Revelations of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator |
| by Aaron Glantz |
| Few people have thought as much about the morality of the US occupation of Iraq than Joshua Casteel, a former US Army interrogator who served at Abu Ghraib prison in the wake of the detainee abuse scandal there. Once a cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point and raised in an evangelical Christian home, Casteel became a conscientious objector while he was stationed at the prison. It wasn't the kind of abuse shown in the famous graphic images that made him feel morally compelled to leave the military – Casteel says that kind of behavior had ceased by the time he showed up in June 2004 – but the experience of gleaning information speaking to the detainees in their own language. Those experiences, and the spiritual awakening Casteel experienced inside the walls of the prison, are contained in "Letters from Abu Ghraib", a compendium of e-mail messages he sent home from the prison, which was published last month by Iowa's Essay Press. The e-mails, compiled in a lean 118-page volume, are less concerned with the details of prison operations than their moral implications. By what right, the former interrogator asks, does one derive the authority to question prisoners as part of a military occupation? It's an important question to ask and timely too given the steady growth in the number of Iraqi prisoners in US custody over the course of its occupation of Iraq. Pentagon statistics show the US military now holds over 24,000 "security detainees" in Iraq – more than double the number incarcerated by Coalition at the time of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal four and a half years ago. US forces are holding nearly all of these persons indefinitely, without an arrest warrant, without charge, and with no right to any type of open legal proceedings. It's perhaps a mark of the failure of the United States' political and religious establishments that it falls to a US Army Specialist like Joshua Casteel to wrestle with the moral difficulties of these massive imprisonments. "Letters from Abu Ghraib" shows how the ethical failures of their leaders affect soldiers on the ground. When he first arrives at Abu Ghraib's interrogation center, Casteel tells his family he really loves his work. "I see my job much more as a Father Confessor than an interrogator," he writes, "As a Confessor you cannot coerce a person to reveal that which they wish to hide. A Confessor's aim is to help the one confessing to be sincere, to arrive at the kind of contrition that actually desires self-disclosure – and to that end, empathy and understanding go a long way." But Casteel, who prays daily and considers "keeping the liturgy with others and taking the Eucharist – Communion" to be "the most important part of the week," begins to feel uncomfortable after just a few weeks on the ground. "The weight of the job sometimes is more painfully present to me than at other times," he writes a month into the deployment. He is uncomfortable "exploiting" prisoners for their "intelligence" value rather then interacting with them as fully equal human beings. Making matters worse is that many of the detainees he interrogated turned out to be completely innocent. "I was constantly being asked, 'Why am I being held here? I want answers!'" Casteel told IPS. "But that was my job. We were supposed to be finding answers to our questions, but we kept being put into situations that were incredibly puzzling because talking to people was like trying to get blood from a turnip. They were the ones that had a greater justification for the need to have answers." Faced with such a dilemma, Casteel turns to an army chaplain for help. "We talked, I vexed and I summoned whatever strength we could conclude upon to go back to my interrogation...He prayed me back into combat," Casteel writes. "I was no longer afraid to demand authority, to play upon certain weaknesses of my detainee, and to question in a most heated fashion – because ultimately, I thought, it would lead me to a more accurate assessment of the veracity of his statements.' "I transgressed no lines of 'proper conduct,' but I certainly, and without hesitation, used a man's anxieties, weaknesses and fears, and my particular place of power and dominance to assess him according to his word...And I even left with what I thought was a clearer picture of the man I was assessing – perhaps to his benefit. So, why did I feel like a complete failure?" The answer to his question comes in October 2004, five months into his tour at Abu Ghraib. "I had an interrogation with a 22-year-old Saudi Arabian who was very straightforward that he had come to Iraq to conduct jihad," Casteel said. "We started having a conversation about religion and ethics and he told me that I was a very strange man who was a Christian but didn't follow the teachings of Jesus to love my enemy and pray for the persecuted...I told him that I thought he was right and that there was a massive contradiction involved with me doing my job and being a Christian." "I wanted to have a conversation with him about ethics and the cycle of vengeance and how idiotic it was that his people said it was okay for him to come and kill me and my people told me it was okay to kill him," he said in an interview. "Why is it that we can't find a different path together?" Since that type of conversation was not possible as a US Army interrogator, Joshua Casteel filed an application for discharge as a conscientious objector. Much to his surprise, his command endorsed it, and offered to speed his transition out of the Army. He now hopes to serve as a bridge between conservative Christians and the antiwar left. He hopes "Letters from Abu Ghraib" will "give conservative Christians an unfiltered picture of one Christian's wrestling with violence and also help the secular world get a backstage pass to the way a conservative Christian operates." Since his discharge, Casteel converted to Catholicism, attracted by the Church's tradition of "social teaching," and has worked with other like-minded Catholics to push the Church play a more active role in bringing the war to an end. He's excited his book has been assigned to students at a number of Catholic high schools in the Midwest and the former interrogator has been invited to speak at religious schools from New Jersey to Colorado. "Catholics are 30 percent of the military. They're equally 30 percent of Congress," he said. "The Vatican had a strong rebuke of the Iraq war but the Iraq war could not have happened were it not for Catholics. Christ has turned up in the people of Iraq's bodies and it's Iraq that's getting crucified and it's largely Christian America that's allowed to be prosperous in the midst of it." |
Monday, September 08, 2008
Evolution of a not-so-grand Inquisitor
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Over a million Iraqis dead, in part because of a mendacious sometimes Burger King hamburger flipper
Rafid Ahmed Alwan hoped for an easier life when he came here from Iraq nine years ago. He also hoped for a reward for his cooperation with...
NUREMBERG, Germany — Rafid Ahmed Alwan hoped for an easier life when he came here from Iraq nine years ago. He also hoped for a reward for his cooperation with German intelligence officers.
"For what I've done, I should be treated like a king," he said outside a cramped, low-rent apartment he shares with his family.
