Above: Christopher Hitchens voluntarily gets waterboarded.
Believe me! It's torture! (Vanity Fair)
NPR: Waterboarding: A Tortured History
Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban
What kind of nation have we become, under Bush & Cheney??? Everyone who isn't against this torture, I WISH I WISH you get waterboarded! Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you!!!
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today released thousands of pages of documents related to Navy investigations of civilians killed by Coalition Forces in Iraq, including the cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. Released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the ACLU filed in June 2006, these records provide a vivid snapshot of the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths in Iraq.
"At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "Our democracy depends on an informed public and that is why it is so important that the American people see these documents. These documents will help to fill the information void around the issue of civilian casualties in Iraq and will lead to a more complete understanding of the prosecution of the war."
ACLU Releases Navy Files On Civilian Casualties In Iraq War
The ACLU today released documents regarding Navy investigations of civilians killed by coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report notes that the administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost” of the wars. Some of the key findings:
– Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas
– Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort
– Inviting U.S. journalists to “embed” with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review
– Erasing journalists’ footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan
– Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.
ACLU: Pentagon made ‘unprecedented’ effort to hide human cost of war.
The New York Times revealed in April that the Pentagon also had used a domestic propaganda program to paint a rosy portrait of the war effort.
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
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In Democracy NOW! headlines, we find this story:
Unattended NY Psychiatric Patient Dies in Emergency Room
Back in the United States, the treatment of psychiatric patients is coming under new scrutiny following the release of surveillance video showing a mentally ill woman dying in a psychiatric emergency room after being left unattended. The woman, Esmin Green, is shown toppling to her knees before collapsing on her face. A full hour passes before she is attended to by passing hospital employees and found to have died. Kings County Hospital officials have also been accused of altering Green’s medical records to downplay her death. Beth Haroules of the New York Civil Liberties Union criticized the hospital.
Beth Haroules: “We were absolutely appalled to receive medical documentation, kept in accordance with New York state law, that is completely contradicted by
video surveillance feeds.”
Video shows woman dying on Brooklyn hospital floor
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Disclaimer: Anymore, if I find something on 99's blog, not only am I stealing it, I'm not giving her credit anymore!
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NEPA
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