The Pope Looked Lost Or Bored

Pope Prays with Cleric at Mosque in Turkey

I watched the Pope on EWTN attending the Orthodox mass with Patriarch Bartholomew as the celebrant. Having worked with a priest of the Melkite Catholic Church (a church that uses the Orthodox liturgy but allies itself with the papcy), I watched with interest to see such a mass celebrated by the highest priest in the Orthodox tradition. However, three hours of mass with all that chanting seemed to bore the hell out of the pope and most of the cardinals and attendants at the mass. Some of the bishops, cardinals and priest from the Roman Catholic Church seemed so lost and confused by the whole ordeal... including the pope when he lost his place in the translated liturgy guide provided for him.

Still, I found it difficult to stay tuned into the mass as I have no respect for Ratzinger. I think of him as a temporary usurper of the papal see and await the next pope in hopes that a more Christian man will be given the opportunity to lead my church. The entire idea of praying with a Muslim cleric smacks of a PR spin to alleviate the ruckus of his stupid statements made a couple of months ago. While I understand what he was trying to state, he really fouled it up and then showed his typical arrogance by not acknowledging--and not apologizing--the arrogance and idiotic mistake.

I realize it is hard to fill the shoes of the fisherman, especially in light of the ministry that was provided by John Paul II, but Ratzinger is the wrong man because he is racist and very un-Christian. Unfortunately, he holds the office of pope... I can only hope that he experiences the same conversion that St. Paul had on the road to Damascus.

Pope Benedict XVI prayed alongside an Islamic cleric in one of Turkey's most famous mosques Thursday in a dramatic gesture of outreach to Muslims after outrage from the pontiff's remarks linking violence and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

The pope bowed his head and closed his eyes for nearly a minute inside the 17th century Blue Mosque after Mustafa Cagrici, the head cleric of Istanbul, said: "Now I'm going to pray."

As the pope left the mosque, Benedict turned to Cagrici and thanked him "for this moment of prayer," the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

"This visit will help us find together the way of peace for the good of all humanity," the pope said during only the second papal visit to a Muslim place of worship. Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, visited a mosque in Syria in 2001.

The mosque visit was added to Benedict's schedule as a "sign of respect" during his first papal trip to a Muslim nation, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said last week.

The pope removed his shoes before entering the carpeted expanse of the mosque, which is officially known as the Sultan Ahmet Mosque after the Ottoman sultan Ahmet I, who ordered its construction. But it's widely called the Blue Mosque after its elaborate blue tiles.

The pope received a gift of a glazed tile decorated with a dove and a painting showing a view of the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul. The pope gave the imam a mosaic showing four doves.

"Let us pray for brotherhood and for all humanity," the pope said in Italian.

Lombardi said the pope "paused in meditation" inside the mosque and "certainly his thoughts turned to God."

The pope has offered wide-ranging messages of reconciliation to Muslims since arriving in Turkey on Tuesday, including appeals for greater understanding and support for Turkey's steps to become the first Muslim nation in the European Union.

But Benedict also has set down his own demands.

After a deeply symbolic display of unity with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Christian Orthodox, the pope again repeated his calls for greater freedoms for religious minorities and described the divisions among Christians — including the nearly 1,000-year rift between Catholics and Orthodox — as a "scandal to the world."

Benedict has made outreach to the world's more than 250 million Orthodox a centerpiece of his young papacy and has set the difficult goal of full unity between the two ancient branches of Christianity.

A Hell Of A Way To Become A Millionaire... Let The US Violate Your Rights

U.S. Will Pay $2 Million to Lawyer Wrongly Jailed

They probably shouldn't have done these things to a lawyer... especially if he was in good standing with his fellow ABA members. This entire incident calls into question the entire field of forensics that relies upon federal databases, especially those dealing with fingerprints. Hell, it calls into question--as has been the case in so many wrongful prosecutions over the decades since fingerprints began being used as "clues"--the entire psuedo-science of fingerprints as evidence. While the newer and more sophisticated software used to examine finger prints are more reliable, there have still been mistakes because of original data entry issues.

Still, I don't think I would have settled for $2 million because of the long time it took the government to come up with an apology. I would have charged a million a month.

The federal government agreed to pay $2 million Wednesday to an Oregon lawyer wrongly jailed in connection with the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid, and it issued a formal apology to him and his family.

The unusual settlement caps a two-and-a-half-year ordeal that saw the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, go from being a suspected terrorist operative to a symbol, in the eyes of his supporters, of government overzealousness in the war on terrorism.

“The United States of America apologizes to Mr. Brandon Mayfield and his family for the suffering caused” by his mistaken arrest, the government’s apology began. It added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which erroneously linked him to the Madrid bombs through a fingerprinting mistake, had taken steps “to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield and the Mayfield family does not happen again.”

At an emotional news conference in Portland announcing the settlement, Mr. Mayfield said he and his wife, an Egyptian immigrant, and their three children still suffered from the scars left by the government’s surveillance of him and his jailing for two weeks in May 2004.

“The horrific pain, torture and humiliation that this has caused myself and my family is hard to put into words,” said Mr. Mayfield, an American-born convert to Islam and a former lieutenant in the Army.

“The days, weeks and months following my arrest,” he said, “were some of the darkest we have had to endure. I personally was subject to lockdown, strip searches, sleep deprivation, unsanitary living conditions, shackles and chains, threats, physical pain and humiliation.”

Finally, Justice Is Served To President Bush

Federal Judge Finds Parts of Terrorist Designation Order Unconstitutional

For most of us this was a no brainer. However, I am appaled that it has taken almost six years to address this (and other) unconstitutional acts comitted by Bush and his minions. Now that the stranglehold of federal power has been broken in congress, there seems to be less ultra-conservative positions being offered from the federal benches as well. Still, I wish I could argue that the reason for the changes at the federal benches were related to justice and first principles rather than the whims of political winds.

But it worries me that we have had to withstand six years of unconstituional acts and lies from Bush and all those working directly for him without proper recourse. December 10th has been designated as the day to call for Bush's (Cheney's as well) impeachment. I called for impeachment many years ago. Nancy Pelosi, however, has all but taken impeachment off the table. I think this is the biggest mistake because we need to know that when an elected official acts in an unlawful manner he/she will be removed from office.

A US district judge has declared unconstitutional portions of a 2001 presidential executive order that allowed President Bush "unfettered discretion" to designate organizations as terrorist organizations. In a decision released Tuesday, Judge Audrey Collins ruled that Executive Order 13224, signed twelve days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was unconstitutionally vague as it gave the president "unfettered discretion" to effectively "blacklist" terror groups without applying objective criteria in making the designation. Collins said that portions of the order violated the petitioners' First Amendment rights in that it "imposed penalties for mere association" with a designated group, and because several operative terms in the order are so vague as to give the president nearly unlimited power to declare organizations illegal.

The government did not defend the constitutionality of the executive order, but instead attacked the plaintiffs' standing to bring the constitutional challenge, as the organizations they were penalized for associating with, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were designated as terrorist organizations by the secretary of state and not the president. Collins rejected that argument, writing:

this attempt to challenge Plaintiffs' standing fails to meet Plaintiffs' argument, which is that they may be subject to designation under the President's authority for any reason, including for associating with the PKK and the LTTE, for associating with anyone listed in the Annex, or for no reason. Because the President has used his designation authority in the past, and because there is no apparent limit on his ability to continue to do so, Plaintiffs have standing to bring their constitutional challenge....

Collins ruled that the government cannot block the plaintiffs' assets under the executive order, which was authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), but did not grant a nationwide injunction. In another controversial ruling in 2004, Collins declared part of the Patriot Act unconstitutional as impermissibly vague.

Webb Held His Tongue

I am not sure that I would have been as diplomatic as Senator-elect Jim Webb. I might have said some things that were quite nasty... just short of a slap in the face. I might have even lost control and punched the SOB. But Webb has room to speak. Not only is he now a senator serving our nation with the audacity to stand on principle, but his son is serving in the USMC and he is a decorated warrior of the USMC as well... and he was a Republican until he felt he was being shafted by the GOP and Bush.

Webb, Bush Have Terse Exchange Over Iraq

Democratic Sen.-elect Jim Webb avoided the receiving line during a recent White House reception for new members of Congress and had a chilly exchange with President Bush over the Iraq war and his Marine son.

"How's your boy?" Webb, in an interview Wednesday, recalled Bush asking during the reception two weeks ago.

"I told him I'd like to get them out of Iraq," Webb said.

"That's not what I asked. How's your boy?" the president replied, according to Webb.

