Sunday Sermons Defending The Rich & War & Torture Meanwhile Documentary "Torturing Democracy " is A Must See

Anyway here's a funny bit about war from Richard Attenborough's Anit-War film "Oh What A Lovely War " which is set during the First World War which was a completely unnecessary war.Note of course the hypocrisy of the Christian Churches as they promote war in the name of Jesus.That must be the part of the New Testament I missed in which Jesus says how he loves a good war & " Blessed are The War Mongers".

24 What a Friend We Have in Jesus (parody)-Oh What A Lovely War



Sunday Sermons From Rich Hypocrites
O'Reilly, Beck, Robertson Participate in Blatant WINGNUTTERY



So is Raping young boys now an official American value as long as the boy is suspected of terrorists activity or if it is alleged that he knows something about the Iraq Insurgency or whatever rationalization a soldier or his or her commander or the Vice President or President can come up with.

Sadly Obama's administration appears to be heading in the same direction as it too muddies the waters on what is & what is not torture. Gibbs this week found stories of boys being raped funny.One could always come up with reasons for using torture but the sign of a civilized nation is that it refuses to torture or abuse prisoners even in a time of crisis.

Dick Cheney once again claims erroneously that only a handful of prisoners were tortured- but of course he is using the term "Torture" according to his rather special & narrow definition. If it is not "life-threatening" or "leads to organ failure" it is not torture. But that's not the definition of torture used by his predecessors or by Human Rights groups or by the United Nations or by the Geneva Conventions. Of course he has created his own alternative reality where everyday there is another "Ticking Bomb " scenario which must be met by all and any means necessary. Yet the experts say such "ticking Bomb " scenarios are rare & using torture is an ineffective or useless way of getting reliable intel in such a situation. If you abuse & torture someone they will tell you whatever they think will stop the torture so if necessary they will make up lies about WMDs in Iraq or an imaginary connection between Al Qaeda & Saddam & 9/11. On the other hand a person who is guilty & has valuable intel if a " true Believer " will not reveal that information but would risk dying as a martyr to their cause or will simply give a mixture of good & bad intel none of which could be relied upon.

If the aim is just to get false confessions to be used in a propaganda war then torture in fact does work as the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese, the Communist Chinese & the Soviet Union proved this over and over again as did Saddam when he was still in power at some of his "Show Trials".And this it appears was what Cheney , Rumsfeld & Condoleezza Rice wanted to use torture for to cook up some false confessions to support their going to war with Saddam & to justify holding thousands of people many of whom were innocent. Because if you could get a confession & one detainee accusing another then you could claim they were all guilty of whatever the interrogators could get the prisoners to falsely confess to. Rather circular logic but the American people then & now couldn't care less if these people were innocent or not since they wanted their "pound of flesh".

Cheney lies once again about detainee torture and abuse



Naomi Wolf comments on how these latest revelations on sexual abuse are not so new since Human Rights organizations & journalists who have spent time examining the evidence & conducting numerous interviews have know about these allegations for years & have concluded that there is over whelming evidence to support the allegations of wide spread abuse in at least a dozen US run facilities in Iraq & Afghanistan & Gitmo.

Busted, Pentagon: Why The Photos Probably Do Show Detainees Sodomized and Raped by Naomi Wolf Huff Post May 29, 2009

As I wrote last year in my piece on sex crime against detainees, 'Sex Crimes in the White House," highly perverse, systematic sexual torture and sexual humiliation was, original documents reveal, directed from the top; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice were present in meetings where sexual humiliation was discussed as policy; the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 was written specifically to allow certain kinds of sexual abuse, such as forced nakedness, which is completely illegal and understood by domestic and international law to be a form of sexual assault; Rumsfeld is in print and on the record consulting with subordinates about the policy and practice of sexual humiliation, in a collection of documents obtained by the ACLU by a Freedom of Information Act filing, compiled in Jameel Jaffer's important book, The Torture Administration.

The image of the female, probably Iraqi, prisoner being sexually assaulted? That image, or a similar one, has been widely viewed in the Muslim world. Reports of the rape scenes described have also appeared in rights organizations' summaries since 2004.

And scores of detainees who have told their stories to rights organizations have told independently confirming accounts of a highly consistent practice of sexual torture at US-held prisons, including having their genitals slashed with razors; electrodes placed on genitals; and being told US military would find and rape their mothers.

Is systemic sex crime practiced by the US in a consequence of the lawlessness of `the war on terror' surprising to those of us who work on issues of sexual abuse and war? It is totally predictable: when you give soldiers anywhere in the world the power, let alone the mandate, to hold women or men helpless, without recourse to law, kidnap them as a matter of policy - as US military kidnapped the wives of `insurgents' in order to compel them to turn themselves in - strip them naked, and threaten them, you have a completely predictable recipe for mass sexual assault. The magisterial study of rape in war, Susan Brownmiller's Men, Women and Rape, proves that.

Also see the detailed & disturbing documentary "Torturing Democracy" which as this article points out is a must see by all Americans & Canadians to see how far the Bush Regime stretched & manipulated the law to suit their purposes. Torture became an acceptable means for treating Prisoners or POWS . What the Bush Regime first did was to deny these prisoners their basic rights under US law or under International Law by refusing to call them POWs or "Enemy Combatants " but rather designated them as "Terrorist Detainees" . When the US troops went into Afghanistan to crush the Taliban & Al Qaeda they offered large financial awards that is "bounty" for each person turned into the US forces. So the War Lords and individuals turned innocent people in claiming that they were "terrorists" in order to get the money. So many of the people detained by the US at Gitmo were in fact innocent and had nothing to do with the "terrorists" or the Taliban. Anyone who has been paying attention has known this for years that many of those held were innocent of any criminal acts. Even now Cheney & his cronies & Fox News & CNN & The New York Times & The Washington Post are still reluctant to face the facts. Cheney & his media friends took control of the information so they could rationalize and justify their activities. If the US press & media had any integrity they would have delved deeper into this story & maybe they would have discovered that there were many people in the military & intelligence community & in the department of justice who did not agree with what was being proposed and with what was then done. Within a few months after 9/11 Bush & Cheney & Rumsfeld & Condoleezza Rice et al were warned by the Department of Justice by some in the Pentagon & by the ACLU that what they were doing would constitute War Crimes. So they knew they were operating outside the law even though they had their five main lawyers who wrote up memos & opinions to support the use of Torture though rebranded as "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques ".

Everyone Should See "Torturing Democracy" By Bill Moyers & Michael Winship at Truthout Perspective May 30, 2009

In all the recent debate over torture, many of our Beltway pundits and politicians have twisted themselves into verbal contortions to avoid using the word at all.

During his speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute last week - immediately on the heels of President Obama's address at the National Archives - former Vice President Dick Cheney used the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" a full dozen times.

Smothering the reality of torture in euphemism, of course, has a political value, enabling its defenders to diminish the horror and possible illegality. It also gives partisans the opening they need to divert our attention by turning the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay into a "wedge issue," as noted on the front page of Sunday's New York Times.

According to the Times, "Armed with polling data that show a narrow majority of support for keeping the prison open and deep fear about the detainees, Republicans in Congress started laying plans even before the inauguration to make the debate over Guantanamo Bay a question of local community safety instead of one about national character and principles."

No political party would dare make torture a cornerstone of its rejuvenation if people really understood what it is. And lest we forget, we're not just talking about waterboarding, itself a trivializing euphemism for drowning.

If we want to know what torture is, and what it does to human beings, we have to look at it squarely, without flinching. That's just what a powerful and important film, seen by far too few Americans, does. "Torturing Democracy" was written and produced by one of America's outstanding documentary reporters, Sherry Jones. (Excerpts from the film are being shown on the current edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS - check local listings, or go to the program's web site at www.pbs.org/moyers, where you can be linked to the entire 90-minute documentary.)

PBS documentary at Torturing Democracy


and so it goes,
GORD.

US Personnel Rape Young Boys At Abu Ghraib & other US Run POW Facilities : Gibbs Laughs It Off !

"Better to look the torture in the face and having looked, to remember, and having remembered, to respond, and having responded, to call those responsible to account so that we never do this again."

