Vital Concerns for the World: McClatchy’s reporting on abuse of American prisoners

Thursday, June 19, 2008

McClatchy’s reporting on abuse of American prisoners

We need to appreciate McClatchy papers for their faithfulness in reporting; they have developed a fine reputation for seeking to know and report what is going on in contested places; they were, I gather, one of the best in reporting on the Iraq debacle. Here are some recent articles that should be broadly read [not pushed in the other papers].

General Taguba, now retired (and able to say what he thinks?) now accuses Bush of criminal behavior http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/41514.html

A notable prisoner, abused in this story: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/38888.html

Deliberate deception by the US government: “US hid detainees from Red Cross and masked abuses” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/41394.html

McClatchy papers have recently published a series on the detention system of the American military. This is what they say about the series:

“An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

“Sunday: We got the wrong guys
“Monday: 'I guess you can call it torture'
“Tuesday: A school for Jihad
“Wednesday: 'Due process is legal mumbo-jumbo'
“Today: 'You are the king of this prison'

“READ THE EVIDENCE

“Browse an archive of documents obtained by McClatchy in the course of this investigation.”

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A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >