[Specop_007]

Red Cross doing damage control OUCH. Nothing like being tactful when asking people to donate money to charity. Click

[katkinkate]

An alternative to the 'mainstream' relief funds is the Officers of Avalon.

From their web page: "Many of members of Officers of Avalon and their families are involved in the rescue effort, as are members of the Pagan Alliance of Nurses and the Military Pagan Network".

They're a comparatively small network of neopagan police, firemen, ambulance and other emergency workers.

[tivoli]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('katkinkate', 'A')n alternative to the 'mainstream' relief funds is the Officers of Avalon.

From their web page:
"Many of members of Officers of Avalon and their families are involved in the rescue effort, as are members of the Pagan Alliance of Nurses and the Military Pagan Network".

They're a comparatively small network of neopagan police, firemen, ambulance and other emergency workers.

[MD]

The Red Cross has been a den of nepotism for years. A few more brothers-in-law will receive permanent directorships after this latest fundraising effort. The organization is disgraceful and those in power should be in jail.

[stu]

Yikes!!!

Didn't expect this sort of behaviour from the most famous charity in the world.

Let me guess what the conspiracists say.

The Red Cross was the symbol worn by the knights of the crusade. Therefore seeing as the Knights Templar, the forerunners to the freemasons apparently, were on the crusade as well and became a powerful organisation afterwards, I'm guessing the "charity" was set up by masons and the appropriate logo was chosen.

Am I close??

[medicvet]

I hate to say it, but I pretty much agree with the general synopsis on the use of the red cross. It may not be very palatable to those who are either athiest, agnostic, or simply not christian, the Salvation Army is doing some very good work their, particularly setting up immediate mobile food kitchens and the like. They are an org that has been around for a while and do a lot of good work in local communities even when there isn't a disaster, such as helping the needy pay some of their utility bills if they have experiencd a setback.

Also, for anyone so inclined, here is something you can do. They say that 'charity starts at home'. Well how about charity BEING your home? If you are willing, why not open up your home to an evacuee? If you are interested, here are some links where you can do so:

http://www.nola.com/forums/homesavailable/
http://www.katrinahome.com/
http://www.hurricanehousing.org/
http://www.katrina-relocation.com/
http://www.homeflood.org/

[Cid_Yama]

Here is the complete text of the report that is causing such a stir and may result in charges against the Bush Administration.

ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody

[Fishman]

Not likely to amount to anything, cold Ensure and forced shaving doesn't upset most folks. And they were denied their Koran, oh my! You can't even bring a bible into most of the countries they come from.

[Cid_Yama]

You obviously didn't read it.

Now that it has been released, there are international treaties that kick in that require the signatories to pursue prosecutions. Since the US is a signatory, we are required to act.

Obama has been trying to avoid this, as the US itself, as well as the individuals who were in power at the time, are liable.

At the end of WWII, just because Hitler an Co. were out of power, we still forced the citizens of Germany to view the concentration camps to witness what they had allowed to be done in their name through their silence and inaction.

This report just made Obama's attempts to sweep it under the rug very difficult.

Bush Administration officials will no longer be able to leave the US without risking immediate arrest.

The rest of the world takes this a whole lot more seriously.

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'Y')ou obviously didn't read it.

[bluekachina]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he International Committee of the Red Cross’s torture report should be required reading for all Americans not just because its contents are shocking – which they are – but because it reveals that the United States is not the special nation that it often pretends to be, and won’t be as long as it chooses to look away from such crimes.

Arguably, the only real differences between the United States and some other government that debases itself with torture and vengeance are that the U.S. can inflict far more damage due to its unprecedented military power and that it is more prone to self-delusion from its sophisticated national PR.

[Fishman]

Read the whole thing. Fear, little actual pain. Complaints of COLD ENSURE, omg! And they were not allowed their Koran,os!! They came from countries that do not even allow bibles in their country, they routinely cut off heads and tape it for media consumption, they fly planes into buildings (or not if you're a nutjob). BOOO HOO. Perhaps (but not neccesarily) obama will recend all these terrible things, and most likely LA or NY will go up in flames. Read wahabi literature and do a little comparison to the Red Cross report. Even today the Brits broke up a bombing plan.

[Cid_Yama]

Back to the same old lies, eh fishface?

