Allen L Roland's Radio Weblog
My ongoing theme is always the truth , as I see it , and the exposure of lies, deception and manipulation wherever they exist. I remain firmly convinced that the world can no longer resist its innate urge to unite and co-operate with one another and we are very close to the point where war can no longer be an option if this transformation is to occur. Website: allenroland.com Email: allen@allenroland.com
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Thursday, December 15, 2005

 

RUMSFELD STICKS IT TO McCAIN

The Cheney/Bush administration does not like to be told what they can and cannot do ~ so Rumsfeld is revising the Army Field Manual to get around the McCain torture restrictions just passed today by the U.S. Senate.

Obviously, the Cheny/Rumsfeld/Bush cabal answers only to their own agenda ~ not to the will of the American people and their chosen Congressional representatives.

Tim Grieve, Salon, sums up this blatant hubris ~

Allen L Roland

 

Don't like limits on torture? Just change the rules

Tim Grieve / Salon

John McCain's legislation aimed at preventing the U.S. military from torturing those in its custody ties the legal standard for appropriate interrogation techniques to the rules set forth in the Army Field Manual. As McCain's measure moves closer to becoming law, can you make a guess as to what Pentagon officials are doing?

Right. They're changing the Army Field Manual.

As the New York Times reports this morning, the Army has approved a new 10-page classified addendum to a new version of the Army Field Manual that would tell Army interrogators how to "walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations."

Some military officials said the aggressive tactics set forth in the addendum could make it appear that the Army is "pushing the limits" on interrogation in the face of McCain's efforts, the Times says. They predicted that McCain will be furious when he learns of the addendum.

To be fair, McCain has acknowledged that the Army Field Manual could change over time. But he probably didn't anticipate that it would be subject to a 10-page addendum on torture even before his measure becomes law -- or that the addendum would make it this far in the process toward final approval without anyone telling him first. Indeed, in a floor statement on his measure in July, McCain said: "The Manual has been developed by the Executive Branch for its own uses, and a new edition, written to take into account the needs of the war on terror and with a new classified annex is due to be issued soon. My amendment would not set the Field Manual in stone -– it could be changed at any time. But it would require that the Congressional defense committees be informed 30 days prior to a revision. And of course, the revisions would have to be consistent with our laws and treaty obligations."

That's not exactly how the torture addendum came together, and the addendum itself wouldn't appear to be in the spirit of the legislation the Senate adopted 99-0. Maybe that's why one military official tells the Times that the Army addendum is "a stick in McCain's eye."

 


 

Allen Roland’s weblog: http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/
Website: www.allenroland.com
ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY


7:59:18 PM    comment []

 
BUSH'S BUBBLE OF DENIAL


George W Bush exists in a bubble of denial and America continues to pay the price for his refusal to face reality and take full accountability for his actions: Allen L Roland

Bush's bubble of denial has reached the stage that it is an embarrassment to watch him act as a cheerleader for events that are obviously disingenuous .

America is engaged in a co-dependent relationship with Bush, which includes his closest advisors, by not staging an intervention, forcing him to hear the truth and busting his bubble of denial. 

The perfect example is Iraq . First we illegally occupy the country, then we pick a provisional government , then we set up the sham election, then we select the candidates and finally we count the votes ~ and Bush has the audacity to call this democracy in action. 

Google Bremer's 100 orders of servitude and Bush's Exec order 13303 and you'll find that Iraq's democracy is, in reality, an American puppet government which has been severely privitized inorder to claim its oil riches.  

Fortunately some members of the press , like Maureen Dowd, N.Y.Times, are seeing this bubble clearly .

Excerpt: " The idea that W. is getting good advice from very capable people is silly - administration officials have blown it on everything from the occupation and natural disasters to torture.... In his bubble, he floats through a comforting world of doting women, respectful military audiences, loyal Republican donors and screened partisan groups - with protesters, Democrats, journalists, critics and coffins of dead soldiers kept at bay ...In the bubble, they can torture while saying they don't. They can pretend that Iraqi forces are stronger than they are. They can try to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda's dream of a new Islamic caliphate - their latest attempt to scare Americans into supporting the war they ginned up ..The president's bubble requires constant care. It's not easy to keep out huge tragedies like Katrina, or flawed policies like Iraq ."