Instead, the Iraqi informant code-named "Curveball" has flipped burgers at McDonald's and Burger King, washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant and baked pretzels in an all-night bakery. He also has faced international scorn for peddling discredited intelligence that helped spur an invasion of his native country.
Now, in his first public comments, the 41-year-old engineer from Baghdad complains that the CIA and other spy agencies are blaming him for their mistakes.
"I'm not guilty," Alwan said, insisting that he made no false claims. "Believe me, I'm not guilty."
It was intelligence attributed to Alwan — as Curveball — that the White House used in making its case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He described what turned out to be fictional mobile-germ factories. The CIA belatedly branded him a liar.
His security was protected and his identity concealed by the BND, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service.
"Everything that's been written about me isn't true," Alwan repeated in an interview.
Along with confirmation of Curveball's identity, however, have come disclosures raising doubts about his honesty — much of that new detail coming from friends, associates and past employers.
"He was corrupt," said a family friend who once employed him.
"He always lied," said a fellow Burger King worker.
And records reveal that when Alwan fled to Germany, one step ahead of the Iraq justice ministry, an arrest warrant had been issued alleging that he sold filched camera equipment on the Baghdad black market.
"I never said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, never in my whole life," he said. "I challenge anyone in the world to get a piece of paper from me, anything with my signature, that proves I said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
How did the Bush administration get it so wrong?
"I'm not the source of these problems," he said.
Alwan's life as a secret informant began in January 2000, soon after he applied for political asylum at Zirndorf, a refugee camp outside Nuremberg. He told a BND team he had helped run a secret Iraqi program to produce biological weapons, records show.
In 52 meetings with BND handlers over the next year and a half, he provided hand-drawn sketches and other details.
Alwan didn't share all his secrets. He didn't disclose that he had been fired at least twice for dishonesty or that he fled Iraq to avoid arrest. But he did tell some whoppers that should have raised warnings about his credibility.
He claimed, for example, that the son of his former boss, Basil Latif, secretly headed a WMD procurement and smuggling scheme from England. British investigators found, however, that Latif's son was a 16-year-old exchange student.
When a Western intelligence team interviewed Latif outside Iraq in early 2002, a year before the war, he warned that Alwan had been fired for falsifying invoices at work.
Latif also denied that anyone produced biological weapons at the plant where he worked with Alwan. German officials believed Alwan's story that he helped manage an Iraqi factory that installed fermenters, spray dryers and piping within tractor-trailers to brew anthrax, botulinum toxin and other biological agents.
CIA and Pentagon biological-warfare analysts embraced Alwan's account without corroborating evidence or directly questioning the informant.
President Bush declared in his State of the Union address in January 2003 that "we know" that Iraq built mobile-germ factories. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell highlighted Alwan's supposed "eyewitness" account to the U.N. Security Council when he pressed the case for war.
In October 2004, more than a year after the invasion, a CIA-led investigation concluded that Baghdad had abandoned all chemical-, biological- and nuclear-weapons programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The germ trucks never existed.
Alwan, who grew up in the middle-class Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad, studied chemical engineering at the Technical University of Baghdad.
He worked as an appliance repairman, then as a junior engineer at the state-run Chemical Engineering and Design Center. In late 1994, he was named site engineer at Djerf al Nadaf, a new warehouse complex about 10 miles south of Baghdad.
His direct supervisor was Hilal Freah, a British-trained engineer and friend of Alwan's mother. Freah, who now lives in Jordan, viewed himself as Alwan's mentor but had trouble trusting his protégé.
"Rafid told five or 10 stories every day," Freah said in an interview. "I'd ask, 'Where have you been?' And he'd say, 'I had a problem with my car.' Or, 'My family was sick.' But I knew he was lying."
At the Djerf al Nadaf warehouse, laborers treated seeds from local farmers with fungicides to prevent mold and rot. But Alwan convinced his BND handlers that the site's corn-filled sheds were part of Iraq's secret germ-weapons program.
He worked there, he told them, until 1998, when an unreported biological accident occurred. In fact, Alwan had been dismissed in 1995, after inflating expenses and faking receipts for tools, supplies and lamb for an office party.
Freah, Alwan and two other friends formed a business to sell locally made shampoo and cleaners. Freah says Alwan overcharged the partners for each shampoo bottle, and the company collapsed. So did their friendship. .
He then worked as a technician at Babel, a Baghdad film and TV company. Alwan's alleged sale of Babel camera lenses and other gear on the black market led the Iraqi justice ministry to issue an arrest warrant in August 1998.
Alwan already had fled. Officials say smugglers helped him make his way through Jordan, Egypt, Libya and Morocco before he reached Germany in late 1999.
John McCain, political prostitute
"At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could 'do more good there,' Mr. Lehman recalled." So claimed the New York Times in a front-page article on May 29 this year.
This story is highly improbable for several reasons, not least of all because John McCain himself has always told a very different story about his stalled naval career. For example, on page 9 of his memoir Worth The Fighting For, McCain writes:
"Several months before my father died, I informed him that I was leaving the navy. I am sure he had gotten word of my decision from friends in the Pentagon. I had been summoned to see the CNO, Admiral Heyward, who told me I was making a mistake.... His attempt to dissuade me encouraged me to believe that I might have made admiral had I remained in the navy, a prospect that remained an open question in my mind.... Some of my navy friends believed I could earn my star; others doubted it.... When I told my father of my intention, he did not remonstrate me.... But I knew him well enough to know that he was disappointed. For when I left him that day, alone in his study, I took with me his hope that I might someday become the first son and grandson of four-star admirals to achieve the same distinction. That aspiration was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision...."
McCain's father died on March 22, 1981. McCain retired from the Navy within a week. He wrote about his retirement soon thereafter. McCain never mentioned the alleged offer of an admiralship by Lehman in any of his books, nor in the numerous interviews McCain gave during his first run for the presidency in 1999-2000.
