Media Patrol~ past days major stories...

I hope that this finds you all doing & feelling well!
Here's a summary of the past few day's major stories & political news...
Lot to keep up w/!! Thought some of you might enjoy reading this... :D

Take care, stay safe & be peacefull!
**~sending all my healing energy & loving kindness~**
--naughty knotty ganja girl



The Washington Post calls Defense Department memos documenting Red Cross concerns about the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners, "one of the most complete pictures to date of life behind the 'wire' at Guantanamo."
The New York Times profiles a military lawyer who is aggressively defending a Yemeni man being held at Guantanamo: ''I had expected that if we were going to use these tribunals, we were going to start with some very hard-core Al Qaeda members," says Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift. "Yes, he had driven for bin Laden, but how did that make him a criminal?''

"Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly," reports the Telegraph. The article quotes attorney Scott Horton as saying, "The biggest bombs in this case have yet to be dropped."

Newsweek reports that a battle between the CIA and the FBI over post-9/11 interrogation techniques extended into the White House, which is "one reason the prison abuse scandal won't go away... a long paper trail of memos and directives from inside the administration has emerged, often leaked by those who disagreed with rougher means of questioning."

The Washington Post has posted the August 2002 Department of Justice memo that suggests torture of terrorist detainees abroad "may be justified." It has also made the March 2003 memo that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, available in html.

A list of 100 potential witnesses drawn up by defense attorneys preparing for Pfc. Lynndie England's upcoming hearing, includes both Vice President Cheney and the inmate in the iconic photo of the abuse scandal. And the New York Times reports that interrogators at Abu Ghraib claim that they began reporting allegations of abuse last November.

The Times also reports on the U.S. military's "zero for 50 record in strikes on high-value targets" during the early days of the Iraq war. A report issued last December by Human Rights Watch said the failed "decapitation strategy" killed dozens of civilians.

Faith-based argument doesn't fly, as a Muslim U.S. Army Sergeant with 18 years of service is reportedly sentenced to 14 months confinement and given a bad conduct discharge for refusing to deploy to Iraq.

The Red Cross says Saddam and other POWs must be released or charged by June 30 when the U.S. occupation of Iraq officially ends.

The Washington Post reports that "Iraq's new government has been resisting a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law..." Plus: 'Come to hell with Halliburton - the pay's good.'

The U.S. Army hired private interrogators to work in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite a policy spelled out in a 2000 memo that said letting private workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize national security.

"NOW" interviews the director of the group that filed a racketeering suit against two U.S. companies involved in interrogations at Abu Ghraib. The transcript also includes a report on House Majority Leader Tom Delay's fundraising efforts and an interview with AP CEO Tom Curley, about his plan to fight government secrecy.

Curley refers to a Washington Post article about federal agencies contracting out the handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, prompting Bill Moyers to ask: "So they're privatizing public access to the government?" Earlier: 'Public Information, Private Profit?'

Secretary of State Powell blames "a numbers error" for a 2003 State Department report incorrectly showing a decline in terrorism. "It's not a political judgment that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in."

Reports that the Pakistani military killed more than 70 al-Qaeda-linked militants in five days of fighting, and that U.S. Marines killed more than 80 Taliban insurgents over a three-week period, coincide with Afghan President Karzai's appearance on "Meet the Press," where he said that elections scheduled for September will go ahead as planned. Earlier: Karzai 'The Negotiator.'

President Bush lobbied the Vatican to encourage U.S. bishops to be more outspoken on cultural issues, particularly gay marriage, according to a column in the National Catholic Reporter. "It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is," said Rev. Barry Lynn, of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Plus: Schoolchildren remain free to pledge "one nation, under God."

In eulogies delivered at Ronald Reagan's funeral, George H. W. Bush "described Reagan in almost exclusively secular terms," writes Dana Milbank, while President Bush "spoke at length of Reagan as a religious figure."

Jimmy Breslin offers a modest proposal for memorializing Reagan, Bush's reelection campaign says it has no plans to use Reagan in campaign ads, and a 'Mourning in America' commemoration includes the promise of something for everyone.

Although President Bush is said to have told aides that he wants to spend his next four years being "a peace President," a group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, that includes several appointed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, says it plans to issue a statement this week arguing that Bush has "damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November."

June 11-13

The Washington Post reports that statements by military dog handlers at Abu Ghraib, that they were ordered to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations, "provide the clearest indication yet that military intelligence personnel were deeply involved in tactics later deemed by a U.S. Army general to be 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.'" Plus: 'Missing Iraqis believed to be lost in Abu Ghraib.'

On Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported that a list of interrogation techniques approved for Guantanamo in December 2002, included "fear of dogs." The article says it isn't clear whether rules on an April 2003 list that replaced it "were applied to military prisons in Iraq or elsewhere. But some of the practices disclosed this year at Abu Ghraib... resemble methods" on the 2002 list.

The Abu Ghraib photos are now "obscuring the story far more than they once illustrated it," writes Josh Marshall. "In fact, the prison abuse and torture story itself has become a perfect example of how two separate media storylines -- ones that clearly contradict each other -- can coexist and yet seemingly never cross paths." Are they about to cross paths?

In what TalkLeft calls "a resounding rejection of the government's ambitious use of the Patriot Act," an Idaho jury acquitted a Saudi graduate student who set up and ran Web sites that prosecutors said were used to recruit terrorists. Plus: A British expat describes her life inside the Kingdom.

CorpWatch reports on the awarding of a $293 million "cost-plus" contract to London-based Aegis Defense Services Ltd., to coordinate security for all Iraqi reconstruction projects, calling the contract "a license to over-bill" that will effectively create "the world's largest private army."

The article is accompanied by a profile of the controversial head of Aegis, former SAS commando and "freelance adventurer," Col. Tim Spicer. "I am doubtful that the folks awarding the contract had any sense of Spicer's spicier history," said "Corporate Warriors" author, Peter Singer.

Singer is also quoted in 'Contracting Justice,' a Mother Jones report on how private contractors are "getting away with -- not to say cashing in on -- criminal behavior" in Iraq, where not a single civilian contractor, including those said to be responsible for abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, has been charged with any crime by the U.S. Justice Department.

'Corporations on the Couch' Ted Nace reviews the companion book to the film, "The Corporation," in which Joel Bakan "finds a trait-by-trait match between the standard actions of corporations and the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath." Read an excerpt and an interview with Bakan.

The WSWS reviews Paola di Florio's "Home of the Brave," a documentary about Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman killed during the civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s -- "gunned down by a carload of Ku Klux Klan members, one of whom was an FBI informer."

"Democracy Now!" interviews "Ghost Wars" author Steve Coll, on 'How Reagan armed the mujahadeen in Afghanistan,' and Slate's Fred Kaplan uses Coll's "magisterial" book, along with recently declassified documents, in arguing that Reagan 'turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.'

'Pennies From Heaven' "I've been watching the coverage of my funeral and, Peg, seriously, I don't recognize the guy you're all talking about." Plus: One of the U.S. media's "more depraved moments?"

In 'Reagan worship,' Eric Boehlert writes that "this week's uncritical treatment of the 40th president is a natural culmination of what has been going on for the past quarter of a century... this week has been the 1980s redux...It's morning again in America -- on a feedback loop." The article was initially titled 'Reagan porn.' Plus: 'Epitaph and Epigone.'

Writer who penned the Boston Globe's obituary on Reagan says, "I wrote it so long ago that the bit about the Alzheimer's had to be inserted into it."

A tale of two cemeteries: one organic, the other refined.

Act Three A research firm commissioned by the Bush administration to analyze the Clear Skies Act, its plan to lower emissions from coal-fired power plants, has issued a study finding that the administration's plan is weaker than two competing legislative proposals.

Sen. John Edwards' recently-formed One America Committee "has an unstated mission," reports the Boston Globe, "to help Edwards emerge as the most attractive choice for vice president... More than any other potential number two, Edwards is waging a passive-aggressive bid for the vice presidency."

Interviewed by Pat Buchanan in American Conservative, Ralph Nader vows he won't drop out, and asks conservatives to send a "message" against corporatism by voting for him, but a Salon article says Nader's Republican backers exist only in his mind. The Hill characterizes Rep. Dennis Kucinich's continuing role in the presidential campaign as "protecting Kerry's left flank" from Nader.

Brief summary - lot's reasons to boot out Halliburton's puppet government.

Looking across the pond it seems you have the same dilema as we in the UK do. Nobody really wants either of the two main parties but they think the third choice is a wasted vote. We all know the multi-national companies fund the main parties and therefore own the main parties. And we're all sick of it. But marking that third box is just too hard.

I've voted Labour all my life but they don't speak for me anymore. From now on I'm voting Liberal. The third choice. I know Michael Moore agrees with Nader. Good enough for me.

peace :)

I think labour are loosing so far about time to there bullshit lettin all the imigrants in to our country its boosts the crimes rastes its not good a lot of people dont like blare and im one of them look at the taxes and the price of petrol is there any need to boost the prices on everything ??