Betrayed Again By General Petraeus Thousands More To Die in Iraq And Rape as an Occupational Hazard

Iconic Industralist Henry Ford
An enemy of " Liberalism " & Democracy & Pluralism .
Henri Ford's Newspaper The Dearborn Independent published a series of some 91 anti-Semitic articles in the 1920s. The Jews Ford believed were responsible for all that was in his view wrong with society. Like other anti-Semites he believed the Jews were working behind the scenes supporting Marxism , socialism , liberalism , labor unions and all those agitating for equal rights and justice for all etc. Anti-Semitism was at that time as American as apple pie. But of course so was racism in general at that time and continued, at least, legally as such up to the mid 1960s. And even today in America racism continues in various ways as in police harassment of Blacks, Hispanics and other visible minorities . Racism continues to play a part in the courts and the Justice system , in employment and the schools and universities and in immigration policies . So Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and John McCain may act as if there is no racism in America but they are either deluded , ill-informed or are indifferent since they are more interested in the American white middle class and the Professional class . If in doubt just take note of the attacks on Barack Obama by the other presidential hopefuls and the media and the Fascist Neocons and the Christian Religious Right in America .
Henri Ford Receiving the German/Nazi Golden Eagle of the Iron Cross for his anti-Semitic writings & for his financial contributions to Hitler and the Nazi party.

" WAR " BY Henri Rousseau

Note : update 3:23 pm.

Anyway the Iraq War those in power tell us must continue for years if not decades to come. There is a greater chance as time goes by that America will next attack Iran. Since now we are told the reason America is in Iraq is to fight Iranian forces that have infiltrated Iraq. So next stop Iran.

And once again General Petraeus Betrays the American people and sentences thousands of innocent Iraqis to be slaughtered in their HOMELAND. Americans seem to forget that the Iraqi people consider their country as their Homeland . The Iraqis like any people are willing to fight anyone who invades and occupies their country and who refuses to allow them to govern themselves. The Iraqis are also willing to fight to regain their individual and collective rights such as the Right to free speech, the right of a free-press , the right to free association, the right to peaceful assembly or to peacefully demonstrate in the streets of the cities of " their country" as well as their right to Justice and fair trials and freedom from arbitrary search and seizure and/or detention. According to the Bush Regime and many Americans only Americans are to be guarnteed these rights.

So for example from Huffington Post we get this article by Robert Scheer
Petraeus' Testimony: Everything His President Wants to Hear /April 9, 2008

General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then -- as it would be to repeat the charge now.

By undercutting the widespread support for getting out of Iraq, Petraeus did indeed betray the American public, siding with an enormously unpopular president who wants to stay the course in Iraq for personal and political reasons that run contrary to genuine national security interests. Once again, the president is passing the buck to the uniformed military to justify continuing a ludicrous imperial adventure, and the good general has dutifully performed.

...We have had many other examples of retired military officers asserting the need for informed and rational public decision making as to matters of war and peace. Republican presidential candidate John McCain was one of those voices when, as a senator, he led the fight, along with fellow Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, to normalize relations with the same Communist leadership in Hanoi that had once been our enemy. Does anyone, McCain included, now think we were wrong to bring the troops home from Vietnam -- and just why are the dire consequences that McCain now predicts for a withdrawal from Iraq any more plausible?

McCain says we have to back the president and his generals, even though he concedes that "four years of mismanaged war had brought us almost to the point of no return." Who mismanaged that war if not Bush and the generals he picked for the task? But don't blame the generals, for as long as a president demands victory, they will pretend to deliver it. If they demur, they will be replaced, as recently occurred with the sudden retirement of Petraeus' boss, Admiral William Fallon, for his suggestion in Esquire magazine that he might favor a more restrained approach in a conflict with Iran.

No such dissension from Petraeus -- his faithful testimony, at least to the president if not the truth, on Tuesday was a particularly painful performance. Civilian deaths in March were 50 percent higher than in February, and there were a score of recent American deaths, and there is no evidence of political progress to support Petraeus' stab at optimism over the "fragile" situation in Iraq. Most absurd was the suggestion that the problem would all go away if Iran would only behave, when in fact American troops are being sacrificed on the pro-Iranian side of an internal Shiite power dispute. The Shiites in charge of "our" government in Iraq are exiles trained for decades in Iran.

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And again we get reports of women working with contracors in Iraq being sexually assaulted and then told not to talk about it or make waves. It is argued by the companies involved that according to the contacts these women signed such matters as sexual assault are to be handled by the company and not the Criminal courts . As Karen Houppert points out in a recent article in The Nation Another Brutal Rape Cover-Up at KBR Karen Houppert, The Nation. April 4, 2008.

Another female KBR employee has come forward with allegations of sexual assault in Iraq

Most of these complaints never see the light of day, thanks to the fine print in employee contracts that compels employees into binding arbitration instead of allowing their complaints to be tried in a public courtroom. Criminal prosecutions are practically nonexistent, as the U.S. Justice Department has turned a blind eye to these cases.

...Even more appalling, the Justice Department, which can and should prosecute most of these cases, has declined to do so. "There is no rational explanation for this," says Scott Horton, a lecturer at Columbia Law School who specializes in the law of armed conflict. Prosecutorial jurisdiction for crimes like Jones' alleged rape is easily established under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions. But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases.

Horton wonders what the 200 Justice Department employees and contractors stationed in Iraq do all day, noting that there has not been a single completed criminal conviction against a U.S. contractor implicated in a violent crime anywhere in Iraq since the invasion.

"We have a complete process in place for solving military criminal violations when soldiers commit crimes, but for the 180,000 employees of private contractors over there, there is nothing," says Horton. "It's like Texas west of the Pecos in 1890 over there!" It's just common sense that you're going to have some violent crimes when you throw this many people together, he says. "Think about it. You have 180,000 people over there, you're going to have a few crimes. I don't know how anybody could fairly view this as a partisan issue. Crimes happen when you bring people together anywhere, and in a war setting, without adult supervision, crimes are going to increase. That is just a fact. And if you eliminate law enforcement, the crimes are going to get worse because people will quickly learn they can get away with it."

