflets, showing an Afghan carrying a bag of provisions, reads: "In order to continue the humanitarian aid, pass over any information related to Taliban, al-Qaida or Gulbuddin organisations to the coalition forces." The latter reference is to the renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is believed to have allied himself with the Taliban.

Fourteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan last year; eleven have been killed thus far this year.

The Pentagon admits this was a mistake (gasp!) and promises it won't happen again.

Telling the truth ain't good enough for the 7 of diamonds

Jonathan Steele in the Guardian: Why being right on WMD is no consolation to Iraqi scientist labelled enemy of America

By any measure Amer al-Saadi ought to feel vindicated. The dapper British-educated scientist who was the Iraqi government's main link to the United Nations inspectors before the US invasion repeatedly insisted that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction years earlier.

David Kay, the American inspector who headed the Iraq Survey Group and was sure he would find such weapons when he went to Iraq after the war, now accepts Dr Saadi was right. So does Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector, who up to a month before the war still thought Iraq might have had WMD.

Yet, astonishingly, Dr Saadi does not know of their change of mind or of the political fallout their views have caused in western countries. He is like a lottery winner who is the last person to be told he has hit the jackpot.

Held in solitary confinement in an American prison at Baghdad's international airport, Dr Saadi is denied the right to read newspapers, listen to the radio, or watch television.

[snip]

Barely three days after the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by US troops in central Baghdad Dr Saadi approached the Americans and became the first senior Iraqi to hand himself in. It was the last time his wife saw him.

He was sure he would soon be released, Mrs Saadi says. He was a scientist who had never been part of Saddam's terror apparatus, or even a member of the Ba'ath party.

CIA interrogators have repeatedly interviewed him. Had there been any WMD to discover Dr Saadi would have had an obvious incentive to reveal their location once the regime had collapsed. But from the reports of the Iraq Survey Group it can only be assumed that he has maintained his line that they were eliminated long ago.

Dr Saadi is described officially by the Americans as an "enemy prisoner of war". This allows them to detain him indefinitely without access to a lawyer or visiting rights from his family until George Bush declares the war to be over. Whether he is still held out of spite or to hide Washington's embarrassment is not clear. He has already been in custody for more than a year.

His CIA interrogators have finished their work and apparently feel awkward about his continued detention.

"My handlers have appealed to higher authorities for my release but it seems it's political and God doesn't meddle in politics," Dr Saadi wrote in one letter.

If Dr Saadi has to wait for President Bush to declare that the war is over to be freed, he may never get out of prison. How can this be just?

Dr Saadi was the liaison man with the UN weapons inspectors when they went back to work in November 2002.

At the UN in February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Dr Saadi did not cooperate with the inspectors; instead his job was to "deceive; not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing."
Of course, now we know that most of Powell's presentation to the UN was BS. But Dr. Saadi will rot in prison because the Bush administration can not admit it was wrong about anything.

Can anyone tell me why President Bush should be re-elected? He is an idiot.

20th-century Conflict Map

From the Nobel e-Museum: Click Here to go to the Conflict Map. (Flash required)
Here's how the Nobel e-Museum describes this interactive map:

In the course of the 20th century, mankind experienced some of the most devastating wars of all times. Where did these wars take place? Have some regions experienced more wars than others? Who were the main protagonists in these conflicts? This map gives you the opportunity to answer these questions. It displays wars with at least 1,000 military battle deaths.

The Nobel Peace Prize celebrated its centennial in 2001. Where did the Laureates and nominees come from? How many Africans have received the prize? Alongside the map on wars you will find statistics showing the geographical distribution of Peace Prize nominees and Laureates since 1901.

You can move a slider on the right side of the screen to change the scale of the map. A slider below the map can change the years displayed. When you position the cursor over war on the map, you can read about that conflict.

U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse

The full text of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba's
report on Iraqi prisoner abuse. Rather than focus on the misbehavior at the Abu Ghraib Prison, I notice that Maj. Gen. Taguba praised a few servicemen for doing the right thing:

4. (U) The individual Soldiers and Sailors that we observed and believe should be favorably noted include:

a. (U) Master-at-Arms First Class William J. Kimbro, US Navy Dog Handler, knew his duties and refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI personnel at Abu Ghraib.
b. (U) SPC Joseph M. Darby, 372nd MP Company discovered evidence of abuse and turned it over to military law enforcement.
c. (U) 1LT David O. Sutton, 229th MP Company, took immediate action and stopped an abuse, then reported the incident to the chain of command.

