Hearts and Minds

Losing the War of Public Opinion

Double Gitmo, or Double Super-Secret Gitmo
So apparently having a legal black hole in Guantanamo, and CIA 'Black Sites' around the globe where we can do whatever we want in horrid secrecy weren't enough. We had to combine the two!

Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.



For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7.

You got your Orwell in my Kafka! You got your Kafka in my Orwell!

Meanwhile, it seems like we really got the inmates to run the asylum down there.

"Not everybody, even within the Joint Task Force, has access or even knowledge of where Camp 7 is," said Army Col. Bruce Vargo. As commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, Vargo is responsible for the camps holding 260 detainees. But not for Camp 7.


...


For his part, Vargo said he is preoccupied by the possibility of an al-Qaida attack on Guantanamo.

"Although we are trying to be open, security is paramount," he said. "I mean, if you can fly a plane into the towers, you can attack Guantanamo if that's what you choose to do. It's something I think about on a day-to-day basis."

Yes, they're going to hijack planes and fly them into their own people.

They really have that much time on their hands.

Source: Raw Story

Hail Britannia
So apparently, in England, you're not supposed to bug Ministers of Parliament.

Unless, of course, the MP is a Muslim.

Britain is in a state of uproar following the revelation that Scotland Yard secretly bugged conversations between a Muslim member of Parliament and one of his constituents, who is in prison and facing extradition to the United States.

Babar Ahmad is accused of running a US-registered website in the late 90's that raised funds for the Taliban and for Chechen militants. He is being held by British authorities pending deportation, although there are no charges against him in that country.

Ahmad's childhood friend, Sadiq Khan, has campaigned actively against his extradition. Their conversations, which were recorded when Khan visited Ahmad in prison in 2005 and 2006, included sensitive information about the anti-extradition campaign.

Khan is a prominent member of Parliament, described by the Times as "a rising star in the Labour party and ... a key figure in Gordon Brown's drive to win the hearts and minds of Britain's Muslims."

Oh yeah, so spying on him is going to go over really well.

Before his election to Parliament, Khan was known as an activist lawyer who had brought a series of controversial malpractice cases against London police. There are suggestions that "ill feeling" on the part of the police might have caused him to be singled out for the bugging, which violates a long-standing official policy against eavesdropping on members of Parliament.

Ooh, a dirty Muslim LAWYER.

GET IM BOYS

Source: Raw Story

Democracy In Action
So the story goes something like this. For reasons known only to themselves and God, the Marines decided to set up a recruitment center in downtown Berkeley, California. Also known as the Liberalest Place on Earth.

The city council responded by allocating protestors a parking spot right next to the recruitment center, so they'd have a really convenient place to put their vans o'giant signage, puppets, what have you. They also passed some resolutions supporting the protestors.

So far, even the Marines at the center don't have a problem with any of this.

"The fact that there are protesters out there and that the City Council has made those comments indicates that they are using their right to free speech that is guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution," said Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin, a Marine Corps spokesperson.

Enter Republican Congressman Jim DeMint, from South Carolina. DeMint has put a sort of negative earmark in some federal legislation, stripping Berkeley of, amongst other things, money for a ferry service and a poli-sci department at the local university.

Because, if you don't support the war, you don't deserve transportation or education, I suppose.

DeMint (R-Head Up His Ass) seems to have entirely missed the point about this whole free speech thing. But that's not terribly surprising; he is a Republican from the South, after all.

Maybe Berkeley can get Sgt. Franklin to talk to him. Nah, what am I thinking. She must be another one of those 'phony soldiers' the Republicans love to go on about.

Source: The Daily Californian

A Good Police State Starts at Home
This story comes out of the state of Ohio, where we already know your right to vote is rather negotiable. Now it seems that your rights as a crime victim are coming into question.

Steffey's ordeal with the Stark County sheriff's deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey's driver's license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister's license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That's when the situation became complicated.

"Hope was not treated as a victim," her lawyer told WKYC News. "The officer said to her 'shut up about your dead sister.'"

Tactful, aren't they? It of course gets worse.

Eventually, Steffey was arrested and taken to the Stark County Jail, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But once in custody, her attorney says seven jail workers, male and female, forcibly removed Steffey of all her clothes, including her undergarments, while she lay face down in handcuffs. Local news footage shows Steffey wailing, asking "What are you doing?!?"

"And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?" said Steffey's lawyer. "What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim."

The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.

So, for presenting the wrong ID, she gets abused, stripped, battered, and confined naked in a cold cell while they withhold medical treatment. Niiiice.

Although the sheriff's policy requires officers conducting any strip search to be of the same sex, the sheriff contends that the tactic used on Steffey was not actually a strip search. He also questions the validiy of the events leading up to Steffey’s arrest.

So, Sheriff, if not a search, why did they strip her naked?

Personal amusement? Are your staff all hardcore Abu Ghraib fans?

And what the heck does it matter WHY she ended up at jail that night; the fact is, you tormented her, stripped her, and confined her, with no even remotely plausible reason offered, as if there could be a good one to start with.

Uggh. These people are truly disgusting monsters.

Source: Raw Story

Appease This
Just to show that the government isn't the only party trying to take away free speech rights, we have another group of angry Islamists trying to censor any depictions of Mohammad. This time, they're going after Wikipedia.