Allen L Roland

 

 W. Won't Read This 
 

 By Maureen Dowd
WASHINGTON

12/14/05 "
New York Times" -- -- Never ask a guy who's in a bubble if he's in a bubble. He can't answer. 
 

 'Cause he's in a bubble.

But the NBC anchor Brian Williams gamely gave it a shot, showing the president the Newsweek cover picturing him trapped in a bubble.

"This says you're in a bubble," Brian told W. "You have a very small circle of advisers now. Is that true? Do you feel in a bubble?"

"No, I don't feel in a bubble," Bubble Boy replied, unable to see the bubble because he's in it. "I feel like I'm getting really good advice from very capable people and that people from all walks of life have informed me and informed those who advise me." He added, "I'm very aware of what's going on."

He swiftly contradicted himself by admitting that "this is the first time I'm seeing this magazine" - his version of his dad's Newsweek "Wimp Factor" cover - and that he doesn't read newsmagazines.

The anchor and the anchorite spent a few anodyne moments probing the depths of what it's like to be president. "I just talked to the president-elect of Honduras," W. said. "A lot of my job is foreign policy, and I spend an enormous amount of time with leaders from other countries."

Brian struggled to learn whether W. read anything except one-page memos. Talking about his mom, Bubble Boy returned to the idea of the bubble: "If I'm in a bubble, well, if there is such thing as a bubble, she's the one who can penetrate it."

"I'll tell the guys at Newsweek," the anchor said impishly.

"Is that who put the bubble story?" W. asked. First he didn't know about it, and now he's forgotten it already? That's the alluring, memory-cleansing beauty of the bubble.

The idea that W. is getting good advice from very capable people is silly - administration officials have blown it on everything from the occupation and natural disasters to torture 

In the bubble, they can torture while saying they don't. They can pretend that Iraqi forces are stronger than they are. They can try to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda's dream of a new Islamic caliphate - their latest attempt to scare Americans into supporting the war they ginned up.

"Whether or not it needed to happen," the president told the anchor, "I'm still convinced it needed to happen." The Bubble Boy can even contradict himself and not notice.

W.'s contention that he's informed by people from all walks of life is a joke, as is his wacky assertion that he can "reach out" to the public more than Abraham Lincoln because he has Air Force One. Lincoln actually went to the front in his war, with Minié balls whizzing by. No phony turkey for him.

The president may fly over all walks of life in Air Force One or drive by them and hide behind dark-tinted windows.
In his bubble, he floats through a comforting world of doting women, respectful military audiences, loyal Republican donors and screened partisan groups - with protesters, Democrats, journalists, critics and coffins of dead soldiers kept at bay.

(He has probably even been shielded from the outrage of John and Stacey Holley, both Army veterans, who were shocked to learn that their only child, Matthew, killed in Iraq, would be arriving in San Diego as freight on a commercial airliner.)

Jack Murtha, a hawkish Democrat close to the Pentagon who supported both wars against Iraq waged by the Bushes, has been braying against the Bush isolation. He told Newsweek that a letter he wrote to the president making suggestions about how to fight the Iraq war was ignored for seven months, then brushed off by a deputy under secretary of defense. Even after he went public, he still did not get a call from the White House.

"If they talked to people," he said, "they wouldn't get these outbursts."

Mr. Murtha told Rolling Stone that the administration's deafness had doomed Iraq: "Everything we did was mishandled. Plans that the military and the State Department had in place - they ignored 'em. The military tells me that when they were planning the invasion, the administration wouldn't let one of the primary three-star generals in the room."

The president's bubble requires constant care. It's not easy to keep out huge tragedies like Katrina, or flawed policies like Iraq.  

 As Newsweek noted, a foreign diplomat "was startled when Secretary of State Rice warned him not to lay bad news on the president. 'Don't upset him,' she said."

Heaven forbid. Don't burst his bubble.  

 

Catch me on  the first  and third Monday of every month   
7 AM an 4PM  PST    
 TRUTHTALK
on Conscious Talk Radio with Brenda Michaels &  
 Rob Spears 


 


 

Allen Roland’s weblog: http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/
Website: www.allenroland.com
ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY


1:44:52 PM    comment []



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