This is the time to support our troops. Those are the young men and women that we put in harms way to fight battles for us.
We need to speak up and make damn sure that the BATTLES we send them to fight have just cause and are NOT based on lies, deceiption, hubris, or empire building.
We need to speak up for HUMAN RIGHTS for all and against torture and death committed by US. If we have such a "Christian" president, why is he NOT following the teachings of Jesus. Why do we have such a HYPOCRITICAL EVIL Government?
Now that we've "broken" Iraq and Afganistan, we have to mitigate the damage caused. But "fixing" it is providing for a level of security that the country can rebuild commerce, infrastructure and government.... That means we should SUPPORT our TROOPS by prosecuting any Corporation that STEALS from Iraq/Afganistan/US and that sends mercenaries to the war zone with an attitude that they are above or outside of the law ... be it the Geneva Convention or just plain human decency.
We also need to focus on the Good that is done and be careful to direct our ANGER at evil, mismanagement, etc. where it is due.
From the NYT and elsewhere..... Excusing and trying to hid this has GOT to stop if our country is to have ANY honor or decency.
On torture:
Pictures from Abu Ghraib showed naked prisoners being stacked like cordwood and mocked by female guards — and there's worse stuff in Pentagon files that Congress has decided not to allow out of its locked vaults. There have been confirmed reports from Guantanamo of beatings, shacklings, and lighted cigarettes being stuck in prisoners' ears. 36 prisoners have died during interrogations. The Red Cross wrote detailed reports documenting abusive conduct in Iraq and was laughed off. The officers reponsible for overseeing abusive interrogations weren't punished, they were lauded for their work and transferred to other prisons. Hardened FBI agents wrote emails expressing their disgust at what they had seen. Innocent men have been tortured to death in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The White House counsel wrote memoranda justifying torture as an inherent right of the president. Rendition of suspects to other countries that have long histories of torturing prisoners is routine. Reports of Koran desecration have been circulating for a long time, and recent investigations have confirmed that mockery of religious symbols is common. The Red Cross warned the Pentagon about this years ago.
On fraud, stealing and looting by US corporations:
Lawyers for Custer Battles argue that the False Claims Act - the prime legal tool against contractor fraud - does not apply because the company signed contracts with the Coalition Provisional Authority, not the American government, and was mainly paid with Iraqi money seized or managed by the United States, rather than with money appropriated by Congress.
Lawyers for the whistle-blowers and the Justice Department argue that the law does apply. All sides agree that the case will set a precedent and that the stakes are high, and not only for Custer Battles.
"This is an important case because there are a lot of companies over there with poorly constructed contracts and little oversight," said Steven L. Schooner, an expert on procurement at the George Washington University Law School. "The potential for chicanery is great and the potential universe of whistle-blowers is mind-boggling."
In a court hearing on the issue on May 12, a senior Justice Department official warned that if companies could not be held accountable under the False Claims Act, they might not be accountable to anyone.
The Coalition Provisional Authority disappeared in mid-2004, after decreeing that contractors could not be held liable by Iraqi courts. So if the United States cannot bring suit against fraudulent contractors, "who could do that?" asked the official, Michael F. Hertz of the Justice Department's Civil Division.
We are all in this together, willingly or NOT ...
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