Water Boarding-It's Not Torture, It's HARSH TREATMENT...DUHHHH

So, the Pentagon has released a now defunct memo wherein it is explained that the President's power usurps even God's power in a time of war, and authorizes torture as long as the original intent was not to torture? Did you follow that reasoning? We did not intend to waterboard that detainee, things just kind of got out of hand...you know, like at a toga party, shit just happens.

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago Article Here

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Tuesday made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President Bush's wartime authority trumps any international ban on torture.

The Justice Department memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas — so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captors.

Even so, the memo noted, the president's wartime power as commander in chief would not be limited by the U.N. treaties against torture.

Protestors Upstage Olympic Passing of Torch

First, Lou Dobbs, President Bush and others are missing the boat in saying it would be unfair to our atheletes to BOYCOTT the Chinese Olympics...some things are far more important than sporting events, including taking a stand in favor of HUMAN RIGHTS. If our American atheletes are concerned about more than COMMERCIAL ENDORSEMENTS, they themselves should boycott the Olympics. Free Tibet should be a rallying cry heard around the world, and we can play smash mouth football against China by ruining their Olympics in the name of human rights and Tibet...problem is, Bush has no balls. Kuddos to those brave protestors who successfully stole the spot light during the passing of the torch to China.

See Story here.

Bush War On Terror Takes Hit in Pakistan

When President Pervez Musharraf cracked down on PRO-DEMOCRACY citizens in Pakistan, locked up members of the Supreme Court, and slews of attorneys, the Bush administration did nothing, continued to throw their support behind iron fisted Musharraf. That fatally flawed stupidity by Bush's Diplomatic Corp (Condi Rice) is now costing America, will perhaps devastate the war on terror.

Sharif tells US envoys Pakistan will scrutinize tactics against Islamic militants

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A key figure in Pakistan’s new government told two top U.S. envoys today that his country is "no longer a one-man show" and that President Pervez Musharraf’s strong-arm tactics against Islamic militants will be scrutinized.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s comments came as Musharraf swore in a loyalist of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as the head of a new civilian government.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher arrived in Islamabad early Tuesday, held talks with Sharif, then visited Musharraf at the presidential palace. They made no public comment on the talks. The envoys also met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the chief of the military’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said.

Tibet Update, Call For Bush To Boycott Games

The situation in Tibet continues to spiral out of control as Communist China flexes its muscle while George W. Bush stands idly by twiddling his thumbs. How about taking decisive action, acting like a WORLD LEADER by announcing to the world that America is officially withdrawing from China's Olympic games, and challenging all Democracies of the world to follow suit. Meanwhile, below are some breaking articles from Reuters.

Venezuela's Chavez blames U.S. for Tibet unrest

24 Mar 2008 03:57:42 GMT

Source: Reuters

CARACAS, March 23 (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez blamed the United States for violent protests in Tibet during the last two weeks that he said were aimed at trying to destabilize China.

In comments reported by his press office on Sunday, Chavez said the protests were an example of the U.S. "empire" "going against China" and trying to divide the Asian powerhouse.

Communist China has occupied Tibet, a Buddhist region previously ruled by monks, since a military invasion in 1950.

At least 19 people were killed after protests and rioting against the occupation broke out on March 10.

China has been widely criticized for a crackdown against the demonstrators ahead of August's Olympic games to be held in Beijing.

Tibet exile government says 130 killed in protests

24 Mar 2008 09:53:45 GMT

Source: Reuters

DHARAMSALA, India, March 24 (Reuters) - The Tibetan government-in-exile has raised its confirmed death toll from clashes between Chinese authorities and Tibetan protesters to 130, a spokesman said on Monday.

"It's 130, mainly from eastern and northeastern parts of Tibet," Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the government-in-exile, told Reuters. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

Human Rights Watch has called for the Chinese government to:

• lift its lock-down of all Tibetan areas, including allowing full media access;
  
• account for the missing and dead from this month's protests;
  
• publish the names of all individuals detained and their places of detention; and
  
• give immediate access to independent monitors who can investigate whether detainees are being tortured or mistreated.