Above Quote from: Jonathan Schell " Truth & Torture " The Nation, May 27,2009
---------
Robert Gibbs Responding to reports in the UK Telegraph on the rape of detainees & other abuses:

"White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, later in the day, widened the assault to a general one against British journalism. “If I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper,” Gibbs said. “If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it'd be in the first pack of clips I'd pick up.” "

Quote from: " The Bogus Torture Coverup " by Scott Horton, at The Daily Beast & Huff Post,May 29, 2009

" It is not difficult to see that the extent of devastation caused by the invasion and occupation of Iraq goes beyond loss of life, livelihood and property. The historical and cultural roots of the nation have been destroyed."

"Gandhi, the apostle of non-violent resistance said:

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave."

This is an idea rendered irrelevant in the current scenario, where the mightier among the world's nations have secured the mandate to invade, with impunity, any society and any state that can be exploited for resources. Unlike earlier times, modern-day invasions are invariably camouflaged by a façade of elaborate deceit that claims altruistic intent as the motive of assault. In this new scheme of things, resistance is deemed as insurgency and dissent is unpatriotic. Those that are invaded do not have the luxury to decide between being beggar and slave. Culture would be the last thing on their minds as they struggle to stay alive. Yet it is the loss of their culture that ultimately causes the disintegration of these societies to the absolute advantage of their victors.

It is said that history is written by the victor. What is not said is that destroying the enemy is only half the purpose of a victor. The other half is the subjugation and drastic alteration of the self-perception of the enemy, so as to gain unquestioned control over every aspect of the subjugated state, its populace and its resources, so that having won victory it can get on with the "much bigger business of plunder," according to Franz Fanon, philosopher, psychiatrist, author and a pre-eminent thinker of the twentieth century.


Quote from: " Colonizing Culture " by Dahr Jamail, Truthout.org, Perspective, May 27,2009

Robert Gibbs Jokes about torture accuses all British Newspapers as lacking in Journalistic Integrity. Meanwhile he backs up his opinion that the story was false because & Get THIS THE PENTAGON TOLD HIM SO - The Pentagon which has been lying to the America media & public at least for lat eight years if not the past fifty or so. So is Obama's sell out to the military now complete.Did Gibbs & Obama forget the US media has been acting as part of the Bush Regime's Propaganda Machine.

Gibbs: British Papers Reliable On Soccer Coverage, Not Torture





Anyway once again it appears the torture & abuse of detainees at Abu Ghriab & Gitmo & other US detainee (prisoner of war) facilities was worse than so far reported in the mainstream media who tend to sanitize or ignore certain details to make the abuse more palatable and acceptable for their "Know Nothing" & "War Mongering" audiences who have no sympathy or empathy for those who are not like the average White Christian American. Even the rape of young boys by American personnel at Abu Ghraib and other US run prisons or so called " detention facilities" it appears doesn't bother Robert Gibbs or Obama as long as they can find a way to avoid any unpleasant confrontations with the former Bush administration or with the C.I.A. & the US military & the "National Security Bureaucracy". Heaven forbid Americans ever face some hard truths about their nation & its institutions or its out of control foreign policies. The US we are told is morally superior to all other nations and cannot be judged by any other nation or people. Remember The United States of America was founded by God fearing bunch of white guys who though they were each being directed in their thinking & their actions by God Himself.


" Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos 'Show Rape' " By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank May 28, 2009 "The Telegraph"


Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

-- -At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.


It seems evident that the propaganda Machinery of the Bush administration & that of the Media & the US military worked and so Americans see those imprisoned in US facilities as "Subhuman" or as "Evil" and under the influence of "Evil Forces " ie Satan . It would seem given the lack of outrage over the issue of torture & now rape of male detainees that many Americans believe that the so-called detainees deserve to be tortured , abused & raped & murdered because America needs more "pay-back" for the 9/11 attacks.Even the Obama administration is now convinced it must keep most of the Bush policies intact though "re-branded" in order to fight against these so-called Evil-Doers in America's ongoing Christian Crusade against what they believe to be the Heathen Barbarians.Whether Obama really believes this is uncertain but at least for reasons of public Relations he is assuming this posture in public. He is all for defending the torturers & those who ordered the torture since he sympathizes or empathizes with them that is with their fear & anger over 9/11. As for those tortured , raped, abused or murdered or bombed or burned to death by White Phosphorus he has little interests it appears.

Even the Obama administration over this issue is questioning the journalistic integrity & sense of responsibility & ethics & ability of Britain's journalists as if American journalism had been in general forthright & honest in its writing about the Bush Regime's activities or the military's & the C.I.A.s in the last eight years. Torture has even become a subject in the Obama administration for light hearted banter & a few jokes about any who dare bring up the subject.Tell me Mr. Gibbs what's so funny about men raping young boys & girls. Are they now copying the Rumsfeld Karl Rovian style of media control with little interest in the actual facts or evidence presented.

So is Obama now going to stoop to attacking journalists rather than trying to deal with the evidence of abuse, rape & torture of detainees. Obama once again seems to be defending the practices of the Bush Regime & so one wonders what is Obama & his administration now allowing to take place in these US run detention facilities in Iraq & Afghanistan & elsewhere. No matter what Obama or Eric Holder or the Bush Regime claims American personnel are not free to do as they please outside Continental America. Is this really what Obama & Holder & Gibbs are arguing which is very much what Cheney & Condoleezza Rice argued that American personnel can treat prisoners or even civilians in other countries anyway they see fit since they are not obliged to adhere to US Laws or International Laws or the Laws of the Nation in which they are stationed. The American Empire is therefore a law onto itself . Whatever America does they believe is not the business of any other nation or people. And anyone who dares criticize America or America's troops is to be considered an enemy who is by definition on the side of America's enemies. The number of America's enemies it appears increases directly in proportion to the number innocent people the Americans imprison, torture , rape or kill . As George Bush said to paraphrase " I never apologize for America no matter what the facts are" or no matter how outrageous her actions are. Empires we know never apologize for their wanton killings, massacres or abuses of the civilians of the nations they intend to conquer.



" The Bogus Torture Coverup " by Scott Horton, at The Daily Beast & Huff Post,May 29, 2009

The Pentagon is denying the facts: Photographs of Abu Ghraib torture are even more sexually explicit than first reported, including rape and sodomy, writes The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, who has obtained specific and detailed corroboration of the photos.

The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.

The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.

A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the Telegraph, that many of the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position.


The Telegraph article quoted retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who directed the official inquiry in 2004 into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba told the Telegraph that the “pictures show torture, abuse, rape, and every indecency.” The Telegraph reported: “At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire, and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.”

In response to the Telegraph account, Bryan G. Whitman, a deputy assistant secretary of Defense, attacked the newspaper. “That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," he said. “None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article.” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, later in the day, widened the assault to a general one against British journalism. “If I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper,” Gibbs said. “If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it'd be in the first pack of clips I'd pick up.”

...The Obama administration’s decision to challenge the Telegraph account presents a dilemma because many of the photographs have already been leaked, and they match the very images that Taguba described and which Pentagon spokesman Whitman denied. The already leaked photographs can be seen at the Web sites of Salon.com, the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia, the Australian Broacasting Corp. Dateline program, and the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

...The immediate pushback against the Telegraph story from the Pentagon, coupled with the decision of White House press secretary Gibbs to chime in, suggests the sensitivity of the issue. The full-scale strike against the Telegraph, the leading conservative quality newspaper in Britain, broadened into an offensive against the whole of British journalism, suggesting the precariousness of the public-relations effort.

---
Jeremy Scahill points out the absurdity of Robert Gibbs making fun of British journalist & suggesting that US journalists have more integrity & interests in uncovering the truth than do British journalists.Given that the Media in the US for the most part became Propagandists for the Bush Regime it seems a rather ridiculous charge.

" Gen. Taguba Alleges Existence of Prisoner Rape Photos; White House Press Secretary Attacks ... British Media"Posted by Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports May 28, 2009.

Hey Gibbs: Instead of attacking the 'British media' why don't you go after Gen. Taguba, who lost his job for confronting Bush-era torture?

Wow. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is really embodying the idea that when the message is devastating, you attack the messenger. Except in this case, Gibbs is not even attacking the messenger, but rather the newspaper that quoted the messenger.

In a major story today, London’s Daily Telegraph quoted Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describing photos (that the Obama administration is fighting to keep secret), which allegedly depict U.S. personnel raping prisoners, other sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,” Taguba said. Put that statement against this one from the president: In defending his decision to fight the ACLU in its efforts to have the photos publicly released, Obama said on May 13, “I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational.”

At the White House press briefing today, Gibbs lashed out -- not at Gen. Taguba, who made the allegation on the record, and not even specifically at the paper that quoted Taguba. Instead, Gibbs went after the entire British media, saying “I think if you do an even moderate Google search (heh) you’re not gonna find many of these newspapers and ‘truth’ within say 25 words of each other:”

“I want to speak generally about some of reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media and in some ways I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs said. “Let’s just say that if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper… If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not sure that would be the first stack of clips I picked up.”

No, instead perhaps Gibbs would pick up one of those stellar U.S. papers with spotless track records on “the truth.” He could start with The New York Times, which was basically a conveyor belt for the lies of the Bush administration during the lead up to the Iraq war. Or he could turn to any number of U.S. lie factories masquerading as media outlets.

This is pathetic. Really. Hey, Gibbs, here’s a suggestion: go after Gen. Taguba, a 34 year, decorated military veteran whose career was brought to an end for battling Rumsfeld and the torture machine at the Pentagon. Go after the General who last year (when Bush was still in power) called for prosecutions of the torturers. “There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account,” Taguba wrote in June 2008. Go after him, Gibbs. Call him a liar. Say he is a dirty propagandist that wants to hurt U.S. troops. Oh, right, you can’t. Taguba actually agrees with Obama on this issue, as he told the lying, evil British media:

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them."

The use of torture by the US did not bring about the desired results of reliable intel or prevent a number of imaginary attacks on the US. Though Obama seems now to be falling for the rather imaginative narrative which Cheney, Rove & the US Media has now creatively put together based upon non-existent facts. Obama even seems afraid to challenge this alternative reality created by the Bush/Cheney Regime of " signs " & "wonders" in order to maintain the status quo & keep feeding the beasts of Empire Building .

" Torture and Truth " by Jonathan Schell The Nation & TruthOut.org, May 27,2009

...When the full history of the Bush administration is finally told, one event may prove iconic: the torture of the Al Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who recently died, allegedly by his own hand, in a prison in Libya, where he was sent by the United States. Libi was captured in Pakistan in late 2001. At first, he was interrogated by the FBI, and he provided useful information on the inner workings of Al Qaeda. But more was wanted from him. The Bush administration, hellbent on justifying its forthcoming invasion of Iraq, was ransacking the intelligence bureaucracy to find or produce two things that, it turns out, did not exist: weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq and cooperation between Al Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein. Pressure to find evidence of both intensified in 2002.

At the same time, the practice of torture--authorized by the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon--was spreading throughout the intelligence and military establishments. Soon, prisoners were being tortured to provide evidence of the Al Qaeda-Saddam link. As Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, has stated, the "harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002...was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda." And according to the recent Senate Armed Services Committee report on the treatment of detainees, a former Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, has confirmed the charge. "A large part of the time," he told Army investigators, "we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not successful.... The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link...there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." The CIA took custody of Libi and began to expose him to abuse. Next, it "rendered" him to Egypt, where he was subjected to, among other torments, severe beatings and confinement in a tiny cage for more than eighty hours. He then produced the desired false statements linking Al Qaeda with the Iraqi government.

Just as minute specifications for torture were flowing down through the ranks of bureaucrats from the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the White House (where an array of abuses was once demonstrated to high officials, reportedly including cabinet members), so the results of the torture were flowing upward. By this route, Libi and his testimony were destined for a history-making role. The centerpiece of Powell's speech before the UN Security Council justifying the invasion of Iraq devoted a full nine paragraphs to a "senior terrorist operative" who "fortunately...is now detained." Libi, though unnamed, was the star of the performance.

Powell unwound a long tale of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction (all subsequently disavowed by Libi as well as otherwise discredited). Al Qaeda, Powell said, had been pursuing weapons of mass destruction in Afghanistan but, finding the resources inadequate, had needed "to look outside of Afghanistan for help." So "they went to Iraq," where they received "chemical or biological weapons training." Thus did Powell weave together the two main fabrications about Iraq--that it was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and was cooperating with Al Qaeda. And Iraq's avowals to the contrary? "It is all a web of lies," he said.

Jacob Hornberger asks in his article the disturbing question about whether rape & sodomizing of prisoners was part of the softening up of prisoners as part of the Cheney/Rumsfeld "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques ".

" Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique?" By Jacob G. Hornberger May 28, 2009 "fff"

-- There are those who argue that U.S. officials who authorized waterboarding and who performed waterboarding should not be held criminally accountable, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government prosecuted Japanese military personnel who waterboarded U.S. POWs during World War II. Their reasoning goes as follows: Since the president’s attorneys redefined torture to mean only those actions that threaten death or serious injury to bodily organs, waterboarding did not meet that redefinition.

What about rape? It would seem that rape, like waterboarding, would not meet the Bush administration’s redefinition of torture. Rape doesn’t threaten death or serious injury to bodily organs. Should U.S. officials who authorized enhanced interrogation techniques be let off the hook for rapes committed by U.S. officials as part of enhanced interrogations of detainees?

...Well, think back to the Abu Ghrab photos and videos, which depicted sordid sexual acts being committed by U.S. personnel on Iraqi prisoners. You may have forgotten that there was a particular set of photos and videos that were never released to the public because they depicted acts that were apparently much worse than anything that was shown in the photos that were released. Therefore, U.S. officials decided to keep those particular photos and videos under lock and key.

What do those photos and videos reflect? We don’t really know, but according to an article dated July 15, 2004, on Salon.com, Seymour Hersh is quoted as saying in a speech to the ACLU:

Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying “Please come and kill me, because of what's happened” and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out.

The Salon article concludes with the following paragraph:

(Update: A reader brought to our attention that the rape of boys at Abu Ghraib has been mentioned in some news accounts of the prisoner abuse evidence. The Telegraph and other news organizations described “a videotape, apparently made by US personnel, is said to show Iraqi guards raping young boys.” The Guardian reported “formal statements by inmates published yesterday describe horrific treatment at the hands of guards, including the rape of a teenage Iraqi boy by an army translator.”)

It should be noted that that batch of photos and videos is a different batch from the ones that the Obama administration is now doing its best to keep secret. The rationale for keeping both batches secret is that the photos and videos will inflame anger and hatred among foreigners against the United States. It’s difficult to imagine how the photos and videos that are being kept secret could be much worse than the Abu Ghraib photos and videos that were released, but one distinct possibility is that they show people being raped.

Is it inconceivable that rape was employed as an enhanced interrogation technique? Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a regime used rape as an enhanced interrogation technique. Think back to the Pinochet coup in Chile, a coup in which the CIA played a role — as yet undefined — in the murder of a young American journalist, Charles Horman, at the hands of Pinochet’s forces. According to an article in The Independent, “Prisoners at both centres were subjected to electric shocks, severe beatings, suspensions from ceilings until their wrists tore, and rapes.”

Paul Craig Roberts asks the rather facetious question about whether Americans feel a twinge of guilt about the abuse & torture of detainees. This is a no-brainer - as a superior people of course not only fools would even care about such matters. It's like Obama wasting his time trying to explain a foreign concept to Americans such as "Empathy" . As we have seen in the past week or so many Americans see Empathy as a form of weakness or feeble-mindedness.

"Do Americans Have a Moral Conscience?" By Paul Craig Roberts, May 28, 2009 "Information Clearing House"

--- Torture is a violation of US and international law. Yet, president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, on the basis of legally incompetent memos prepared by Justice Department officials, gave the OK to interrogators to violate US and international law.

The new Obama administration shows no inclination to uphold the rule of law by prosecuting those who abused their offices and broke the law.

Cheney claims, absurdly, that torture was necessary in order to save American cities from nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. Many Americans have bought the argument that torture is morally justified in order to make terrorists reveal where ticking nuclear bombs are before they explode.

