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As Buddha said, "When someone points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger."

How about Human Rights Watch. Is this unbiased enough for you?

Just because the Iraqi government didn't publicly bomb it's victims does not mean they were not terrorized.

Uday and Qusay were not nice people, and neither was John Gotti as long as we're comparing apples to oranges. However, most of the Iraqi populace weren't on the Olympic track team. I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but I bet the number of Iraqi non-combatants killed in the US invasion is greater than all the Iraqi citizens killed by Uday and Qusay.

[Those objecting to the war in Iraq] would like to maintain the status quo.

Unlikely. The point is the current situation in Iraq is in many ways worse than the old status quo, and if improvement were to be made it would have required a less blunt method.

This isn't just hindsight: George H. W. Bush ("the Elder") chose not to overthrow Saddam because his team anticipated that it would lead to a long, violent occupation. And the conventional wisdom in US foreign policy was that every time the US invades an Arab country it inspires new terrorists -- if Bush's goal was to test that assumption, he should have run the experiment on a smaller lab animal.

The al Qaida apologists for them would like to maintain the status quo.

This is not just a cheap slur, but evidence of some serious ignorance.

Al Qaida are probably much happier this way, as Iraq is now a nursery for their type of people. Prior to the invasion, Al Qaida and Saddam were mutual enemies. It's hard to overstate what a big favor the US inadvertently did al Qaida by invading Iraq.

If anything I'm an apologist for "the Elder" Bush not finishing Saddam off while he had the chance (tho having Norman Schwarzkopf work out the peace treaty was a major bungle).

At least the intentions of the US are for the good, albeit misguided.

Tell that to tens of thousands of victims' families. I'm sure they'll be relieved.

By the way, do you know what those intentions are? They're not to fight terrorism, or to stop WMDs, tho such was implied early on. And the idea that Bush just wanted to liberate Iraq from its cruel dictator seems implausible considering all the other dictators with whom the US does business, not to mention Bush's objections during the 2000 campaign to the Clinton's intervention in the Bosnia-Serbia conflict as "nation building", and the current american indifference toward the situation in Darfur.

Was the intention to show that Bush was a big man, who could be stronger than Clinton or even his own mighty father? If so, that intention isn't very good. Stupid as all getout, really.

Are you just presuming the invasion had good intentions?

If you think those prisoners at abu Graib were tortured, you demean those who have truly been tortured. Humiliation is NOT torture. Where is your indignation over the beheadings of innocents?

What a conservative stock retort. It compares the actions of a gang of thugs on one side to the US government on the other. Gee the US comes out better? Pats on the back all around.

Do you remember the first wave of beheadings? They were justified as being revenge for the US treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Prior to that no one would have gone public with such a brutal act because it would have destroyed all Arab sympathy for the terrorists. In effect, the US did regional advance PR for the beheaders.

Also, when you characterize the prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib as "humiliation", "NOT torture", I have to presume it means you look at the pictures but don't read the text.

"... an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called "O.G.A.," or other government agencies--that is, the C.I.A. and i

Medicines.

With the establishment of this ordinance, which will expire after a time and have to be reintroduced as a bill in Parliament, medicines in India, including lifesaving ones, will cost up to four times to a hundred times more than they do now.

The current government is forced to enact this law under it's obligations under the WTO's TRIPS. However, the draft Bill not only fails to use the flexibility available within the TRIPS Agreement but also goes beyond TRIPS. In other words, the draft Bill proposes patent protection more than what is required under TRIPS.

Civil society organisations believe that draft Bill provisions would give monopoly rights to pharmaceutical companies at the cost of accessibility and availability of drugs under the product patent regime. It's worth noting here that the Right to Health is a Fundamental Right under the Indian Constitution.

Here's a link which details the situation. Here's a fact sheet on the issue of Generic Drugs as well as a document called the Myths and Realities of the Pharmaceutical Industry that the European Generic Medicines Association has prepared. The movement against the amendment in the law is being spearheaded by the Affordable Medicines and Treatment Campaign. Here's a letter to the Prime Minister of India that you can send if you wish to help out as well as one letter to the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission.

What bothers me is that when asked to bend before Intellectual Property Rights, we have begun to crawl. Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar

Unlike China, Russia is destined to be a great ally of America.

For Fucking, Fuck Sakes. What is with the xenophobia on Slashdot against any country deemed as competitors with the USA? Is your only definition of an ally a lapdog? Or one which ceases to be a competitor? Is it "My country, right or wrong"?

