Web / Press / Offsite Media Updates: May 3rd - May 9th

by SP Member - SP Mon May 03, 2004 11:21

The increasing cost of war in Iraq and what could be provided instead. This is worth a look.

http://costofwar.com/

by SP Member - SP Mon May 03, 2004 11:32

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm

by Ernesto - Raymundo Tue May 04, 2004 23:10 nikargentina at yahoo dot com

We have the pleasure to inform you that was inaugurated the official site of the film RAYMUNDO.
This is a documentary film about the life and work of Raymundo Gleyzer, Argentine filmmaker, kidnapped and murdered by that country’s military dictatorship in 1976.

Through Raymundo’s life, the film follows the story of Latin American revolutionary cinema and the liberation struggles of the 60’s and 70’s. Raymundo was one of the major architects of the militant cinema, yet after his " disappearance ", he fell into oblivion.

It is essential that the new generation rediscovers his life and works which are a source of inspiration today more than ever . This documentary will bring back what the CIA and the Latin American dictatorships couldn’t destroy: the memory, the ideals and the courage to tell the truth.

The web address is: www.filmraymundo.com.ar


The film RAYMUNDO, by Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina, was the argentinean film most prized over the world in 2003.
The film has been honoured with 15 international awards. Also has participated in more than 45 international film festivals.


AWARDS:

First Prize "Coral" to the Best Documentary and "Memory" Prize - Latin American Film Festival of La Habana. Cuba.

Golden Olive Award of Best Fiction Documentary - Kalamata International Documentary Film Festival, Greece.

Human Rights Award - Latino Film Festival San Francisco Bay Area, USA..

Best Documentary Film - Latin American Film Festival of Brescia, Italy.

Best Documentary Film - Valdivia International Film Festival, Chile.

Best "Opera Prima" Award - DOCUPOLIS, International Documentary Festival of Barcelona, Spain.

"Union Latina" Award - Latin American Film Festival of Trieste, Italy.

Best Documentary Film - VI Malaga Film Festival, Spain.

Special Jury Award - VII Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, USA .

Best Film in the Public's Choice - Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal.

Best Documentary Film and Best Filmmaker - Latin American Film Festival of Buenos Aires

Best Documentary Film - IV Documentary Film and Video Festival, Argentina.

Special Jury Award - Human Rights International film Festival of Buenos Aires.



This film has been nominated or semi-finalist in the following festivals:

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (Japan) * Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (USA) * Festival International de Films de Fribourg (Switzerland) * Docudays, International Documentary Film Festival of Beirut (Libane) * It’s All True, International Documentary Film Festival (Brazil) * Ismailia Int.Festival for Doc.& Short Films (Egypt) * Cinema Paradise, Independent Film Festival of Honolulu (USA) * Montevideo International Film Festival (Uruguay) * Tiburon International Film Festival (USA) *



The film has participated out of competition in different sections in the following festivals:

Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in Vassar College (Opening Night) USA * International Documentary Film of Amsterdam (Netherlands) * Cinema du Reel, International Documentary Festival (France) * Arizona Film Festival (USA) * Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival (USA) * Ankara International Film Festival (Turkey) * International Seoul Labor Film and Video Festival (Korea) * International Art Film Festival Trencianske Teplice 2003 (Slovakia) * Activating Human Rights Film Festival Byron Bay, (Australia) * Perspektive, Human Rights Film Festival of Nuremberg (Germany) * Latin American Film Festival of Toulouse (France) * Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de Buenos Aires (Argentina) * Latin American Film Festival of Providence (USA) * Images du Nouveau Monde Film Festival (Canada) * Latin American Film Festival of Ginebra (Switzerland) * Dahlonega Film Festival (USA) * Cine del Plata Film Festival (Uruguay) * Antropologique and Social Film Festival (Argentina) * Bogota International Film Festival (Colombia) * International Film Festival of Santa Fe (Argentina) *



CONTACT:

Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina

E-mail: nikargentina@ciudad.com.ar

Web Page: www.filmraymundo.com.ar

by walk Tue May 04, 2004 23:55

also written here.
read here.
go there.
come back here.
enter a labyrinth
leave one.
trace your steps
retrace your steps.
go on walking.
walk now.

by redjade Wed May 05, 2004 12:36

Description:
Assists the interrogation support program team lead to increase the effectiveness of dealing with Detainees, Persons of Interest, and Prisoners of War (POWs) that are in the custody of US/Coalition Forces in the CJTF 7 AOR, in terms of screening, interrogation, and debriefing of persons of intelligence value. Under minimal supervision, will assist the team lead in managing a multifaceted interrogation support cell consisting of database entry/intelligence research clerks, screeners, tactical/strategic interrogators, and intelligence analyst.