However, there were no hidden ticking nuclear bombs. Hypothetical scenarios were used to justify torture for other purposes.

We now know that the reason the Bush regime tortured its captives was to coerce false testimony that linked Iraq and Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda and September 11. Without this “evidence,” the US invasion of Iraq remains a war crime under the Nuremberg standard.

Torture, then, was a second Bush regime crime used to produce an alibi for the illegal and unprovoked US invasion of Iraq.

Obama regime reverting to Bush Cheney style attacks on the press rather than deal with evidence of abuse, rape & torture.

So is one of the reasons Robert Gibbs & others in the Obama administration are attacking journalists in the UK part of a pattern because the Obama administration is being criticized in the UK & Europe on his policies regarding detainees at Guantanamo & his reluctance to even publicly condemn those who ordered the torture & abuse of detainees let alone those who took part especially in the C.I.A. & the US military. Of course a few individuals were charged & tried possibly to satisfy liberals they may a charge a few more soldiers as part of their cover-up of how wide spread torture & abuse of detainees was or even possibly still is. Obama still shockingly & erroneously insists it was a matter of "a few bad apples"

" The World Is Taking Notice of Congress's Cowardice " Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 9:27 AM on May 29, 2009.

Congressional cowardice has not gone unnoticed on the international stage. It's a real problem.

...Imagine that. These European governments were largely inclined to help out when they assumed a wide variety of nations would share the detention burden. But now that these foreign officials have heard U.S. lawmakers -- from both parties -- suddenly come to believe that Guantanamo detainees are far too dangerous for U.S. soil, their willingness to cooperate is waning.

American politicians are assuming that their constituents will never tolerate a process that allows dangerous detainees in their states/districts. European politicians are, not surprisingly, wondering how they'll respond to their own constituents about the same dynamic, especially if U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to accept any detainees at all.

New York Times Still acting as The Propaganda Voice of Bush, Cheney & the Conservatives & the pro-Torture Lobby.


NYT's Pentagon Propaganda: Misleading Report on Guantánamo and Terrorism from FAIR & CommonDreams.org ,NEW YORK - May 27

Appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to Supreme Court Attacked By Conservative Propagandists & Their Racist Base

Anyway here's a little tune to begin your day.Just a little reminder that The American Crusade known as The Global War on Terror continues . While the officers & politicians & the War Profiteers plot and scheme and talk about the honor & glory of war it is the common soldier who is left to do the fighting & the dying .

Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire-March 19,2008
A song about the First World War sung by Chumbawamba.






President Obama has announced the appointment of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. She appears to be well qualified . But the angry & hate-filled Conservatives & their Media propagandists are going after her with a vengeance. Ignoring her qualifications they call her " a mere affirmative action pick ".

Conservatives ignoring the facts call Sotomayor a "liberal", "dumb", "obnoxious", a "bully", "has a temper", is "an activist judge" & a" racist" or "reverse racist"- of course according to these wingnuts White Male judges or WASPs it appears are never racist & are always fair in their judgments - they are never ideologically driven & interpret the U.S. constitution in the way that it ought to be- so are they saying slavery should still be acceptable or the Jim Crow Racist Segregation should still be in force & women shouldn't have the rights they have gained over the past 200 years etc.My own suspicion from reading the writings of American conservatives is that they are still upset over the 1954 ruling in Brown v. the board of education & other similar rulings since then which led to the end of the racist policies of Segregation in the Southern States which they believed was sacrosanct . Huckabee refers to her as Maria others claim she is a single mother but in fact she has no children-

GOP's Dirty Attacks Against Sotomayor-Cenk Uygur at The Young Turks



"Justice" - Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor



Rachel Maddow Interviews Slate's Dahlia Lithwick On Sotomayor Spin (VIDEO)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Limbaugh,Beck, Dobbs, Buchanan, Tucker Carlson,Coulter et al
call Sotomayer a racist & an affirmative action pick.So who's writing their "Talking Points" these days Rush Limbaugh ?or Karl Rove ? or Dick Cheney?

Race To The Bottom: Conservative Media Attack Judge Sotomayor
http://mediamatters.org/res... Conservatives react to historic Supreme Court nominee by smearing Sotomayor as "racist," "bigot"



Tancredo just sounds like he's repeating Rovian or Republican Talking Points.
Tancredo Sotomayor 05 26 09
Ex-U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) calls Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist on MSNBC's "The Ed Show."



Savage calls Sonia Sotomayor incompetent and an "activist liberal judge"
He characterizes the notion of "empathy" as a weakness and being overly "politically correct' rather than being able to see both sides of any case & then decide what the merits of the case are. In Savage's view if a judge dares to side with minorities , blackcs, Hispanics, Gays & Lesbians or the poor rather than with White Upper Class Male Americans then this would be a case of bias. A judge in his view must be pro-business & pro-the status quo and anti-minorities and against the poor and against the rights of alleged criminals etc. This is typical of the conservative pro-status quo & pro-law & order crowd in the U.S. and elsewhere. They don't believe in equal rights though they publicly sometimes pretend to.

Michael Savage on Obama's Far Left Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor





And here's another video by The liberal Viewer who shows once again how biased Fox News really is.

LiberalViewer
The retirement of US Supreme Court Justice David Souter created President Barack Obama's first opportunity to appoint someone to the high court and, as I show in this video, it apparently also created an opportunity to slam potential nominees for Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and her guest Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).



and so it goes,
GORD.

Gog & Magog & Rumsfeld's Evangelical Memos To Bush

UPDATE: 11:16 AM, May 28, 2009

Anyway here's a little song I just came across so enjoy:

Lyrics - Tell me why - Declan Galbraith
Lyrics are at YouTube



Oh My these are indeed dangerous times especially for America as Americanized Christianity under the banner Evangelical Christianity or Conservative Religious Right never tires of telling us through their Media outlets & the Internet which they have learned to use rather effectively for example:

The Prophesied End-Time Revealed

The end-time has come. Hundreds of millions will die in the worst time of tribulation the world has ever known. You need to be informed so you can know how to respond.

2008 - God's Final Witness

The year 2008 has witnessed many prophecies being fulfilled, especially the Seven Thunders of the Book of Revelation, which the apostle John saw but was restricted from recording. Those thunders, which will continue to increase in strength and frequency, are revealed in this book, as well as detailed accounts of the final three and one-half years of man's self-rule on earth, which are recorded in the account of the Seventh Seal of Revelation.


And a little more on Rumsfeld's Biblical enhanced Memos with pictures & bible quotes.There are those in America & outside America who find this rather disturbing or just rather ridiculous. There is smething rather disturbing about the fact that President Bush & other US government & military personnel would believe that this sort of thing was somehow acceptable or even that these images & biblical quotes would be inspiring , uplifting and helped their morale. It seems to give away the game as it were. It does help as Olbermann points out to explain the unwavering attitude of Bush et al towards their mission against Saddam which was a giant leap of faith. No matter what the facts appeared to reveal they still claimed that Saddam had to be gotten rid of even though he had no WMDs, had no connection with Al Qaeda or other terrorists or with the events of 9/11. To them Saddam was "evil" incarnate & therefore if he could be defeated eventually evil itself could be defeated. Or as I have suggested George Bush believed this was all part of his destiny which was being guided by God. In that case he may have to a certain extent to have been following the orders of his commander in Chief that is God Himself who told him what to do. Bush may have believed that he was to play a major role in bringing about the final clash between "Good" & "Evil" or between in this case between the forces of Christendom & those forces of evil or Satan that is Islam & other anti-Christian or anti-God forces.

Rumsfeld: ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS Slideshow




Besides these Rumsfeld memos we also have the various conversations Bush had with world leaders in which he revealed his motivation for starting a war with Iraq and then going on to somehow transform the Middle East. He prayed with Tony Blair & he tried to explain the religious dimensions of his policies to President Chirac of France . Chirac knew little or nothing about the whole Americanized Christian End Times scenario which is familiar to tens of millions of Americans. So is it any wonder that Chirac refused to go along with Bush's plan to attack Iraq after Bush had told him about Gog & Magog & Armageddon . Maybe Chirac realized what others have come to realize about Bush over the last eight years that he was a bit unhinged believing that God was speaking to him and that his foreign policy decisions were based upon those imaginary conversations.