And from Truthout we get this story from ABC NEWS:Military Mom Says She Was Brutally Raped in Iraq

By Maddy Sauer ABC News

Wednesday 09 April 2008

Dawn Leamon, who alleges she was raped by two men, will tell her story on Capitol Hill.

Yet another woman has come forward saying she was brutally raped in Iraq while working for the U.S. contractor Kellogg Brown Root (KBR).

Dawn Leamon, who has two sons on active duty, says she was raped earlier this year by a U.S. soldier and a KBR colleague.

She will tell her horrific story to members of Congress today at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Leamon says that following her rape, she spoke with a woman at the KBR Employee Assistance Program. "She discouraged me from reporting, saying, 'You know what will happen if you do,'" Leamon said.

Leamon says KBR then assigned full-time security guards to her which gave her no privacy to talk about the incident, and her movements around camp were restricted, yet her attackers' movements were unrestricted.

"KBR did little or nothing to restore my sense of safety after I reported being raped," said Leamon.

KBR released the following statement to ABC News this morning. "First and foremost, KBR in no way condones or tolerates sexual harassment. Each employee is expected to adhere to the Company's Code of Business Conduct, and when violations occur, appropriate action is taken. Any reported allegation of sexual harassment or sexual assault is taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. KBR's top priority is the safety and security of all employees, and our commitment in that regard is unwavering."

Also at today's hearing, for the first time the Department of Justice is slated to answer questions on the investigation and prosecution of alleged sex crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one has yet been charged in Leamon's case.

---


Is this a case of another one of those great values cherished by Americans that of ' Boys will be Boys ' and women who want to work with men have to accept the risks of being sexually harrased or even assaulted and raped. Maybe the idea is that when women realize that when it comes to working in Iraq they will not be protected by the American Military or by American Contractors in Iraq or by the American Justice system and therefore they should not apply for such jobs. Given the dangers of being a woman in the military not from the enemy so much but from their male counterparts it would be best for women not to insist on working alongside their male counterparts doing similar jobs. The military as Ann Coulter and other Neocons point out is not a proper place for women to be. So maybe when enough women are abused women will give up any such notions as being in the military as equals to the men in the military or to work for private contracors doing what are essentilly and traditionaly men's jobs.. So the role of women in a Theatre of War should be that of nurses , doctors, and secretaries or if necessary working in armament factories in the Homeland as they did in past conflicts.

Is this all just part of America's militaristic Macho Society . Women accordingly should be at home having more babies who can become future soldiers or the soldiers wives . In their attitudes regarding the role and rights of women more and more the American Military and The Bush Regime and their Neoconservative supporters seem to have more in common with The Taliban and other Islamic extremists . They see such notions as equality between men and women as just another wrong-headed belief of the evil 'liberals ' or Secular -Humanists. Women in their view are just fundamentally different from men and have a different contribution to make to society.

Or is the message simply that the role ogf government should be limited and that whatever happens on the job should be dealt with by the employer in whatever way they see fit. This is just typical " Laissez-Faire " capitalism. And as I have argued before those who favor this form of capitalism resent all the government regulations which they believe are an unnecessary burden on corporations . So I guess if an employer wants to hire six year old then he should be allowed to. Though it is from their point of view wrong to put the matter as if the government needs to give permission to an employer. It is they believe the God- Given right of an employer to do as he pleases. Whatever will increase his profits is therefore permissible. The Neocons see all these rules about occupational safety or the rights of the worker and regulations dealing with environmental concerns or product safety etc. as a load of crap. They see these regulations as just part of an " anti-capitalist mind-set ". Or as part of a Pinko Commie Liberal plot as Archie Bunker might put it. The only God Given Right Neocons believe in is the Rights of Property and the Right to make Profits. And if an employer doesn't want to hire women or gays or Hispanics or Blacks or anyone else that's their right. Just like the good old days.



and so it goes,
GORD.

Max Mosley: Imperialism & Capitalism Exposed : Fast Cars Fast Women & Fascism

MAX MOSLEY LIKES IT ROUGH !
Is he a Nazi like his dear old dad ???
or like his hero Henry Ford ???

Max Mosley Nazi Sex Video at 23/6
Formula 1 Racing president Max Mosely was caught engaging in Nazi-themed sex with hookers.


FIA President Refuses To Resign Over Nazi-Inspired Orgy /Times/ Edward Gorman/ April 8, 2008

Check out the original News of the World report, which states:

Formula One motor racing chief Max Mosley is today exposed as a secret sado-masochist sex pervert.

The son of infamous British wartime fascist leader Oswald Mosley is filmed romping with five hookers at a depraved NAZI-STYLE orgy in a torture dungeon. Mosley-- a friend to F1 big names like Bernie Ecclestone and Lewis Hamilton-- barks ORDERS in GERMAN as he lashes girls wearing mock DEATH CAMP uniforms and enjoys being whipped until he BLEEDS.

The multi-millionaire son of Sir Oswald, who was a pal of Adolf Hitler, plays a concentration camp commandant in a FIVE-HOUR torture chamber video.

At one point the wrinkled 67-year-old--who publicly likes to give the impression he has put his father's evil legacy behind him--yells "she needs more of ze punishment!" while brandishing a LEATHER STRAP over a brunette's naked bottom.

So Max Mosley is into Sado-masochism big deal.
The real problem here is that he agreed to have this video taped and that it has this Nazis theme to it .It is odd that the hookers are dressed as if they were in a Nazi Death Camp . Does Mosley get off on the idea of a few million Jews being brutalized and then gassed. He also doesn't just play the victim but is also a victimizer. He gets to play a Nazi that is like any good capitalist a Nazi or something akin to it.

Does Mosley like his father think the Nazis were in fact the good guys. This is not surprising since there are probably a large proportion of rich white people who think the British and Americans should have allied with Hitler.

We know for instance that George Bush's grandfather and the Iconic Industrialist Henry Ford were supporters of Hitler . Henry Ford wrote letters to Hitler supporting him and gave Hitler and his Nazi Party financial help. But Ford went further by using his newspaper the Dearborn Press to spread the lies of the notorious anti-semitic forgery " The Protocols of the Elders of Zion " .

