Ramblings and Opinons of an old man!
Simple site to log thoughts on current events and activity. Please feel free to give your comments.
Jaspan is editor-in-chief of The Age, Australia's most Left-wing daily newspaper, and on ABC radio on Wednesday said how 'boorish' and 'coarse' Wood was at his press conference this week when he called his captors 'a---holes'.
You might wonder whether Jaspan, the Englishman whose paper on that same day published a big picture on page one of naked girls from Big Brother, has the right to call anyone else 'coarse'.
Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a long-time Amnesty International staff member. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet 'prisoner of conscience' adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the 'gulag of our time'.
'Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?' I asked him. 'Sure,' he said, 'but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees.'
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There is ample reason for Amnesty to be critical of certain US actions. But by using hyperbole and muddling the difference between repressive regimes and the imperfections of democracy, Amnesty's spokesmen put its authority at risk. US human rights violations seem almost trifling in comparison with those committed by Cuba, South Korea, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
CNN.com - Graham kicks off last U.S.crusadeNEW YORK (AP) -- Despite illnesses that have diminished his once powerful voice and left him frail, the Rev. Billy Graham vowed to preach each night of his final American crusade.
He kept that promise Friday night, the start of a three-day event at a city park that marks the completion of his six decades of mass meetings.
WASHINGTON - Despite growing anxiety about the war in Iraq, President Bush refused to set a timetable Friday for bringing home U.S. troops and declared, 'I'm not giving up on the mission. We're doing the right thing.'
Having equated the conduct of American soldiers serving as prison guards at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) finally apologized on the Senate floor this week.
Well, sort of. As apologies go, it was nothing to write home about.
"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,'' he said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.''
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A party with a real conscience would still insist on removing him from his leadership post.
Army Gen. George Casey then injected himself into the debate.
'As the commander in Iraq, I would like to put myself on the record, Senator Kennedy, as saying that I also agree with the secretary that to represent the situation in Iraq as a quagmire is a misrepresentation of the facts,' Gen. Casey said. 'Senator, that is not a quagmire.'
'I explained to Allstate that the article was a reflection of my personal Christian beliefs, and that I had every right to both write it and to have it published,' Barber told WND. 'I further explained that I had written the article while at home on my own time, that I never mentioned Allstate's name and that I neither directly nor indirectly suggested that Allstate shared my Christian beliefs or my views on same-sex marriage.'
Three days later, on Feb. 3, Barber, who had worked for Allstate for five years, says he got a call informing him he was fired 'for writing the article,' he said. Now, with the help of the Christian Law Association and David Gibbs III, who represented Terri Schiavo's family in the final weeks of her life, Barber is challenging Allstate in federal court.
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Said the agency's report: "The claimant was discharged from Allstate Insurance Company because an outside organization had complained about an article he had written while on his own time."
The state agency also ruled Barber did not engage in misconduct, saying, "The term misconduct means the deliberate and willful violation of a reasonable rule or policy of the employer. … In this case, the claimant's action which resulted in his discharge was not deliberate and willful."
SEOUL - A high-level North Korean delegation headed home today after rejecting South Korean pleas for a commitment to return to international nuclear disarmament talks.
Despite the nuclear impasse, the two Koreas agreed during two days of high-level reconciliation talks to restart reunions of families separated by their border, and to hold meetings in coming months to boost economic and military cooperation.
But at the same time, the communist North dealt another setback to disarmament efforts, lashing out at President Bush for meeting with a prominent defector.
Arguably, no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent and received more scrutiny than Guantanamo. There have been numerous visits from members of the news media, congressional representatives and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Last year, the Department of Defense declassified highly sensitive memorandums on interrogation techniques. Unfortunately, they were documents that are useful to terrorist operatives, but we posted them on the Internet specifically to set the record straight about U.S. policies and practices.
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It is important to remember that the purpose of detaining these enemy combatants is not to punish them for committing a crime, but to gain intelligence about terrorist operations and to prevent them from attacking again. We have gained intelligence at Guantanamo that have stopped terror attacks and saved American lives.
Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support. (source)He and democratic supporters are attempting to spin his comparison of US Military Personal to Nazis with the "that is not what I meant" defense -- that is what you said -- "which make no mistake has been done since the Military is in charge of these camps".
Durbin had said Thursday that he had never brought U.S. soldiers into the comparison in the first place, and that he was criticizing the approved interrogation methodsSenator in your lust and your parties lust to "get President Bush" you have disregarded all caution, disregard what harm comments made in you "lust to get Bush" could cause to this nation or our military, OR you are just stupid -- either way you have no right being a US Senator and should resign immediately.
Some 50 rebels have been killed and another 100 captured since the start of a joint US-Iraqi offensive in western Iraq, the US military says.
It reported no military or civilian losses since Operation Spear began on Friday, but Iraqi doctors spoke of at least 10 civilian deaths.
The operation - involving some 1,000 troops - aims to root out rebels and foreign fighters on the Syrian border.
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation by a vote of 221 to 184 proposing wide-ranging reforms of the United Nations. The bill, which was opposed in its current form by the Bush administration, calls for mandatory reductions of up to 50 percent in U.S. contributions to the United Nations.
TIKRIT, Iraq -- A 37-year-old staff sergeant will face charges in the deaths of two superior officers, the military announced Thursday in the first case in which a U.S. soldier is accused of intentionally killing comrades in Iraq.
The announcement came amid persisting violence in Iraq against U.S. and Iraqi security forces. Eight Iraqi police officers were killed in a car bombing on Airport Road in Baghdad, and the U.S. military reported the deaths of five Marines and a sailor in violence in western Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez of the 42nd Infantry Division was charged Wednesday with two counts of premeditated murder in the June 7 attack that killed Capt. Phillip Esposito, 30, and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, 34.
Martinez, a National Guardsman from Troy, N.Y., was a supply specialist in the division's Headquarters and Headquarters Company. Esposito and Allen were that unit's top two commanders.
'My view is that marriage should be defined as a relationship between a man and a woman,' Mr. Romney said at a news conference, adding, 'I hope that this amendment will ultimately be the one which the citizens have an opportunity to vote on.'
RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. aircraft and ground troops launched heavy attacks on Iraqi insurgents on Friday near the city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, local residents and the U.S. military said.
'Operation Spear ... began in the early morning hours with the objectives of rooting out insurgents and foreign fighters and disrupting insurgent support systems in and around Karabila,' Captain Jeffrey Pool of the U.S. Marines said in a statement from Ramadi, capital of the surrounding Anbar region.
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.
