Letter Never Sent

I, for one, would still refuse to go. Maybe that’s the point, but I’m still not sure I like it.
Rangel calls for mandatory military service:

In October, he voted against a joint resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. It passed 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate.

“When you talk about a war, you’re talking about ground troops, you’re talking about enlisted people, and they don’t come from the kids and members of Congress,” he said.

“I think, if we went home and found out that there were families concerned about their kids going off to war, there would be more cautiousness and a more willingness to work with the international community than to say, ‘Our way or the highway.'”

Massive US buildup continues, inspectors find no arms

Kinda cool. Not cool that people died, but cool that people inside a corrupt government can betray it. It’s hopeful.

Guardian:

Russian security services yesterday began an urgent investigation into their forces in Chechnya, after it was revealed that the truck driven by three suicide bombers into the government building in the capital, Grozny, killing at least 57 people, bore Russian military plates.
As rescuers were still combing the wreckage for survivors, Chechen government sources said both vehicles that ploughed through the gates of the most tightly guarded building in the country had passed through three military checkpoints on their way to Grozny.

The vehicles, the heavier of which bore Russian military plates and caused the greatest number of casualties by speeding a ton of TNT into the canteen during the lunch hour, had been driven from the Nadterechny district in northern Chechnya and passed unimpeded to Grozny.

December 12, 2002; In 1999, a Russian firm, AviaConversia offered for sale four different models of GPS jammers (for about $4000 each). This gear only puts out 4-8 watts, making them very tough to find and bomb. And the jammers can effectively block GPS signals out to 150-200 kilometers, depending on terrain. The jammer can run off batteries and weighs between 18 and 26 pounds (without batteries). When operating, the jammers consume less than 25 watts of power. Since AviaConversia announced their product, plans for building your own (from off the shelf components) have appeared on the Internet. Apparently, the parts can be obtained for less than a hundred dollars. Soldering skills required. Already assembled units are also available on the Internet for as low as $40. AviaConversia has since apparently disappeared. AviaConversia made much of its connections with the Russian armed forces and the implied assurance that its jammer worked. There have been no reports of the cheap jammers on the Internet being used, or to what effect. U.S. military experiments found that the cheap jammers were not that effective, and larger ones, built from off the shelf components, and costing nearly $10,000. For the last few years, the Department of Defense has been building and testing GPS Jammer detectors, and building homing systems sensitive to go after them. Other nations, such as Australia, have also been working on ways to defeat jammers. One method already available is to change the GPS frequency. But someone with access to the GPS satellites has to do this.

I came across an article in the Washington Post about the methods of torture employed by the US Government and how they skirt provisions in our laws to get away with torture.

Free from the scrutiny of military lawyers steeped in the international laws of war, the CIA and its intelligence service allies have the leeway to exert physically and psychologically aggressive techniques, said national security officials and U.S. and European intelligence officers.

Although no direct evidence of mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. custody has come to light, the prisoners are denied access to lawyers or organizations, such as the Red Cross, that could independently assess their treatment. Even their names are secret.

This month, the U.S. military announced that it had begun a criminal investigation into the handling of two prisoners who died in U.S. custody at the Bagram base. A base spokesman said autopsies found one of the detainees died of a pulmonary embolism, the other of a heart attack. …

According to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often “softened up” by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep. The tone of intimidation and fear is the beginning, they said, of a process of piercing a prisoner’s resistance.

The take-down teams often “package” prisoners for transport, fitting them with hoods and gags, and binding them to stretchers with duct tape.

Bush administration appointees and career national security officials acknowledged that, as one of them put it, “our guys may kick them around a little bit in the adrenaline of the immediate aftermath.” Another said U.S. personnel are scrupulous in providing medical care to captives, adding in a deadpan voice, that “pain control [in wounded patients] is a very subjective thing.” …

Jordan is a favored country for renditions, several U.S. officials said. The Jordanians are considered “highly professional” interrogators, which some officials said meant that they do not use torture. But the State Department’s 2001 human rights report criticized Jordan and its General Intelligence Directorate for arbitrary and unlawful detentions and abuse.

“The most frequently alleged methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions and extended solitary confinement,” the 2001 report noted. Jordan also is known to use prisoners’ family members to induce suspects to talk.

The Voice of America is really disgraceful. The propaganda is so thinly concealed in their unsigned ‘editorials’ which are probably written by entire committees of psyops personnel. For example, in an ‘editorial’, 12/19/02 – STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONS IN IRAN – Editorial #0-10321:

The protests reflect the growing impatience of the people of Iran. They want genuine democracy, not a regime manipulated by reactionary clerics. Hard-line Islamists are a minority in Iran’s parliament. But they control the police, the judiciary, and the Guardian Council. And no act of parliament can become law without the council’s approval.

Or, maybe the growing impatience of the US government? And, the choice of words: reactionary, genuine democracy (Iran is at least now a Republic in name. This is doubly ironic since the US supported the prior authoritarian government under the Shah)

Results of recent elections demonstrated that the people of Iran want political reform and an end to repression. A poll found that nearly seventy-five percent of Iranians favored dialogue with the United States.

What poll? Who funded it?

The demand for political reform is not only being made in the streets, but in the parliament as well. Rajabali Mazrouei [rah-jah-bah-lee mahz-roo-ee], leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, told fellow members of parliament: “If you believe people support you, then let’s hold a referendum and allow people to determine [their] fate.”

Sure, everyone knows elections are never manipulated or gamed. It happened here, it can certainly happen in Iran. I’m sure the Iranian government is pretty undemocratic. That’s one of the problems with mixing church and state. Religious authority is used for political purposes. That’s just another reason why we should not be funding so-called faith-based initiatives.

The U.S. stands with the people of Iran in their quest for freedom, civil liberties, prosperity, judicial due process, and the rule of law. Iranian officials are fully aware that these calls are genuine and come directly from the hearts of their own citizens. The U.S. looks to the Iranian government to be accountable to its people and respect their aspirations for freedom.

A tad hypocritical in a time where our own government has abrogated many such ‘civil liberties’, freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution.

I saw this article today about an American soldier being killed in Afghanistan.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — An American soldier died of gunshot wounds after suspected al Qaeda militants fired on a patrol unit in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Saturday morning, the U.S. military said.

Ok, what exactly makes an Al Quaeda militant? I’m really frustrated that more actual information isn’t given in the news. Has Al Quaeda just become this umbrella name for any Muslim or Arab who opposes the American government? Americans who send money to Islamic charities who oppose Israel are considered Al Quaeda. Afghans who want independence from the US are labeled Al Quaeda. Do we know for a fact that Al Quaeda even exists? If so, how do we know? The word itself means simply, “the base” or “the foundation” which is insanely vague. How can we trust what we’re being told? The truth is we cannot. The only thing we can know for certain is that the World Trade Center collapsed after two planes flew into it. Everything else is smoke and fog.