Henry Ford ( see note below ) was in fact fanatically anti-Semitic. Besides financing Hitler and the Nazis in Germany he also helped the fanatical anti-Semitic popular radio personality Father Coughlin **(see Note #2)who used his radio-program in the 1930s to spread the most vicious lies against the Jewish people . But the history books in America or Canada do not mention such facts about the likes of Henry Ford who is seen as quintessentially American. If he is then according to logic Anti-Semitism must also be quintessentially American. I believe at that time it was: though it may not be today.

For most people in Western Civilization Anti-Semitism up to recent times was just part of one's upbringing it came with their mother's milk as it were. To not be anti-Semitic at least to some extent was seen as odd. In the same way racism of all sorts and sexism and homophobia etc. were just part and parcel of our so-called enlightened civilized society.

What our civilization cherished was tradition and conformity and the belief that the White Man was superior to all other peoples . This was and is an arrogant view of a narrow minded people. Yet even today we hear similar views being promulgated by our so called leaders and by the media and academics who stereotype all Muslims as being backward and fanatical . Or we are told that the people of Iraq are too primitive , too tribalistic and ignorant to appreciate what America did for the Iraqi people by ousting Saddam.

The American soldiers in Iraq have been trained and taught that all the Iraqis are their enemy and that they the Iraqis are blood-thirsty people who have no respect for human life. So the soldiers refer to the Iraqis as ' Haj' which is equivalent to 'Gook' as in Vietnamese or ' Nigger' for a black person or the British when they had their Empire spreading their own vicious form of racism and imperialism called various people ' wogs ' , ' kafirs ' , ' gyps' , ' nips ' , ' japs ', ' krauts '.
But of course we are not supposed to mention such things . We are told that our society was never really that racist. And we are supposed to tell our children and grandchildren that it was only those few bad-apples who ever preached such hate.

For history is forever being re-edited to suit those in power. Even as we speak history is being re-written again and again to prove how enlightened the Americans have always been and always will be. In the same way many still refer to the British Empire as if it were benevolent and that its purpose was not to plunder but to spread knowledge and to improve the lives of those whom they had conquered. But I'm sure there are those who would defend the various European Empires as being in some way benevolent such as the Dutch, the Spanish the Portuguese , the French , the Germans etc.

They will instead point out the evils for instance of the Ottoman Empire but not the evils of the British Empire . Though the British murdered and enslaved and oppressed a hundred million or more during its hey-day. But that we are told was all for the good. It's like those who think the death of millions of Native Americans was inevitable and all for the good since it meant that Europeans who were superior were able to explore and grow in numbers and bring the ' Word of God ' ( that is their version ) to the so called Heathens. The American Institution of Slavery was also justified because those Africans they claimed were not even capable of human speech or writing or real culture and so had been put on the earth by God for the White Man / White Europeans to use as labor.

The Bush Regime has now convinced a large proportion of the American populace that Iraqis are not like them and so can not be trusted to take care of their own problems . Well if the Americans hadn't bombed the shit out of Iraq forcing over three million Iraqis into exile most of whom are among the most well educated Iraqis maybe they could regroup and start over.
Though the people of Iraq are not permitted to have their own truly independent government , nor are they allowed basic human rights such as freedom of the press or freedom of speech or the right to travel within their own country or be out after curfew or the right to bare arms . This last one is particularly ironic since conservative and neoconservative Americans are always foaming at the mouth over what they see as their basic right which is the right to bare arms. With an armed populace they claim no tyrant can ever take over America. Yet they voted for a tyrant twice while he George W. Bush stole the election and has trampled upon the Constitution and the American Bill of Rights.

Of course according to Bush , Cheney and General Petreaus the whole problem with Iraq now is the government of Iran. And as Bush & co. toss the facts down the memory hole we are told that Iran has always been the problem so we must drop a few nukes on them as soon as possible. Then we are told peace will finally arrive in the Middle East.

Capitalism at its worst : Mercenaries For Hire !!!

State Dept. Renews Blackwater Contract in Iraq PART 1/2Blackwater
Jeremy Scahill Confronts BlackWater Honchos

Posted by Jeremy Scahill, Huffington Post April 8, 2008.

"My question to you is, how many innocent Iraqis has your company killed?"



And here is another revealing article about the use of torture by the American Military and CIA and those they contract such tasks out to and those governments or agencies who are only too glad to torture a few people guilty or not.

"The Blueprint That Led to Abu Ghraib"

The Progress Report. Posted April 8, 2008.

The Department of Justice memo released last week is a chilling -- and revealing -- look at the Bush administration's torture policy.

Last Tuesday, the Defense and Justice Departments released a previously-classified 2003 memo, which claimed that "federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes." Written by John Yoo, who was then the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the memo is "similar [to], although much broader" than, the infamous 2002 torture memo, which was co-written by Yoo and redefined torture to be only "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." In the 2003 memo, Yoo also asserted that "many American and international laws would not apply to interrogations overseas" because they "would be unconstitutional as applied in this context." Like its 2002 predecessor, Yoo's 2003 memo was rescinded by Jack Goldsmith when he took over the OLC in December 2003 because of "the unusual lack of care and sobriety in their legal analysis." Even though many legal experts, such as former Army judge advocate general Thomas Romig, find Yoo's argument that "there are no rules in a time of war" to be "downright offensive," Yoo defends his memos as "near boilerplate." Far from seeing it as "boilerplate," former OLC lawyer Martin Lederman argues that Yoo's 2003 memo "is the source of the Nile for the abuse that occurred in Iraq in 2003."

CREATING THE "CULTURE OF ABUSE": According to "some legal experts and advocates" who spoke to The New York Times, Yoo's 2003 memo "adds to evidence that the abuse of prisoners in military custody may have involved signals from higher officials and not just irresponsible actions by low-level personnel." Noting that OLC opinions are "binding on the Defense Department," Scott Silliman, the head of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University and a former Air Force lawyer," says Yoo's memo "effectively sidelined military lawyers who strongly opposed harsh interrogation methods." "The memo helped to build a culture that, in the absence of leadership from the highest ranks of the Pentagon, allowed the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere," Silliman told the Times. Yoo rejects the idea that his legal opinions have any relation to detainee abuses that occurred in Iraq. "The 'culture of abuse' theory has no reliable evidence to support it," Yoo told The New York Times. But Lederman believes that Yoo's 2003 memo is "the blueprint that led to Abu Ghraib and the other abuses within the armed forces in 2003 and early 2004." His thesis is supported by the timeline of events surrounding the administration's deliberations on interrogation policy and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. According to Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib, the "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison took place between October 2003 and December 2003, which was after Yoo issued his memo but before it was rescinded by Goldsmith.