At that point, Webb said, Bush got a response similar to what reporters and others who had asked Webb about Lance Cpl. Jimmy Webb, 24, have received since the young man left for Iraq around Labor Day: "I told him that was between my boy and me."

Webb, a leading critic of the Iraq war, said that he had avoided the receiving line and photo op with Bush, but that the president found him.

The White House had no comment on the reception. But it did not dispute an account of the exchange in Wednesday's Washington Post.

Webb, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and Navy secretary under President Reagan, defeated Republican Sen. George Allen by 9,329 votes out of 2.37 million cast, giving the Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994.

Webb left the GOP, in part over the Iraq war. He warned against the invasion, and criticized Bush over Iraq during the Senate campaign.

He said he meant no disrespect to the presidency during the reception, but "I've always made a distinction about not speaking personally about my son."

In interviews during the campaign, Webb said it was wrong to elevate the role of one Marine over others. Webb also expressed concern that a high profile could subject a Marine to greater peril.

He wore his son's buff-colored desert boots throughout the campaign, but refused to speak extensively about his son's service or allow it to be used in campaign ads.

Evil Still Lurks In Our Hallowed Halls & Ivory Towers

More Doctors Turning to the Business of Beauty

Given the cost of obtaining a medical degree, opening a practice, and maintaining malpractice insurance, it seems that more doctors are seeking the easy road to wealth rather than live up to a notion that medicine is a profession and vocation (ministry). We have arrived at a point where the most educated in our society are free to abandon their obligations to the society as a whole in order to fulfill self interests and personal greed.

On top of the notion that greed is taking over our professions--medicine and law in particular--we now have more foreign-born (and remain foreign citizens) practicing medicine than we have American citizens graduating from our medical schools. While I have nothing against foreign-born phsyicians (except those that cannot speak to me because they haven't bothered to learn manners or English), I do have a problem with our colleges and universities (and our government) providing the best medical training in the world via subsidized programs provided by their home nation while we ignore "tons" of medical school candidates that want to become physicians and surgeons for altruistic reasons.

I also have a problem with the idea that so many doctors are turning their attention to providing services that accentuate our penile erections, our mammary glands, our waist lines and our noses over making sure we are healthy, less disabled and treated with a modicum of decency by those working in medicine.

In her three years as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Brooklyn, Dr. Ngozi Nwankpa-Keshinro delivered several hundred babies, conducted several thousand pelvic exams and diagnosed everything from infections to infertility. But this year, with a little additional training, she has entered a new field: cosmetic medicine.

Dr. Ngozi Nwankpa-Keshinro turned to cosmetic medicine after three years in obstetrics and gynecology. “When you clear up someone’s acne or facial hair, they are as grateful as if you delivered their baby,” she said.

As one of the owners of a medical spa in Brooklyn that opened in January, she has given dozens of clients Botox injections to relax their wrinkles and Restylane injections to fill out their smile lines and plump their lips.

“The two fields are as alike as an apple and an orange,” Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro said. “One can be lifesaving, while the other is not. But when you clear up someone’s acne or facial hair, they are as grateful as if you delivered their baby.”

Cosmetic medicine also provides a more relaxing lifestyle, she said. “And it’s very satisfying.”

Meanwhile, our institutions of higher learning are so busy feathering their nests as not-for-profit educational corproations by not only raising funds for endowments and special programs, but by denying their least paid/most needed employees with less than a living wage, decent working conditions and the decency that any hard working person deserves. In the article below it is Vanderbilt that is not paying its basic service workers a decent wage. Not too long ago it was Harvard that was in the news for failure to pay a living wage. Brown, Yale and several others have had their day in the news for similar problems.

I thought that a not-for-profit was supposed to act for the benefit of the whole of society in order to keep its tax exempt status? We really need to take a look at the Social Responsibility Amendment being proposed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives, especially for those entities that are already receiving a lot of public support via donations, grants, financial aid for students, tax exemption and participation in state and federal research programs.

When Mary Hampton landed a housekeeping job at Vanderbilt University in 2004, she looked forward to the boost that the steady, full-time work and benefits would give her and her two young daughters.

Instead, she says she now makes $7.92 an hour and brings home less than she did in factory and warehouse jobs. She moved to a shelter for the homeless about seven months ago when her daughters’ father stopped paying child support.

