For a country that prides itself in its free press, I was amazed to see
coverage of the photos of US soldiers torturing and humiating Iraqi detainee
on all the tv news stations last night, all except CNN.

Followup:

So where are we now? CBS was asked to suppress the story - which it did -
essentially confirming that part of the US media is under the direction of the
US government. Now that is a free press.

----

I don't know why everyone is so surprised by the discovery of abuse of Iraqi
prisioners. It should come as no surprise that a nation capable of compromising
the rights of its own citizens in support of a war on terror through the
provisions of the Patriot Act would hesitate at all in violating the human
rights of people it has declared as the enemy.

----

The far right has a tradition of believing the End justifies the Means. We need
only become students of history. It was 40 years ago, that we first heard
"Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice". (Barry Goldwater - 1964
presidential campaign).

One aspect of becoming older is that you get to see much of the past repeated.
It seems each generation needs to learn their own truthes through their own
experiences. So we make the same mistakes all over again.

Those of the Vietnam era have already experienced the abuse of domestic
surveillence by the CIA and FBI. And nearly 34 years ago to the day, we
witnessed our own military killing our own citizenry in the streets. Back then
the images of abuse were prisoners in "Tiger Cages" and people pushed out of
helicopters. The chant from Patriotic chorus was just as loud. "Love it or
Leave it". Nixon won in a record landslide only to become the first president
to resign in disgrace.

And then we wonder why the American people are split so sharply over (your
pick) Bush, the war in Iraq, rights violations both foreign and domestic.
Many of us have seen it before. And after the dust settled, there were the
investigations where we learned that we were lied to and spied upon "for our
own good". The distrust that the government earned lingers long.


Blakely LaCroix
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
RBP Clique member # 86.

The best adventure is yet to come.