It's pure FUD -- Fear, Uncertainly and Doubt. It used to be Japan in the 1980s, it was France and Germany for daring not to kowtow to the US. India for daring to participate in globalisation of the world's economy (of which US is a leading proponent) and likewise China for daring to have cheap labour and trying to raise their living standards above poverty level.

Okay, here's some stuff about Russia...still your allies? You might also want to look at your own backyard.
Human Rights Watch - Torture 1
Amnesty International - Torture 2
And you can bloody well Google for more.

BTW I am not saying Russia is evil. Please don't even think about liberating them. But please stop seeing the world in black and white. The US-conception of freedom is not necessarily the "One True Way".

The real penalty makes Singapore look downright mild.

This poor guy will probably get raped in prison. Sorry, I don't think he deserves that from stealing from a bunch of corporate types that probably stole their way to the top.

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you referring to the act of kidnapping political enemies on foreign soil and then torturing them for information?

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/10/12/usint9463.h tm

"At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have 'disappeared' in U.S. custody, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. U.S. officials are holding the detainees in undisclosed locations, where some have reportedly been tortured."

Those dirty communist bastards.

Rape isn't funny

Amnesty International don't think so

Neither do these guys

Nor does Human Rights Watch

A quarter of prisoners aged 18 to 25 claim they have been sexually assaulted while in custody

Amnesty International don't think so

Neither do these guys

Nor does Human Rights Watch

A quarter of prisoners aged 18 to 25 claim they have been sexually assaulted while in custody

The failure of Chinese society is the failure of its culture. Look at Taiwan and Singapore, both being Chinese states. In the latter, the Chinese practice eugenics and have repeatedly banned or censored journals like "The Economist". In the former, the Chinese actually support all the geopolitical objectives of Beijing, including the integration of Tibet into "One China".

Have you considered that there might be a reason for the rest of the world to distrust the US? Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, your presence on the world stage is causing more harm than good? Here's another reality check: the rest of the world does not want you to intervene in its affairs. We'd love it if you just quit the UN. Really. Only that wouldn't stop you from throwing your weight around, would it? So perhaps the thing to do is to stop being childish, and engage with the rest of the world in a productive way, in the forum designed for this very purpose - the United Nations. Hope springs eternal...

The truly unfortunate thing in my mind is that it apparently didn't occur to anyone to keep up this communication after the invasion when there was still a chance to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

I'm just surprised they haven't considered sending translators with every patrol before they came up with e-mails sent to a country which officially had no internet connection at all.

has ... some ardent anti-spammers wondering whether 'proportionality is becoming a completely forgotten concept.

Have these people been paying attention? When you can get a life sentence for carrying two ounces of pot, it makes me think that proportionality went out the window a *loooong* time ago.

The first empirical study of the issue, sparked by reports that Philadephia pretrial detainees were being raped even in vans on the way to court, was conducted in 1968 by a local district attorney. After interviewing thousands of inmates and hundreds of correctional officers, as well as examining institutional records, he found that sexual assaults were "epidemic" in the Philadelphia system. "[V]irtually every slightly-built young man committed by the court is sexually approached within a day or two after his admission to prison," the author said. "Many of these young men are repeatedly raped by gangs of prisoners."(380) In all, he found that slightly over 3 percent of inmates--an estimated 2,000 men --had been sexually assaulted during the twenty-six-month period examined. Although he was careful to exclude instances of consensual homosexual contact from his findings, he also acknowledged that some instances of apparently consensual sex might in fact have a coercive basis, due to the "fear-charged atmosphere" of the penal system.

So, the only additional parameter you need to do the arithmetic is the size of the US prison population, which has been exploding over the last decade or so and is over 2 million. Indeed, the US now imprisons more of its population than any other developed country and it is in fact imprisoning more of its citizens than second-world and third world Islmic countries.

The formulas:

Rate = Punks * RapesPerPunk Punks = Prisoners * PunkRate

Can be used to estimate.

It is reasonable to expect that with the explosion of ethnic gang activity in the inner cities, and the general attitude of victimization-as-justification is encouraged among inner city ethnics, that the rate at which ethnic prison gangs sexually attack others, particularly whites, in prisons has substantially increased since the advent of the civil rights era when the above study was initiated. (This is not to disparage the legitimate complaints of minorities -- merely to point out the pathological prison mindset with respect to the civil rights era.)

So let's take 3 percent as a reasonable minimum and 10 percent as a reasonable maximum for PunkRate.

With an incarcerated population of more than 2 million we have a maximum Punks figure of 200,000.

