Cheapskate Torture School

Back in the early 2000s the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shook the moral consciousness of America until the Bush administration described the systematic abuse as an isolated incident. More and more photos revealed that the routine abuse of detainees was practiced throughout every Iraqi prison by the US Military and pointed out that the Pentagon had greenlighted torture as a method of extracting information from the innocent as well as the guilty.

"Requiring prisoners to stand 8-10 hours is not torture." Donald Rumsfeld actually believed these words, however by 2004 he admitted before Congress that detainees had suffered "grievous and brutal cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces."

Compensation was suggested by the Defense Secretary.

To date not a single dollar has been paid to the hundreds of former prisoners seeking redress for their time at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon has defended its dishonor by fighting all allegations in court. Easy work since there are more lawyers in the USA than the US Military has soldiers in the Army.

1,128,729 lawyers in suits and 540,000 men in uniform.

No way an Arab has a chance in a US court against those odds.

Even if the prison guards at Abu Ghraib stand accused of beating a man in front if his sisters so badly that he died from internal injuries or electrocuted prisoners on a regular basis or used attack dogs to bite detainees. Choking, suffocation, sensory deprivation, beatings, waterboarding, and a host of other techniques were SOP or standard operating procedure at Abu Ghraib no matter what they lawyers in suits say before the Supreme Court. Guilty or innocent. All prisoners got the same treatment and this is the truth as is the fact that the Pentagon will appeal any ruling to protect its good name.

Remember. And no one is talking about sending Donald Rumsfeld to prison for violating human rights. Not if they know what's good for them and their careers.

ps the brown liquid dried on this naked prisoner was not chocolate pudding.

A Wanted Man

George W. Bush cancelled a planned trip to address the United Israel Appeal in Switzerland in response to requests for his arrest on charges of torture. Amnesty International's Secretary General stated, “To date, we’ve seen a handful of military investigations into detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo. But none of these has had the independence and reach necessary to investigate high-level officials such as President Bush. Meanwhile, there has been virtually zero accountability for crimes committed in the CIA’s secret detention program, which was authorized by then-President Bush.” 147 nations condemn torture around the globe. The USA is not one of them. But none of them have bothered to arrest Obama or Tony Blair or Henry Kissinger as a war criminal either. Hypocrites.

Colonel James Steele

While running my F1 shopping internet website in Thailand, I decided to adopt an alias. I told the Thai selling Ferrari shirts and McLaren jackets that my name was James. "James Bond," they remarked with a smile. "Not James 007, but James Steele." And like that I became James Steele to hundreds of people in Pattaya. The name stuck with the mother of my son and her two children. Everyone in her village called me "James' and I continued to use the moniker upon my return to the USA in 2009, however the other day the Guardian published an article about Colonel James Steele, the Pentagon's dirty war expert. In 2003 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dispatched the retired Green Beret to Iraq. His mission was to set up torture camps to interrogate insurgents with the blessing of General Petreaus, whose recent sex scandal eliminate him from the post of CIA director. His course of action in Iraq was pure evil and he has shamed my pseudonym. James Steele. There are good ones. To watch the Guardian's film of Colonel James Steele, please go to the following URL http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/06/james-steele-america-iraq-video

Drone Sweet Drone

General Curtis Le May defended his indiscriminate bombing of German and Japanese civilians by saying, "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." The much-decorated Air Force general proposed bombing the Vietnamese into 'the Stone Age'. Presidents Johnson and Nixon bought his high horizon thought. And Nixon actually thought that the 1972 Christmas Bombing campaign had forced Hanoi to the point of surrender. 1975 proved him wrong and the same is true for Barack Obama with his continued advocacy of drone missile attacks in the recent State of the Union Speech. I voted for him this election, but I will never approved the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Not in Afghanistan and not in Pakistan. It is wrong. Always. Fuck Obama. He is one of them.

