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Quote of the Day (Crazy Guantanamo Stories Edition)
By last summer, staff were pointing to Butter Pecan flavored Ensure as popular with the chair-shackled captives. Flavor made no difference going down, one nurse explained, but a captive could taste it if he burped later.
The Miami Herald (and the great Carol Rosenberg, who has stone cold journalisted the heck out of the Guantanamo story)
Sigh. A country that was
Sigh. A country that was serious about war would put these guys in front of a firing squad, not spend $3mill a year to "meet their cultural and dietary needs''. A country that does not have a "cultural need" to kill the enemy and win the war is a country destined for the rubbish heap of history.
Here's another good quote:
Here's another good quote: the author of "Threatening Storm" (the notorious collection of lies about Saddam's WMD program that was used by neocons to sell the war in Washington policy circles), Ken Pollack, is back in the news on Iraq:
Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, a frequent visitor to Iraq at the invitation of General David Petraeus and his successor General Ray Odierno, dismissed the idea of giving the former US military role in Iraq to the State Department and said Kahl's assessment of security trends was far too optimistic.
Some officials were talking "as if we're on the five-yard line," Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor. "We're on more like the 40 - and it's probably our 40."
Pollack argued that the US had great influence in Iraq, which it must use for "persuading" Iraqi leaders to do various things. If the US troop presence ended in 2011, he argued, that US power would suffer.
Translation: It was always a good idea, and if we don't seize control of Iraqi oil - that is, keep our installed puppets in the central government in line - then U.S. national security will suffer.
This is rabid nonsense, and it's an open question as to whether this agenda serves American interests, Israeli interests, or Iranian interests - certainly, American interests are at the bottom of that list, but Pollack is the director of the Saban Middle East section at Brookings, so he answers directly to the Israeli lobby - I mean, that's who really pays his salary. Israel is worried about Iraq and would like to keep the U.S. troops there, so Pollack is probably lobbying on their behalf.
In any case, all indications are that U.S. combat troops will be re-deployed to Iraq after the mid-term elections - perhaps 10,000 or so, along with 75,000 private contractors controlled by the State Department, all part of the ongoing effort to convert Iraq into a tool of Wall Street and London oil traders - that's the "noble cause" that all those soldiers and civilians died to achieve.
"Silent No More", the oral
"Silent No More", the oral history on the Alamo Scouts is progressing nicely and it is planned that the book will be available in time for V-J Day (Sept. 2, 2010) or Columbus Day at the latest. But as long as we’re still getting information, we’re not going to stop writing.
http://www.alamoscouts.org/news/online_nl_Jan2010.pdf
So I guess the jalapeno ice
So I guess the jalapeno ice cream is out?
Bummer.
Some other quotes on Iraq
Some other quotes on Iraq worth remembering at this "historic moment"
The UN, Colin Powell, 2002:
"First, biological weapons. One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents. Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails."
"In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War."
"The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died from exposure to biological agents."
"This defector is currently in hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him."
"We know what the fermenters look like, we know what the tanks, pumps, compressors,and other parts look like. We know how they fit together. We know how they work. And we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted."
"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."
In support of this, Powell named a selection of dubious sources, culminating in Chalabi's INC fabricator, Mohammed Harith. All of this was fabricated nonsense, as subsequent events demonstrated.
The main selling point for Powell's speech was that the U.S. had been attacked with powdered anthrax weapons - but those weapons were made by the U.S. biological threat assessment program, under CIA and DIA control, by most estimates - at any rate, neither Saddam nor Al Qaeda had anything to do with that.
However, who was he relying on? The CIA and their White Papers - but not just that, a selective reading of the material. The CIA's Iraqi Families Program, which produced no evidence of biological weapons programs (or nuclear or chemical) was ignored, for example.
Ken Pollack, as an ex-CIA agent, would have certainly known of the results of the Iraqi Families program - but there's no mention of that in his book, is there?
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