Furthermore, articles written during the current presidential campaign quote McCain's closest friends about McCain's failure to be promoted to admiral before he retired from the Navy. For example, in an April 26, 2008, National Journal cover story, William Cohen (then a Senator, subsequently Secretary of Defense and the best man at McCain's second wedding) recounts that McCain "knew his career in the Navy was limited." Former Senator Gary Hart, who served as a groomsman at McCain's 1980 wedding, says in the National Journal story that he had been told "that [McCain] was not going to receive a star and not going to become an admiral. I think that was the deciding point for him to retire from the Navy."
John Lehman doesn't figure in any accounts of McCain's naval career, probably because Lehman was appointed Secretary of the Navy less than two months before McCain retired. The New York Times didn't note this, or the pertinent fact that John Lehman is currently serving as National Security Adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Two admirals in the Times story confirmed Lehman's claim, but for unknown reasons the Times, in violation of its own guidelines, accorded them off-the-record status that makes it impossible to assess their motives and credibility.
The New York Times' front-page story about McCain declining promotion to admiral lacks credibility for other reasons as well. For example, McCain had been promoted to captain on August 1, 1979, so he wouldn't have been due for another promotion by March of 1981.
Retired Admiral Peter Booth, who was promoted to rear admiral in 1981, flatly disputes Lehman's claim about McCain. "No, John McCain was not selected for flag rank, for admiral. With all due respect, I think I was selected that same year, and I have never heard anything even remotely like that. To begin with, John Lehman did not select Navy flag officers. That was done with a very august selection board headed by a four-star admiral. The Secretary of the Navy does not appoint. He is in the approval chain, but he is not on the committee.
"I have never heard a story, even remotely, that John McCain was going to be a flag officer. I was early selected for captain, in 1976, and I was regular selected for admiral in 1981. So it's probably five or six years, I guess. I've never heard of anybody being selected for flag rank within three or four years of making captain, ever."
Retired Admiral John R. Batzler, former commanding officer of the U.S.S. Nimitz, also promoted to rear admiral in 1981, agrees with Retired Admiral Booth. "I made rear admiral in about five years. I wasn't selected early, and I wasn't selected late. I find it incredible that someone made that statement that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to admiral two years after he made captain. First of all, telling him at all is not kosher, but we all know the Secretary of the Navy does what he damn well pleases, in particular John Lehman. This whole idea that John Lehman told John McCain he was going to be promoted to flag two years after he made captain sounds preposterous to me." All of the evidence, indications and comments that the New York Times published a flattering lie about McCain's career on its front page are easy for John McCain to refute. All he needs to do is sign Standard Form 180, which authorizes the Navy to send an undeleted copy of McCain's naval file to news organizations. A long paper trail about McCain's pending promotion to admiral would be prominent in his file. To date, McCain's advisers have released snippets from his file, but under constrained viewing circumstances. There's no reason McCain's full file shouldn't be released immediately. In June 2005, seven months after he lost his bid for president, Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, authorizing the release of his complete military service record to the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. ** Unlike Kerry, McCain shouldn't wait until after the election to do so. The Navy may claim that it already released McCain's record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press.
Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.
Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.
McCain's file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain's subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.
Timberg:
"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958.... [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. ...One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom....McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals.... His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.... [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. 'I've got a flameout,' he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."
Adds Karaagac:
"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be....The [fighter jocks'] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it.... Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made....McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."
The genius of McCain's mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs. The Vietnamese military secretly and frequently filmed the American POWs to learn their propensities. Col. Pham Van Hoa of the Vietnamese People's Army Film Department was in charge of the filming. Asked recently for his dominant impression of McCain, the now-retired Van Hoa said that McCain "seemed superior to other prisoners." How so? "Superior in attitude towards them."
But when Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide and co-author, was asked by the Arizona New Times about the first McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, that he was then working on, Salter said "the book will showcase a humble McCain. When I worked on this book with him, he just kept saying, 'Other guys had it a lot worse. I think they took it easier on me because of who my dad was. . . . When they tied me in ropes, they'd roll my sleeve up to give it a little padding between the rope and my bicep, you know, little things I noticed. The only really hard time I had was when I didn't go home, and then it only lasted a week, and sometimes I felt braver, I felt I could get away with more.'"
Is McCain now getting away with more by hiding his official history and by having his national security adviser inflate McCain's resume with a bogus promotion to admiral humbly declined? If so, McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote him upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.
One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated, he was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. As Carl Bernstein reported in Vanity Fair, he piloted an ultra-light, single propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.
Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.
** An earlier version of this story may have left the impression that John Kerry had signed the 180 military waiver during the 2004 presidential campaign. It has been updated to clarify the timing of the release.
Jeffrey Klein is an investigative journalist who co-founded Mother Jones; directed exposes of Newt Gingrich, Big Tobacco and the introduction of offensive weapons into space; co-produced for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer a series on China's economy that won a Gerald Loeb Award; and taught journalism at Stanford, San Francisco State and Cal. He is currently reporting on assignment for the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, which provided research support for this article. Research assistance was provided by Peter Jackson.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Iran takes money upon risk of theft
Lionel Laurent
If the Iranian press is to be believed, banks across Europe will be $75.0 billion worse off now that Iran has snatched back assets facing the threat of sanctions by other countries that are angered by its nuclear development program.
But there were few sources able to corroborate the story in Europe on Monday. Financial supervisory authorities in Britain, France and Germany refused to comment, citing rules of confidentiality regarding the firms they regulate. Major banks like Barclays (nyse: BCS - news - people ) and Societe Generale (other-otc: SCGLY - news - people ) also refused to say whether such activity had taken place.
One well-placed source close to Germany's national banking system, who did not wish to be named, even told Forbes.com that there had been "no indication" of any withdrawal of Iranian assets or activity as described in the Iranian press.
According to Iranian weekly Sharvand-e Ermouz, citing a top foreign ministry official in charge of economic affairs, Iran has withdrawn $75.0 billion in foreign assets that were in danger of being blocked under punitive sanctions. The official, Mohsen Talaie, reportedly specified that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered the transfer, with part of the assets going into gold and equities, and the rest going to Asian banks.
The alleged withdrawal may have just come in the nick of time, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain backing President George Bush of the United States in his call for tougher sanctions on Monday. "We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the bank Melli," said Brown, at a joint press conference with Bush.
A spokesman for the British foreign ministry said that the next step would be to persuade the other members of the European Union to close ranks and also freeze Bank Melli's assets. Although this has not happened yet, fear of an imminent step-up in sanctions earlier this month reportedly spurred the Iranian government to action.
"The banking sanctions have proven quite effective in terms of slowing down and curtailing businesses," said Professor Ali Ansari, a specialist on Iran for foreign-policy institute Chatham House. "It doesn’t really help Iran." (See "Rice Touts Global Finance Squeeze On Iran")
That said, there is no sign yet that the sanctions will prove effective enough to stop Iran's nuclear program. The country has insisted it is only trying to develop nuclear power, not weapons.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
McCain trying to rewrite his own history as traitor and a collaborator for North Vietnamese
NYT: Seeds of McCain's war views
About a year after his release from a North Vietnamese prison camp, Cmdr. John S. McCain III sat down to address one of the most vexing questions confronting his fellow prisoners: Why did some choose to collaborate with the North Vietnamese?
Mr. McCain blamed American politics.
"The biggest factor in a man’s ability to perform credibly as a prisoner of war is a strong belief in the correctness of his nation’s foreign policy," Mr. McCain wrote in a 1974 essay submitted to the National War College and never released to the public. Prisoners who questioned "the legality of the war" were "extremely easy marks for Communist propaganda," he wrote.
Americans captured after 1968 had proven to be more susceptible to North Vietnamese pressure, he argued, because they "had been exposed to the divisive forces which had come into focus as a result of the antiwar movement in the United States."
To insulate against such doubts, he recommended that the military should teach its recruits not only how to fight but also the reasons for American foreign policies like the containment of Southeast Asian communism — even though, Mr. McCain acknowledged, "a program of this nature could be construed as ‘brainwashing’ or ‘thought control’ and could come in for a great deal of criticism."
Crystallizing views on conflicts
Now a senator who is the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, Mr. McCain often points to his nine months at the War College as the time that crystallized his views toward foreign conflicts like the war in Iraq . He has talked about his studies as a tutorial in the hows-and-whys of America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. But the 40-page final paper he produced was limited to an evaluation of the military code of conduct through the prism of his "narrow, but personal, viewpoint."
It was in many ways a first draft of his political autobiography, recounting the ennobling stories of resistance that he and his co-author, Mark Salter, would later retell in his 1999 memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."
Mr. McCain’s 1974 thesis, though, also revealed a welter of other emotions about his years as a prisoner of war, including a deep anger at those he considered collaborators, a tough-minded disdain for public hand-wringing about captives like himself, and a sharp impatience with the American government for failing to "explain to its people, young and old, some basic facts of its foreign policy." But at the same time, Mr. McCain also urged that any military survival training should include lessons in what he called "the necessity to forgive."
Mr. McCain’s paper sheds new light on the experience that first brought him national attention and remains a staple of his campaign commercials. His conclusions hint at themes of his career, like his habit of making peace with former enemies. And his arguments that the government and the military should have done more to convince the voters and the troops about the case for the war in Vietnam echo in current debates about Iraq as well.
Antiwar movement
Asked if he still had those views, Mr. McCain said in an e-mail message that he still believed the antiwar movement had hurt the morale of some prisoners, although he added the vast majority "performed their duty with courage and resolve irrespective of how controversy about the war influenced their view of it."
Historians, though, say his assertion that the antiwar movement weakened the resistance of Americans captured late in the war is misleading, in part because almost all the most cooperative prisoners were captured early and in part because many other cultural shifts contributed to differences in the later war captives. And some of his fellow prisoners also question the connection between the war protests and the camp collaborators.
"Don’t connect those guys with the antiwar movement," said Orson Swindle, a prisoner who became a friend of Mr. McCain. "It was the guy in the next cell who was the reason we were trying so hard to uphold the code and our honor, and those guys just betrayed everything we stood for."
But others say it is easy to see how Mr. McCain’s dismay at prisoners’ propaganda statements could feed his current impatience with calls for a withdrawal from Iraq. In the crucible of the camps, it was easy to see the collaborators — broadcasting antiwar statements over prison loudspeakers, smiling for Jane Fonda and visiting peace activists, enjoying the rewards of better food and less torture — as embodiments of the war protesters that the North Vietnamese counted on to wear down the American war effort.
"Just like the ‘pull-out movement’ today, as I call it, the peace movement would give them something to hang their hats on," said Richard A. Stratton, another former prisoner incarcerated with Mr. McCain. "You are being tortured and all you have to do to get them to stop is say the same thing that Bobby Kennedy is saying. The same thing that George McGovern is saying. You don’t even have to make anything up."
Determination redoubled
Mr. McCain, then a Navy lieutenant commander, was by all accounts what the American prisoners called a "tough resister." He was nicknamed Crip for the severity of the injuries he sustained — a shoulder, both arms and his knee broken, with a bayonet wound near the groin — when his fighter plane was shot down in October 1967. Military rules only allowed P.O.W.’s to go home in the order of their capture, but some senior officers said his medical condition justified accepting an offer of release from the North Vietnamese. Mr. McCain, the son of a prominent admiral, did not want to be part of North Vietnamese propaganda, so he chose to endure years of torture instead.
At times, Mr. McCain seemed to court punishment, noisily cussing out his captors while giving "thumbs up" signs to his fellow prisoners. "No matter what he did, he always played to the bleachers," Robert Coram, a military historian, wrote in a book about the camps.
All of the prisoners acknowledged that everyone had a breaking point. Mr. McCain’s came 10 months after he arrived. With his father taking command of the Pacific Fleet, the North Vietnamese were determined to coerce the son into denouncing the war. For four days they tied him with ropes, beat him every few hours, re-broke his arm, and left him in a pool of his own blood and refuse. Finally, he signed and tape-recorded a war crimes confession.