Since punks are increasingly viewed as economic commodities, as are slaves, and the operation of gangs in prisons is frequently involved in economic activities, it is reasonable to place a fairly high number on the "work load" of a given punk. Most pimps demand multiple sexual acts of their employees during a day and we should expect similar rates in prison of punks and their "owners". It's hard to say what a reasonable minimum is here but a reasonable maximum is somewhere around one coerced sex act per day, and we can even round it down if you think that's a ridiculous work load in a prison gang pimping operation -- so we have a reasonable RapesPerPunk of around 300.

So we then have a maximum Rate of 300*200,000 or 60 million.

Substitute your own assumptions and come up with your own estimates, but the numbers are so incredibly high that it hardly makes sense to see Abu Ghraib as anything but a symptom of the domestic problem in the US.

The sexual sadism of Abu Ghraib is insignificant by comparison and may even be seen as a symptom of the US penal system's standards.

Google is merely trying to keep things in perspective.

Here's a link to the Human Rights in China site. They aren't President Bush.

I suppose I should mention Human Rights Watch, another group not affiliated with President Bush or the U.S. Government. They aren't happy with China's approach to human rights, which is to propagandize about how wonderful things are in China.

Amnesty International, a group critical of the Bush Administration, thinks even less of PRChina.

I've never been to China. Have you?

You think he runs this country? Think again

Actually, Bush thinks and acts like he runs the country.

"The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep."

Bush also thinks and acts as if the laws of the US don't apply to him

I went to the website you link to and I saw no proof for terrorism link to Irak. Lie.

Human rights violation ? Ok, the US violates the human rights too with the Guantanamo camp. W should invade the US too.

The 350 tons of explosives didn't disappeared under the UN's nose but under the US's nose. They disappeared in April 2003. Check it now.

You are too stupid to admit that there are simply no WMDs in Irak despite that even GWB himself and his administration admitted this fact. I believe you are definitely lost.

From Humain Rights Watch:

New U.S. Landmine Policy: Questions and Answers

Discarded by this policy is the 1994 objective of being part of a global ban of antipersonnel mines. The policy jettisons the commitment to join the 1997 treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines by 2006 if alternatives were identified and fielded. Also departed is the 1998 commitment to cease using antipersonnel mines, except those contained in "mixed systems" with antivehicle mines, everywhere in the world except for Korea by 2003. If this commitment were maintained, 8.4 million antipersonnel mines would not be eligible for use anymore, except in Korea.

The commitment to stop using long-lived antivehicle mines after 2010 is new, and is a welcome announcement. The U.S. has been moving away from long-lived antivehicle mines for many years, procuring only self-destructing types. Many long-lived antivehicle mines in the U.S. inventory will be obsolete by 2010.

What is its impact on the movement to ban antipersonnel mines?

This new policy is completely out-of-step with the global movement that has been working for over a decade to eradicate the weapon. The unprecedented alliance of governments, international organizations such as the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross, and civil society groups, such as Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) made history in 1997, when they secured the 1997 treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines.

The new policy undermines the movement's efforts to universalize the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty by providing justification for other holdout states to use, produce, or export these indiscriminate weapons. A total of 150 governments have joined the Mine Ban Treaty, of which 141 are full States Parties.

Do U.S. landmines contribute to the global problem?

The U.S. is one of just fifteen countries left in the world that produce or reserve the right to produce antipersonnel mines. U.S.-manufactured antipersonnel mines have been found by deminers in at least twenty-eight mine-affected countries or regions. The U.S. exported over 5.6 million antipersonnel mines to thirty-eight countries between 1969 and 1992 and stockpiled its antipersonnel mines in at least twelve foreign countries.

How many landmines does the U.S. stockpile?

The U.S. stockpiles 10.4 million antipersonnel mines and 7.5 million antivehicle mines making it the world's third largest "mine power." Included in this 17.9 million landmine stockpile are 1.5 million long-lived antipersonnel mines and 1.3 million long-lived antivehicle mines. Mixed systems that contain both self-destructing antipersonnel and antivehicle mines constitute only eleven percent of the overall stockpile.

When was the last time the U.S. used landmines?

The U.S. last used landmines in the 1991 Gulf War by scattering 117,634 landmines in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. U.S. forces in recent combat operations in Afghanistan or Iraq did not use landmines.

Protective minefields from the Soviet era are incorporated into the perimeter defense scheme at locations U.S. forces currently occupy in Afghanistan. Military advantage is derived from these minefields and the U.S. is obligated to comply with 1996 Amended Protocol II of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to mark and monitor these minefields to ensure the effective exclusion of civilians. The US failed to report measures it has taken to protect civilians from the effects of these landmines in its annual national reports for this treaty submitted in December 2002 and November 2003.

Do "smart" mines still pose a humanitarian threat?

The time when the mines are armed and when they self-destruct or fully self-deactivate can be as long as nineteen weeks. In theoretically perfect conditions all of these mines should destroy themselve

then again USA and human rights never did get on well

But somehow France and Switzerland are blameless? "Don't point out the splinter in another's eye when you have a plank in your own."

then again USA and human rights never did get on well

But somehow France and Switzerland are blameless? "Don't point out the splinter in another's eye when you have a plank in your own."

The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.

which court , a US one ? French, Swiss ?
its almost a human rights issue if the suspect has been bound over from discussing the charges or suspected charges with anyone
then again USA and human rights never did get on well

I am not saying any of this as a racist. I don't think the problem is the "white man" but instead a problem within the black community, specifically the poor family structure. According to planned parenthood

Each year, approximately 19 percent of black women, 13 percent of Hispanic women, and eight percent of white women aged 15-19 become pregnant

The proportion of all births that occurred to unmarried women was 22.1 percent for white women, unchanged from 1999; it declined for black women from 69.1 to 68.7 percent. Among births to Hispanic women, the proportion increased from 42.2 to 42.7 percent

IMO, when the black community can fix these problems, they will experience the same success rate as anyone else. For example, according to the Census Bureau

Black households had the lowest median income. Their 2003 median money income was about $30,000, which was 62 percent of the median for White households (about $48,000).

Median money income for Hispanic households was about $33,000 in 2003, which was 69 percent of the median for White households.

Asian households had the highest median income among the race groups. Their 2003 median money income was about $55,500, 117 percent of the median for White households.

The above was not to start a flame or be racist. It is just MHO on what is causing the biggest issues in the black community; those being high crime percentage, high percentage of out of wedlock child births and poor family structure. Affirmative action won't fix these problems. No government social policy would fix these problems. Each Black American will need to make the change for themselves, and then they as a community can have unlimited success like any other American.

The Iraqi authorities actively discourage the release of the Iraqi wounded tally http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq1003/. The US authorities "don't do bodycounts".

The bodycounts are tallied by 3rd parties on sites like http://icasualties.org/oif/ or http://www.iraqbodycount.net/. A rough extrapolation from US casualties to wounded based on the nature of the casualties (predominately due to coalition or faction bombs) the wounded figure could be 5-10 times the number of casualties i.e. 65/75 to 130/150 thousand.

"In Alabama and Florida, 31 per cent of black men are permanently barred from voting."

The endnote for the quote refers to "Human Rights Watch/The Sentencing Project, 'Losing the Vote', 1998." Part of which is available online But the partial online version does not identify the states; the third paragraph says

"In two states, our data show that almost one in three black men is disenfranchised."

There have been reports from organizations like Human Rights Watch that have people on the ground in Afghanistan (see Afghanistan: Human Rights Watch Key Documents)

If you don't believe what I'm saying, what do YOU base it on?

Do the Kuwaitis know that? Or the Kurds? Or the Shiites? Or the Marsh Arabs?

Is Saddam not a Hitler simply because he is not a European? Can you point to any real differences between the two?

And should we also forget that Stalin was an ally of the United States during WWII? The reason the United states helped Saddam come to power weighs heavily in the fact that the United States had two issues. One the US was very scared of what was happening in the region with Khomeini at the helm in Teheran. Two the US was in the midst of the Cold War and was afraid of the Soviets gaining control over the oil in the Gulf.

That does not excuse the fact that we were not watching Saddam closely enough to avert the tragities that came as a result.

I don't have to google for that info, I know it, and while a majority of the hijackers where Saudi not all of them where. There was an Egyptian, a Lebanese, and two from United Arab Emirates, you google it. The tragity of 9/11 wasn't because of Saudi Arabia or Lebanon or the United Arab Emirates, it was a direct result of mentially unstable individuals that thought their chances with virgins where more important than thousands of innocent people. Al Queda seems to be a haven for individuals like that. They aren't fighting for independance, or to free themselves of oppression or slavery, the majority of them fight because they are told that it is a war between people who are like them against people that are against them.

Of course, people like you like to ignore the fact that governments in North Korea, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia treat their citizens just as bad if not worse than Saddam did his, yet we're not invading those countries

No I am not ignoring the fact that the United States isn't invading those contries. Let take the first one on the list, North Korea. Last time I heard on the news the United States still was maning the line drawn in the sand by the U.N. You want to know why the U.S. hasn't just stepped over the line? It's only approx 50 miles from Seoul, and the North Korea's side of the line is packed full of artillary. We even think of crossing that line into North Korea and Seoul is gone (btw according to this article it's looking like that may not be an issue later. Now lets take the next two, China and Cuba both of those countries have shown to react very nicely to the diplomatic channels. Iraq was talked to for lets see about what 10 years and each time they said sure sure no problem then reniged, again and again, and again and again resolutions were passed in the U.N. saying follow these rules or else, and after a decade of saying or else the U.S. used the authority given to it by one of those previous or else resolutions to give an or else. Now as for the last country you list the Saudi's I'm afraid I would not weep if the Saudi govenment where to suddenly collapsed and a democratic one sprang up over night. I have never ignored the their basic lack of decency to anyone not of the royal family (notice I do distinish the difference between the govenment and the people as I had said in the parent of your post I met and made friends with people of many nationalities, and yes Saudi is one of them) but unless you've have proof that Saudi's routinely tourture it's people (and not that I've heard or seen, I've even looked here here or you have heard the attrocities first hand from an Iraqi don't compare the two.

weak??? That's a laugh, guess the fact that during the years of U.N. watching them oh so closely and making sure all the oil-for-food proceeds went to humantarian causes, and some how Saddam was able rebuild his miltary to what it was before the Gulf war doesn't bother you.

That all sounds wonderful.

But how does one actually do it? How do you "make the U.N. more effective and then enforce its resolutions swiftly and firmly. with U.N. garb", when the United Nations is clearly unwilling to do so? How do we deal with an organization that allows Sudan to retain its current seat on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights at the very time that Sudan is committing genocide (or, in the words of the U.N.'s own High Commissioner for Human Rights, "a disturbing pattern of disregard for basic principles of human rights and humanitarian law, which is taking place in Darfur for which the armed forces of the Sudan and the Janjaweed are responsible."

This is, of course, the same U.N. Commission on Human Rights that was chaired by Libya in 2002 at the same time Libya was defying U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on it to turn over the terrorists who blew up Pan Am 103 and answer for other terrorist attacks around the world.

Look, I would like the support of the rest of the world. But I have absolutely no faith in the U.N.'s ability to actually resolve conflicts which involve dictators (all of whom, of course, are members of the U.N. itself) and terrorists. The U.N. almost presupposes a certain amount of rationality and good will among its members when it tries to end conflict. This is just not always the case, and when it isn't, the U.N. is organizationaly incapable of dealing with it effectively.

Remember that one of the main reasons President George H. W. Bush did not invade Baghdad during the first Gulf war was because he did not have unanimous support from the international community to do so. That didn't pan out so well.

Again, I agree that your goals are laudable. But I don't see how to change it in the current global situation, and I certainly don't think we will make it better by refusing to do what me must to defend ourselves.

And in terms of the current presidential race, if John Kerry were saying how corrupt the U.N. was and his first job would be to bring about U.N. reform so that it would actually have the will and desire to enforce its own resolutions, then I might support him. But he has offered no vision other than his own ability to somehow persuade our allies to go along with us in the future.

Let me put it in a way that a warmonger will understand: Oil is a strategic resource that we have to protect. Saudi Arabia has the most oil in the world, so we have to make sure that their country is stable, regardless of how it affects the people there.

I agree that there is value in prioritizing your platform. That said, issues such as drug legalization go straight to the heart of libertarian philosophy. The idea of individual freedom, in all cases where no one else is directly harmed, is central. As all harm (except to the user) of drugs is caused by prohibition, the current drug war regime is completely incompatible with libertarian thought. While you may not be personally affected by drug legalization in the sense that you're not a drug user, the issue has far-reaching societal implications. Look at our prisons. They're full of non-violent offenders. 54% of all inmates are "serving" for drug-related convictions. You and I are paying serious tax dollars to lock up (for whatever reason, disproportionately black) people for trading in psychoactive chemicals. Due to prohibition and high demand, drugs are an extremely lucrative trade. Which in turn supplies vital cash flow to organized crime - and in some cases, violent militias (like the AUC and FARC in Columbia and warlords in Afghanistan).

But yeah, I'd like to see whether Badnarik is more concerned with social deregulation or economic deregulation - the LP platform seems to equate the two.

A comic strip, a Washington Post editorial, and using the Slashdot community as an example ... doesn't sound like much of an argument to me. If you're saying the western world hasn't come a long, long way from how women used to be treated, I ain't buying it.