What one needs to remember is just recently we discovered how entrenched these Evangelical Fundamentalists are in the Top Brass of the U.S. military, the Pentagon , at the various military colleges such as West Point and that the Chaplaincy of the U.S. military is also now dominated by Christian Evangelicals who believe it is their mission & their duty to proselytize to not just other U.S. military personnel but also to the citizens of the nations where they are fighting or are stationed. So as we talk about The National Security State and its bureaucracy one wonders how much of it has been compromised by these religious zealots. So how far fetched is it to surmise that many policy decisions are made based upon these religious beliefs which are rather extreme . So combining the secular belief in America's Exceptionalism with this form of Americanized Christian Evangelicalism and we have an explosive and for the rest of the world a toxic and dangerous mix.

If it is America's destiny by Divine Providence or by some form of Natural Law or Manifest Destiny to achieve & maintain Global Dominance then how does one argue against it. Does the rest of the world just have to wait for the American Empire to slowly come apart as other Empires have done so that it is no longer such a threat to the rest of the world.

What is also disturbing is why the US media did not report more on the subject ? Were they afraid this might offend Bush and other Americans who believe with absolute certainty that they are at this moment living in the Last Days in a time of " signs and wonders". Is it that there are many people in the U.S. media on T.V. or radio or journalists working for major newspapers who also believe in this twisted end times scenario and who are also convinced that America will eventually if not now have a major role to play as God's Chosen Nation in The Last Days. Or do these journalists just cynically pander to these nutters to protect their TV or Radio ratings or the circulation of their newspapers & magazines. I thought one of the roles of journalism was to alert the citizenry to charlatans, quacks & zealots and other barbarians who try to infiltrate one's country whether they are Neo-Nazis or the Klu Klux Klan or the The Christian Taliban in a Megachurch in your neighborhood or preaching propaganda , misinformation and lies on TV or Radio or who flood the internet til no one can discern the truth from a lie. Isn't it the responsibility of journalists to seek out the truth wherever it may lead them.

If you pay attention to some these conservative commentators & journalists one does get the feeling that they may in fact themselves believe in this distinct form of Americanized Christianity which combines the notion of American Exceptionalism with the religious fervor of Evangelical Fundamentalism. For instance the Religious Right in the U.S. believe that America was founded as a Christian Nation and that there is not supposed to be a Separation of Church & State. They believe the separation means that the state cannot impose its will on the churches. So the government is not supposed to pass laws which go against whatever it is that the church teaches. So if the churches & the Bible are against homosexuality the state has no right to create legislation or laws giving homosexuals equality with other citizens. So it becomes easier to understand why to these Christians even civil marriages for homosexuals for instance is abhorrent to the religious right or allowing homosexuals to join the military or stay in the military or at any other job once they are outed.So if you run a business such as a restaurant or bar or a store etc. they believe you shouldn't be compelled to serve homosexuals if you don't want to.



God speaks to Bush through Rumsfeld.

Keith Olbermann describes how Rumsfeld's Intelligence briefings on Iraq were couched in Bible quotes.




Gog and Magog Story Confirmed by Chirac by Benito at Daily Kos May 27, 2009

Well folks, here's something a little terrifying to go with your morning cup of coffee.

Remember back in 2003 when it came out from French sources that President Bush, while having dinner with then French president Jacques Chirac mentioned Bible prohpecy - specifically 'Gog and Magog' - as reasons for invading Iraq?

Well, apparently the story is true... and has been confirmed by Chirac himself.

* Benito's diary :: ::
*

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs".

Terrifying. Can you imagine the French president and his staff upon hearing this being uttered from the mouth of Bush?

We came 'that' close people.
From The Dead Zone - Movie by David Cronnenberg



and here's an article about Israel & the American Christian Zionists and why they believe they must not just contain Iran but must sooner or later destroy Iran:

The War of Gog & Magog (The Iran War)
by Michael Carmichael at Planetary Movement May 12, 2005
http://planetmove.blogspot.com/

According to current reports on the rapidly escalating preparations for a US war against Iran, it now appears that the prophecies of the Bible are driving President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their inner circle of neoconservatives to design a strategic platform for the prosecution of the final war for control of Planet Earth. In the Bible, this conflict is called The War of Gog & Magog, and the final battle of that war is Armageddon. This scenario has been graphically detailed in the best-selling Left Behind fantasies authored by the Rev Tim LaHaye, a true believer and a devout political supporter of George Bush.

You might well ask, "Who, what and where are Gog and Magog?" According to the literature of fundamentalist Christianity as it is peculiarly practiced in America, Magog, is the prince of Gog, an area that is frequently described as including many of the following nations: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Chechnya, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. While accounts of the geography of Gog vary, the consensus is that it includes the mass of central Asia, and may involve European nations as well who will form an alliance to attack Israel.

and here's an article on American Exceptionalism & Sarah Palin the darling of the Religious Right & Christian Evangelicals in which it is explained why she would start using the phrase in her speeches & interviews. She is directly inferring that the US is God's Chosen Nation and will play a major role in the Endtimes .

"Sarah Palin, Amalek, American Exceptionalism and Genocide "Truman at Irregulartimes, Oct. 6, 2008

Sarah Palin has recently taken to referring to America as a nation of “exceptionalism”. To those listening casually, it sounds as if Sarah Palin is merely saying that the USA is a spiffy place to live.

Others, who know something about the history of the use of religion in politics, know that there’s a particular reason that Sarah Palin is using the word “exceptionalism” instead of just calling America “exceptional”. They know that there’s an important distinction. They know that American exceptionalism is a particular religious ideology that goes all the way back to the time of the early colonization of the North America by the British.

Way back then, the first leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, inaugurated the colony with a sermon entitled A Model of Christian Charity. That’s a pleasant sounding title, but the sermon actually established a rather sinister program of violence and repression for the New World. That vision included strict theocratic control instead of freedom, and a harsh separation of rich and poor.

Winthrop’s program of American exceptionalism also included genocide. Yes, John Winthrop’s idea of “Christian charity” included wars with the divine purpose of wiping out entire populations of nonChristians.

Here's a short video about Gog & Magog as referred to in Ezekiel of the Old Testament.
Ezekiel 39 - The Gog Magog War




For instance see Christian Evangelical website of Roy Comfort & Kirk Cameron Living Waters:Mission Statement

&Living Waters Homepage

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
John 3:3

"Vision

To inspire in every Christian a God-glorifying passion to fulfill The Great Commission
Mission

In our passion to glorify God, magnify His grace, and exalt His Son, Jesus Christ, it is our mission to serve the local church by assisting in globally educating God's people in the principles of biblical evangelism; Exhorting them to fulfill the Great Commission; and equipping them with every necessary resource along the way. We do this primarily through the teaching and preaching of God's Word, strategic conferences, academic and practical training opportunities, networking platforms, and the production and dessemination of various printed and audio/visual media."


This reference to being born again is found on most of the Christian Evangelical websites from Pastor Hagee to Rapture Ready to Begin Living Ministries etc. This is a rather extreme statement because it means that anyone who has not accepted Jesus as their savior and gone through the "Born Again Experience" is doomed to eternal damnation. According to this theological view being a good person & living a decent life or doing Good Works is meaningless unless one is "Born Again". Once you are Born Again you are saved . So even those who call themselves Christians who have not been Born Again are not saved along with all those who follow other Religions . Of course there are a host dogma which the believer must accept such as the divinity of Jesus & the Trinity & a belief in the Bible as Inerrant -literally true without error etc. & a belief in the whole Endtimes scenario mentioned in various parts of the Bible and especially as it is laid out in The Book of Revelation.

The belief is not merely one of personal belief but that these beliefs must be preached to other Americans but also throughout the world in an aggressive proselytizing campaign . This proselytizing to the world is known as "The Great Commission".

These proselytizing Evangelical Christians believe that before the Second Coming of Jesus the Great Commission must be fulfilled in which the word of God is preached to all the nations & peoples of the earth . Each person hearing this Gospel must be able to make the choice of accepting or rejecting "The Word of God" and there is no Middle Way.There are in their view two opposing forces of Good & Evil.

