shocker...

//\/\/ · #1 04-05-2010, 04:49 PM

Drix · #2 04-06-2010, 05:27 AM

Read about it yesterday and yes.. it's sick, but sadly not really a shock.

//\/\/ · #3 04-06-2010, 10:16 AM

(oslo? hyggelig å se en nordmann her!)

jOHN rODRIGUEZ · #4 04-08-2010, 05:16 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36243847...iner_security/

DENVER - A Qatari diplomat was on his way to an official visit with an imprisoned al-Qaida sleeper agent when he touched off a bomb scare by slipping into an airline bathroom for a smoke, officials said Thursday as the diplomat prepared to leave the U.S.

The diplomat, Mohammed Al-Madadi was going to meet Ali Al-Marri in prison, according to a State Department official and another person close to the matter. Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, is serving eight years in prison after pleading guilty last year to conspiring to support terrorism.

Al-Marri was arrested after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accused of being a sleeper agent researching poisonous gasses and plotting a cyberattack.

Consular officials frequently visit foreigners held in the United States to make sure they are being treated well.

The purpose of his visit raises further questions about Al-Madadi's behavior, such as why someone familiar with terrorism cases would apparently flaunt airline security rules. Law enforcement officials said Al-Madadi later joked that he had been trying to light his shoe — an apparent reference to the 2001 so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid.

The people who discussed the case did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

No explosives were found on the plane and authorities said they don't think Al-Madadi was trying to hurt anyone during Wednesday's scare. He has diplomatic immunity from U.S. prosecution and will not be criminally charged, authorities said.

To leave country
The State Department official said Qatar had not yet informed the administration how it will handle the case but has assured the U.S. that Al-Madadi will leave the country. U.S. officials expect that to happen later Thursday or Friday.

"We fully expect this will be resolved very quickly," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

Crowley said the U.S. government is satisfied that the Qatari government is taking the matter seriously.

Wednesday's scare came three months after the attempted terror attack on Christmas when a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom just before he allegedly tried to ignite a bomb in his seat. Since then, law enforcement, flight crews and passengers have been on high alert for suspicious activity on airplanes. That scare exposed major holes in the country's national security and prompted immediate changes in terror-screening policies.

Some air travelers at Denver International Airport Thursday were amazed that Al-Madadi would not be charged with anything.

"I think it's wrong. I'd get busted. I don't think that (immunity) should be a factor," said one of them, Hank DePetro, a retired psychologist from Greeley, Colo.

***

chuck · #5 04-09-2010, 03:10 AM

And yet - that wikileaks footage has been lost in the news that Tiger Woods is returning to play golf at Augusta.

What a fucked up pathetic petulant little species we really are.

Best write-up so far: Anticipating the Wake of the wikileaks video.

Quote:

While I am certainly no prophet, I think I am safe in saying we will see a similar reaction to the gut-wrenching footage unearthed by Wikileaks. The American people are simply too good, too just to let stand such a foul besmirching of their national honor. After all, didn't they rise up as one after the Abu Ghraib atrocities were revealed in 2004, and boldly oust the architects of these crimes in the ensuing presidential election? Didn't they take to the streets in their millions when first Bush and then Obama claimed the right to have any citizen put to death without charges or trial simply by declaring the victim a "suspected terrorist"? Didn't a great groundswell of public ire force Congress to open impeachment proceedings against George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Soviet-style gulag of concentration camps and systematic tortures -- and threaten similar justice for Barack Obama's continuation and cover-up of this system? Didn't the American people demand a national day of mourning and atonement when they realized that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis had been murdered in a war based on false pretenses and cynical manipulation?

So let us have faith in the American people. They have proven time and again in this last decade that they will not countenance crimes and atrocities being committed in their names. They will not abide leaders who unleash a war machine of blood money and blind fury against innocent people. When push comes to shove, when the truth is revealed to them, they will always -- always -- do the right thing.

Mongoose. Oh Mongoose...

We require your faux gnashing of teeth and generally angsty wailing and beating of chest over here please.... For an issue that actually is really quite fucked up.

I might go and get drunk tonight.

the mongoose · #6 04-09-2010, 12:12 PM

I was actually going to pop in here earlier in the week with an insensitive (and more or less unfunny) quip about how I thought the "No Russian" level in MW2 was pushing it, but that Infinity Ward is crossing the line with this exclusive first look at the new Predator Drone level from Modern Warfare 3. I know, I know, it was disgusting and in bad taste. I then proceeded to wash my brain out with soap after spanking it several times against the wall. Bad brain, bad!

