micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Thursday, June 23, 2005
One of the common arguments against looking into what has been happening at Gitmo is that there are no serious allegations of abuse from guards, but maybe that isn't the case... Attorney Clive Stafford-Smith says that his client, former Aljazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, has been abused. Aljazeera.net (June 22) writes: "Sami has endured horrendous abuse - sexual abuse and religious persecution," said Stafford-Smith, who is on a visit to Qatar, on Tuesday.The article, unfortunately, does not elaborate on what, if anything, Stafford-Smith said those conditions were. Also, a group from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is saying that it is not being allowed to investigate allegations of abuse at the prison in Southern Cuba (CBS News, June 23). *** Me over at HorowitzWatch today: In an interview with Jamie Glazov (FrontPage, June 23) about how popular culture is harming society, the great Ben Shapiro makes a curious comment about the cut and dry issue of fighting the terrorists:***I think that the "porn generation" ? people 10-30, I?d say ? has had more opportunity than any generation in world history... we?ve never truly had to face difficult foreign policy issues (until 9/11).How does the worst day in the history of humanity create any sort of "difficult foreign policy issues"? An innocent country named America was attacked by people who hate our freedom and want to kill us all in an attempt to destroy our way of life and make themselves feel good about themselves. We must respond everywhere around the globe that is necessary and not give up till we have won. Insurgents in Iraq are building and using better bombs, which leads to a greater death toll, David S. Cloud reports in a June 21 New York Times story. I'm surprised that there haven't been larger attacks like saying blowing up some barracks. Could it be that they don't really want to raise the stakes too high for fear that the United States will just say, "to hell with it, bomb 'em till there's nothing left"? I suspect that such an attitude will gain increasing currency in the U.S. as the "war on terror" drags out, but then again I'm shocked it isn't more popular now than it is. On a related note, Rush Limbaugh was railing yesterday about how the U.S. cares more about the Koran now than it did before September 11, 2001. This is actually true but where Limbaugh at least pretends to be baffled by this, I think it is merely the result of the popular sentiment that "we," meaning the people of the U.S., want to be loved for our military actions. *** What I don't understand is how this could be since Rush Limbaugh and friends never fail to tell me the truth about how the Dems are an anti-war party that is bent on destroying America and helping our enemies. *** |