The world I know - the third world - is on its way. It's happening. We're going slowly - there's a lot of history, a lot of stereotypes, a lot of social rules to get over - but you know what? We'll get there someday. The cosmopolitan upper classes, they're *there*. The rest will take time to catch up - maybe a lot of time - but there are people working at it.

Advice to parent poster: relax. We can only change the world one person at a time. If you're in a hurry, you can always help out.

Now, aside from this, we as a society need to ask ourselves, why is the prison population in the US growing so very rapidly(we are looking at over 50% growth the first few years of the Bush administration)?

I don't mean to be insensitive to the topic of child abuse, but I have nagging suspicion that all the discussion about this book borders on pandering to people's fears. I've heard that statistics say most abused children are more likely to be abused by someone they know rather than complete strangers. The media has a tendency to propagate fear of the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

I can't find a link to information on it, but I recall seeing a report on how statistics proved that the topic of deaths from the drug ecstasy was exhaggerated in the UK media, when they were actually rare and paled in comparison to something that resulted in many more deaths; falling in the shower! Yet no mention was made of this in the media, nor were there any measures taken to do things like enforce safer shower designs. Ecstasy was just more eye-catching as a news item.

The author of the book, Katie Tarbox seems to be turning this into a career- she actually has a company, Katie Tarbox, Inc., and even plans to launch a school curriculum. Her lawyer, Parry Aftab, seems to be revelling in the spotlight, touting herself as "The Angel of the Internet" and boasting about her media appearances; "She regularly appears on national and international television, in national, international and regional news publications and in both business and mass market publications around the world. She has been featured in Readers Digest, People Magazine, TV Guide, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Biography Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Seventeen, Family Circle and Ladies Home Journal, among others". Yet this is the very same woman who called Katie Jones, the owner of the Katie.com domain name and threatened that "things would only get worse" if she didn't freely hand over the domain name- and Jones had just given birth only a week before. The lawyer also spread defamatory remarks about Jones, claiming that Jones had a hidden agenda. Tarbox claims that Aftab doesn't represent her but represents her publisher, Penguin, yet there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

All this media hype, aggressive legal action, PR damage control, and not to mention incorporation, all have the trademark characteristics of a profitable business. If this was an effort focused more on social change and education, the controversies surrounding the book would have been resolved long ago rather than having escalated to this point. There is always the danger of children coming into contact with pedophiles through the internet, but how does this statistically compare to things like the murder rate for children? What about the institutionalised rapes of women in Somalia? Why focus on this topic? Is it about reality, or is it more about pandering to the tabloid psyche?

American felons don't get a vote. Spare me the knee-jerk reaction, slashdot, most of the people with felony convictions did not make their mother-in-law shut up with a magnum (tempting!), rob a bank or rape little girls. Most of them were caught with a small bag of grass, committed multiple minor offenses or "cheated" taxes. Why some were thrown into the slammer for writing visual basic scripts :-) or cheating phone companies out of billions of vapor profits. With MPAA/RIAA criminalizing America, with legislation like the DMCA and the Patriot Act, how far do you think your felony conviction is away??

Why you ask, can't felons vote [or even leave the country!!]?? Who do you think someone would vote for that was locked away for smoking some grass and burning a couple of CDs?

Mod me down, I can afford the karma.

This is an overstatement. The CIA has said no such thing. The authors of an Army report made this claim back in 1990, before Saddam was officially the bad guy in the Iran-Iraq war. One of the authors, Stephen Pelletiere, who was a CIA agent at the time, has repeated these allegations, most recently in the New York Times. Human Rights Watch, in their lengthy report on the situation of the Kurds, calls Pelletiere's version of events an illusion.

You further exaggerate the certainty that the Kurds were gassed. As far as I'm aware this conclusion is merely speculative, based on observations by journalists that the victims were asphyxiated (cyanide works by stopping cellular respiration). According to the Human Rights Watch report, nerve agents produce the same visible effects because they paralyse the body, rendering the victim unable to breathe.

While there's nothing groundbreaking about the 'inventions' themselves, the fact that he has persisted with his tinkering in the midst of an Arab culture speaks of incredible curiosity, freethinking, and persistence.

WTF? Exactly how does "an Arab culture" impede invention? There's a lack of research spending in most of the Arab world, granted, and there's a lot of illiteracy (keeping the people stupid makes ruling over them a lot easier) but nowhere in the Quran does it say "thou shalt not tinker", I'm sure.