FOURTH AMENDMENT FOOTNOTE: The release of Yoo's 2003 memo on interrogation also led to the revelation of another wide-ranging Bush administration legal opinion which claimed the war on terror trumped constitutional protections. A footnote in the 2003 memo states that the OLC "concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations." The footnote is referring to an October 2001 memo written by Yoo that "focused on the rules governing any deployment of U.S. forces inside the country 'in the event of further large-scale terrorist activities' by al-Qaeda."

---
Update 9:53 pm

* Note : Anyway for those who claim that Henry Ford was such a great role model for their children think again . He was a nast mean-spirited racist nut job. But we are not supposed to speak the truth about him or other so-called American heroes.

Henry Ford and Anti-Semitism THE INTERNATIONAL JEW,
THE WORLD'S FOREMOST PROBLEM /Abridged from the original as published by the world renowned industrial leader,
HENRY FORD, SR.

See article from: Anti-Defamation League about the revival of anti-semitic articles by Henry Ford originally published in his newspaper the Deearborn Press The International Jew/Anti-Semitism from the Roaring Twenties Revived on the Web Ford's articles were based on the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . The protocols were invented for the most part by the Tsar of Russia's secret police

The Dearborn Independent

The Dearborn Publishing Company published The Dearborn Independent newspaper. At the peak of its popularity, the Dearborn, Michigan paper, owned by auto magnate Henry Ford Sr., boasted a circulation of 700,000. The Dearborn Independent first attacked Jews in its May 22, 1920 issue and continued to do so in 91 subsequent editions.

Many of the paper's anti-Semitic articles were reprinted by the Dearborn Publishing Company in four paper-bound volumes: The International Jew, the World. s Foremost Problem (November, 1920); Jewish Activities in the United States (April, 1921); Jewish Influences in American Life (November, 1921); and Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States (May, 1922). Collectively known as The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, these volumes were later published in a variety of languages and disseminated widely in the United States and abroad.

For decades, The International Jew has been in the public domain. It can be reprinted by anyone who wishes to do so. In the late 1950s, anti-Semite Gerald L.K. Smith edited and published an abridged version of The International Jew culled from the original Dearborn Independent articles. The complete text of Smith's version now is easily found at many hate sites on the World Wide Web.

Update: 1030 PM

**Note #2 Coughlin - Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism/Father Charles Edward Coughlin (1891-1971)

By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!

Father Coughlin, “the Father of Hate Radio,” was born in Hamilton, Ontario. This rabidly right-wing, Catholic priest started with a weekly broadcast on WJR, Detroit’s “Good Will” station. CBS broadcast it nationwide in 1930 and 1931. He started his own radio network that grew to 30 stations. John Spivak, estimated that Coughlin’s broadcasts reached 40 million, said: “Only the President…had a bigger audience… The President spoke only on special occasions, the priest every Sunday…. To me, he was the most dangerous divisive influence in the country” (A Man in His Time, 1967).

Coughlin originally supported FDR, but turned against him in 1934 and created a political party, the National Union of Social Justice. Former Louisiana Governor, Huey Long was supposed to be their candidate, but he was assassinated in 1935. Journalist George Seldes said Long was America’s “first notable Fascist leader,...a very smart demagogue, [who] once said, ‘Sure we’ll have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascism movement.’” In the late 1930s, Coughlin called for FDR’s impeachment because he was “leaning toward international socialism or sovietism.”

Coughlin’s radio sermons praised Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The Nazi press praised Coughlin as “America’s most powerful radio commentator.” He ranted against Jews, the “Christ-killers and Christ-rejecters.” When a Boston Globe reporter asked him for proof that communists were influencing FDR, Father Coughlin belted the journalist in the face.

Coughlin's weekly paper, Social Justice, reached one million. It was sold in 2,000 churches. In 1938, it reprinted the anti-Semitic forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”


also see my previous posts on anti-Semitism and the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.


and so it goes ,
GORD.

Gord's Poetry Factory: Anti-Semitism & The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Gord's Poetry Factory: Anti-Semitism & The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

George Bush : Fascism and the Satire of George Grosz

THE SURVIVOR: BY GEORGE GROSZ
















" FOR THE POOR WAR. FOR THE RICH THE BOOTY"
George Grosz

"Everywhere, hymns of hatred were struck up. Everyone was hated: the Jews, the capitalists, the Junkers, the Communists, the army, the property owners, the workers, the unemployed, the black Reichwehr, the control commissions, the politicians, the department stores, and the Jews again. It was an orgy of incitement, and the republic itself was a weak thing, scarcely perceptible. … It was a completely negative world, topped with colorful froth that many imagined to be true, happy Germany before the onset of the new barbarism." George Grosz





THE PIT: GEORGE GROSZ

THE AGITATOR: GEORGE GROSZ
Note: The Agitator is also pictured with drums as Hitler in his early political & violent days was called " The Drummer" ( Compare to Bush or Cheney )


THE PEOPLE ARE BLIND LIKE THE DONKEY: GEORGE GROSZ

REPUBLICAN AUTOMATONS: GEORGE GROSZ 1920Anyway I was once again viewing the art work of George Grosz and the times in which he lived and again I was struck by some of the similarities to our present times. Once again we live in a self-absorbed decadent age surrounded and inundated by the newest gadgets while being blissfully unaware of the outside world . Shutting the world out we hope to keep its horrors far from our pleasant cocoons. War rages , people go hungry and homeless but we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear as those in power encourage us to ignore it all . We are even told not to bother dreaming of a better society since we are told it is impossible so why as Hillary Clinton says why bother ? So here are some of George Grosz's works which I wish to share with you.