An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks because of its representations of Muhammad, taken from medieval manuscripts.

...

A Frequently Asked Questions page explains the site’s polite but firm refusal to remove the images: “Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.”

The notes left on the petition site come from all over the world. “It’s totally unacceptable to print the Prophet’s picture,” Saadia Bukhari from Pakistan wrote in a message. “It shows insensitivity towards Muslim feelings and should be removed immediately.”

The neutrality position is a laugh, considering how Wikipedia has been known to crack down with an iron fist on viewpoints they don't like, but at least in this instance, it's appropriate. I'm sick and tired of hearing from religious groups that media they don't like need to be banned. Radical Catholics want to ban tv ads with nuns, Radical Protestants want to ban video games with gay people in them, Radical Muslims want to ban pictures of a dead man who heard voices and thought they were God.

I wish they could all go crawl in their little bunkers and die quietly so the rest of us can get on with the 21st century.

Paul M. Cobb, who teaches Islamic history at Notre Dame, said, “Islamic teaching has traditionally discouraged representation of humans, particularly Muhammad, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent.” He added, “Some of the most beautiful images in Islamic art are manuscript images of Muhammad.”

The idea of imposing a ban on all depictions of people, particularly Muhammad, dates to the 20th century, he said. With the Wikipedia entry, he added, “what you are dealing with is not medieval illustrations, you are dealing with modern media and getting a modern response.”

Interesting historical facts to be sure. But not a useful counterargument to these censors. Mine goes something like this:

"Come take our books/paintings/videogames/what have you, if you think you're hard enough!'

Source: The New York Times

Vintage Phoenix Takes My Money News

So Close To a Complete Marvel Zombies Collection

Only Black Panther #27 to go and I have every issue either in hardback or single issue. Huzzah!

Phillip Agee and the non-Kage Baker Company
So Phillip Agee, the ex-spy who wrote a tell-all book on the CIA that exposed many of its less savory assets to public scrutiny in the 70s, has died in Cuba after illness.

His legacy is an odd one. Aside from a law banning ex-spys and government types from doing just what he did, which Scooter Libby et al broke on Valerie Plame without consequence, he certainly put a wrench in some of our CIA activities in that era... which were almost universally bad, bad things.

On the other hand, he's spent much of his later years as something of a mouthpiece for the Cuban government, which is neither as bad as Americans think, nor as good as they themselves profess. Odd for a civil libertarian, at least a supposed one, to become a shill for a country without a great record on liberty.

He apparently has been making his money arranging trips for Americans to Cuba in spite of the embargo. I approve of this as well, but on the whole, the guy seems sort of skeezy.

Ah well. Life goes on, for the rest of us at least.

Full Disclosure: I had a great-uncle who was CIA and supposedly had his career ruined by Agee's book. The family still thinks this is a horrible scandal. From what they've also told me about his 'work', I can't say I agree.

Source: Raw Story

Fox Noise: Factually Challenged
So on primary day in New Hampshire (Motto: A Rifle in Every Hand, We Matter Every Four Years), Fox ran a story saying that Paul Begala of CNN had joined the Clinton campaign, based it seems on anonymous sources. Without calling him to confirm it.

Ok, not a great practice, but not a huge deal?

Turns out the story was false, so Begala contacted Fox to tell them so, tell the 'journalist' in particular that he was not joining the campaign.

They refused to retract it, saying their sources were, err, better than Begala. They then added to the story, expanding it by saying he'd been on a conference call with the Hillary camp. That he hadn't.

Fox's official response to Begala's request not to, er, lie about him?

After I told Fox it wasn't true -- and this is the surreal part -- they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox's Garrett told me he'd "take it under advisement." Take it under advisement? I realize I'm generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it "under advisement."

Fox Noise, ladies and gentlemen.

Source: The Huffington Post

Do I Own Anything Orange?
The ACLU wants Americans to wear orange to protest the sixth anniversary of our legal netherworld in Guantanamo.

I guess I'll be making a run to Target for a nice orange t-shirt.

Source: Talk Left

Hillary Hecklers
From before the primary, some hecklers who apparently think because Hillary is a woman, that she should iron their clothes.

I don't own any clothes to iron. Or an iron. But if I did, I'd get punched a lot for trying to make the roommate do it for me.

Source: Raw Story

More Ballot Wackiness
So it seems in New Hampshire, people have very short attention spans, and will tend to vote for the name at the top of the list slightly more just because it's there.

Keep in mind in the primary this list is like 6 lines long.

Until this year, they solved this problem by having different ballots at different polling places, same candidates, different order. Studying the returns at these places is what allowed some political sciency guy to determine that the top listed viable candidate gets a 3% boost from being there.

This year, they went by random letter alphabetical order; the alphabet started at Z and wrapped around. Hillary was thus the first 'viable' candidate listed.

As the article notes though, Obama didn't lose by a 3 point swing; he lost by like a 12 point swing from early polling. Many theories are being advanced, including the old 'white guilt' one, where supposedly white voters lie in the entrance/exit polls because they don't want to be seen as voting against the black guy.

Shrug.

Whatever the case, just another random oddity of elections, and people who hate to read and yet turn out to vote. Yes, I know, there's bound to be a slight psychological effect on undecideds just seeing the name first. But if you're undecided, don't go vote! Yeesh. Random voting does not actually help the process.

Source: Raw Story