HIPAA And Other
Assaults Upon Our Civil Liberties
Norma Sherry
If you or a loved one has been in the hospital or to your doctor lately, undoubtedly, you have become familiar with the new HIPAA regulations. The regulations that disallow nurses to answer even the simplest of queries, such as, “can you tell me what room my husband is in?” Apparently, we have become so paranoid, so protective of our privacy, that we have legislated secrecy gone amuck.
One of the more shaming paradoxes of war and terrorism is that it seems easier to honor the dead
than to acknowledge
the wounded. Newspapers print the names of the dead, names that
eventually make their way onto memorials -- cold comfort though it may
be to those that loved the dead and ache for them. But the wounded --
at least the civilian wounded, who are shown here -- are listed by
number, and there is not even any public tally of who has suffered some
passing injury and who has lost a kidney, who has been blinded, who has
lost a limb.(click
on photo for story)
Fighting Israel's Wall
by ANN PETTER
(update below)
The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel's "Separation Wall" illegal and has called on Israel to dismantle the wall. Nineteen days ago I came to Israel to protest that wall and to bear witness to its devastating effects on the Palestinian population. Instead I was detained by Israel police upon arrival at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport and have since been held in immigration detention awaiting deportation. I have been labeled a threat to "security," and the judge has called my camera a weapon. It seems to me the only threat I pose to Israel is a public relations one.
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an
anonymous Iraqi woman waits outside the Abu Ghraib prison walls, inside the complex,waiting for news of a relative AP Photo May, 2004 |
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| Nagem Salam interviews a former Abu Ghraib female detainee who was arrested by US forces on September 14, 2003 and detained in Ba'qouba, Tikrit, Abu Ghraib and the Tesfirat transfer station. | |
| “I’m afraid
to give my
real name,” she said to begin the interview. After being detained in
her hometown of Ba’qubah on September 14, 2003 and held in three
detention facilities for four months, she preferred to be called Umm
Taha. “The American’s picked me up for
nothing, so what’s stopping them from doing it again?” A highly educated woman with four children, she had worked for the Iraqi government as a legal investigator. While sitting in her home on September 14 of last year, she received a phone call from an interpreter for the for the coalition forces who asked her to meet some US soldiers at the government building. |
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, July 1 — The Pentagon says no. The Selective Service System says no. And Congressional leaders say absolutely not.
Yet talk of reinstating the military draft persists around the country, driven by the Internet, high-profile moves by the military to shore up its forces and fears that all those solid reassurances about no need for conscription could quickly melt away if world events took a turn for the worse.
What's Fair About a Draft?
July 18, 2004
The country's main reaction to the need for more troops in Iraq is that we should get other countries to help us out. In other words, draft foreigners. But events in Iraq have revived rumors and predictions that the real draft is coming back, and they have provided one of the periodic opportunities for advocates of a draft to make their case.
Cuba-u.s. Relations During The War On Terror
July 17, 2004By Jane Franklin
On 9/11 when terrorists used passenger jets to attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Cuba became the first country to express sympathy and offer aid to the United States. That morning President Fidel Castro was giving a speech... [he said] he hoped that, in combatting terrorism, Washington would finally terminate terrorist acts against Cuba... that if he could say something on behalf of the people of the United States, he would urge U.S. leaders to stay calm and not allow themselves to be carried away by acts of rage or hatred.
On that day of 9/11, Cubans began donating blood for the victims. The front page of Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party, was headlined, "PAIN AND SADNESS ALONGSIDE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE."
In a move some are calling a "backdoor draft," the Pentagon has announced it will issue mandatory recalls to more than 5,600 Army troops for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. The use of these soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve is the latest step military leaders are taking to maintain adequate troop strength for our continuing battles in the Middle East. Thousands of service members have had their tours of duty extended beyond the terms of their contracts. "Stop-loss" orders were issued to delay scheduled discharges. And Congress recently approved increasing the size of the Army by 20,000 recruits.
camilo mejia war resisters pagepage
jeremy hinzman updates on all cases
brandon hughey information & support
click here click here click here click here click here click hereclick here click here
by David Wiggins
Dear Soldier of the U.S. Military:
Considering the common practice of talking about "supporting the troops" in times of hostilities, I should let you know how I feel. With all due respect, I want you to know that if you participate in this conflict, you are not serving me, and I don't support you. Speaking for myself, I feel those who participate will be damaging my reputation as an American, and further endangering me and my children by creating hatred that will someday be returned to us – perhaps someday soon. Your actions will not lead to a safer world, but a more dangerous world of pre-emption and unilateral decisions to commit mayhem. I don't support that.