Note: The George Grosz drawings below which are From Graphic Witness? George Grosz Abrechnung Folgt! 57 Politische Zeichnungen
Translated as "One Day We'll Get Even" or, "The Day of Reckoning," this collection of 57 political drawings was published in 1923 by Der Malik, in Berlin.

Part of a series titled "Kleine revolutionare Bibliothek," the series comprised a dozen titles, including other works by Grosz: Das Gesicht der Herrschenden Klasse (The Face of the Ruling Class); Ecco Homo, Gott Mit Uns, Im Schatten (In the Shadow) and Die Räuber.

George Grosz (German, 1893-1958): Ecce Homo
"Whoever can, swims, and whoever is weak, goes under" FAMILY IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE NATION: GEORGE GROSZ


MY PENSION : GEORGE GROSZ ( Heroic Wounded War Veteran Left To Beg )" People Of Europe Maintain Your Sacred Values " George Grosz
" CAUTION: DON'T STUMBLE ": GEORGE GROSZ
HITLER IN HELL: GEORGE GROSZ

"Those who eat well


...forget easily"

















My Fatherland, May You Rest In Peace (quiet )















I. The Director --
[Die Räuber, 1922] " I will exterminate everything
around me that restricts me from being master"
-- and his puppets



















2. "They thunder sweetness and light from their clouds and offer human sacrifice to the god of love"
-- from Schiller, act II scene iii




Note: The Master will use religion as a tool to get what he desires much like the attitude of the Neoconservatives who also use religion and Patriotism for their own agenda. But the people are too stupid too know any better.

STICKING IT OUT: GEORGE GROSZ ( Similar I guess to Bush/Cheney staying the course no matter what)


George Grosz political activist, satirist who was accused of being unpatriotic, anti-German as decadent and beyond redemption - the Nazis later condemned , banned and burned his works of art.

The Americans were unable to appreciate his attacks on fascism and Nazism seeing his response as a bit extreme. Little did they know how correct he and other critics of Fascism and Nazism really were. As far as many Americans Brits and other Europeans were concerned Hitler and Moussolini were heroic figures who would re-establish order and the natural hierarchy while fighting the evil communists. In other words the rich and the powerful believed they had more to fear from leftists, liberals and Communists and labor unions and those insisting that everyone poor or rich be treated justly and fairly . So not that much has changed. The rich get richer and the poor are told to have more children and don't make a fuss. The rich decide to go to war and send the working class off to fight.

And as we know most Americans, Canadians and Brits prefer their art to be pretty and empty of all profound meaning or sense of real humanity. We are in the age of Dr. Pangloss and that this is the best of all possible worlds so why bitch and moan and gripe just sit back and become comfortably numb as Pink Floyd would say so there you go,.



After moving to America in 1933 Grosz whole attitude appeared to change as he adapted to his new environment while trying to make a living so he created works with less vigor or passion to appease the American academics and its bourgeios apolitical artistic community.

"My motto was now to give offence to none and be pleasing to all. Assimilation is straightforward once one overcomes the greatly overvalued superstition concerning character. To have character generally means that one is distinctly inflexible, not necessarily for reasons of age. Anyone who plans to get ahead and make money would do well to have no character at all. The second rule for fitting in is to think everything beautiful! Everything – that is to say, including things that are not beautiful in reality." George Grosz



"For the rich, the booty --
for the people, the misery of war"

Art Links:

Olga's Gallery George Grosz

Olga's Gallery Homepage

Virtual Museum Of Art

ARTCYCLOPEDIA

Robin Urton Eyecon Art

Graphic Witness Visual Arts and Social Commentary

Spaightwood Galleries, INC.

WebMuseum,Paris


and so it goes,
GORD.

GEORGE W. BUSH AUTHORIZED WAR CRIMES! U.S. Lawyers, Doctors , Academics & Psychologists Willingly Take Part In Torture of Detainees !!!

Anyway so the CIA and the American military have been studying and perfecting torture techniques for over forty years. Now they have turned it into a science which is often contracted out to academics and scholars to be studied in universities in turn for research money. So much for academics being outside the system or establishment - their hands are as dirty as the ones implementing the torture techniques they researched and found to be useful. Universities long ago gave up any semblance of neutrality and joined with the more oppressive forces in our society. They would probably call it financial realism . Academics need to appease whomever controls the most money. Since most academics hold to one of several convenient ethical theories such as ' relativism' or 'utilitarianism' which have the built in flexibility to approve of almost any action one desires to undertake. They have also like the politicians they admire have come to believe and promulgate the view that the so-called 'conscience ' is just a creation of primitive superstitious peoples .

GEORGE W BUSH AUTHORIZED WAR CRIMES!
April 03, 2008 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

"A sad day for the American Bar (Association)...
Pre-meditated & Carefully orchestrated Torture Program"





and also from Keith Olbermann here is a related piece dealing with the Geneva Conventions & whether or not they apply to America:




Professor McCoy Exposes the History of CIA Interrogation at DemocracyNow!
Thanks to University researchers & psychologists working with the CIA .
American soldiers have become among the best in the use of torture
and the horror continues . The psychologists at these torture centres helped to identify phobias and other ways in which a particular detainee was vulnerable. These psychologists and others assisting in torture are as culpable as the torturers according to the Nuremberg Laws.
But being like any other nation ruling over a vast Empire the American leaders and their administrators and legal staff and their generals see themselves as the makers of laws and therefore not subject to international laws or agreements .



What is disturbing is that torture is being sold to the American and Canadian people as an acceptable technique of interrogation and as a means to terrorize 'detainees' and the enemy populations . The latter part of this is done in more subtle ways and is not as explicit but these experts know that many people consciously or unconsciously find the idea of torturing the enemy as in itself as comforting. This is just part of human nature. And those in power , in government or the military or the CIA or university academics are quite willing to appeal in subtle ways to our baser natures. It is no wonder that Hillary Clinton mocks anyone who actually tries to do the right thing. When confronted by those in power one should merely negotiate to get the best deal possible. The problem with the Hillary Clinton mindset is that if everyone had thought like her women would still not be allowed to vote and racial segregation would still be the law in the Unite States . And there would never be any changes made for the better in our society .The issue for her , I guess, is that she is not going to lose a night's sleep over the torture of one detainee or a thousand detainees or over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis because of an illegal and immoral war which she thought was best for American Oil Interest and as a way to show the world who's the boss.