This is why it is distressing to hear even Obama inserting this sort of language of a dichotomy between God and Evil when he refers to "Evil Doers" . With such a mindset as we have seen with George Bush there is no room for compromise or diplomacy its either Bush's way or Obama's way or the highway as it were. So Obama has also demonized America's enemies and those who do not commit themselves completely to side with whatever America's policies are. It is not merely a matter of a difference of opinion over policies or strategies or tactics but of being as Bush said " with us or against us" - he used this phrase after 9/11 while also using the term "Crusade" which was not merely a slip of the tongue but again captures the whole essence of America's Global War on Terror which is America's Mission from God.

or from The Church Of God Homepage :

More than ever, this is the time to prepare for the return of Jesus Christ. The Seventh Seal has now been opened and the world is being plunged into the final tribulation for mankind. Ronald Weinland, who is the pastor of God's Church on earth, has also been appointed by the God of Abraham to be His end-time prophet and one of the two end-time witnesses (and spokesman of both), preceding the return of Jesus Christ.


Or see: The Prophesied End-Time Revealed

The end-time has come. Hundreds of millions will die in the worst time of tribulation the world has ever known. You need to be informed so you can know how to respond.

2008 - God's Final Witness
The year 2008 has witnessed many prophecies being fulfilled, especially the Seven Thunders of the Book of Revelation, which the apostle John saw but was restricted from recording. Those thunders, which will continue to increase in strength and frequency, are revealed in this book, as well as detailed accounts of the final three and one-half years of man's self-rule on earth, which are recorded in the account of the Seventh Seal of Revelation.

also see:

beginLiving.com

Living Waters

Jews For Jesus

Endtime Ministries

John Hagee Ministries

&
The Church Of God formerly of Herbert W.Armstrong (1892-1986)

on the origins of American Exceptionalism see:

Models for Reformation: John Winthrop, Massachusetts (1588-1649) By Jay Rogers at foreunner March 2008

A Model of Christian Charity
Governor John Winthrop (1630 on board the Arbella) at The Foreunner




and so it goes,
GORD.

Bush & Rumsfeld's Middle East Christian Crusade & Cindy Sheehan :The Sanitized War

UPDATE: 10:08 AM & 11:43 AM May 27,2009

So they say its not a Christian Crusade but the facts prove otherwise- Bush and the gang began the war in Iraq as a Crusade to suppress or to exterminate as many of in their view of the Christian God's enemies that is the non-believers, heathens & pagans such as the Muslims in order to start the clock ticking for the Final Battle at Armageddon & the return of the Messiah or Christ. And so the ignorant armies march on to kill & butcher in the name of God & country. For ten thousand years men have marched off to war for God, Country,Empire & Glory. For without a war raging somewhere our lives would seem rather dull & mediocre .



Above image a sample of Rumsfeld's Crusade Memos.

AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED:Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has always answered his detractors by claiming that history will one day judge him kindly. But as he waits for that day, a new group of critics—his administration peers—are suddenly speaking out for the first time. What they’re saying? It isn’t pretty By Robert Draper GQ magazine




Gog & Magog Bush's Dream & the World's Nightmare - Bush turned his twisted Religious Fantasies into U.S. Public Policy- Convert or Die he cried.

Believing in their own Exceptionalism and that America is a product or the culmination of Providence & God's Will the leaders in America believe it is their right & their duty to spread their system of government & their Economic system along with their particular brand of Christianity to the rest of the world. They are willing to do this by any & all means necessary.

Given that the Global War on Terror is the result of Providence & God's Will any who dare to criticize it is therefore by definition an Enemy of God. Mixing in religion with political & economic aims cloaks it in righteousness & inevitability.


Quote below from:
" American Exceptionalism A Double Edged Sword" By Seymour Martin Lipset at The Washington Post


Chapter One: Ideology, Politics, and Deviance

Born out of revolution, the United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society. Americanism, as different people have pointed out, is an "ism" or ideology in the same way that communism or fascism or liberalism are isms. As G. K. Chesterton put it: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. . . ." ... the nation's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissezfaire. The revolutionary ideology which became the American Creed is liberalism in its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century meanings, as distinct from conservative Toryism, statist communitarianism, mercantilism, and noblesse oblige dominant in monarchical, state-church-formed cultures.

Other countries' senses of themselves are derived from a common history. Winston Churchill once gave vivid evidence to the difference between a national identity rooted in history and one defined by ideology in objecting to a proposal in 1940 to outlaw the anti-war Communist Party. In a speech in the House of Commons, Churchill said that as far as he knew, the Communist Party was composed of Englishmen and he did not fear an Englishman. In Europe, nationality is related to community, and thus one cannot become un-English or un-Swedish. Being an American, however, is an ideological commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are un-American.

Quote below from:America Unmasked by Roger Cohen at New York Times April 24,2009


From the birth of what is now the world’s oldest republic, the inspirational notion of the “city upon a hill” has resided somewhere deep in the American psyche. As Tom Paine put it, “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” The United States, in other words, was exceptional, not driven merely by the interests and ambitions of any nation scrambling for land and treasure, but summoned to ensure that, in Lincoln’s words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” At the heart of American exceptionalism lies a messianic streak, the belief in a country with a global calling to uplift.

This is the idea that Godfrey Hodgson, a British author with wide experience of the United States and some of the feelings of a jilted lover about it, examines in his provocative new book, “The Myth of American Exceptionalism.” As the title suggests, Hodgson is unconvinced about America’s global mission. The United States, he writes, has become “just one great, but imperfect, country among others.” More than skeptical, he is angry, dismayed by what he sees as the religious, self-righteous and rightist manipulation of a once ennobling idea. Hodgson argues that “what has been essentially a liberating set of beliefs has been corrupted over the past 30 years or so by hubris and self-interest into what is now a dangerous basis for national policy and for the international system.”

It is impossible to dispute such “corruption.” Rabid exceptionalism was evident during the election campaign last year( 2008) as Republicans, their party intellectually exhausted, tried to garner a last flicker of political energy through the sort of damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage that helped carry Bush to victory in 2004. But Americans weren’t buying exceptionalism anymore; they were more disposed to buy into European health care.

Below is a video which Cindy Sheehan posted on YouTube showing dead Iraqis but YouTube pulled it- Americans are to be protected from seeing what they have done to the peoples of Iraq & Afghanistan. Americans even Obama enjoy a good war but they don't like seeing the pictures of the people butchered in America's name. And this they call spreading Freedom & Democracy .



" Another You Tube Outrage " by Cindy Sheehan at DowningStreet.org, May 26, 2009

...The pictures of the dead and maimed Iraqi children were gruesome. War is gruesome. War is never pretty but the Iraqi war has been “Sanitized for your protection.” It’s not enough that adult males have been tortured but thousands of women and children have also been imprisoned and cruelly treated.

I think it’s pretty gruesome that the US Military has held up to 6000 juveniles in its torture prisons in the Middle East and there has been rape and torture reported to individuals as young as 10 years old! How can any human being torture another human being, much less a child? These kinds of stories remind me of the most horrendous slasher movies that I can think of, but they are not the pretend product of twisted fantasy, but factual and mind-blowingly real.

Former US Soldier, Steven Green, was recently given life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2007 rape, mutilation and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Not only was Green the ringleader in the rape and murder; the squad also killed her family.

Unfortunately, even though Green was a “bad apple,” the situation we find ourselves in is an entire salad of rotten fruit and incidences like this one are not uncommon, but rarely reported.

Once when I was in Amman, Jordan speaking with prominent Iraqis, a Sheikh told me that US soldiers burst into his home, severely beating him and raping his wife, all in the presence of his 14-year-old son. The Sheikh told me that it was his son’s fondest dream to kill US Soldiers. Can you imagine this happening to your family? What if something like this happened in your home? You’re sitting around watching American Idol, or some crap like that, and Iraqis break into your home and terrorize and brutalize your family? I am sure you would all just chalk it up to “freedom and democracy” and be happy to go about your miserable lives comforted by the fact that your country was being occupied and destroyed for your own good.