Drones Over DC

It's winter in the Hindu Kush. The high temperature in Kabul will hit 42 F around noon. Sunny skies will afford the US drone operators excellent down-ground vision over Taliban territoryty. They are also seeking targets throughout the world to exact a deadly toll on the enemies of America with a lethal tool. According to Wikipedia the drone Predator can fly up to 400 nautical miles (740 km) to a target, loiter overhead for 14 hours, then return to its base. Many of these drones carry Hellfire missiles. THey have been featured on CNN, Fox News, and Hollywood movies as an effective weapon against 'reputed' terrorists. The Pentagon has spent billions on this project, which is a refined version of General Curtis LeMay's 'Bomb them into the Stone Age' strategy, and the main architect of this policy has been nominated for CIA Director. I worked over twenty years as a physionomiste at night clubs. My job was to decipher people at a glance, John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, and I say fuck you. He had supported torture and assassination without oversight. I like that he can speak Arabic, but my gut feeling is that he has sat in dark rooms and seen what darkness is within the heasrts of men. It is never a pretty sight.

No Sleep In Space

NASA conducted the first fly-by of MArs in 1965. The Mariner 4 orbited the Red Planet sending back photos as well as measuring factors of Space for future missions. Communications with the satellite ceased on the winter solstice of 1967, however the US space agency continued to explore the distant planet with unmanned robots. At present five spacecrafts conduct experiments both in space and on the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun. A manned trip planned for 2020 has been pushed back to 2030 by NASA, while MARS ONE, a private space enterprise, announced its intent to land a man on the planet in 2023. Every two years the proximity of Mars and Earth shorten the round-trip journey to 450 days, requiring half the energy of a longer trip. A major challenge to this voyage is the stress on the crew having to live in cramped quarters for over a year and the tedium of never seeming to get anywhere. "The monotony of going to Mars and coming back again is something that will need to be addressed in the future. You don't want your crew hanging around doing nothing," said the man in charge of the mission. The pseudo-astronauts slept even more on the 'return leg' Russian scientists discovered that more than half crew members suffered from insomnia on this trip to nowhere. I know the feeling. After I eat garlic, I can't sleep, but not sleeping for weeks on end in Space would drive people crazy and crazy is never good when you have nowhere to run. Beware of HAL.

No Rest For The Wicked

Upon my return from Thailand in April of 2008 my finances were in ruins. My savings had been wiped out an individual sub-prime melt-down minus the many zeros. I went up to Boston to see my sister. She commiserated with my situation to find an experiment on sleep-deprivation at the Beth Israel Hospital. The experiment paid $1500 for a 6-day session culminating with a 60-hour session of being awake. No drugs. Only the company of a doctor. Having successfully survived 3-day binges in the 1980s I called up the number and went into Boston to take the preliminary tests. The hospital said that my health was fine and the doctors scheduled me for a session at the end of May. May 30th to be exact, which was one day before my birthday. "What are these tests for?" They sounded suspiciously similar to the CIA torture techniques used on captives in the War on Terror. "To test the endurance of a body and mind under stress." The doctor was a young woman. Her outfit was spotless. The office was banal same as the camp commander at Dachau. "Is there a problem? "No." I needed the money. My sister and brother-in-law celebrated my hitting an age in the 50s with wine and pizza. The night almost felt like a last meal and in the morning I woke ready to take the trolley into the hospital. My younger sister came by for breakfast and upon hearing about my proposed involvement in this experiment said, "You have to be crazy. A friend of mine did something like that for Harvard and she's still not right." She punched up the devastating effects of the experiments on her computer. Psychosis and nervous breakdowns were the least of my worries. After 22 days death was eminent. "I need the money." I had less than $20 in my pocket. The Fung Wah bus to New York was $15. "Not that bad." and my younger lent me $500. It wasn't $1500, but then I didn't have to go through with the rendition treatment for my country. Oh what a lucky man. It's good to have family.