This is also why Hillary Clinton attacks Barack Obama for all his talk about diplomacy because she wants to rule America in the same way previous presidents have and that is that American Presidents never approach another country with humility but rather American Presidents are strong and Macho and demand whatever it is they want from another country.In her view to do otherwise is a sign of weakness. She also like Senator McCain and the Religious Right pray to a God of wrath, vengeance and war. Their notion of Jesus is some white middle class guy heaven forbid he be a Semite either Arab or Jewish who was a true believer in capitalism and the Free Market Place and had visions of Mega-Wall Marts in every nation nay every city upon the earth and meanwhile condemned the poor and the meek and instead proclaimed a Gospel of the successful and the rich...That is the I believe the True Americanized Jesus far from meek and mild or humble ...

and so it goes,
GORD.

Tribute to Salvadore Allende with Music by Quilapayun

anyway here's a little video I put together . It is a tribute to Salvadoe ASllende for his life , his idealism, his hopes and dreams and his heroism.
The music is by Chilean folk group Quilapayun.

American Empire : Howard Zinn

I'll Explain Some Things
by Pablo Neruda


Then one morning flames
Came out of the ground
Devouring human beings.
From then on fire,
Gunpowder from then on,
From then on blood.
Bandits with airplanes and Moorish troops
Bandits with gold rings and duchesses
Bandits with black monks giving their blessing
Came across the sky to kill children
And through the streets, the blood of children
Ran simply, like children’s blood does.

Jackals that a jackal would reject
Stones that a dry thistle would bite and spit out
Vipers that vipers would hate!

I have seen the blood
Of Spain rise up against you
To drown you in a single wave
Of pride and knives!

Generals
Traitors
Look at my dead home
Look at broken Spain –
But from each dead house
Burning metal shoots out
Instead of flowers.
From every shell-hole in Spain
Spain will rise.
From every dead child a rifle with
Eyes will rise.
From every crime bullets will be born
Which will one day find a place
In your hearts.

You ask “Why doesn’t your poetry
Speak to us of dreams and leaves
Of the great volcanoes of your native land?”
Come
See the blood along the streets
Come see
The blood along the streets
Come see the blood
Along the Streets!

---------

Once again we are reminded that the so-called Great Society we have built for ourselves comes at a price. The main price seems that we must not think too much ; if we think we may begin to question and to question merely leads to uncovering disturbing facts about our leaders and ourselves and our total disregard for those whom we help day in and day out oppress. So we give our conscience a nice little funeral and then go on with our lives knowing that our lives are far more important in the scheme of things than the lives of those in the countries we invade & conquer & exploit.Besides if we hold the odd Benefit concert and give to charities such as the Red Cross this eases our conscience if we still have one. As the philosopher Leo Strauss has taught our generation Altruism is irrational and self-defeating since it is a dog eat dog world so to hell with those who are suffering its just none of our business.

By Howard Zinn, Tomdispatch.com. April 2, 2008.

Have justifications for empire begun to lose their hold on our minds?

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe's "sole superpower" is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an "empire lite" has proven increasingly light-headed. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can't seem to make a move in its own interest that isn't a disaster. The Iraq government's recent offensive in Basra is but the latest example with -- we can be sure -- more to come.

In the meantime, the fate of that empire, lite or otherwise, is the subject of Howard Zinn today at Tomdispatch, and of a new addition to his famed People's History of the United States. The new book represents a surprise breakthrough into cartoon format. It's a rollicking graphic history, illustrated by cartoonist Mike Konopacki, that takes us from the Indian Wars to the Iraqi "frontier" (with some striking autobiographical asides from Zinn's own life). It's called A People's History of American Empire. It's a gem and it's being published today.

...You can view an animated video, using some of the book's art, with voiceover by none other than Viggo Mortensen at the link below:

If it doesn't work go to YouTube or the link below.

AlterNet:Howard Zinn: The End of Empire?

And to add insult to injury there are even more things rotten in the American Empire as we discover from documents leaked to Wikileaks which show that the prisons in Iraq are inhumane and are a crime in themselves. Though of course Westerners probably think such conditions are justified to teach the Muslim and Arab masses who their masters are . After all their natural resources and their labor and their very lives belong to us and we will treat them anyway we wish. Most Westerners in fact as Howard Zinn and others point out would just as well not want to know what occurs in the Colonies just as long as the oil keeps flowing.


Unbelievable" Abuse Reigns in Iraqi Jails

by Jeffrey Kaye, Invictus April 1, 2008.

While Bush and his media toadies tout Anbar province as a "success" story for the "surge," conditions in the city jail reveal a different reality.

Released last week by Wikileaks, and seen for the first time

Confidential memo from Maj. Gen. Kelly, commander of US forces in western Iraq (MNF-W, or Multi-National Force -- West), written in late February 2008. Privately verified by Wikileaks staff and not denied or contradicted by MNF-W when questioned by UPI's national security editor, Shaun Waterman.

WIKILEAKS: Classified memo from US Maj. Gen. Kelly confirms Fallujah Gulag

February 18, 2008
The Dungeon of Fallujah by Michael J. Totten

FALLUJAH – Next to the Joint Communications Center in downtown Fallujah is a squalid and war-shattered warehouse for human beings. Most detainees are common criminals. Others are captured insurgents – terrorists, car-bombers, IED makers, and throat-slashers. A few are even innocent family members of Al Qaeda leaders at large. The Iraqi Police call it a jail, but it's nothing like a jail you've ever seen, at least not in any civilized country. It was built to house 120 prisoners. Recently it held 900.

The guard opened the first door and walked right in. He didn’t even slow down. I gingerly stepped inside and found myself surrounded by children. They lounged on the floor. Some stood up when they saw us.

What the hell?

“This is the room for minors,” Sergeant Dehaan said. “They're treated better.”