The fragile economic state of some of Vanderbilt’s union employees like Ms. Hampton and the contrast with university spending elsewhere, like the $6 million renovation of the chancellor’s 20,000-square-foot house, has become a point of contention between the administration and a loose coalition of labor, students and community members.

A “living wage” campaign, which is picking up steam alongside contract negotiations between Ms. Hampton’s union and the university, is hardly unusual. There are more than 35 campus-based living-wage campaigns in progress nationwide, according to the Living Wage Action Coalition in Washington.

What makes Vanderbilt’s situation unusual is that Vanderbilt’s chancellor, E. Gordon Gee, is one of the highest-paid university executives in the nation, giving the union and its supporters added leverage in their bid for higher pay, said Paul F. Clark, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Penn State.

Who Is Maliki Trying To Fool?

Iraq’s Premier Abruptly Skips a Bush Session

In light of the Stephen Hadley memo, the cancellation of the meeting raises a few eyebrows. What raised my eyebrows was the interview with PM Maliki on GMA where Gibson asked Maliki some direct questions regarding his political allegiance to Sadr and the Shi'ite militias loyal to Sadr. While denying any debts or preferences to Sadr, Maliki stated that it was his goal to disarm the militias without prejudice or preference. Then he reiterated the idea that the Iraqi people do not want a split of territories into three separate states: one Sunni, one Shi'ite and one Kurdish.

However, it is clear to me that President Bush is once again playing to his strong suit: ignorance of the culture and failure to see the obvious. Maliki not only owes his allegiance to Sadr, but he also owes his current position to Sadr. Maliki states he will use Iraqi police and military troops to disarm the militias, but even with an accelerated training program the Iraqi forces will not reach 100,000 field ready troops. Given that the 60,000 Iraqi troops already working have demonstrated their own sectarian allegiances, have had great difficulty maintaining internal security, have little to no reliable intelligence absent of US resources, and have sat by and watched abductions and firefights occur without lifting a finger to intervene... well, let's just say that no one can argue that empowering Iraqi forces by June of 2007 is not only unrealistic and impractical, but outright unachievable.

Then there is the reality of Maliki's statements about the Iraqi people not wanting a divided nation. I can state with almost absolute certainty that the Kurds would love their own independent homeland, especially if they can retain ownership, control and benefits from the oil fields in their part of Iraq. The Sunni's would also love to have their own independent area if it included Baghdad and a nice piece of the oil pie.

The Shi'ites, however, do not want a separate independent state because they would lose. While there are oil reserves in the Shi'ite regions, most of these oil rich areas do not have the wells and infrastructure to harvest the wealth that the oil represents. While there are pipelines running through the Shi'ite controlled regions in the southern areas of Iraq, and the Shi'ites would obviously control the rights to the pipeline, that is not the same. In order to tap into the oil wealth if the country were divided, the Shi'ites would need to raise lots of money and draft the assistance of experienced oil drillers. This would require surrendering a lot of money to oil corporations, most of whom are owned by Europeans or Americans. Those that are not owned by Europeans or Americans probably would not be allowed into Iraq by virtue of the debt that Iraq is going to owe the US and coalition forces for the invasion and occupation. After all, that is part of the game plan: oil wealth will eventually be used to offset the costs of this invasion and occupation, even if it means only securing cheaper oil for the next fifty years or so.

So when Bush states we will stay in Iraq until the mission is accomplished (strange that I seem to recall that it was accomplished), and Maliki states that he will take action, inside my head I hear "Liar, liar, your pants are on fire." I can't believe Bush because of his track record of lying, lack of proper planning and secretive approach to everything. I can't believe Maliki because he has no substantial track record, has no workable resources and is either lying about his allegiance to Sadr or is so naive that he doesn't understand the game of politics.

The fact that trusted National Security Advisors and generals (active duty and retired) disagree with Bush and his top advisors inside the White House also sheds a lot of light on these matters as well. The only thing that has changed recently is that Donald Rumsfeld is not there to run interference and to take the heat off the president directly.

It seems to me that it's not only Maliki that is seeking to fool us, but Bush is still set on the path of trying to fool everyone, including himself. But the problem is that Bush is not looking at the big picture. Iran, which has a history of conflict with the Hussein regime and has thrown its full military and religious weight at Iraq, is now pushing buttons in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing the propaganda card to the hilt. Bush has enabled Iran, and Ahmadinejad, to behave in as inappropriate manner as they want... without having to suffer consequences because the US and its allies have no resources left to slap them down.