Required:
Position requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent and five to seven years of related experience, preferably in intelligence field. Requires a Top Secret Clearance. Strong writing and briefing skills, with competency in automation, research and basic software applications. Familiar with intelligence collection capabilities/planning, as well as analytical procedures.


Desired:
Minimum of 5 years in intelligence field. Requires a Bachelor's degree or equivalent. Requires a Top Secret Clearance. Strong writing and briefing skills, with competency in automation, research and basic software applications. Familiar with intelligence collection capabilities/planning, as well as analytical procedures.

All in a day's work....

by redjade Wed May 05, 2004 12:39

from
http://cacirecruiting.caci.com/.......

short address
http://tinyurl.com/ytye8

by Cassandra Wed May 05, 2004 15:31

Found this on Reuters, thought people might be interested:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=UE14JHMIY32XGCRBAEOCFEY?type=domesticNews&storyID=5045690

by BK - independent socialist Wed May 05, 2004 22:00

Full Text: Gen'l Taquba's Report
Torture was Ordered by US Military Intelligence, NOT a Case of a 'Few Bad Apples'
See Counterpunch link below for text:

by iosaf the ipsiphi Thu May 06, 2004 12:32

Pelle Törnberg, is very rich, and he works very hard. He does Media.
He does different media to me, and sort of different media to Burlusconi. Like me he does "free media" but unlike me, he is supported by advertising and he can print up hundreds of thousands of his newspapers as they are called and give them away free.
And he does this every morning.
Yesterday, he did it for the first time in the USA, in the city of NYC, where he and others working for a decent half dollar more than minimum wage distributed the first 300,000 free copies of his "Metro" newspaper.

The Headline read "Manhatten Lockdown"
and treated upon the unusually high security provisions being made for the forthcoming Republican Party Congress in NYC. Amidst worries that those civil rights, and common rights americans have so long enjoyed and perhaps make them (like us) different to the "non-civilised world" are being steadily undermined in the name of protecting our common "civilised world".
The next pages dealt with the recent revealations of shocking behaviour by both Western armies and Western mercenaries in Iraq, with photo support. Local interest pages focussed on the needs and complaints of NYC Taxi drivers (presented in a mid-liberal tone not too different from the Irish independent but still more space than USA Today, and significantly printed in English so not many cab-drivers will understand a thing) and the effects of the fires in California.

Then space was given to the last series of "Friends" a popular didactic B1B2C1 TV series with global market core and spin-off.

Then Alan Greenspan, ("the 4% permement unemployed index for full employment may sort the defecit thing with a bit of social security push, can't you stop asia overheating, why do we have a war to pay") the VIP economist wrote about his thing,
"the defecit".

Mention was made in the fillers of the veto by Disney on the next installment of Columbine english speaking film director 3 star, Mr Moore's great work. Which you know about.

With it's 300,000 free copies, "Metro" became yesterday the 5th largest distribution of any daily print media title in the USA. It's not exactly in any ways a radical paper, I rarely give it a thumbs up for its local BCN coverage, but in comparison to what has been available at small cost on the streets of the Homeland, I think it might prove "lutheran" in effect.


And then in the really small fillers something sort of interesting for people who like their history to be pit-pat or full of the "what-if" questions.
Associated Press:-
Asunción, Paraguay, South America.
the Historian Mariano Llano, has suggested (again) that Hitler, survived the final assaults on Berlin by the Soviet Army and made his way by a curious route (very curious) to Argentina where as one of those NAZI fugitives hidden by Alfredo Stroessner he continued to live till he (with others on the "where did they go list") moved to Paraguay where he was believed to still be happily buzzing about in 1955 just like his neighbour Josef Mengele who by that time become a director of a succesful pharmacuetical and medical research corp.

The Soviets maintain that they analysed remains found above the bunker in Berlin in this month 59 years ago. Though the general whyo led the final assault was later with most of his staff subject to Stalinist purges, he survived though stripped of all "kudos" his lower officers who oversaw the removal of remains from the bunker were executed.
The remains included one section of human jawbone, and a preliminary post mortem examination that suggested a male with only one ball had been found. This mirrored a popular song amongst the British at that time.
Many historians have returned to those last weeks again and again, and many books have been written, and of course many TV series have been produced, the most seen focussing on interviews with the butler and secretary who survived. Mengele's research files were never found. Most of what we know of Mengele came from the reports of a Jewish Doctor who for his skill had been excused the Sondarkomando death sentance. Everyone who worked with Mengele enjoyed "proper food" and only survived 90 days.

These questions are probably as relevant to our understanding of the modern world as who/what/why was JFK killed in Dallas Texas.

Which means "not quite". ¿no?

Closer to Home (my home).
The Catalan Tripartite government has issued a very long list of complaints on behalf of the media organs of the country, listing the operation of black lists during the previous 8 years. Black listed being both writers, topics, and many other accusations of duress, and incursion of the freedom of the press. Also to be discussed are profiles held by the last regime on each paper and it's workers.

