We Know Dudes, We Know Who could have known about the abuse in Iraqi prisons? Puppet-government head Paul Bremer for one. Iraq's first human right minister (the one who recently resigned in disgust) attacked Bremer recently, saying that he told Bremer of the prison abuse back in November and December of last year. And who could have known that contractors would be such a problem? The Pentagon for one. A year before the invasion of Iraq, now retired Army chief Thomas White warned his Pentagon bosses that there was inadequate control over independent contractors hired by the military. Rumsfeld has recently admitted that there are not complete rules to govern the 20,000 or private security guards in Iraq and "Pentagon officials on Thursday acknowledged they have yet to identify which Army entity manages the multimillion-dollar contract for interrogators like the one accused in the Iraq prisoner abuse probe."

He's Not Heavy, He's My Secretary of Defense With War Crimes Looming Over His Head Like a Pack of Vultures... Vice President Dick "Destro" Cheney showed the country yesterday that he's got Donald Rumsfeld back by releasing a statement to the press late Saturday telling all player-haters of the secretary of state that "People ought to get off his case and let him do his job." He also was reported elsewhere as saying that Rumsfeld was the best secretary of defense America has ever had.

He's Not Heavy, He's My Son With War Crimes Looming Over His Head Like a Pack of Vultures... The father of Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, who is facing court martial for the abuse of Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib, spoke out in defense of his son saying, "He was just following instructions." Well, at least that's better than the family of Captain Thumbs-Up who claimed that she was "at the wrong place at the wrong time." Speaking of America's sweetheart, a German newspaper's graphic about Captain Thumbs-Up and torture in Abu Ghraib ended up looking like an ad for the iPod.


Keeping the Peace, Supporting A Horrifying Sex-Trade Since the introduction of NATO troops and UN administrators to Kosovo in 1999, the peacekeepers have been responsible for 80% of the business to the local sex trade in which pimps and mafiosi abduct women from other countries and force them to work as prostitutes in the troubled region. According to the article in the UK's Guardian:

A few weeks ago the UN's department of peacekeeping in New York acknowledged that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the problem in trafficking rather than the solution". The sex slavery in Kosovo parallels similar phenomena next door in Bosnia, where the arrival of thousands of Nato peacekeepers in 1995 fuelled a thriving forced prostitution industry.

-The Sikh Geek