Ghost Town Orange Music

New music for Ghost Town Orange: part of my arrangement of 'The Old Chisholm Trail' with some other stuff mixed in.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Women: re-elect Bush and get ready for the draft

TheStar.com - U.S. eyes proposal to draft women

WASHINGTON—The chief of the U.S. Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services.

The proposal, which the agency's acting director Lewis Brodsky presented to senior Pentagon officials just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, also seeks to extend the age of draft registration to 34, up from 25.

1893 Health Food Cookbook

Project Gutenberg has put Science in the Kitchen., by Mrs. E. E. Kellogg on-line. This is a classic from the beginning of the American health food movement. Here Mrs. Kellogg quotes from Dr. J.H. Kellogg's Second Book in Physiology:

"Eating between Meals.—The habit of eating apples, nuts, fruits, confectionery, etc., between meals is exceedingly harmful, and certain to produce loss of appetite and indigestion. The stomach as well as the muscles and other organs of the body requires rest. The frequency with which meals should be taken depends somewhat upon the age and occupation of an individual. Infants take their food at short intervals, and owing to its simple character, are able to digest it very quickly. Adults should not take food oftener than three times a day; and persons whose employment is sedentary say, in many cases at least, adopt with advantage the plan of the ancient Greeks, who ate but twice a day. The latter custom is quite general among the higher classes in France and Spain, and in several South American countries."

How can we survive without constant snacks? Mrs. Kellogg includes menu plans for several week's worth of meals. Here is a menu from a typical day:

BREAKFAST

Fresh Fruit
Cerealine Flakes
Whole-Wheat Puffs
Toasted Wafers
Baked Potato with Cream Sauce
Steamed Eggs
Stewed Fruit

DINNER

Cream Pea Soup
Mashed Potatoes
Scalloped Tomatoes
Stewed Cabbage
Pearl Barley
Cream Crisps
Graham Bread
Stewed Fruit
Farina Blancmange with Cocoanut Sauce

Somehow, it seems that stuffing one's self twice a day would not be conducive to good digestion.

Black Box Voting - Bev Harris - BlackBoxVoting.org

It seems that the Secret Service has been visiting Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org. She has been leading the fight against paper-less touch screen voting machines. There are no permalinks on the blackboxvoting site, so I'll quote the relevant post in its entirity:

Thursday April 29 2004
The Secret Service Wants Your Name: Will "subpeona" this web site?

by Bev Harris
And by the way, they read every word. Hi, agent Mike. This "investigation" no longer passes the stink test.

He says not to tell folks about the "investigating" they are doing.

I have cooperated ad nauseum to this absurd investigation of the "VoteHere hack" which looks to me like it is something entirely different. I'll tell you what it looks like to me:

A fishing expedition.

It appears that they may be using the Patriot Act to circumvent some of the civil rights protections laid down in the 60s. You see, it is illegal for a government agency to go in and demand the list of all the members of a group. And you can't investigate leaks to journalists by going in and grabbing the reporter's computer.

After the Diebold memos were leaked, and my web site was shut down, around the time of the California recall election, I started getting solicited to accept VoteHere software. I didn't bite, because it was obvious that this was an entrapment attempt.

Okay, a word about VoteHere: This is the company that has no visible means of support. It doesn't seem to sell anything. Its board is heavily infested with defense industry types -- a former CIA director (Robert Gates, now heads George Bush School of Government); it had Admiral Bill Owens, also Vice-Chairman of SAIC and a member of the Defense Policy Board with Perle and Wolfowitz, a very close friend of Cheney; currently headed by former Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro.

VoteHere announced that it would be releasing its software for review, back in July 2003. It was planning to release it in September, and was supposed to do so to Dr. David Dill's web site. It never released the code, just a bunch of literature about its product. (It did release some, but not all, of its code this month, making a big splash about it). About a week into October, I got solicited with an email "click this link" for VoteHere software.