During the US-UN-Clinton led sanctions against Iraq, the UN estimates that over 500,000 children died from starvation, disease, or violence. 500,000 Iraqi children would be like 5,000,000 US children dying. Former UN Ambassador under Clinton called that sacrifice for US Empire by the children of Iraq “worth it.” Over one million people have died in Iraq since Bush's invasion in 2003 and most of that figure counts women and children.

I have spoken to men who were still in their teens who were sodomized with broom handles in Guantanamo. I have seen the horrific photos of the US’s inhumanity to man and cannot forgive my country for the terror it has unleashed on the world. I can’t stand the fact that our government operates with such craven cowardice and has harmed so many people while Americans revel in blissful ignorance...

Yes it appears that Bush really believed that he had been sent by God to attack Iraq to help usher in "The End Of Days " or "The Last Days" prior to Jesus' return. Bush was or is still hoping for Armageddon an all out war & possibly a Nuclear War for then surely Christ would descend and save the "True Believers" including Bush of course. Yet we are told we are to honor Bush as one of America's greatest presidents. This seems to be the case here in Canada where we have put out the welcome mat for Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice , Bush et al. Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a great admirer of Bush, the Neocons & the The Religious Right Harper would like if he could to make Canada Canada more in the image of America & so get rid of our Universal Health Care & pass legislation to defend the Traditional Family & Family Values & get rid of all those nasty liberal style regulations of Big Business & the Banks & return to rapacious laissez-faire capitalism where the poor are permitted to starve to death in the streets or die because they can't afford health care- as Pastor Hagee has said those who are poor do not deserve to be helped - Hagee claims that notion was central to the teachings of Jesus. According to Pastor Hagee and a hundred other million or so Evangelical Christians in America believe that Jesus it seems believed in ignoring the poor, the lame, the outcasts, the mentally ill & all those other losers . That's just all part of the good old Prosperity Gospel which is rampant in America and if we are not careful will soon infest Canada & then spread like a cancer around the Globe.



" Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins" " By Clive Hamilton, CounterPunch. May 25, 2009.

Bush explained to French Pres. Chirac that the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Mid-East and must be defeated.

The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means?

The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush’s Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”



Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”.



The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush’s words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university’s review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs”.

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on “a mission from God” in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfillment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

Many thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog. That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam.

There is a curious coda to this story. While a senior at Yale University George W. Bush was a member of the exclusive and secretive Skull & Bones society. His father, George H.W. Bush had also been a “Bonesman”, as indeed had his father. Skull & Bones’ initiates are assigned or take on nicknames. And what was George Bush Senior’s nickname? “Magog”.

So you say its not a crusade see GQ's pics on Rumsfeld's Military Christian Memos with biblical quotes

also see: Rumsfeld’s Iraq “crusade” revealed
by Jane Nethercote at Crikey.com,May 18,2009

& " Why Bush invaded Iraq: the war on Gog and Magog "by Clive Hamilton at Crikey.com,May 19, 2009

On Sunday GQ magazine published an amazing scoop revealing that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embellished top-secret wartime memos with covers featuring quotations from the Bible.

Leaked by an unknown official who was disturbed enough to keep copies but reluctant to fan Islamic fears that the United States was on a crusade, the memos are being seen as Rumsfeld’s means of manipulating or ingratiating himself with the born-again President.

" Bush to Chirac on Iraq Invasion: "This confrontation is willed by God."by: TomP May 26, 2009 at Docudharma.com

It appears we had a f..king religious nut as President who lied to obtain support for the invasion of Iraq in order to bring the end times closer. Cheney and Rumsfeld manipulated the "boy king" by playing to his religious delusions.

Former President George Bush explained to then-President of France Jacques Chirac that that the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Mid-East and must be defeated. It appears that Bush told Chirac that invasion of Iraq was willed by God in order to usher in the "end times."

& Bush’s Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to “Erase” Mid-East Enemies “Before a New Age Begins” By Clive Anderson, CounterPunch. May 25, 2009.at Richard Dawkins.net forum

& Bush Invaded Iraq Over Biblical Prophesy of Gog and Magog" by Trish at Pensito Review, May. 26, 2009

If you thought Bush was only using the born-again shtick to rally his base, you might be wrong. It’s possible that George W. Bush not only truly believed the most horseshit aspects of fundamental Christianism, but according to Clive Hamilton on Counterpunch, he used them as the basis for the invasion of Iraq.

and so it goes,
GORD.

America Mourns Its Dead But Not Those They Abused, tortured , Bombed & Murdered

“Accept the proposition that America is freedom’s tribune, and it becomes a small step to believing that the ‘peace process’ aims to achieve peace, that Iraq qualifies as a sovereign state,and that Providence has summoned the United States to wage an all-out war against ‘terrorism.’”

from “The Limits of Power” by Andrew Bacevich, Boston University historian

The abuses & crimes committed in the name of America is a result of America's belief that it was Nation born not by mere men but by God's Will or Providence. America has always seen itself as superior to all other nations and that it is fulfilling some sort of Divine Plan. Its notions of Manifest Destiny is that its system of governance and its economic system is the ideal which must imposed upon the rest of the world one way or another by any & all means necessary. All of its failings its crimes against humanity have failed to teach America at least a bit of humility. When Obama dared to question American Exceptionalism he was attacked by many American conservatives & by much of the media. It is by fostering this notion of exceptionalism which allowed the Bush Regime to enter an illegal & unwarranted war with Iraq leading to the deaths of a million Iraqis. The War crimes committed are justified by the US government & its hyper patriotic fanatical press & media who claim that America has a Divine Right to do what is necessary for its own security and its interests .

Moreover the claim is that no other nation or international body has any right to judge America. All other nations may be bound by the rule of law or international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions but America is not. Its president whomever it is is supposed to carry on the American traditions of hyper militarism and to spread American ideas & its religion of Christian Evangelicalism to the rest of the world . It is in part this over-arching mythology which appears to be closing in on President Obama leaving him little room to maneuver even if he indeed wished to take the country in a different direction .

extended version
Keith Olbermann: Rightwinger Radio Host Waterboarded - Calls It "Torture"
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: Right Wing Radio Host [Erich "Mancow" Muller] Waterboarded - Calls It "Torture" - 05/22/09



So few heroes that is those with a little integrity are left these days as so many merely follow their leaders & obey their orders unquestioning . It has been for the past twenty years at least since the advent of Reaganism & his voodoo economics & the rise of the Yuppies & their Neocon friends & the craven Neo-liberals that we are told that it is a matter of just playing the game to become successful to obtain more stuff than your neighbor, to rise to the top by any & all means necessary to stab friends & fellow workers in the back to get ahead in our pathological need to prove our worth & our superiority.. In this quest Americans and many in the West have lost any sense of human dignity or respect for the rights of those who are different from themselves and see the rest of the world as a source of cheap labor and cheap natural resources to feed our greed & avarice. Even our fellow citizens who are not as successful are described as losers & failures & low-lifes for not being as greedy and single minded as those who prosper. The motto today is let them starve in the streets & erect their tent cities as they line up at the Soup Kitchens and yet those in positions of power & privilige turn away from such sights for it might offend their " higher sensibilities " like Peggy Noonan who turns away from any painful sight from the homeless & the poor to the aabused and tortured detainees to the million dead Iraqis .

So Americans in general prefer the lies of Fox News & the lying & fear mongering of the Sean Hannities & Rush Limbaughs & Glenn Beck & Dick Cheney. Meanwhile those who were hopeful a few months ago now watch as President Obama proves he is in fact one of them who will support the status quo at any cost preferring to continue the Perpetual War on Terror while rewarding the financial wizards who mismanged themselves & their country into bankruptcy.

America celebrate Memorial Day yesterday & the media , the schools , the churches extolled the virtues of America and honored the dead whom they claimed in their hyped up propaganda fought for freedom though most died to expand the American Empire or to quell the restless natives of some foreign country who tried to get a better deal for themselves that is to control their own nation without America's interference. This is the major and unforgiveable sin for which they must pay in blood to their American overseers.

So a few judges & lawyers in Spain are trying to bring some token of accountability back into the public arena though for this they are accused of being enemies the United States & other criminal regimes such as China.


