November 15, 2005
The More Things Change
A compilation of several first-hand accounts of the initiation of the Spanish conquest of the Incas, in 1532; from Jared Diamond's 1997 book Guns, Germs, And Steel makes for interesting reading in light of events since its publication.
"Governor Pizarro wished to obtain intelligence from some Indians who had come from Cajamarca, so he had them tortured."
Q I'd like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don't do torture, but Cheney --
MR. McCLELLAN: That's about as straight as it can be.
Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on --
MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he's asked for an exemption on torture? No, that's --
Q He did not ask for that?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- that is inaccurate.
Q Are you denying everything that came from the Hill, in terms of torture?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, you're mischaracterizing things. And I'm not going to get into discussions we have --
Q Can you give me a straight answer for once?
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me give it to you, just like the President has. We do not torture. He does not condone torture and he would never -- -- November 8, 2005
A top White House official on Sunday refused to unequivocally rule out the use of torture in a bid to prevent a terror attack, arguing the US administration was duty-bound to protect the American people. [...]
The US Senate voted 90-9 early last month to attach an amendment authored by Republican Senator John McCain to a defence spending bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
But the White House has threatened to veto the measure and has lobbied senators to have the language removed or modified to allow an exemption for the Central Intelligence Agency. -- November 15, 2005
"The booming of the guns, the blowing of the trumpets, and the rattles on the horses threw the Indians into panicked confusion. The Spaniards fell upon them and began to cut them to pieces. The Indians were so filled with fear that they climbed on top of one another, formed mounds, and suffocated each other. Since they were unarmed, they were attacked without danger to any Christian. The cavalry rode them down, killing and wounding, and following in pursuit. The infantry made so good an assault on those that remained that in a short time most of them were put to the sword." [...]
"If night had not come on, few out of the more than 40,000 Indian troops would have been left alive. Six or seven thousand Indians lay dead, and many more had their arms cut off and other wounds."
Colonel James Naughton of U.S. Army Materiel Command said Iraqi complaints about depleted uranium (DU) shells had no medical basis.
"They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them," he told a Pentagon briefing. [...]
"In the last war, Iraqi tanks at fairly close ranges -- not nose to nose -- fired at our tanks and the shot bounced off the heavy armour... and our shot did not bounce off their armour," Col. Naughton told the briefing.
"So the result was Iraqi tanks destroyed -- U.S. tanks with scrape marks." -- March 18, 2003
Mr. Rumsfeld's comments, made at a press conference, amazed U.S. diplomats. He accused Syria of sending various military items, including night-vision goggles, to Iraq, saying: "These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments." -- March 31, 2003
As coalition forces approach Baghdad, the city has been under round-the-clock air attack. U.S. war planners say most strikes are being directed at communications facilities and Republic Guard installations. -- March 30, 2003
General Richard Myers says days of relentless airstrikes have reduced some Republican Guard units to less than 50 percent of their prewar ability.
U.S. war planners want to be sure the elite units are significantly weakened before coalition troops take them on in ground fighting. -- March 30, 2003
In a city brought to a standstill by the dysfunction of war, the rites of death have turned into a macabre carnival of corpses unearthed, moved and buried anew; of sun-dappled city parks hastily converted to communal graves.
Thousands of soldiers are missing; bodies have been turning up in urban dumping grounds -- some marked, some not -- at the military airport, alongside city bridges and in parks. Bodies of civilian war victims -- some of them children -- remain unclaimed, too. -- April 22, 2003
Certainly Iraqi military casualties must have been tremendous. The Iraqi military was thought to number 300,000 to 400,000 troops, with the strength of the Republican Guard estimated at 80,000. Several days before the fall of Baghdad, U.S. Central Command believed that two of the Republican Guard's six divisions -- exposed in their front-line positions to the inconceivable firepower of the U.S. Air Force -- had been smashed to the point where they no longer constituted an effective fighting unit. (Assuming a division comprises 13,000 men, that means a significant percentage of 26,000 troops had been killed or wounded.) During the fighting in and around Baghdad the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that one front-line hospital, Yarmouk, was confronted with an incredible influx of 100 wounded people, mostly military, per hour. -- April 22, 2003
"We come to conquer this land by his command, that all may come to a knowledge of God and of His Holy Catholic Faith; and by reason of our good mission, God, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things in them, permits this, in order that you may know Him and come out from the bestial and diabolical life that you lead. It is for this reason that we, being so few in number, subjugate that vast host. When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your Land by order of his Maiesty the King of Spain. Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian."
According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. -- June 26, 2003
Posted by Eddie Tews at November 15, 2005 12:56 PM
Comments
eddie, have no idea how I ended up here, great blog, bit put off by the title, but then you know, got the idea in the end.
Keep up the good work!
My blog is a bit more personal (and probably a lot less traffic!) http://irvken.homelinux.net/blog
one suggestion - port your blog to wordpress and support the open source movement :) -- Posted by: Sean on November 29, 2005 02:55 PM