Now who would fall for that? Why would anyone in their right mind grab the stuff in some clandestine manner when it was being released into the open momentarily? And this is a company that never sells anything. Who gives a s**t anyway, what its software does? It now is trying to peddle yet another alternative to a voter verified paper ballot, an idiotic solution where we turn over auditing of the vote to a handful of cryptographers who work for a private company with defense industry ties. No one I know thinks that is even a viable concept, so why would we care to examine the software these cryptographers make up?

I was in the ending stages of writing my book, putting new chapters online every few days, at that time. Like I'm going to hack into VoteHere (those who know me realize that I couldn't hack my way out of a paper bag) -- this was just dumb.

I turned down the software. In early January this year, VoteHere does a press release that it was "hacked" in October and tries to blame it on the activism community. I published an article expressing doubt that we'd gotten the whole story.

Now, I have been interviewed by the Secret Service on this VoteHere "hack" story about five times. They never spend much time on the hack. Most of the time is spent on the Diebold memos, which they claim they are not investigating.

Here's the deal: The leaking of memos to journalists is not something the government can come in and demand to investigate very easily.

Under the Patriot Act, "hacking" crimes were turned over to a new division, called the CyberCrimes division, and placed under the auspices of the Secret Service. And let me tell you what they want from me now: They want the logs of my web site with all the forum messages, and the IP addresses. That's right. All of them. A giant fishing expedition for every communication of everyone interested in the voting issue. This has nothing to do with a VoteHere "hack" investigation, and I have refused to turn it over.

So, yesterday, they call me up and tell me they are going to subpeona me and put me in front of a grand jury. Well, let 'em. They still aren't getting the list of members of BlackBoxVoting.org unless they seize my computer -- which my attorney tells me might be what they have in mind.

Also, Agent Mike told me he just "happened" to be on the plane with me a couple weeks ago. What's that supposed to do? Scare me? "You were going to Oakland," he said. Yeah, and Diebold lawyer's memos appeared in the Oakland Tribune, but guess what, Mike: That was the first hop of three on my way to Dallas. I left that morning for a speech at the Dallas Democratic Forum that evening. Never even got off the plane. Better luck next time.

And if they were really investigating what they said -- a VoteHere "hack" can someone explain why they want the logs from the web site BlackBoxVoting.org -- it was SHUT DOWN due to Diebold cease & desists during the period of the supposed "hack."

And (you know who you are) -- consider this a heads up: If you start bumbling around in my house with U.S. marshalls, the very first thing that will happen is mainstream news coverage that you are misusing the Patriot Act to get at membership lists and private correspondence for a fishing expedition on stuff that isn't even the subject of a legitimate investigation.

Yeah, I'm not a happy camper. Taking the pulse of our democracy nowadays, it doesn't feel very healthy, does it?

Bev Harris

P.S. Everyone say hi to Mike.

Please pass this along, and/or get your group involved:

We need exactly 2,004 Clean-Up Crew members to volunteer as poll workers, election judges, and poll watchers, with a checklist of problems to hunt for and a hotline to litigators and the media. E-mail with "Volunteering!" in the subject line to join the Clean-Up Crew.

The Secret Service doesn't want us to know what it's doing. Anybody that's interested in having honest elections in this country is a 'cybercriminal.' If I were the paranoid type, I'd say that the bad guys have already got the November election in the bag. We can't let this happen!

When Salmon Are "Wild," And Other Word Games

From the May 10, 2004 issue of Time: When Salmon Are "Wild," And Other Word Games -- by Daren Fonda

President Bush may not be remembered as a linguistic innovator. But in the tradition of classifying ketchup as a vegetable, a classic from the Reagan era, the Bush Administration may leave a rich legacy of redefining terms for regulatory purposes. Perhaps you thought a wild fish is one hatched in the wild. You would be mistaken, according to Bush's environmental stewards. Under a new plan, the distinction between farm-bred salmon, which are later released into rivers and streams, and their cousins hatched in the wild will be removed. That will instantly raise the overall tally of salmon — and make it more probable that the government will eliminate or downgrade protections for 15 salmon species now sheltered under the Endangered Species Act. Such a change is favored by power and timber companies, whose development plans have been stymied by the government's protective net. Environmentalists complain that the action will jeopardize the survival of wild salmon.

(emphasis added, of course.) Is Ralph Nader still saying there isn't any difference between Democrats and Republicans?