Oh and the "tripartite" formula has now migrated to Madrid, where after more than a year, the municipal government has finally appeared to settle on an alliance of PSOE (centre labour) the "red republicans" and the greens who are bit well "trotty".
This might be seen as confirmation that "the tripartitie pact thing" works at a city level. I always said it would, not _perfectly_ but better than the other options, either there in Spain or anywhere else.

NATO news:-
Demand for AWACS has peaked, everyone is asking for a loan of an AWACS surveillance aircraft this summer in Europe. The Spanish want some for the Wedding, and then later for the Boat Race Cup special which will pass through BCN. The Greeks want at least two for Athens and the Olympics. Under the present NATO membership rules, since there is no hot war engagement, members can have a loan of AWACS for legitimate security concerns. Ireland is not a member of NATO, despite the best efforts made, and when it gets AWACS at Shannon, it's just a little landing and not really a loan. Anyway, it is possible that NATO doesn't have enough AWACS to go round, so perhaps look forward to seeing less AWACS in Shannon.

Interesting Statistics:-
1,000,000 spanish people have had sexual relations with someone they met through the Internet.
51% of spanish secretaries are single.

President Bush on the Iraqi revealations:-

I think he's sincere.
To be honest, I have thought Bush to pass through so many phases emotionally, politically, psychically. I'm sure he has gone completely paranoid psycho wacko in these last years, I'm also sure that's normal for a US President.
I am not writing he's a great leader now, I am not writing he was right, I am not writing that he is no longer a wookie.
I am writing that :-
I somehow "feel" he has come down off the insanity which perhaps led to all this "shite", and has now realised that grave mistakes were made, the priorities of the West to secure Energy for this century and to stablise the Middle East were confused, and that he has been a victim of forces long at work in the American Homeland. I reckon he's now not only in a presidential re-election campaign, but also in shocked guilt, as he counts the chickens come home to roost. and realises that there are indeed many Americas, and many types of American Representative, and many ways to win a Peace, and as he realises what the Babylon taboo is really about.

It's needless to tell you that the Washington Post has spent a week highlighting calls for "holy war" in Homeland young muslims already suffering the complications of a economy in deficit prejudiced to efficiency and not job creation.
It's needless to tell you that the Minister for foreign relations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has told all foreigners to leave, amidst extensive disturbances in all the country.
It's is needed to say:-

Someday, Sincerity of prayers for Peace
are more important than military might,
are more valid than political philosophy
and somedays only Prayer perhaps can
bring the world back from the brink.

Reclaim Ireland News!
after extensive forensic anaylsis, the WOMBLES have been cleared of all charges, and now it seems the MUPPETS of SESAME STREET did it instead. the MUPPETS of SESAME STREET use a similar type of code, but with simplified spelling and more cheerful group scenes, those most at risk from the sinister plot for one world government pursued by the SESAME St. crew are those (in either Ireland or Britain) who didn't have anything better to do as children on a Saturday morning than watch TV.

Happy thursday.
"Thursday's child is Sunday's Clown."

by hip hip hor ra! ireland! - for beating the hunnish womble cricketeers of Surrey. Thu May 06, 2004 17:25

Old Mengele's papers were worth almost as much as the secrets of rocket science at that time, now they'd probably be regarded as a better long term investment.

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 18:31

http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com/

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 19:44

Official and complete death counts for Iraqis nationwide are unavailable. But a count by The Associated Press found that around 1,361 Iraqis were killed from April 1 to April 30 — 10 times the figure of at least 136 U.S. troops who died during the same period.

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 19:58

We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 20:20

''Back around Nov[ember] an OGA prisoner was brought to IA. They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately 24 hours in the shower in 1B. The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake I.V. in his arm and took him away. This OGA was never processed and therefore never had a number.''

---- hand-written letter home from Sergeant Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II. Frederick is one the soldiers at the heart of the prison scandal in Iraq. And these letters were in the form of accounts of behavior he was both participating in but also morally troubled by.

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 20:38

I object to the Iraqi war because it is an act of aggression with no defensive basis. It has been supported by pretences that cannot withstand even elementary scrutiny. First, before the U.S. dropped the first bomb, it was quite evident that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Second, the Bush administration had the gall to exploit the American public's fear of terrorists by making the absurd assertion that a secular Baathist government was working with a fundamentalist terrorist group. There was never any intelligence to substantiate this. Third, the notion that the U.S. wants to export democracy to Iraq is laughable. Democracy is by the people, not an appointed puppet theater.

If the Iraqi people were to choose their own government, it is inevitable (by demographics alone) that the government would be Shia. A Shiite government would probably be quite un-open and even possibly hostile to the U.S. and its aims. It just so happens that Iraq is also the home of the second largest known reserve of oil in the world. America is notorious for its insatiable thirst for cheap oil.