But if Bush and previous presidents had better approaches to our foreign policies, none of this would be happening in the first place. It is obvious that we need to rethink our total approach to foreign policy, especially in terms of financial aid, military support, peace keeping interventions and accountability for human rights.

Mr. White Seems Angry At The NYC Cops

The following comment was left for my post on the NYC cops shooting an unarmed man and using 50 or more rounds to do so.

"Look, if the racist and/or dumb ass undercover cops did NOT identify themselves as cops, it is quite likely the black men shot were in fear for their own lives, being followed by who the hell knows, as far as they were concerned. They were obviously trying to get away from these fools. No excuse justifies firing 50 shots at people who are obviouly not firing back. These dumb f***s ought to be kicked off the force, prosecuted and sent to prison. End of story, until the next time."--Miles White

Mr. White has made some assumptions on matters we do not have all the facts about, so I question whether Mr. White has had an unfortunate experience with police, the NYC police in particular, or has an ax to grind.

The first assumption is that the cops are racist. Well, since only one of the officers involved was white, and the rest were black or Hispanic, we have to leave some room for a motivation behind the shooting other than racism. Although racism--at least institutionalized racism--may indeed be involved, one would like to think that black and Hispanic officers might have the where-with-all to rise above that type of prejudice and action.

The second assumption is that only the victim of the shooting was the only one scared or fearful of their lives. As I understand the reports from four different sources, the victim was in a car and the car was moving and aimed at one of the officers. Again, it is a matter of investigation whether the initial officer on the scene identified himself as a police officer before pulling his weapon. Certanly, given that the victim was involved in an altercation just a few minutes before the shooting, the victim could have been fearful for his life. If the officer did not identify himself properly--a situation that I have experienced in NYC myself--then pulling his weapon was indeed way out of line. However, there are a lot of details that we do not have. So, I have to question whether or not Mr. White has rushed to judgment.

In my original post, I stuck to the issues that even the NYC Police Commissioner and the NYC Mayor called into question. The issue of "contagious shooting" and the amount of training conducted to aid in preventing it from occurring, the excessive number of rounds fired (even in light of the possibility of "contagious shooting"), and the mob mentality that this incident represents were included in my criticisms.

The third assumption by Mr. White is that, given the nature of my blog and my reluctance to use vulgarities in colloquial form, I would appreciate his use of such vulgarities.

In the past I have posted some rules for posting a comment to my blog. They are not hard and fast rules, but generally require that some genuine thought and sincerity go into the process. I spend a significant amount of time reading about the issues, formulating my thoughts and then writing about these matters. I try to put a lot of reason into what I write. I work at geting to the facts and I try not to let my anger, emotions and passions to become the only part of my thinking and feeling that I let readers see. I even work at not being insulting, although it has been awful difficult in regard to the Bush administration. But even when I am insulting, I try to do it with a little class and not employ overtly vulgar language to do so. As my Judo sensei used to tell me, only a weak mind resorts to vulgarity as their primary weapon.

So, while I understand Mr. White's feelings, I do wish he would do some deeper investigation into the facts, some proper reasoning, some restraint on the use of the vulgarities, and a lot less assumption. In the end, a lot of his points have a hint of validity, but who is going to listen when his ideas are presented in such a manner?

US v. George W. Bush: Impeachment Needs To Occur

United States v. George W. Bush et al.

Here's a book worth reaing... I am going to see if I can get it just so I don't have to re-write the thing myself.

In United States v. George W. Bush et. al.,former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega brings her twenty years of experience and her passion for justice to the most important case of her career. The defendants are George W Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war, or, in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Ms. de la Vega has reviewed the evidence, researched the law, drafted an indictment, and in this lively, accessible book, presented it to a grand jury. If the indictment and grand jury are both hypothetical, the facts are tragically real: Over half of all Americans believe the President misled the country into a war that has left 2,500 hundred American soldiers and countless Iraqis dead. The cost is $350 billion -- and counting.

The legal question is: Did the president and his team use the same techniques as those used by Enron’s Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and fraudsters everywhere -- false pretenses, half-truths, deliberate omissions -- in order to deceive Congress and the American public?