Just because the Taleban were notoriously down on music doesn't mean even they were anti-technology. Anti dependence on the West for technology, perhaps. Anti-satellite television, most assuredly. But an anti-technology mindset isn't something you can claim for some of the earliest adopters of heat seeking handheld surface-to-air missiles.

And even all of that has precious little to do with the Taleban being Arabs, than with them just being a bunch of nut jobs.

In fact, the fact that most of the people in the Arab world are pretty poor, probably means they're a lot more inventive on a day-to-day basis than you or I, just because they need to be. They can hardly run down to Best Buy to replace broken stuff or to buy high-end alarm systems and the like. Expect the same to go on everywhere where the economy is pretty crappy for the average Joe.

Now, getting engaged in politics in certain countries in the Arab world (for example, US big buddies Saudi Arabia, the country that brought you Bin Laden before he got US funds to become mujahedin in Afghanistan *cough*) is most definately discouraged.

Does this mean that I will begin to believe that all wars are fought by 13 year olds?

Oh, no, that was the project before last.

Now it's all about aiding and abetting the genocide and organized rape in Darfur.

We believe it never happened, just as our children might have been led to believe Abu Ghraib never happened.

They are acting as the press always does: Protect the US government from the public becoming aware that sexual sadism toward prisoners started here, against US citizens.

If there is anything worthy of the term "terrorism" it is the fact that the US government acts like a serial rapist that simply cannot control himself when it comes to the very demography that not only must "comply" with a vastly disproportionate tax burden, but which also makes up a disproportionate number of the deaths on the Iraq occupation: white males.

From Human Rights Watch "No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons":

Past studies have documented the prevalence of black on white sexual aggression in prison. These findings are further confirmed by Human Rights Watch's own research. Overall, our correspondence and interviews with white, black, and Hispanic inmates convince us that white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse. Although many whites reported being raped by white inmates, black on white abuse appears to be more common. To a much lesser extent, non-Hispanic whites also reported being victimized by Hispanic inmates.

Other than sexual abuse of white inmates by African Americans, and, less frequently, Hispanics, interracial and interethnic sexual abuse appears to be much less common than sexual abuse committed by persons of one race or ethnicity against members of that same group. In other words, African Americans typically face sexual abuse at the hands of other African Americans, and Hispanics at the hands of other Hispanics. Some inmates told Human Rights Watch that this pattern reflected an inmate rule, one that was strictly enforced: "only a black can turn out [rape] a black, and only a chicano can turn out a chicano." Breaking this rule by sexually abusing someone of another race or ethnicity, with the exception of a white inmate, could lead to racial or ethnic unrest, as other members of the victim's group would retaliate against the perpetrator's group. A Texas inmate explained, for example: "The Mexicans--indeed all latinos, nobody outside their race can 'check' one without permission from the town that, that person is from. If a black dude were to check a mexican w/out such permission & the mexican stays down & fights back, a riot will take place."The causes of black on white sexual abuse in prison have been much analyzed. Some commentators have attributed it to the norms of a violent black subculture, the result of social conditioning that encourages aggressiveness and the use of force. Others have viewed it as a form of revenge for white dominance of blacks in outside society. Viewing rape as a hate crime rather than one primarily motivated by sexual urges, they believe that sexually abused white inmates are essentially convenient surrogates for whites generally. Elaborating on this theory, one commentator surmised that "[i]n raping a white inmate, the black aggressor may in some measure be assaulting the white guard on the catwalk."

Some inmates, both black and white, told Human Rights Watch that whites were generally perceived as weaker and thus more vulnerable to sexual abuse. An African American prisoner, describing the situation of incarcerated whites, said:

• When individuals come to prison, they know that the first thing that they will have to do is fight. Now there are individuals that are from a certain race that the majority of them are not physically equip to fight. So they are the majority that are force to engage in sexual acts.

Another African American inmate, while generally agreei

No, that's not a mistake. Take a look around, man. Man's inhumanity to man is not the sole province of the US, nor is the US even a leading contender in the race. The fact that it happens all over the world with such dismal frequency is a major part of the reason Abu Ghraib will be nearly forgotten in 10 years.

at least they are free of Warcrimes unlike the USA

Sure, why go to war when you have a billion of your own people to slaughter brutally?

There are no absolutes in this game, but you can't say that China is better than the US, just because they don't have a few very horrible incidents that are currently blown up in the media.

US is considered a resonable country, human rights wise. China is not even close to that yet. Yes, getting better, but it is still only 15 years ago the military opened fire on civilians in the centre of Beijing.

So, really, you need to take your anonymous self-rightious preaching elsewhere.

That's .7%, and if they did the crime, they can do the time.