Perhaps I made a mistake by enlisting in the Army, but the U.S. is putting the lives of its soldiers in jeopardy in order to the line the pockets of big money. I will not get blood on my hands or put my life in danger for such an endeavor.

by redjade Thu May 06, 2004 20:48

The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations' notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites?
Soon afterward, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) invented a way to let people in China and Iran easily route around censorship by using a U.S.-based service to view banned sites such as BBC News, MIT and Amnesty International.

But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes "ass" (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), "breast" (breastcancer.com), "hot" (hotmail.com and hotels.com), "pic" (epic.noaa.gov) and "teen" (teens.drugabuse.gov).

by redjade Fri May 07, 2004 14:10

By clicking below, I certify that the information I have provided is correct and truthful, and that I indemnify and hold harmless the United States Armed Forces from my horrible disfigurement and/or untimely death.

by redjade Fri May 07, 2004 14:16

Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility

Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A34

THE HORRIFIC abuses by American interrogators and guards at the Abu Ghraib prison and at other facilities maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced, in part, to policy decisions and public statements of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured and murdered -- and in which, until recently, no one has been held accountable.

[....]

On Monday Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman said that the secretary had not read Mr. Taguba's report, which was completed in early March. Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld told a television interviewer that he still hadn't finished reading it, and he repeated his view that the Geneva Conventions "did not precisely apply" but were only "basic rules" for handling prisoners. His message remains the same: that the United States need not be bound by international law and that the crimes Mr. Taguba reported are not, for him, a priority. That attitude has undermined the American military's observance of basic human rights and damaged this country's ability to prevail in the war on terrorism.

by Maurizio Biosa Fri May 07, 2004 17:00 madresh at aliceposta dot it

MILANO/ITALIA euro may day004
101 copyleft PHOTOS in linked gallery
indipendent REPORTAGE euro may day004 MILANO*ITALIA

http://www.forumdelteatro.org/article.php3?id_article=61

Maurizio Biosa
for http://www.forumdelteatro.org

by redjade Fri May 07, 2004 17:28

Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.

"It is a common thing to abuse prisoners," said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I saw beatings all the time.

"A lot of people had so much pent-up anger, so much aggression," he said. Sindar and the other military policemen, who have returned to California from Iraq, spoke in interviews with Reuters.

[....]

"It was not just these six people," said Sindar, the group's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons specialist. "Yes, the beatings happen, yes, all the time."

by redjade Fri May 07, 2004 17:47

[ from a Pro-US Military Website ]

Abu Ghraib: Bigger than a Mere Scandal
By Ed Offley

[....]

A number of officers and senior enlisted men from the 800th MP Brigade have already been relieved of command and received letters of reprimand. Investigators are still looking into the activities of the 205th MI Brigade. Accountability will not stop there, nor should it. There should be courts-martial.

This appalling incident does more than undercut the progress of our mission in Iraq. For years, people familiar with the U.S. military have decried the gap between actual capabilities and the unceasing mission overstretch battering a force slashed by 40 percent after the end of the Cold War. For years, compliant military commanders have covered up the worsening situation with adjectives and adverbs.

What Tagabu’s report shows us in unrelenting candor is that the critics were right: the U.S. military is in danger of coming apart at the seams. A scandal such as Abu Ghraib is merely how it plays out.

by redjade Sat May 08, 2004 18:50

forgot to post it, sorry

by redjade Sat May 08, 2004 18:57

Ted Rall the political cartoonist ( http://rall.com ) got in a lot of trouble recently (even by his supporters) for the low blow he did with this cartoon...

http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/2004/05/03/

Rall may be a cynic, but the criticism he has recieved and the newspapers who no longer print his cartoons have not stopped him....

check out
http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/2004/05/06/

and especially this one...

http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/2004/05/08/

by redjade Sat May 08, 2004 18:59

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1206887,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1209146,00.html

by redjade Sun May 09, 2004 14:21

At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said in a report today.

The taping began before noon on Sept. 11 at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island, where about 16 people met in a basement conference room known as "the Bat Cave" and passed around a microphone, each recalling his or her version of the events a few hours earlier.

But officials at the center never told higher-ups of the tape's existence, and it was later destroyed by an F.A.A. official described in the report as a quality-assurance manager there. That manager crushed the cassette in his hand, shredded the tape and dropped the pieces into different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.

The tape had been made under an agreement with the union that it would be destroyed after it was superseded by written statements from the controllers, according to the inspector general's report. But the quality-assurance manager asserted that making the tape had itself been a violation of accident procedures at the Federal Aviation Administration, the report said.

The inspector general, Kenneth M. Mead, said that the officials' keeping the existence of the tape a secret and the decision by one to destroy it had not served "the interests of the F.A.A., the department or the public" and could foster suspicions among the public.