His fellow prisoners say his capitulation only redoubled his determination to provoke his captors. "Acts of defiance felt so good that I felt they more than compensated for their repercussions," he wrote, "and they helped me keep at bay the unsettled feelings of guilt and self doubt my confession had aroused."
Others responded differently. Initially unable to feed or clean himself, Mr. McCain was nursed back to health by his cellmate, Maj. Norris Overly of the Air Force . Mr. McCain has often credited Mr. Overly with saving his life, calling him "a very fine man."
Returning from an interrogation in February 1968, however, Mr. Overly told his cellmates he was going home. He said, as he later testified to Congress, that he had given his captors nothing and could not explain their decision.
'I couldn't stand in judgment'
Mr. McCain said in his e-mail message that he had never been angry with Mr. Overly. In his memoir, he recalls only a fear his friend was making a mistake. "I couldn’t stand in judgment of him," he wrote.
But his fellow prisoners say he felt betrayed. After a goodbye ceremony staged for North Vietnamese cameras — Mr. McCain arrived on a stretcher — he and the others began referring to the departures as the "fink release program" and "the slimies."
Mr. Overly declined to comment.
By the end of 1972, a dozen of the roughly 400 American prisoners of war in the North had accepted offers to be freed, only one with the permission of the senior American officers. All were required, at the very least, to sign letters requesting "amnesty" and thanking the North Vietnamese.
Some went further. As early as 1969, Mr. McCain began hearing three American officers denouncing the war over camp loudspeakers. The first two, Robert Schweitzer and Edison Miller, became known as "The Bob and Ed Show." Walter Eugene Wilber soon joined.
They were followed by as many as a dozen others: enlisted infantrymen captured in South Vietnam early in the war and later brought to the northern prisons. They had not received the same training in survival strategies and the code of conduct as the pilots who made up the rest of the prisons in the North. The cooperators called themselves the "peace committee" and enjoyed treats from their captors, including beer, ice cream, Vietnamese dinners, and front-row seats at a local circus. They lived in fear of retribution from the tough resisters.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilber, the officers, said in interviews that they considered it pointless to resist after they had surrendered. "I think our duty as senior officers is to get these men home as healthy emotionally and physically as we can, and I don’t intend to play politics," Mr. Miller, a Marine lieutenant colonel, said he told the others.
'We said what we had to say'
Some members of the peace committee said that watching the destruction of Vietnamese villages had turned them against the war, arguing that the pilots did not see the carnage. Others said they were beaten down. "We said what we had to say to get through it," Michael Branch, one of the enlisted men, said in an interview.
Mr. McCain was as enraged as any of the tough resisters by what they considered the treason of the two officers and enlisted men, his friends said. "He thought this was ‘terrible, terrible, terrible,’ they should all be shot," said John Dramesi, a fellow prisoner.
In his memoirs, Mr. McCain addressed only briefly what he called "the camp rats." During a stint in solitary confinement, he had caught a glimpse of two other American officers acting friendly with their guards and enjoying delicacies like eggs and bananas, Mr. McCain and his co-author wrote. Assuming that contact with a fellow American would restore their nerve, Mr. McCain called out: "Hey, guys, my name’s McCain. Who are you?" They called the guards, who beat him again.
Those two were Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilber. They denied the exchange took place, but in his e-mail message Mr. McCain said, "I would have been astonished if they admitted it."
Willingness to forgive
But Mr. Schweitzer, who died in a car crash soon after the war, became an example of what Mr. McCain later called "the necessity to forgive." Confronted by a senior officer, Mr. Schweitzer renounced his participation in the propaganda and resumed his place in the American ranks.
"It is neither American nor Christian to nag a repentant sinner to his grave," the senior Americans taught.
"John McCain has lived by that his whole life," Mr. Swindle said. Others have observed the pattern as Mr. McCain has embraced former adversaries from antiwar activists and North Vietnamese prison commanders to the critics who charged him with corruption in the Keating Five scandal.
Mr. McCain was one of about a half-dozen former prisoners of war who spent the year after their release at the National War College, an elite academy for future admirals or generals.
Some officers fresh from Vietnam questioned the premise of the war. "The vast majority of generals who had experience in Vietnam will tell you we should never have gone past the advisory level," said John H. Johns, a retired Army general and a student at the college that year. But in Mr. McCain’s paper, he instead focused on the failure to sustain public support for the fight. The paper was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and provided to The New York Times by Matt Welch, an author of a book about Mr. McCain.
He cast a cold eye on the public sympathy for prisoners like himself. "Two and a half million American fighting men served in the Vietnam conflict, and more importantly 46,000 sacrificed their lives," Mr. McCain wrote. "Yet in the latter stages of that war millions of people were more actively concerned about the plight of 565 P.O.W.’s in Hanoi than in any bigger issue of the war."
Myopic focus on prisoners?
American elected officials, he argued, had fostered a myopic focus on the prisoners by forsaking the goal of unconditional surrender in favor of a negotiated peace, enabling the North Vietnamese to turn their hostages into a bargaining chip. "Many Congressional resolutions, favorable to the enemy, were based solely on the guaranteed return of Americans from North Vietnam," he wrote.
With prisoners returned, he argued, ambivalence about the war was protecting the minority of American prisoners "who did not keep faith with their country or their fellow prisoners."
Court-martial charges were filed against two officers and seven enlisted men, he noted. "Probably more would have been charged if the Vietnam War had been like other wars in which this country has engaged," Mr. McCain wrote. (Top military leaders quickly quashed charges against those nine.)
Mr. McCain reserved his fiercest criticism for what he called "the evils of parole and amnesty," returning repeatedly to the importance of teaching recruits to reject such offers as he did. The prospect of early release had tempted and demoralized the other captives while providing the North Vietnamese "a maximum of favorable publicity and propaganda value from these ‘humane acts,’ " he wrote.
