Friday Questions for Diane, April 4, 2008

The John Yoo torture memo is noteworthy, as further hard evidence of the cold mentality and legal manipulations of the Bush/Cheney administration, but there is little new information there.

It would serve the public so much better if the media would cover the release this week of the “U.S. War Crimes in Iraq 2007-2008”, a report by Karen Parker, President of the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers and Chief Delegate to the United Nations for the International Education Development/Humanitarian Law Project, along with author/policy analyst Bill Rau, produced by Consumers For Peace.

In this update to their 2006 report, Ms. Parker and Mr. Rau shine a light on the increase of civilian fatalities, with great detail, as the U.S. has increased the use of “air power” in place of ground troops. This strategy continues to result in massive, indiscriminate killing and maiming of the civilian population, and completely goes against international humanitarian rights law as defined by the United Nations.

They point out that reports on the success of the surge are based on the decrease in Iraqis killing other Iraqis. However, the number of Iraqis killed by the U.S. is not counted when claiming the surge has been a success.

The report calls for Congress to question General Petraeus about these missing statistics that would show the impact of U.S. military actions and policies on the Iraqi people.

Do your fine journalists there today think this a worthy area of investigation?

Know Bush Fact #3

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:


On June 2, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission by a 3-2 vote (3 Bush appointees, one of which is Commissioner Michael Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell), and with the White House’s endorsement, swept aside checks and balances developed over six decades. A series of bills, threatened vetoes, court orders, lobbying, secret meetings, votes, and broken promises ensued, resulting in the passage of the change of rules by Congress as 24 lines in the middle of the huge omnibus spending bill that passed January 22, 2004.

The two companies which benefited most from the final version of the rule changes are Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and Viacom, which owns CBS.

Two weeks ago, CBS refused to air a 30-sec ad from liberal online activist group MoveOn.org during today’s Super Bowl.

According to Boston Globe,

"MoveOn.org's 30-second ad, which has aired on CNN, is a gentle yet powerful depiction of how hard today's children will have to work to pay off the country's mounting deficit.”

28 members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to CBS which stated,

"The choice not to run this paid advertisement appears to be part of a disturbing pattern on CBS's part to bow to the wishes of the Republican National Committee.”

Or vice versa. The Bush 2000 campaign received $1,070,728 from media companies, more than any single campaign in history. But . . .

YOU CAN STILL SEE THE AD! During the Super Bowl half time show, at 8:10 and 8:35pm EST, switch over to CNN to watch the ad CBS won’t air.

- February 1, 2004