This Can't Be Happening!

Enough is enough. It’s time to free John Walker Lindh, poster boy for George Bush’s, Dick Cheney’s and John Ashcroft’s “War on Terror,” and quite likely first victim of these men’s secret campaign of torture.

John Walker Lindh "not tortured" in US captivity in Afghanistan

For some time now, many Americans have wondered how Congress, the elected body that the nation’s Founding Fathers saw as the bulwark of liberty, could have been so thoroughly unwilling to, or incapable of challenging the dictatorial power-grabs and the eight-year Constitution wrecking campaign of the Bush/Cheney administration.

There has been speculation on both the far left and the far right, and even among some in the apolitical, cynical middle of the political spectrum, that somehow the Bush/Cheney administration must have been blackmailing at least the key members of the Congressional leadership, most likely through the use of electronic monitoring by the National Security Agency (NSA).

I’ll admit that (even though we know J Edgar Hoover did keep a dirt file on members of Congress to help him support his budget allocation each year) I considered the idea of blackmail a bit far out. But now suddenly there is at least some evidence that such seemingly wild speculation may not have been off the mark

If the day comes that Congress finally does its duty and begins an impeachment effort against 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, the former Bush assistant attorney general who in 2002 authored a key memo justifying the use of torture against captives in the Afghanistan invasion and the so-called “War on Terror,” it would be fitting punishment to watch him squirm as his own words as a judge were played back to him.

President Obama deserves credit for breaking the half-century-long taboo in American politics of dealing with Cuba, and meeting with Raul Castro, Cuba’s current leader. He also deserves credit for dealing in a friendly manner with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

But what is this crap about “talking with” our enemies or with countries that have been “hostile” towards us?

Back in 1965, as a 15-year-old kid, I had a chance to spend half a year as a student at a boy’s gymnasium (high school) in Darmstadt, the cultural capital of the German state of Hesse, which had the distinction of having been one of a handful of cities in Germany (Dresden was another) that were selected by the Allies to test out the terror tactic of firebombing. The town was chosen for incendiary bombardment precisely because it had no military value and thus, no air defenses (and because it consisted mostly of wooden structures).

As you’re mailing out that tax return again this year, it’s time to remember once again how much of your hard-earned bucks are being devoted to destruction, imperialist domination, slaughter and war, to funding ridiculous programs like the failed anti-missile system, and also to supporting a massively bureaucratic and overstaffed military.

Reading the latest AP report on how American citizens are being snatched up, detained and deported (sic) by the Immigration and Naturalization Service has reminded me just what a screwed up place this country has become.

Ever since September 11, 2001, the country has simply lost it.

By Charlie Ehlen

As a former US Marine/Vietnam veteran, I agree with your position
on this 100%. Americans need to see what war does to all those caught up in it.

War is the most pornographic thing we humans have ever
devised. It is nasty, brutal, obscene, and vile. There is no glory in war.

Wars are fought, basically, in a garbage dump. Think of it: there are
the waste materials of the food containers, and spent shells all over
the area. You live in this shit during any war. It is inescapable. I

When I was a 17-year-old kid in my senior year of high school, I didn’t think much about Vietnam. It was 1967, the war was raging, but I didn’t personally know anyone who was over there, Tet hadn’t happened yet. If anything, the excitement of jungle warfare attracted my interest more than anything (I had a .22 cal rifle, and liked to go off in the woods and shoot at things, often, I’ll admit, imagining it was an armed enemy.)

A Colorado TV station is reporting that interviews with some of the six jurors in the unfair dismissal court case filed by University of Colorado Professor and Native American activist Ward Churchill against the university reveal that five of the six wanted to award him $150,000 in damages after establishing unanimously that he had been improperly dismissed by the school.

Reportedly one lone juror held out for a minimal $1 dollar symbolic award and ultimately, because they "wanted to go home," the rest of the jurors conceded the point.