Thursday, July 15th, 2004 (democracy now) Links to radio at this location
We speak with U.S. Army conscientious objector Jeremy Hinzman who fled to Canada to avoid being deployed in Iraq. He is believed to be the first U.S. soldier to file for refugee status in Canada for refusing to fight in Iraq.
By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, July 18, 2004; Page B07
The country's main reaction to the need for more troops in Iraq is that we should get other countries to help us out. In other words, draft foreigners. But events in Iraq have revived rumors and predictions that the real draft is coming back, and they have provided one of the periodic opportunities for advocates of a draft to make their case.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Master Sgt. Thomas R. Thigpen was 52 when he fell dead of a heart attack during a touch-football game in Kuwait on March 16 — a casualty that does not quite fit the standard template of wartime tragedy: the fresh-faced 18-year-old cut down with the promise of a full life ahead. He was not the oldest to die since the invasion of Iraq. That would be Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, 59, who operated the machine gun in the door of his unit's Black Hawk helicopters — the same job he performed in Vietnam — and died after surgery for an intestinal problem. Sgt. Floyd G. Knighten Jr., 55, serving in Kuwait in the same unit as his 21-year-old son, died of heat stroke while driving a Humvee without air-conditioning across the scorching Iraqi desert.
On 9/11 when terrorists used passenger jets to attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Cuba became the first country to express sympathy and offer aid to the United States. That morning President Fidel Castro was giving a speech at the inauguration of a new school in Havana. His speech became a plea for international cooperation against terrorism, which he said could only be eliminated by ending state terrorism and genocide and by developing a worldwide policy of peace, for finding solutions to global problems like AIDS, hunger, and lack of medical care.
We
train our soldiers to kill for us. Afterward, they’re on their own.
Carl Cranston joined the Army in
1997, when he was still a junior at
Sebring McKinley High School, not far from Canton, Ohio. He and his
girlfriend, Debbie Stiles, had just had a baby, and they thought the
Army offered the easiest path to job security. The country was
enjoying
what President Clinton liked to call “the longest peacetime expansion
in history,” and Carl’s duties as an infantryman, they thought, would
largely be a matter of his getting into shape, shooting awesome
weapons, and learning skills like rappelling and land navigation. The
Army allowed Carl to finish high school and, once he’d completed basic
training, sent him to Schofield Barracks, outside Honolulu. Debbie
gladly accompanied him. “The Army was the best choice we could have
made, and I’d do it again,” she says. “Suddenly we were on our own,
paying our bills. Eighteen years old, our first time away from home.”
I went to war as a believer in the citizen-soldier. My college study of the classics idealized Greeks who put down their plows for swords, returning to their fields at the end of the war. As a Marine officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, I learned that the victors on today's battlefields are long-term, professional soldiers. Thus the increasing calls for reinstating the draft - and the bills now before Congress that would do so - are well intentioned but misguided. Imposing a draft on the military I served in would harm it grievously for years.
The
"Good War" Myth of World War I
Editor's Note: John
Spritzler is a regular contributing writer to Axis of Logic.
He is co-editor of New Democracy World and author of a new book: The People as Enemy. The People as Enemyis a powerful and refreshing journey into the real political aims and motivations of the world leaders prior to and during World War II. The parallels between the political dynamics and agendas of the 1940s and those we have witnessed since 9/11/01 cannot be escaped by the thoughtful reader of this important work. I encourage everyone to consider reading this incisive analysis of the myths about WWII and the hidden agendas of leaders on all sides who sacrificed 45 million people on the alters of the ruling elite. John Spritzler was kind enough to write the article below, based upon his book, for Axis of Logic readers. - Les Blough
U.S. troops are trained to respond instinctively during combat. But the lessons do not prepare them for the emotional distress that may arise.
July 18, 2004 - NAJAF, Iraq — Tucked behind a gleaming machine gun, Sgt. Joseph Hall grins at his two companions in the Humvee. “I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday," Hall says.
"I saw blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him.”