"Probably the greatest shock to great numbers of the P.O.W.’s was to find, on returning to the U.S., that P.O.W.’s who were released early had not been court-martialed but in fact had received choice assignments and early promotions," he added, calling their warm welcome "inexcusable."
On teaching foreign policy
Mr. McCain’s proposal that the military teach U.S. foreign policy to its recruits may be his most notable recommendation. "Too many men in the armed forces of the United States do not understand what this nation’s foreign policy is," Mr. McCain wrote, adding he did not propose a Soviet-style "indoctrination," but "a simple, straightforward explanation of the foreign policy of the United States."
In his e-mail message, Mr. McCain stood by the idea. "It is important, not just for P.O.W.’s, but all Americans serving in combat to understand the purpose and reason for the sacrifices they are asked to make for our country," he said.
Such instruction, though, sounds close to heretical to some military officers because it risks instructing the troops in the foreign policy of either one president or another, a prospect that particularly troubles Mr. McCain’s contemporaries who came to opposite conclusions about the Vietnam War.
"It gets to be partisan political positioning and regime support," said Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force general and another War College classmate of Mr. McCain. (Both Mr. Johns and Mr. McPeak are supporting the Democratic presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama .)
But Prof. Richard H. Kohn, a historian of civil-military relations at the University of North Carolina who has taught at the War College, suggested that Mr. McCain’s recommendation was more of a "time warp" back to the 1950s, when he came of age at the Naval Academy. It was an era of staunchly anti-communist foreign policy consensus that was shattered by the debates over the Vietnam War while Mr. McCain was in prison, Professor Kohn said.
Mr. McCain’s public statements when he returned from the war suggested that he saw a similar consensus emerging again. "I see more of an appreciation of our way of life," he wrote in a 1973 article for U.S. News & World Report. "There is more patriotism. The flag is all over the place."
"Some of my fellow prisoners sang a different tune, but they were a very small minority," he added. "I ask myself if they should be prosecuted, and I don’t find that easy to answer. It might destroy the very fine image the great majority of us have brought back from that hellhole."
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Another Rethuglican HypoChristian
On May 6, Barron suggested meeting the girl in person. He eventually made the nearly 200-mile drive to Bryan on Thursday, when he was arrested. Police said they found a web-cam and condoms in his car.
Barron was released Friday night from the Brazos County Jail on bond. Police were unsure whether he had an attorney.
Barron is one of 40 ministers at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in the country with 26,000 members. He ministers to married adults.
Mike Buster, executive pastor, said in a statement that the church had no record or knowledge of previous improprieties or saw any inappropriate behavior in the 18 months Barron was on the church staff.
Buster said church officials are fully cooperating with police.
"We are disturbed and saddened by the reports we have heard and we are praying for the Barron family," he said.
Original article posted here.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Just one more reason for a never ending war
Congress Members Profit from the Iraq War
Gives new meaning to insider trading
Members of Congress have been earning millions since the start of the Iraq war through their investments in defense oriented companies, according to a nonpartisan research group report.
Based on a review of lawmakers' 2006 financial disclosure statements, congressional members with defense related committee or leadership assignments have collectively invested as much as $196 million in companies doing business with the Defense Department.
The study found over 34 percent of congressional members held investments worth $78.7 million to $195.5 million in companies that receive defense contracts worth at least $5 million, earning the members anywhere from $15.8 million to $62 million between 2004 and 2006.
Unfortunately, that members of congress are earning ethically questionable investment profits does not come as a surprise to OhMyGov! What is most disturbing is that it took a nonpartisan research group to determine this when policies and procedures are already in place to prevent such ethical lapses by political and government officials alike.
By law, to avoid conflicts of interest between official duties and private financial interests or affiliations, federal employees are required to fill out a Confidential Financial Disclosure Report (Office of Government Ethics (OGE) Form 450) form or the Public Financial Disclosure Report (SF 278) to determine whether any potential conflicts exist.
The purpose, theoretically, is to assist employees and their agencies in avoiding conflicts between duties and private financial interests or affiliations. When such conflicts exist, employees must either liquidate stocks, recuse themselves from involvement in decision making, or leave/turn down a job.
Casting votes to send our men and women in uniform into harm's way is a heavy responsibility that we hope our elected officials always consider very carefully, but we wonder if they are really able to make a clear decision when their own personal financial bottom line is affected.Original article posted here.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
And some wonder why black people call it the "Just us" system. Black "masterminds" get 5 and 10 years. White perps get 2 years and probation. Hmmmm
The head of the state NAACP on Monday called for a state investigation into racial sentencing patterns in Cobb County.
Edward DuBose said racial disparity in the recent sentencing of the four defendants in the so-called Barbie Bandits bank theft case prompted a request he intends to make to state Attorney General Thurbert Baker.
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| Heather Lyn Johnston, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of theft by taking, a felony and one count of possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, a misdemeanor. She was sentenced to 10 years probation. | |
"When four people are involved in the same crime and those who happen to be Caucasian receive much less time than those who are African American, this reflects a problem in the justice system that must be addressed," DuBose said at a news conference at the Cobb NAACP headquarters in Marietta.
The Feb. 27, 2007, heist at a Bank of America branch in Acworth involved four people: two young white women and a black male bank teller — who admitted their roles — and another black man convicted by a jury of planning the job.
Heather Lyn Johnston, 20, and Ashley Nicole Miller, 19, both pleaded guilty to theft- by-taking charges. Miller received two years in jail, followed by eight years probation. Johnson got 10 years probation.
Prosecutors had recommended both be sentenced to 10 years, three in jail and seven years' probation.
Bank teller Benny Allen III also pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to five years in jail. Prosecutors had recommended six.
Allen, 23, told the women what to write in their demand note and handed them the money, nearly $11,000.
He was on probation for a drug conviction when he was sentenced and the prosecutor in the bank case said he had not cooperated with authorities.