For more reading:

Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism," by John Nichols

Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush," by the Center for Constitutional Rights

"The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens," by Elizabeth Holtzman (former Congresswoman and member of the Nixon impeachment panel) and Cynthia L. Cooper

Here's News: Wealth Is Desired & It Leads To Happiness

Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices

Money-Happiness Link Is Complex, Study Says: Researchers Debunk Myth That Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

A decade into the practice of medicine, still striving to become “a well regarded physician-scientist,” Robert H. Glassman concluded that he was not making enough money. So he answered an ad in the New England Journal of Medicine from a business consulting firm hiring doctors.

And today, after moving on to Wall Street as an adviser on medical investments, he is a multimillionaire.

Yes, but we have wasted the time, energy and money that it took to create a doctor, denying the slot that Glassman took so that he could become wealthy to those that have more altruistic ideals, like genuinely helping people to be healthy and achieve some joy in life.

Does money buy happiness? It's sometimes said that scientists have found no relationship between money and happiness, but that's a myth, says University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener. The connection is complex, he says. But in fact, very rich people rate substantially higher in satisfaction with life than very poor people do, even within wealthy nations, he says.

It's not the money itself, it's the independence and the ability to make choices that are not available when money is not available. In my own case, I once had the idea of becoming a doctor. But I could not come up with the money to pay for medical school, despite having a record of achivement in medicine as a US Navy Corpsman and having passed the MCAT in a top percentile. I also pursued a graduate degree as an MPH/MSW, but ran out of financial resources. I still owe on my student loans and can't seem to shake the debt because making ends meet takes precedence over paying the government.

Not everyone with money will make the right choices, but at least they had the option. Anyone making less than $300,000 a year doesn't often have those choices, especially if they want to live in a decent house or apartment, work and pay their bills.

It's that simple. If you have money you have choices. Many of those choices can lead to happiness in career, family and personal achievements. It's amazing to me that it takes various studies and the New York Times to arrive at these conclusions when it seems like common sense to most of us struggling to make ends meet from one paycheck to another.

How Dead Is Dead? - Police Brutality Is Rampant

Mayor Calls 50 Shots by the Police ‘Unacceptable’

Some years back we had Rodney King. No matter what anyone says, I know that there was excessive force used on King. It was obvious in the video footage. The moment that anyone is in cuffs, even if they continue to resist, the use of clubs is execessive. This is especially true today when we have a variety of pepper sprays, tasers and other non-lethal (usually) options. Then, too, as a martial artist that has taught courses to law-enforcement folks, I know that there were options other than pepper spray, tasers and clubs. If the police involved in the Rodney King events were properly trained and supervised, that whole incident would have gone down differently.

Then we had the case of gunning down a black man by an all-white crew of copss in New York a few years ago. Then we have heard more excessive force complains coming out of Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Antonio, Boston and elsewhere. Now comes the matter of using 50 rounds to subdue an un-armed person. Even if the circumstances warranted the use of a firearm--which the circumstances do not appear to support--shooting more than three or four rounds before checking the weapon and re-assessing the situation is excessive. Indeed, shooting more than five rounds in anything less than an all-out firefight, such as those that might occur in Iraq or Afghanistan, is by definition excessive. According to reports made this morning, one NYC officer fired 31 rounds alone... against an unarmed person.

Certainly I do not want to second guess most cops on the job. I know how difficult, tedious and dangerous their job is in the great scheme of things. But this situation in NYC shows that despite incident after incident, going all the way back to the 1960s/1970s Knapp Commission, the NYPD has failed to properly train and supervise the vast majority of its cops. The same is true in Boston, LA, Chicago, New Orleans and other big cities. We do not train cops once and leave it at that. Training is an ongoing, often repetitve thing in law enforcement. Much like the training I received in the National Guard regarding crowd control, restraint of rioters, and civil defense during uprisings, the training needs to be repeated until it becomes second nature, then repeated again and again.

The current explanation of "contagious shooting" is no better than saying "mob mentality." If contagious shooting is a real phenomenon, and it is likely that it is, then there has to be more training on how to prevent it. However, common decency--which is supposed to exist among NYC's finest--would make the argument that ten shots could be explained by "constagious shooting," but 31 shots is rage and loss of control by someone that either should have never been on the police force, or is experiencing so much stress and so many interpersonal problems that they should be relieved of duty and asked to take a medical retirement... but that should have come before they committed a crime.

We should support our heroes in blue (or whatever color uniform), but our heroes have to act like heroes to get and keep our support.

