Copyright 2005 - Steal what you wantSat, May 10:07:45 3 GMTSat, May 10:07:45 3 GMTDaily Kos Daily Kos This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.
Arrested in Pakistan in December 2001, Sami al-Haj spent nearly six-and-a-half years at Guantánamo without charge or trial. He had been on a more than a year-long hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. We hear al-Haj’s first public remarks from his hospital bed in Sudan ...
Al-Haj, who’s been on a hunger strike since January of 2007, was taken to a hospital immediately after landing in Khartoum. After a tearful reunion with his family, he spoke out against the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo in an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera.
SAMI AL-HAJ: [translated] I’m very happy to be in Sudan, but I’m very sad because of the situation of our brothers who remain in Guantánamo. Conditions in Guantánamo are very, very bad, and they get worse by the day. Our human condition, our human dignity was violated, and the American administration went beyond all human values, all moral values, all religious values. In Guantánamo, you have animals that are called iguanas, rats that are treated with more humanity. But we have people from more than fifty countries that are completely deprived of all rights and privileges, and they will not give them the rights that they give to animals.
For more than seven years, I did not get a chance to be brought before a civil court. To defend their just case and to get the freedom that we’re deprived of, they ignored every kind of law, every kind of religion. But thank God. I was lucky, because God allowed that I be released. Although I’m happy, there is part of me that is not, because my brothers remain behind, and they are in the hands of people that claim to be champions of peace and protectors of rights and freedoms.
But the true just peace does not come through military force or threats to use smart or stupid bombs or to threaten with economic sanctions. Justice comes from lifting oppression and guaranteeing rights and freedoms and respecting the will of the people and not to interfere with a country’s internal politics.
This evening's Rescue Rangers are ybruti, PaintyKat, Got a Grip, YatPundit (doing a double),Patriot Daily, and joyful, with vcmvo2 as editor.
Tonight's diaries cover a variety of issues ranging from our history of struggle over labor, health-care, genocide and religion to recently under-reported stories about our government's management of the War on Terror. We rescue these diaries so that our community will have more time to enjoy, analyze, and discuss these topics. Remember that even if it is too late to recommend a diary, the diarist will appreciate your comments.
mole333 implores us to remember lessons learned at great cost and to support ways to spare others in grave danger in Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Got a Grip)
Dismay and outrage are apparent as 8ackgr0und N015e reports on the 10,000 strong anti-Iraq war protest held yesterday by the ILWU. He goes on to further note that Al Jazeera covers US news better than Daily Kos?!!!! (vcmvo2)
Jeffersonian Democrat brings us news, both heartwarming and sad, of being provided with desperately needed healthcare in a foreign land that he's been denied in the U.S. in I Just Got Social Health Insurance! while PlaneCrazy gives us a personal example of how the sad state of our healthcare system can adversely affect even those who have great insurance in Prisoner of Employer Health Insurance. (Got a Grip)
Snapper asks which President, historically, redirected the government to address the needs of all citizens, instead of the wealthy few in The Party of Jackson, 1828-2008. (PaintyKat)
"To state the obvious, I thought it was wrong at the time. I thought phrases like ‘a few dead-enders,’ ‘last throes,’ all of those comments contributed over time to the frustration and sorrow of Americans because those statements and comments did not comport with the facts on the ground...and I think that history will judge me that I thought it was wrong and I knew what was right."
Asked if Bush bore responsibility for the placement of the "Mission Accomplished" banner posted above him at the speech, McCain took a big picture approach.
"Do I blame him for that specific banner? I have no knowledge of that. I can’t blame him for that. But I do, do say statements were made-’a few dead-enders,’ ‘last throes’...(that) were contradicted by the facts on the ground."
McCain has a penchant for rewriting history in such a way that he turns out to have been the hero of every story, though usually unrecognized as such "at the time". So what was McCain really saying in the spring of 2003 about "mission accomplished"?
NEIL CAVUTO (host): Senator -- after a conflict means after the conflict, and many argue the conflict isn't over.
McCAIN: Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?
Look, the -- I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict -- the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it's very appropriate. In two weeks, General Franks is going to come before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and we're going to have his overall assessment of the conflict. I think that's entirely appropriate because we'll be -- we'll be taking up the needs of the Defense Department and the men and women in the military on the Armed Services Committee.
But I'm looking for an overall review of the conflict, what we did right, what we did wrong, and what the needs are, including the issue of weapons of mass destruction. I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Now, I think it's entirely appropriate now that regime change has been orchestrated -- and though the danger is certainly not over, the mission is 'accomplished' -- it's appropriate to have a hearing."
So five years ago John McCain was endorsing propaganda about victory in Iraq that he now claims he knew to be false at the time.
Though when he was asked if he foresees a day when he would declare the mission in Iraq "accomplished," he said he would try to be more careful with his words.
"I would hate to use that kind of language, because I think it’s going to be one of these situations which is the classic counterinsurgency, that we’ve seen in conflicts around the world in the past, that there is slow, gradual progress and there is two steps forward and one step back," McCain said. "I don’t know if you could ever say quote ‘mission accomplished’ as much as you could say ‘Americans are out of harms way.’
The way to get American troops out of harm's way in Iraq is to withdraw them from Iraq, the one thing McCain insists he won't do. It looks to me as if McCain prefers to run for the presidency under this new banner:
The cold war still rages on, if you can believe Mario Diaz-Balart. Check out this:
It turns out, in Diaz-Balart's mind, you are one of the Commies. Here's how Diaz-Balart responded to that ad, from the Joe Garcia campaign:
Yesterday they released a statement asking us why we didn't release the names of our small-dollar contributors – people donating less than $200 dollars. While we're happy to provide this information (and proud of our more than 2,000 donors), keep in mind that campaigns are not required to do this. For example, neither Obama nor Clinton does, and this is the first time Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart has. The release:
A simple analysis of Joe Garcia's campaign finance report (see attached), shows that Garcia is concealing the source of more than $51,000 in campaign contributions. The decision to cover up the identity of these contributors raises serious questions. Who are these contributors? Are these contributions legal? Were they cash contributions? Did any of these contributions come from outside the United States?
And this is where it gets ridiculous: Mario Diaz-Balart's campaign has coupled this release with a whisper campaign that says we're taking donations from the Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro regimes. In the past few days, our campaign has received numerous calls about this.
Almost $45,000 of that $51,000 the Diaz-Balart release highlights came from us, the netroots, via ActBlue, and over $14,000 of that from our Blue Majority page. So now we're part of the Chavez and Castro regimes?
I'll take this opportunity to make the record clear--I'm a Joe Garcia small dollar contributor. No secret there, and hardly a cover up. How about you? Is your donation being "covered up"?
Let's show Diaz-Balart what good, patriotic American small donors can do in defense of our country--electing serious men and women who will fight for us on the real issues facing the country today, not the bogeymen from decades past. Contribute to Joe Garcia.