BREAKING NEWS...American Death Toll Hits 4000

Just in from CNN...a bomb has claimed the lives of four American soldiers, bringing the death toll in President Bush's wrong sighted Iraq War to 4,000. More details as they become available. There is a bittersweet justice in the number 4,000 being reached on Easter...this blog asks all readers to pray for those troops that are wrongfully being kept in harms way in Iraq.

Updates-Soldiers were killed this morning in a roadside bombing, another IED attack on our troops. Today has been one of the MOST VIOLENT since the surge started as insurgents attacked at will throughout Iraq.

Michael Ware reports from Iraq that this mile marker is devastating, especially coming just after America marks the five year Anniversary of Bush's wrong war. His take is that our troops have to be demoralized with the fact there is NO END IN SIGHT in this war. He classifies this mile marker as a "Chilling Moment". He went on further to state that the number of Iraqi deaths is conservatively 80-100,000 with another 4 million Iraqi's displaced.

Press Release From StudentsFor a Free Tibet

AS CHINA INTENSIFIES CRACKDOWN, TIBETANS DEMAND INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE EXCLUDE TIBETAN AREAS FROM TORCH RELAY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Their Link
March 18, 2008

Contact: Lhadon Tethong in Dharamsala, India, +91-9805-237-015
Tenzin Dorjee in New York, +1-646-724-0748
Matt Whitticase in London, +44-7515-788-456

AS CHINA INTENSIFIES CRACKDOWN, TIBETANS DEMAND INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE EXCLUDE TIBETAN AREAS FROM TORCH RELAY

New York/London – As Tibetans in Tibet brace themselves for an increased crackdown by Chinese military forces after passing the so-called “surrender deadline” Monday night, Tibetans and supporters worldwide are increasing pressure on the International Olympic Committee to immediately withdraw Lhasa, the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan provinces of Amdo and Kham now annexed into China's Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces from the Olympic torch relay route. Despite growing reports of arbitrary arrests, house-to-house raids, killings, and even beatings of schoolchildren, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) stated on Saturday that preparations for the Mount Everest leg of the torch run were “proceeding very smoothly and according to schedule.”

“China must not be allowed to parade the Olympic torch through Tibet while hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tibetans are tortured and brutalized in Chinese detention cells,” said Matt Whitticase, of Free Tibet Campaign. “Unless the IOC wants the Olympic Torch to become a symbol of bloodshed and oppression, they must immediately withdraw all Tibetan provinces from the Olympic Torch relay route.” The Torch Relay begins in Greece in six days.

In a letter faxed on Saturday to the International Olympic Committee and hand-delivered today by Tibetans during a rally in Lausanne, Switzerland, 150 Tibet support organizations – under the umbrella of the International Tibet Support Network – demanded that the IOC "immediately remove Tibet from the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay route." They also called on IOC President Jacques Rogge to make a public statement of concern about the current situation in Tibet. Over 3,800 people have faxed letters to the IOC echoing these calls since Saturday.

“As we hear reports of Tibetan school children being beaten and arrested for peacefully calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, it is unthinkable that the IOC would continue to move forward with ‘business as usual,’” said Tenzin Dorjee, Deputy Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “The IOC is under the illusion that it can ignore China’s brutality in Tibet, but when China has made Tibet a central part of its Olympics propaganda – including running the torch up Mount Everest – silence now makes the IOC complicit in China’s ruthless policies.”

Protests continue to be reported from all corners of Tibet yesterday, including at several high schools and universities. A twenty-four hour hunger strike and protest was held by hundreds of students at the North Western Nationality University in Lanzhou. In Beijing dozens of Tibetan students at National Minorities University staged a daring vigil in solidarity with the protests inside Tibet. As the Chinese government continues to maintain a media blackout in many cities, Tibetans fear that the worst crackdown has yet to come.