They are? The cell was the size of my living room. Two dozen children lived in this place. They slept on the floor on blankets and had no personal space whatsoever. The kids were grubby, but they didn't appear beaten down or even in bad spirits necessarily.

“Some of them are related to wanted men,” he said.

150 men were smashed together in a single windowless room the size of my house.

“This is the biggest cell,” Sergeant Dehaan said.

No kidding.

There was no furniture. Most men sat on blankets and carpets. A few near the door cautiously stood up to greet us, but they did not shake our hands. They seemed slightly wary, and had a weird look of innocence on their faces, almost like the kids in the previous room who really were mostly innocent.

EMPEROR BUSH BOOED and Another Innocent Ex-Detainee Talks About Years of Torture and Abuse

From My Lai to Haditha & the Rape of Fallujah

The My Lai Massacre, was the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), mostly civilians and the majority of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Before being killed some of the victims were raped and sexually molested, beaten, tortured, or maimed. Some of the dead bodies were also mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War. Lt. William Calley was the officer in charge. Many believed Calley to be a true American hero who did his duty . Do they also include rape and mutilation as being the acts of brave heroic soldiers . And now it has been carried on as an American tradition in The occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan. Are these representative of the superior values of Western Civilization. If so then maybe we are doomed.

Bush Met with Boos at Washington Baseball Game
The YouTube user of this video Criticizes people for Booing but what else are people to do- Their votes don't mean much or are not counted or they are turned away at the polling stations- in two rigged elections. The Media in America is not interested in the truth or questioning Bush's policies or actions. So the Media is defacto pro-Bush and the Status Quo.
Note the announcer ignores the booing , goes on to praise Bush and then mentions 9/11
RULE FOR AMERICAN MEDIA : never miss a chance to invoke 9/11







And once again we hear the story of another ex-detainee who was and is innocent but was turned over to American authorities probably just for the bounty ( $3000 ). Millions of Westerners will discount his story since his parents were Turkish and he was studying to be a Muslim. Being Muslim according to many people in our bigoted paranoid society means you are a liar and by nature a terrorists and are devious and cunning . These stereotypes have been applied to various groups over the centuries from Jews to blacks to Gypsies to all Asians or Native Americans .

As I have said before since it is no longer acceptable to be anti-semitic or to be anti-black or anti-Asian people in our society needed a group to replace these various peoples as the " outsiders" or " Scapegoats " and so have found a new group to foist their hatred upon . Anti-Semitism was always reprehensible as are all forms of racism and bigotry.

But now according to those in power it is ok to hate all Muslims and all Arabs or all Iranians or Syrians etc. In the United States it is even ok to hate all the citizens of France since the French wouldn't join the US in fighting in Iraq. It is even seen as acceptable to try to undermine Barack Obama's campaign by accusing him of secretly being a Muslim . That such a labeling of Obama is to be taken seriously and even denied shows how far this form of bigotry and racism has come.Of course this accusation came it appears from the cynical and dirty campaign of Hillary Clinton.Would the tactic work as well if they discovered he was brought up as a practicing Jew or Hindu, or Buddhist etc.

It appears that Americans really do need as Obama has suggested to take a long look at themselves and at their racist and bigoted history and whether or not they wish to go beyond it and begin forging a new more tolerant and open society where there is justice for all and not just for white Middle Class and rich Americans. When it comes to the super-rich the racial lines do sometimes blur a bit. Though even wealthy black Americans tell stories of being pulled over while driving by the police for no particular reason and being treated a bit roughly and without any respect. But it is difficult for White Middle Class Americans to come to terms with such realities since they see themselves as representing the best that there is in America and therefore by extension in the world . Again like the Romans and the British and a hundred other Empires before them they see themselves as superior to all other peoples and nations.

As this report below from 60 minutes about another wrongfully accused detainee once again shows is that some one's innocence means nothing in our present climate of fear and paranoia. In the so-called War on Terror anything goes. Our society seems to have accepted torture as an acceptable practice. The TV show '24 ' has helped to convince millions that torture is effective and that one can get credible intelligence by the use of torture. The experts other than Dick Cheney and George Bush argue torture is not an effective tool for gaining information. The only reason for torture is to terrorize individuals and to send a message to one's enemies that they will be treated with no regard to human dignity or according to international law and agreed upon standards . What one wonders is what are these supposed ideals we are supposed be fighting for.

We should also remember that if we take a look at the end of the nineteenth century we see that the big fear that governments especially in Europe were warning everyone about were the Anarchists, the Communists, the Socialists, the evil Feminists and evil Pro-Labor groups and the Anti-Monarchists etc. The belief of the ruling class was that all of these people whether they were fighting for a woman's right to vote or to pass laws preventing the exploitation of child labor or that workers be paid a decent wage and that workers be permitted to join labor unions or that orphans not be treated as criminals or as a source of cheap labor etc. But this is the world which many conservatives long for believing that it was an ideal age where the rich and the middle class were able to live as they should and that the lower classes kept their opinions to themselves .

One of the issues is that of the ethics of the participation in the torture process by a doctor , a physician an MD . But isn't A physician supposed to be one who heals or at least does no harm . Doesn't torture go against the Hippocratic Oath of a doctor to do no harm or is that another ideal which people once believed in which is now characterized as an old fashioned quaint notion . Shouldn't that doctor be ashamed of himself . Will that doctor like those at the Nuremberg Trials merely claim that he was just following orders .

But seriously shouldn't the American Medical Association or other organizations representing American Physicians condemn any physician who takes part in torture. This should also go for other professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists or Nurses or paramedics etc. But of course when one is a citizen of the United States then the laws applicable to other nations are not applicable to you. As we are told again and again Americans are exceptional and therefore the rules which are applied to average human beings do not apply to them. They are like the Romans a race set apart or more like the Spartans a militaristic savage race who believe in duty and following orders who believe not in justice but in revenge and that Might is Right.



