Thursday, June 08, 2006
On the road to 2008: God bless you for selling me the big, black Hummer
March of Holy Rollers * Fallout from Outsourcing of Torture
Another Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, played his God card. Bill Frist and Jeb Bush have reason to be concerned. John McCain, who has been trying to become a Bible thumper, has no chance against these stalwarts. Holy Big Mac! The possibilities are endless: God Bless you for that pack of cigarettes; God bless you for that Bud; God bless you for liberating Iraqis; God bless you for that great roll in the hay (except that they would use an euphemism like sexual congress or something like that) and so on. You get the point. A long piece in the Post about Senator Brownback: "Three years ago he gave a speech at the Archdiocese of Denver. He spoke of the need to "convert the culture" by spreading God's love. He posed a question: "When we walk up to the McDonald's counter, what if we looked at that person in the eye . . . and we said, 'God bless you for that Big Mac?!' " Yes, and God bless you for that extra crispy fried chicken.
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Extraordinary Rendition Program
Extraordinary Rendition Program
The exposure of "Extraordinary Rendition", CIA's secret program for outsourcing interrogation of prisoners to countries where the Geneva Convention is a joke, must have caused consternation among those who were responsible for setting it up and managing it. Denials don't seem to do any good as more and more details keep coming out.
The Guardian reported on a speech given by Tony Brown, former Foreign Office Minister in Britain. "The British government's apparent support of CIA rendition flights is "massively damaging" in the battle against international terrorism, a former Foreign Office minister said today. Tony Lloyd demanded that the Bush administration give "proper and definitive" answers to allegations that it has been kidnapping terrorist suspects and transferring them to countries where they could be tortured."
- He was speaking as the Council of Europe human rights' committee named Britain among 14 countries that had colluded with the CIA practice, and called on the government to ask Washington "the right questions" about what the US flights that passed through Britain were being used.