YOU read it. The Bush Administration engaged in TORTURE. The world's administrator of the Geneva Conventions, the International Committee of the Red Cross, says so in this report.

Also,

Red Cross: Medical workers aided torture

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')edical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the CIA, including torture, and their participation was a "gross breach of medical ethics," a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has concluded.

Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers' intention was to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said. But it found that the medical professionals' role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had "condoned and participated in ill-treatment."

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'A')t the end of WWII, just because Hitler an Co. were out of power, we still forced the citizens of Germany to view the concentration camps to witness what they had allowed to be done in their name through their silence and inaction.

[perdition79]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stu', 'D')idn't expect this sort of behaviour from the most famous charity in the world.

Let me guess what the conspiracists say.

The Red Cross was the symbol worn by the knights of the crusade. Therefore seeing as the Knights Templar, the forerunners to the freemasons apparently, were on the crusade as well and became a powerful organisation afterwards, I'm guessing the "charity" was set up by masons and the appropriate logo was chosen.

Am I close??

[Fishman]

Seems we read the same material and came to different conclusions dickweed. Minor inconveniences compared to our enemy. In war you always approach the brutality of your enemy. These were mere trivialities compared to head lopping off, cooking children, etc . Wake up, your dreams of Shangra La don't work in the real world.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

In a lot of ways the Red Cross report was an anticlimax. There has been no doubt that the U.S. tortures for a long time. There are even movies about it, one called "Taxi to the dark side." There are pictures from AbuGarab. AP reporters (yes plural) were tortured. Torture is well defined in U.S. and international law and stress positions, lack of sleep, and water boarding are torture. At least 10 people were beaten to death and it’s really hard to do that without torturing them.

The argument for torture is that it kept the U.S. safe. That is crap, but it is made. What really happened is that in Afghanistan a $200.00 (amount ?) bounty was paid for any Taliban or Al Qaeda prisoner. So an awful lot of prisoners showed up. The CIA made a SWAG about who was a baddy and sent them to a bunch of black sites including in Cuba. (They may have taken 3000 out in the desert and machine gunned them. There is a movie about that too.)There were two problems. One is that they had no idea who they had, but if you released somebody and they committed an anti-American act. Well you had a problem. Since nobody would take that risk, they had to keep the prisoners indefinitely. For all the arguments about the military tribunals none were run, the prisoners were just kept. The vast majority of the prisoners in Guantanamo were innocent even of the “crime” of anti-americanism. The Bush administration has implicitly admitted this by quietly releasing a large portion of the prioners. The other problem is that torture produces an amazing amount of information a very small amount of it reliable, since of course a tortured person will tell you anything. The FBI had no where near enough real investigators to check out any leads that came out so you had a massive GIGO situation that produced no useful information.

In Iraq much of the same thing happened. Young men in the wrong place were rounded up and incarcerated. Once again nobody could be let go, the prisoners were tortured routinely and no good information could be recovered. Estimates were that at least 80% of the prisoners in AbuGarab (spelling) were innocent of anything. It was and is a colossal mess.

The torturers need to be prosecuted for 2 reasons. First what they did was clearly against U.S. law and the treaties against torture, and in the law you really can’t ignore crimes done in public. The second reason is that, while it is comforting to think that Bush was some kind of aberration for leaders torture is very tempting. It has taken conservatives only a few minutes to notice that Obama isn’t as friendly to civil rights as he seemed to be in the campaign. We need to prosecute torture for the very simple reason that Obama and all the presidents who come after them have to know that they can’t do it. Because, in the end they, won’t stop at torturing their foreign enemies. They will come after their domestic opponents, that is why we have to stop torture.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kuidaskassikaeb', '
')The torturers need to be prosecuted

[Fishman]

Agreed kudu
"The Senate Intelligence Committee,..., is chaired by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has been complicit in the CIA torture program since it was launched. Rockefeller was one of six legislators who were briefed on the torture program in 2002-2003, when waterboarding was being practiced. Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, was also included in the briefing."
Take em down, they knew about it and gave consent.
ROTF LMAO

[kuidaskassikaeb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')bama has already said he won't prosecute the torturers. In fact, he won't identify them or fire them or suspend them or censure them or even dock them a day of pay