Sunday's Recommended News Reads

There are many stories in the news this week that Americans should be tracking including the race issues raised in light of Jeremiah Wright's hate speech. We marked the five year anniversary of the wrong war in Iraq, and watched in stunned silence China invade Tibet, our politicians to timid to call for a world wide boycott of the Olympics in China. Below are three recommended stories in the news this week.

US deaths in Iraq approach 4,000

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=97247

Defiant China rejects dialogue, vows to smash Tibetan protests http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080322/wl_asia_afp/chinaunresttibetrights

Iraqi Shiites Given Grim Warning
Leaders Predict More Attacks as Violence Tests Sadr Cease-Fire

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032103181_pf.html

Is Dana Perino Really That STUPID?

Bush Administration Spokes Blond Dana Perino had a tough time remembering what the Cuban missile crisis was. In another dumb blond moment that gives women a bad name, she had another missile crisis on Fox News. Seems she blames her lack of knowledge on missiles on the fact she was born a girl.

"Some of the terms I just don't know," she gushed, "I haven't grown up knowing. The type of missiles that are out there: patriots and scuds and cruise missiles and tomahawk missiles. And I think that men just by osmosis understand all of these things, and they're things that I really have to work at -- to know the difference between a carrier and a destroyer, and what it means when one of those is being launched to a certain area."

Stop using your looks and sex as an excuse for your stupidity Dana, it is unbecoming.

TIme for World to Boycott Olympics?

Dalai Lama, "genuine harmony must come from the heart. It cannot come from the barrel of a gun."

We have seen the pictures and video trickling out of Tibet, have seen McCain fall short of calling for a boycott of the Olympics while speaking to the press while in Paris as he failed miserably at looking Presidential. The question all nations of the world need to be asking the important question, "Is it time to Boycott China's Olympics?"

Chinese Media: "Crush Tibet Protests"

China Says Tibet Protests Have Spread
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Did Obama Campaign Deliberately Create Passport Scandal?

In yet another very ODD set of circumstances, it seems that an insider in the Obama campaign is intimately involved in the passport scandal that swept the Jeremiah Wright story off the front page.

John O. Brennan is president and CEO of Analysis Corporation, and also advises Senator Obama on intelligence and foreign policy matters. He donated $2,300 to Obama in January. This executive just happens to be a former member of the CIA (SPOOKS), and it is his employees that just happened to sneak a peak at Obama’s passport files. Brennan had briefed the media on behalf of the Obama campaign earlier this month.

Does not take a big stretch to believe that John O. Brennan, advisor to Obama, former member of the CIA, holding a contract that gave his company access to Obama’s file decided to provide the campaign an ace in the hole scandal for a rainy day…such as the Jeremiah Wright story that was quickly derailing his run for the presidency.

Pictures From Iraq War Protests

In nothing surprising, seems many of the police holding the line at various war protests through out America acted like pigs...watched one cop on CNN for no good reason punch a protestor right in the face. Vietnam all over again...the Republican Convention might be ugly this year. I do not see protestors letting the Republicans coral them in cages this time around.

Lynndie England Blames Media

Remember Lynndie England, the Pug (as in the dog) faced woman made famous for appearing in the Iraqi Prison torture pictures? Seems she is feeling remorseful, admits that those photographs probably contributed to increased insurgent violence and anti-American feelings in Iraq. The bad news, she is not repentant in the least, does not hold herself responsible. When question about the incident by a German reporter she replied:

"I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other. I felt bad about it ... no, I felt pissed off. If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved,"

and

"Yeah, I took the photos but I didn't make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government,"

Lynndie England has taken "It's not my fault" to a whole new level.

Tibet-Where is George W. Bush and His Administration?

The Title combined with this U-Tube Video says it all.