Sean · #7 04-09-2010, 12:26 PM

Thank for the wikileaks links, and all the related info. Very troubling stuff.

the mongoose · #8 04-09-2010, 03:32 PM

http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet...e-care-us58378

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces. The hearings provided a platform for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan to share the reality of their occupation experiences with the media in the US.

Washburn testified on a panel that discussed the rules of engagement (ROE) in Iraq, and how lax they were, to the point of being virtually nonexistent.

"During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot," Washburn's testimony continued, "The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond. Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry 'drop weapons', or by my third tour, 'drop shovels'. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent."

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.

"One time they said to ﬁre on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, ﬁre on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units ﬁring on cars. This was my ﬁrst experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment."

Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take "trophy" photos of bodies.

"An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by," he said, "This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment."

Kelly Dougherty - then executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War - blamed the behavior of soldiers in Iraq on policies of the US government.

"The abuses committed in the occupations, far from being the result of a 'few bad apples' misbehaving, are the result of our government's Middle East policy, which is crafted in the highest spheres of US power," she said.

Michael Leduc, a corporal in the Marines who was part of the US attack on Fallujah in November 2004, said orders he received from his battalion JAG officer before entering the city were as follows: "You see an individual with a white ﬂag and he does anything but approach you slowly and obey commands, assume it's a trick and kill him."

Bryan Casler, a corporal in the Marines, spoke of witnessing the prevalent dehumanizing outlook soldiers took toward Iraqis during the invasion of Iraq.

"... on these convoys, I saw Marines defecate into MRE bags or urinate in bottles and throw them at children on the side of the road," he stated.

Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq from 2005-2006, admitted on one panel that units intentionally gave candy to Iraqi children for reasons other than "winning hearts and minds.

"There was also another motive," Ewing said. "If the kids were around our vehicles, the bad guys wouldn't attack. We used the kids as human shields."

In response to the WikiLeaks video, the Pentagon, while not officially commenting on the video, announced that two Pentagon investigations cleared the air crew of any wrongdoing.

A statement from the two probes said the air crew had acted appropriately and followed the ROE.

Adam Kokesh served in Fallujah beginning in February 2004 for roughly one year.

Speaking on a panel at the aforementioned hearings about the ROE, he held up the ROE card soldiers are issued in Iraq and said, "This card says, 'Nothing on this card prevents you from using deadly force to defend yourself'."

Kokesh pointed out that "reasonable certainty" was the condition for using deadly force under the ROE, and this led to rampant civilian deaths. He discussed taking part in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah. During that attack, doctors at Fallujah General Hospital told Truthout there were 736 deaths, over 60 percent of which were civilians.

"We changed the ROE more often than we changed our underwear," Kokesh said, "At one point, we imposed a curfew on the city, and were told to fire at anything that moved in the dark."

Kokesh also testified that during two cease-fires in the midst of the siege, the military decided to let out as many women and children from the embattled city as possible, but this did not include most men.

"For males, they had to be under 14 years of age," he said, "So I had to go over there and turn men back, who had just been separated from their women and children. We thought we were being gracious."

Steve Casey served in Iraq for over a year starting in mid-2003.

"We were scheduled to go home in April 2004, but due to rising violence we stayed in with Operation Blackjack," Casey said, "I watched soldiers firing into the radiators and windows of oncoming vehicles. Those who didn't turn around were unfortunately neutralized one way or another - well over 20 times I personally witnessed this. There was a lot of collateral damage."

Jason Hurd served in central Baghdad from November 2004 until November 2005. He told of how, after his unit took "stray rounds" from a nearby firefight, a machine gunner responded by firing over 200 rounds into a nearby building.

"We fired indiscriminately at this building," he said. "Things like that happened every day in Iraq. We reacted out of fear for our lives, and we reacted with total destruction."

Hurd said the situation deteriorated rapidly while he was in Iraq. "Over time, as the absurdity of war set in, individuals from my unit indiscriminately opened fire at vehicles driving down the wrong side of the road. People in my unit would later brag about it. I remember thinking how appalled I was that we were laughing at this, but that was the reality."