"'Universal Jurisdiction': Spain's Judges Target Torture:High-Ranking US Officials Among Targets of Inquiries ' by Craig Whitlock The Washington Post, may 24,2009

MADRID -- Spanish judges are boldly declaring their authority to prosecute high-ranking government officials in the United States, China and Israel, among other places, delighting human rights activists but enraging officials in the countries they target and triggering a political backlash in a nation uncomfortable acting as the world's conscience.

Judges at Spain's National Court, acting on complaints filed by human rights groups, are pursuing 16 international investigations into suspected cases of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to prosecutors. Among them are two probes of Bush administration officials for allegedly approving the use of torture on terrorism suspects, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The judges have opened the cases by invoking a legal principle known as universal jurisdiction, which under Spanish law gives them the right to investigate serious human rights crimes anywhere in the world, even if there is no Spanish connection.

International-law advocates have cheered the developments and called the judges heroes for daring to hold the world's superpowers accountable. But the proliferation of investigations has also prompted a backlash in Spain, where legislators and even some law enforcement officials have criticized the powerful judges for overreaching, as well as souring diplomatic relations with allies.

...Another judge announced Thursday that he would charge three U.S. soldiers with crimes against humanity, holding them accountable for the April 2003 deaths of a Spanish television cameraman and a Ukrainian journalist. The men were killed when a U.S. tank crew shelled their Baghdad hotel. Judge Santiago Pedraz said he would pursue the case even though a National Court panel, as well as a U.S. Army investigation, recommended that no action be taken against the soldiers.

(Not surprising that the US army investigation was another white wash because heaven forbid America should ever have to face up to its War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity. After all most Americans since 9/11 see themselves as the real victims and therefore all the blood they shed all the people guilty or innocent they abuse and torture is just a matter of payback to let the world know not to screw with America cause America will decimate your country kill your men women & children cause God is on America's side.

" The Day of the Dead " by Cindy Sheehan, Truthout , May 25, 2009

I can guarantee what you won't see this holiday weekend are images of the over one million Iraqi dead. Say we assign, in an arbitrary way for purely illustrative purposes, an average height of five feet for every person killed in Iraq and then line those people up from head to toe. That gruesome line would stretch from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon... 950 driving miles up Interstate 5. If we count the Iraqis who have been forced to flee, we would have to go back and forth between Los Angeles and Portland another four times.

There are obscene amounts of people who have been slaughtered for the US Profit Driven Military Empire who do not count here in America on any day. People in Vietnam are still dying from the toxins dumped on their country by the US, not to mention the millions who died during that war. Let the carnage escalate in Afghanistan while we protect our personal images by turning a blind eye to Obama's war crimes. Are you going to feel a lump of pride in your bosom when the coffins start to be photographed at Dover for this imperial crime of aggression? Will you look at those flag-draped boxes of the lifeless body of some mother's child and think: "Now, I am free." Is it better to be dead when Obama is president?

...However, we do not need another day here in America to glorify war that enables the Military Industrial Complex to commit its crimes under the black cloak of "Patriotism."

From Palestine to Africa to South America, our quest for global economic domination kills, sickens, maims or oppresses people on a daily basis, and about 25,000 children per day die of starvation. I am not okay with these facts and I am not proud of my country.

I will spend my reflective time on Memorial Day to mourn not only the deaths of so many people all over the world due to war, but mourn the fact that they are the unseen and uncared for victims of US Empire.

Meanwhile Obama continues to move further & further to the right which Americans claim to be centrist which really means maintaining the status quo & not rocking the boat unless necessary. So those who committed War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity were merely following orders and those at the top President Bush as we have learned was following orders given to him directly out of God's mouth so how can anyone criticize his decisions since it was all a matter of Providence & God's Will.

Obama Betrays The Liberals by Sherwood Ross, at Media With Conscience (MWC) May 25, 2009

America’s liberals stand betrayed. Their new president, the one they sweated to elect----a brilliant, charismatic leader with a professional background in constitutional law---has transmogrified himself from the champion who denounced in his campaign the illegalities of the Bush White House into a president bent on their perpetuation.

Liberals are stunned by Obama’s plan to “restart Bush-era military tribunals” for some Guantanamo detainees, reviving what the Associated Press pointed out, is “a fiercely disputed trial system he once denounced.”(May 15). Liberals are appalled by Obama’s May 21st proposal to hold terrorism suspects in “prolonged detention” inside the U.S. without a trial. “Such detention,” Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) wrote him, “is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world.”

If liberals chaffed over Obama’s centrist cabinet choices, they were dismayed by his decision not to release photographs depicting the sadistic tortures the Bush Gang inflicted on prisoners during a so-called “War on Terror” that was nothing but terror itself. A typical reaction comes from Joe Kishore, writing on the World Socialist Website (May 22): “Whatever verbal warnings Obama may make about the erosion of democracy in the United States, the actions of his administration facilitate and escalate its breakdown.”

Obama’s latest policy reversals come as liberals are still reeling from his April 16th speech to the CIA, ignoring its documented history of 60 years of overthrows and assassinations, and reassuring the Agency of its “right” to continue “covert activities,” as if such conduct was not prima facie illegality in the eyes of law-abiding nations. Earlier, Obama’s pledge not to prosecute CIA torturers that followed orders likely brought relief to the throne room in Langley that is a throbbing heart of the Dark Side. Obama calls upon the nation to “look forward” as he ignores his presidential obligation to prosecute those who, like Bush and Cheney, trampled the Constitution when they ordered torture in violation of international laws that by treaty are America’s laws as well.

"If Obama Cedes Ground on Torture to Cheney, We'll All Pay a Heavy Price"
By acknowledging recent crimes while refusing to pursue the criminals, the president has made his position untenable " By Gary Younge "The Guardian" May 25, 2009

In short, by acknowledging the crimes while refusing to pursue the criminals he has promised to rectify America's grim recent history without ever ­reckoning with it.

Events over the past few weeks have shown just how ethically and politically untenable this situation really is. His first term looks as though it may be ­consumed by these issues anyway - and not on his terms. Having released the torture memos, Obama then reversed his position on releasing photographs that accompanied them on the grounds that to do so would endanger US troops. Having opposed trying Guantánamo prisoners under military commissions, he now supports it. His decision to close Guantánamo has been delivered a huge blow by the Senate, which voted 90-6 to deny the funds necessary to do so. Now he has proposed that suspects who cannot be tried in a federal court because evidence against them was obtained under torture could be held in "prolonged detention" in the US ­without trial.

In essence, he would transfer the legal architecture of Guantánamo to the mainland, as though the problem were one of geography rather than principle. So much for core American values.

On one level we should not be surprised. Obama was elected by Americans to represent American interests - which, in turn, are informed by American political realities. And the reality is that, with a few notable exceptions, the Democrats have consistently failed to provide an unswerving, principled opposition to torture whenever they have had the power to do so, for fear of being branded unpatriotic. Like their spinelessness over the Iraq war, this complicity in the name of pragmatism ultimately makes them more vulnerable to political attack, rather than less.


...But in the absence of moral leadership the national conversation has morphed seamlessly from human rights to national security, where the issue of torture and detention is debated not on the grounds of morality but efficacy.

With the former vice-president Dick Cheney leading the charge, the right has managed to mount a spirited defence of torture in which America's rights as the potential, abstract victim of terrorism supersede detainees' rights as actual victims of torture.

...There is not one shred of evidence any intelligence obtained as a result of torture has been used to prevent further attacks. The best intelligence the Bush administration ever had was a month before 9/11, when it rec­eived a memo entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US" from the FBI, warning of "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings". No torture was involved; no action was taken.

Conventions are devised precisely to set boundaries in moments of crisis – in periods of relative harmony there is not much need to refer to them. The Geneva convention, in particular, was devised to establish the rules of engagement during times of war. If the very fact of being at war is reason enough to discard it, then it has no meaning.

And finally, if showing the world what America has done would inflame anti-American sentiment then maybe America shouldn't do it in the first place.

The Obama administration's desire to concentrate on the future is understandable. But the past has a legacy and the present has consequences. By ceding the principle to Cheney now we will all pay for it later.

and so it goes,
GORD.