Two questions:
A) Is the punishment justified based on the nature of the crime? Take the example of the kid doing 26 years for selling marijuana to other students. That's more punishment than many murderers and rapists will get.
B) Why did they commit the crime, and can we do something about that cause? In other words, can we attack crime at the roots rather than ripping it out after it's sprouted up?

The fact is that we have the largest percentage of our population who are or have done time of any nation in the world. Our rates have been climbing steadly for the several decades from .2% of our population in prison in 1978 to .7% today. He make up 5% of the population of the planet, but we have 25% of the world's prison population. Furthermore, a whopping 4.8% of the black population is in prison right now. That's nearly 1 in 20 and suggests a broken racial and economic policy. It doesn't help that that means 1 in 20 black people won't be able to find a decent job anymore once they're out.

Most of these offenders are there due to drug policy, especially "possession" violations. The federal prison population swelled from 57,000 in 1990 to 130,000 in 2000. 75,000 were drug offenders, and in 1999 over half of all drug offenders were first time offenders receiving on average 4 years in prison. Now, I'm not for legalizing drugs, but I am for taking it down from prison time and from having to report it on job applications for the rest your ruined life to a traffic-sized fine and mandatory rehab. Considering the root causes of drug abuse and its minimal effect on society compared to other crimes, we should be looking into constructive rather than destructive solutions for fixing people's lives. It would save both lives and taxpayer dollars to not have to house all these people in prison.

I assume they're talking about high-security lockdown, reserved for heinous crimes or prisoners who can't get along with the other prisoners and start fights or kill them. I say kill them off, but we keep them around and away from other people.

No, actually, they're probably talking about the fact that prisons don't do enough to prevent them from killing and raping other prisoners in the first place. Some prison guards actually encourage that sort of thing. Abu Ghraib and the presence of an America prison guard in the scandal were no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to prison abuse in America. Our prison situation is a huge shame for our nation. At least it should be, but there's a sizeable half of the voting population *cough* Republicans *cough* that likes it this way and poisons any public debate about fixing it.

I realise this info is a bit old, but it was still after the majority of the US' campaign was over - I can't see much happening there these days that would make these articles much different:

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/afghan0121.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/afghan0116.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/afghan1217.htm

I realise this info is a bit old, but it was still after the majority of the US' campaign was over - I can't see much happening there these days that would make these articles much different:

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/afghan0121.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/afghan0116.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/afghan1217.htm

I realise this info is a bit old, but it was still after the majority of the US' campaign was over - I can't see much happening there these days that would make these articles much different:

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/afghan0121.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/afghan0116.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/afghan1217.htm

I realise this info is a bit old, but it was still after the majority of the US' campaign was over - I can't see much happening there these days that would make these articles much different:

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/afghan0121.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/afghan0116.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/afghan1217.htm

So far, the current administration has held American citizens incommunicado without charges, violated the Geneva convention many hundreds of times, demanded vast police powers without oversight, has arrested a man for providing volunteer webmonkey work to a site that links to groups that the administration has declared are "linked to terrorism" (by that metric, Rob Malda could be jailed at federal whim), demanded the right to demand information on books read and made it a federal crime to tell anyone that such information has been siezed, tortured prisoners...I'm not going to list them all. It would take hours just to list and cite atrocities and abuses associated with Iraq, much less other disagreeable things the administration has done.

The point is, it's easy to say "oh, it's just Bush". The thing is, he is our *elected representative* (well, more or less -- but he did get a lot of votes, and even if he lost the popular vote and it was dubious whether he won the electoral college vote, there are a lot of people that supported him to blame). One cannot pass off all the horrors of Soviet Russia on, say, Stalin. The people of the country chose to allow him to remain in place, granted him economic and military power, and the things he did to other countries were weighed against the Soviet people by foreigners. We, also, are judged by what Bush does.

If Bush retains office this autumn, it will be due to a complete failure of people to vote and guide their country, and a decision that will have far-reaching effects in people around the world.

What I'm really ashamed of is that the US could come up on war crime charges.

Actually, it couldn't. The International Criminal Court is the court that deals with war crimes now, and the US has done everything it can to avoid it having jurisdiction over US citizens, even to the point of passing a law that allows the president to invade holland and forcibly take back any detained suspected war criminals that have a US passport. In addition to measures like cutting of aid to countries that ratify the ICC.

To me Bush has been unusually prescient with respect to avoiding any culpability of US citizens for war crimes committed around the world.

Ironic, but no more ironic than the fact that the "land of the free" incarcerates a greater proportion of its population than any other nation. cite