"He was not honest before his plea. He was not honest after his plea," prosecutor Bonnie Derrer said at his sentencing.
Michael Chastang, who is serving 15 years on drug-trafficking charges unrelated to the bank heist, received the most severe of the sentences meted out by Superior Court Judge Mary Staley.
She ordered the 28-year-old Chastang to complete the term on the drug charges, then serve 10 years for the bank theft.
Police found Ecstasy on Chastang when he was arrested.
Staley noted Chastang's role in the bank theft case —he was the one who put the women in contact with Allen, the teller.
Johnston started cooperating with police two days after the heist, and Miller, who also had a DUI arrest in Clayton County, began cooperating later.
Although DuBose said he recognized that both men had prior convictions for drugs, he maintained the sentences were inequitable.
"This is a case that clearly reflects unequal justice," he said. "These two women referred to as the Barbie Bandits should have received sentences equal to the African Americans."
Deane Bonner, president of the Cobb NAACP branch, said members have monitored sentencing in Cobb and believe African-Americans are sentenced more harshly than whites for the same crime.
She said she did not have statistics at hand but would provide them at a later time.
"We have the cases," she said. "We're just saying it is time to speak out."
Original article posted here.Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Gary Hart trying to feign ignorance on the New World Order (the term that he himself used (but denies))
Former Senator Gary Hart was confronted by several 9/11 truth groups during an appearance in Colorado, including WeAreChangeColorado.org, TruthAlliance.net and Colorado 9/11 Visibility.
Hart was touting his proposal for a Global Democracy Security Organization, another handy catch phrase for superceding the bounds of national sovereignty and consolidating power into a global body.
The former Senator was probed about his September 12, 2001 statements before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) where he suggested that George W. Bush might "use [the 9/11] disaster" to carry out the New World Order.
Hart denied ever using the phrase 'New World Order' while ironically utilizing the same phrasing he used in his 2001 quote-- that the first President Bush 'used it once in 1991 and never again.'
Friday, March 21, 2008
(Self) Righteous Indignation (Hat tip to Soc)
The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998.During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.
Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. Mr. Wright’s relationship with Senator Barack Obama, as his longtime pastor, has been the subject of considerable controversy in recent days because of incendiary excerpts of sermons Mr. Wright gave at their church, Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago.
In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign. There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views.
The invitation to the breakfast.
The invitation’s envelope.Asked for a response tonight through email, Howard Wolfson, a top aide to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, “Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!”
Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Phil Singer, sent along this reply to a request for comment:
In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people.
A thank-you note from Mr. Clinton to Mr. Wright. (Click to enlarge)Mr. Wright was invited to the 1998 prayer breakfast, and in addition, he received a thank-you note from former President Clinton for his expressions of support about six weeks later.
According to an account by James Bennet, former White House correspondent who has since left The Times:
With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how.
Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency.
‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’
For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled.
Mr. Wright is not mentioned in the article. Also visible in the photograph is Vice President Al Gore.
And according to the newly released schedules of Mrs. Clinton by the National Archives of her years as first lady, she was in attendance, too.
Her schedule reads:
“Religion Leaders Breakfast (w/POTUS)” in the East Room from 9-10:30 a.m.
Format:
- The President and First Lady are announced into the East Room and proceed to their tables.
- The Vice President makes remarks and introduces The President.
- The President makes remarks and introduces Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann.
- Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann gives blessing.
- Breakfast is served.
- Following breakfast, The President opens discussion.
- Upon conclusion of the discussion, The President introduces Dr. Reverend James Forbes.
- Dr. Reverend James Forbes gives benediction.
- The President, First Lady, and Vice President depart.
PARTICIPANTS: Approx. 130 guests to attend.
The wording of Mr. Clinton’s thank-you note to Mr. Wright, dated Oct. 28, 1998:
Dear Pastor Wright:
Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.You have my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
Original article posted here.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Monday, December 24, 2007
Training our Christian soldiers
By Jason Leopold
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| The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says the two photos show how the infiltration of fundamentalist Christianity in the US military is starting to mirror Islamic fundamentalism. For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure. That's the message directed at Fort Jackson soldiers, some of whom appear in photographs in government issued fatigues, holding rifles in one hand, and Bibles in their other hand. Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that "government authorities, police and the military = God's Ministers," Bussey's teachings from the "God's Basic Training" Bible study guide he authored says US troops have "two primary responsibilities": "to praise those who do right" and "to punish those who do evil - "God's servant, an angel of wrath." Bussey's teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format. The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement's meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times" evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution. Perhaps no other fundamentalist Christian group is more influential than Military Ministry, a national organization and a subsidiary of the controversial fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Military Ministry's national web site boasts it has successfully "targeted" basic training installations, or "gateways," and has successfully converted thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity. Military Ministry says its staffers are responsible for "working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries" - which appears to be a clear-cut violation of federal law governing the separation of church and state. "Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways," the group has stated on its web site. "The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news.' We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB [Air Force base] and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals." Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry's activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using "the machinery of the state" to promote any form of religion is "not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order." A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry's staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base's top commanders. "I've said it before and I will say it again," Weinstein said. "We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now." Weinstein points out that on Fort Jackson's Military Ministry web site, the basic training battalion commander, Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, and the battalion's chaplain, Maj. Scott Bullock, who appear in uniform in a photograph with Bussey, is a clear-cut violation of Military rules. MRFF contacted Bussey via email on Wednesday to request information about the "similar programs" he claimed Fort Jackson has for soldiers of other faiths. Bussey, responding to MRFF via email, did not provide an answer to the watchdog group's question, but, instead, he fired back a query of his own asking MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda to direct him to the place in the Constitution where it states there is a "separation of church and state." Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution forbids a religion test for any position in the federal government, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion. A spokesperson for the Fort Jackson Army base did not return calls for comment. Earlier this week, after MRFF exposed the potential constitutional violations between Military Ministry and the Fort Jackson Army base, Bussey added language to Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site in the form of a "notice to MRFF and ACLU types" in bold red letters that says the Bible study classes are strictly voluntary, not command directed in any way, allows soldiers to exercise for themselves the right of freedom of religion ... and similar programs exist on Fort Jackson for Soldiers of all faiths." In July, the Pentagon's inspector general (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by MRFF that accused Pentagon officials of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. The IG did not address the church/state issue, but he issued a 45-page report admonishing several high-level Pentagon officials for participating, while in uniform and on active duty, in a promotional video sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ's Christian Embassy group. The IG report quoted one high-ranking military official as saying he believed his participation in the video was acceptable because Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon's day-to-day operations that he viewed the organization as a "quasi federal entity." The IG report recommended the military officials who appeared in the video be disciplined, but the Pentagon would not say whether it has in fact punished the military officers who appeared in the video. MRFF uncovered another recent Campus Crusade for Christ promotional video filmed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that would appear to violate the same military rules detailed in the IG report. Cadets and academy officials appear in uniform discussing how Campus Crusade for Christ helped strengthen their bonds with Jesus. Scot Blom, the Campus Crusade for Christ director assigned to work at the Air Force Academy, says in the video the organization "has always been very intentional about going after the leaders or the future leaders" and that's why Campus Crusade for Christ picked the Air Force Academy to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. Every week, according to the video, cadets are encouraged to participate in a Bible study class called "cru" short for "crusade." "Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here." Weinstein said the recent promotional video for Campus Crusade for Christ, and the photograph of US soldiers holding Bibles in one hand and rifles in the other posted on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry web site, gives the impression the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization and underscores that the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan appears to be more of a modern-day fundamentalist Christian crusade. That message, Weinstein said, could lead to more "jihads" against the United States. Indeed. Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an "unexpected" telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him "to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military" because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way. Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named. Fundamental Christianity's Influence on the Bush Administration While Weinstein has worked tirelessly the past four years exposing the Christian Right's power grab within the military, he says the White House continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state. Indeed. This week a US District Court judge ruled the White House must disclose its visitor logs showing White House visits by nine fundamentalist Christian leaders. The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and could very well show how much influence fundamental Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell have had on the Bush's administration. "We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have." Bush has been vocal about his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and how God has helped him during his presidency. A couple of weeks ago, the White House sent out Christmas cards signed by President Bush and his wife Laura that contained a Biblical passage from the Old Testament: "You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you." The inclusion of the Biblical passage caught the attention of longtime broadcaster Barbara Walters, who was a recipient of the presidential Christmas card. Walters said she doesn't recall receiving "religious" holiday cards from past presidents and she wondered how non-Christians would receive such an overtly religious greeting. "Usually in the past when I have received a Christmas card, it's been 'Happy Holidays' and so on," said Walters. "Don't you think it's a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card? Does this also go to agnostics, and atheists, and Muslims?" The Biblical passage inside the Christmas card did not amount to a constitutional violation because it was paid for by the Republican National Committee, but Weinstein said it's intolerable, nonetheless, because military officials believe they have the approval of the White House to allow fundamentalist Christian organizations and their leaders to proselytize in the military. Recently, Bush nominated Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, to replace the outgoing Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and is in line to be promoted to Major General. Richardson was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right "to evangelize the unchurched." The distinction, Richardson said at the time, "is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel." Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson's comments were published alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination within the Air Force. Weinstein is a 1977 graduate of the Academy. His sons and a daughter in law are also academy graduates. Weinstein's book, "With God On Our Side: One Man's War Against An Evangelical Coup in America's Military," details the virulent anti-Semitism he was subjected to while he attended the academy and the religious intolerance that has permeated throughout the halls over the past several years. The federal lawsuit Weinstein filed was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military. Still, Weinstein said MRFF would lobby senators to oppose Richardson's nomination because of his past statements Richardson has refused to retract. "The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will do everything in our power to convince the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson to become the chief of Air Force chaplains and his promotion to the rank of major general," Weinstein said in an interview. "We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military." In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall's an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall's atheist beliefs. "When You Join the Military, Then You Are Also in the Ministry" The executive director of Military Ministry, retired US Army Major General Bob Dees, wrote in the organization's October 2005 "Life and Leadership" newsletter, "We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation - through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...." Moreover, Military Ministry's parent organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been re-distributing to military chaplains a DVD produced a decade ago where Tommy Nelson, a pastor at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, tells an audience of Texas A&M cadets and military officers when they join the military "then you are also in the ministry." "I, a number of years ago, was speaking at the University of North Texas - it happens to be my alma mater, up in Denton, Texas - and I was speaking to an ROTC group up there, and when I stepped in I said, "It's good to be speaking to all you men and women who are in the ministry," and they all kind of looked at me, and I think they wondered if maybe I had found the wrong room, or if they were in the wrong room, and I assured them that I was speaking to men and women in the ministry, these that were going to be future officers," Nelson says in the DVD. Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran. Original article posted here. |
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
CNN: 'Pressured' resignation in another GOP gay scandal
David Edwards
Published: Wednesday October 31, 2007
Washington State lawmaker Richard Curtis resigned his office tonight after a man he allegedly paid for sex spoke to the media about the encounter. Curtis is the third conservative lawmaker in just as many months to resign amid allegations of soliciting gay sex. CNN noted similarities between the seemingly 'pressured' resignations in this and other Republican scandals involving homosexuality.
"I sincerely apologize for any pain my actions may have caused," Curtis wrote in a statement. "This has been damaging to my family, and I don't want to subject them to any additional pain that might result from carrying out this matter under the scrutiny that comes with holding public office."
The Associated Press reports, "Three days earlier, Curtis had insisted to his local newspaper that he was not gay and that sex was not involved in what he said was an extortion attempt by a man last week. But in police reports, Curtis said he was being extorted by a man he had sex with in a Spokane hotel room. The other man contends Curtis reneged on a promise to pay $1,000 for sex."
Read more about the case at this link.
The following video is from CNN's Situation Room, broadcast on October 31, 2007.