Kids In America(n Torture Camps)-Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes?

Kids In America(n Torture Camps)

Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes?

By Ted Rall


30/05/08 "ICH" -- - LOS ANGELES--In last week's column I cited New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau as a prime example of what ails us: reporters who don't report, a.k.a. journalists who love the government too much.

When Lichtblau found out that the Bush Administration was listening to Americans' phone calls and reading their e-mail, he decided to hold the story. Instead of fulfilling his duty to the Times' readers and running with it, he asked the White House for permission. By the time the NSA domestic surveillance story finally ran, 14 months had passed--and Bush had won the 2004 election.

Again, in a May 17th piece bearing the headline "FBI Gets Mixed Review in Interrogation Report," Lichtblau is running interference for the government. "A new Justice Department report praises the refusal of FBI agents to take part in the military's abusive questioning of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan," begins the article, "but it also finds fault with the bureau's slow response to complaints about the tactics from its own agents."

"Abusive questioning." "Harsh interrogation tactics."

According to the Justice Department report, "routine" treatment of Guantánamo prisoners--witnessed by the FBI--includes "bending the detainee's thumbs back and grabbing his genitals." Military and CIA torturers chained detainees' hands and feet together for as long as a full day, "left to defecate on themselves." They terrorized them with dogs, stripped them and made them wear women's underwear and subjected them to blaring music, freezing cold and searing heat.

Torture. Such a simple word. Why not use it?

Lichtblau's "mixed review" appellation notwithstanding, the report by the Justice Department paints a shocking, uniformly negative portrait of a federal law enforcement agency whose officers react to appalling conduct with the Nuremberg defense--"I was just following orders."

"Indeed," reported U.S. News & World Report, "time after time, the report concludes that FBI agents saw or heard about numerous interrogation methods--from sleep deprivation to duct-taping detainees' mouths to scaring them with dogs--that plainly violated their own agency's code of conduct." (Not to mention the Geneva Conventions.) Rather than report their scruples to someone who might raise hell and put a stop to the systemic torture at Gitmo and other U.S. concentration camps--i.e., the public--FBI agents turned to the criminals. Just like Lichtblau did with domestic spying.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20009.htm

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The war on tots is not a game
that’s played to pass the time,
It is a war of all that’s good,
which we are, versus them!
We went to war
when tots attacked…oh now
you shake your head!
If facts are truth, you can’t deny
try deny it to the dead!

We were attacked on 911
well covered by your tv
The Fox on CNNBC did well,
shaking that cash cow tree…!
(But there, you see, they go again,
shaking the old cap-stand!
Since few are against the War on Tots
allow us a little laugh…!)

Our fighting men, so brave so few
Go everywhere for peace
Making free a world at war
but some yet try appease!

We must support the war on tots
If we’re going to stay on top
And as nits make lice, otherwise
Lousy wars cost way too much!

The proof is in the bible …
a mighty army on the move
Confronts a bunch of dirty tots
when one of ours steps forward!

Goliath was so strong, extreme
faced boy David, but look who won!
The War on Tots is ours to lose
A lesson finally learned!

Wars aren’t right, but must be fought
who attacked on 911?
Lihop, Mihop, a few other questions
will be answered, not that it matters?
(But let’s address the conspiracies
the theororist’s global whining,
if they were true, then why are so few
up in arms, and protest marching!)

Bleeding hearts assume all tots
prefer splashing pools to firefights,
But Goliath fell, he lost the war
- IED or a slingshot stone
- took unfair advantage of the game
And the size of the fallen mighty!

Our needs are mighty, and never ending
Blair Bush Harper, military spending,
around the world they confront resentment
Political Correctness ties their hands
(while enabling the other!) who must
then be dealt aggression…

We strike hard at nests of vipers
Shock and Awe and bloody diapers
war’s not for the Faint of Heart
The wars on tots we DID NOT start!

CNNBC the Fox
reports the truths we paid and bought
Though liberals try hide that truth
(about the War on the Terrible Twos)
The media soothes, no news, good news!
Up is ‘down’ in a world gone belly up…

Do your duty, fall in line
call-in, talk radio tells it Right,
the War on Tots is out of style
but Bush Harper remain defiant,
BushyTail news tells ALL, “You’re Goliath’
and these poor Davids are ‘but a child…!”