Its like Lt. Calley at My Lai in Vietnam who claimed he was just following orders. But of course many Americans at the time of Calley's trial saw him as a hero. What a hero he was he didn't hesitate as he could look into the eyes of a 90 year old Vietnamese woman or a two year old child and then use his M16 to blow a hole through their skulls because they supposedly had given aid or comfort to the enemy . When those soldiers who took part in this " ACTION "( term used by Nazis) were they raping and mutilating bodies in the name of the USA and their all loving merciful God or their blood thirsty God. Ah well it led to the deaths of approximately 2,000,000 ( two million ) human beings though to those who supported the war these were not people " Just Gooks" undeserving of life as it were.

As for My Lai see link above -

Now we have American soldiers committing such atrocities against the Iraqi people on an almost daily basis and American are proud when an American soldier rapes and kills ,As George Bush Sr. said that he would " not apologize for what America/ or Americans has done no matter what the facts are " and as Arundhati Roy has further pointed out that ). So Americans are allowed to do whatever the Hell they want and no one on earth has right to judge them and God they believe has given them permission to do as they see fit .

And who were the enemy well it seems by the end of the Vietnam War almost all South Vietnamese were America's enemies. Well of course they were for how can a people regard an invading force that destroy thousands of hamlets, villages and towns who carpet bomb whole areas of your country back into the stone age while murdering innocent men women, and children . At the same time America backed an unpopular corrupt puppet regime in South Vietnam. Sounds a lot like Iraq . All Iraqis it appears have become the enemy and the American people just see the Iraqis as ungrateful. But over a million Iraqis are dead and most of their towns, villages and cities and their suburbs have been decimated - they look as bad as London after the Blitz but no matter . The propagandists at Fox News and CNN etc. and the New York Times and the Washington Post have convinced most Americans that most Iraqis lived in mud huts and rode camels and never heard of Television or Telephones or Computers. So when some reasonable reporter tries to explain to Americans how the basic infrastructure (i.e. schools, hospitals, highways, water and sewage treatment plants were destroyed during " SHOCK AND AWE ") had been destroyed the average American pays little attention and that's exactly how Bush, Cheney , Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and even Hillary Clinton want Americans to think. That is to say that Iraqis are a primitive people who never heard of flush toilets let alone computers who ride around on camels .



So here's the story of German Citizen Murat Kurnaz who caught tangled up in America's world wide sweep for Terrorists.

Ex-Terror Detainee Says US Tortured Him/CBS News/ Sunday 30 March 2008

Tells "60 Minutes" he was held underwater, shocked and suspended from the ceiling.

At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.

The story Kurnaz told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is a rare look inside that clandestine system of justice, where the government's own secret files reveal that an innocent man lost his liberty, his dignity, his identity, and ultimately five years of his life.
Kurnaz told 60 Minutes his story using the English that he learned from his American guards. If he seems a little distant, reserved, you'll understand why as his story unfolds. It begins in 2001, when he was at the end of that trip to Pakistan. He was headed to the airport to fly home to Germany when his bus was stopped at a routine checkpoint.

"They stopped the bus and because of my color, I'm much more different than Pakistani guys," says Kurnaz, who is lighter-skinned. "He looked into the bus and he knocked on my window."

"He" was a Pakistani cop who pulled Kurnaz off the bus. The reason Kurnaz was singled out may always be a mystery. But at the time, the U.S. was paying bounties for suspicious foreigners. Kurnaz, who'd been rambling across Pakistan with Islamic pilgrims, seemed to fit the bill. Kurnaz says that he was told that U.S. intelligence paid $3,000 for him. He ended up bound and shackled on an American military plane.

"I was sure soon as they would find out I'm not a terrorist, they will apologize for it and let me go back home," he says.

But the plane flew him out of Pakistan and to a U.S. base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was mixed with prisoners fresh off the battlefield. His new identity was "number 53." He was kept in an outdoor pen, in sub-freezing weather and interrogated daily.

"They asked me, 'Where is Osama bin Laden,' and if I am from al Qaeda or from Taliban. Questions like that. I told them, 'I don't know where is Osama bin Laden, I never saw him and I don't know anything about al Qaeda. I don't know what it is.' And I spent all my time in Pakistan," he says.

Asked what happened next, Kurnaz says, "I told them just they can call Germany to ask who I am and they can ask anybody in Germany who I am."

...And Kurnaz claims his interrogations at Kandahar turned to torture. He told 60 Minutes that American troops held his head underwater.

"They used to beat me when my head is underwater. They beat me into my stomach and everything," he says.

"They were hitting you in the stomach while you're head was underwater so that you'd have to take a breath?" Pelley asks,

"Right. I had to drink. I had to ... how you say it?" Kurnaz replies.

"Inhale. Inhale the water," Pelley says.

"I had to inhale the water. Right," Kurnaz says.

Kurnaz says the Americans used a device to shock him with electricity that made his body go numb. And he says he was hoisted up on chains suspended by his arms from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar for five days.

"Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down. And the doctor came to watch if I can still survive to not. He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart. And when he said okay, then they pulled me back up," Kurnaz says.

"The point of the doctor's visit was not to treat you. It was to see if you could take another six hours hanging from the ceiling?" Pelley asks.

"Right," Kurnaz says.

"I suspect you know that the U.S. military will deny this happened. The U.S. military will deny that you were shocked. It will deny your head was held in a bucket of water. It will deny that you hung from a ceiling for days at a time," Pelley remarks.

"Doesn't matter whatever they will say. The truth will not change," Kurnaz says.

After six weeks in Afghanistan, Kurnaz was loaded onto another plane, this time bound for Guantanamo. The Pentagon labeled the prisoners "unlawful enemy combatants." They didn't have the rights of prisoners of war and were beyond the reach of any court.

At Guantanamo Kurnaz says he endured endless months of interrogations, beatings at the hands of soldiers in riot gear, and physical cruelty which included going without sleep for weeks and solitary confinement for up to a month in cells that were sealed without ventilation or were set up to punish him with extreme conditions.

"It's dark inside. No lights. And they can punish you in isolation by coldness or by the heat. They have special air conditioners over there. Very strong. They can turn it very cold or very hot," Kurnaz says.

He says it went on year after year, always the same questions about al Qaeda, and the endless effort to break his will. He heard nothing from the outside and wondered whether anyone knew that he was there.

----
" and so it goes " as Mr. Vonnegut would say.

GORD.