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Guantanamo 
Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 15:53:42 PM EDT
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cross-posted at Sum of Change
Back in May, the Pentagon told the press that 1 in 7 Guantanamo detainees "returned to terrorism or militant activity." The New York Times ran with this lead, without even requesting a definition of "returned to terrorism or militant activity." Weeks later, the New York Times had to run a correction, essentially blaming the whole confusion on not receiving documents from the Pentagon. This was, of course, a ridiculous excuse. The Pentagon responded to my request for documentation in a matter of hours, with a pdf that described, entirely, how they define whether or not someone is suspected of returning to the battle field:
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There's More...
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Comments, 150 words in story)
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Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 08:44:27 AM EDT
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( - promoted by kindler)
also posted at Daily Kos
It begins like this No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.
The penultimate paragraph There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad's freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible - without merit, of no value.
Read the column. I have words to offer below, but they will not matter if you read the column
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Fri May 22, 2009 at 22:27:19 PM EDT
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The corporate media is making a great deal out of what they refer to as "dueling speeches." They refer to the coincidence of Obama speaking Thursday on national security in front of the Constitution at the National Archives, followed almost immediately by former Vice-President Cheney's speech to the American Enterprise Institute, defending the Bush administration's policies on torture in the name of national security. By and large, corporate media reporters have performed the usual ballet of "he said," and then "the other one said," treating the speeches as equal, and telling listeners to decide which one they preferred, without getting off their hindquarters and doing a little fact-checking. Had they done so, it would have exposed Mr. Cheney's egregious lies and distortions, perhaps raising the question: has Richard Cheney totally slipped the bonds of reality---- or does he have another agenda underlying his many recent torturous defenses of torture?
Fortunately, McClatchey newspapers' Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, did do the fact-checking, and provided us with a roster of troubling "omissions, exaggerations and misstatements" by the former Vice-President. (http://www.freep.com/article/20090522/NEWS15/90521105).
Here are some of Cheney's "misstatements"and the truth for you to use if a Republican accosts you:
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