See these other articles:

50 Bullets and a Death in Queens

Atlanta Officers Suspended in Inquiry on Killing in Raid

Imagine The Laughter In Saudi Arabia

Bush Asking Arab Friends for Iraq Help

While we can applaud President Bush for finally seeing the handwriting on the wall, even if it is a bit late in the game, we must also question Bush's continued statements arguing that Iraq is not on the brink (if not already steeped in) of a civil war. Many of OUR generals and top military advisors are telling us that we are there, but Bush and his loyal minions are still touting--or should I say "staying the course"--the Al-Qaeda line. While there may be Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq at this point, it does not take a PhD in world affairs to note that what is occuring in Iraq is an extension of the ideological battles between various tribal, ethnic and sectarian groups that have always existed in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

There is an old joke about putting two Jews in a room and coming out with seven arguments. My experience in the Middle East would support the idea of putting two Arab Muslims in a room and coming out with fifty arguments. That is not meant to be racist or prejudicial, only using a bad joke and a bad paraphrase to illustrate the problems with ideology in the Middle East. Even those that find reasons to support one another in some way can find reasons to argue--and even fight--with their allies. Part of the reason is that the Arab culture has always required a strong leader to maintain alliances and control over the various factions.

A good example of this is Bahrain. Sheik Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa, the amir of Bahrain, has his hands full with Shi'ites that receive money, religious support and ideological egging-on from Iran. Tapes and messages from militant Shi'ite clerics in Iran are smuggled into Bahrain. Broadcasts from Iran also provide these messages as well. These tapes, broadcasts and messages urge the overthrow of Bahrain's ruling family and the existing government. Certainly there is a lot of elitism in Bahrain and a lot of poverty. The vast majority of the wealthy in Bahrain, including those in government, are Sunni. Those that are the poorest in Bahrain are predominantly Shi'ite. Both Sheik Hamad and his father before him have tried to make Bahrain more lenient and tolerant, as well as supportive of education and opportunity. They haven't always been successful and Hamad has a tendency to revoke democratic rights and access to government when there are a lot of protests. But then again, most of these protests take the form of makeshift bombs that use propane tanks as the primary component of these explosives.

Bahrain is probably the most liberal of the Arab/Muslim nations in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Yet, it is the target of Iranian mischief because it is less able to impose restrictions on Iran than some of its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia which is the real target of the Iranian clerics.

But Bush often gets a good laugh from our "allies" in the Middle East. The Saudis know the problems in Iraq better than any other nation in Mesopotamia or the Arab Penninsula. They face trouble with insurgents of all kinds, including but not limited to Al-Qaeda. The Saudi method of dealing with these folks is to be tolerant of religious views offered within the Muslim tradition, but to clamp down hard on any cleric that advocates violence or anti-Saud policies. When the Saudis clamp down, someone usually loses their head.

But Bush is not taken seriously in the Middle East. He is seen as someone that they have to tolerate for a short time. The Arabs are very patient when it comes to tolerating what they see as a minor nuisance. While most of the nations surrounding Iraq may be glad to be rid of Saddam in one sense, they are ridiculing the US invasion because we did not understand the need for a stringent system of control over the population to maintain order. Our leaders did not understand--and therefore did not consider--the cultural and political realities in Iraq. But that is probably why the laughter is also mixed with genuine disgust for the US... we have never really understood what has been going on in the Middle East because we insist on imposing our views on their problems.

But it would be great if other Arab/Muslim nations were to assist Iraq. Indeed, the arguments against the US and coalition forces could no longer be used as an excuse for the sectarian violence or the ideological drive for control over the political, economic and natural resources of Iraq. The Shi'ites know that now is the time to put forth the effort to obtain power and control, especially over many of the oil reserves and the oil wealth that was denied to them all the while the Baathists were in control. The Sunnis know that they are outnumbered and do not have an army to enforce their will, protect them, or even allow evacuation. The Kurds are in much the same situation as the Shi'ites, only they are taking a quieter approach waiting for the Sunnis and Shi'ites to finish killing each other off so they can make a play for an independent Kurdish state... with a lot of oil reserves at their disposal.

The fact that Bush and his team has not understood the issues, the culture or the problems is not really that amusing to the folks in the Middle East, but they would rather laugh than cry. But each of the nations surrounding Iraq has concerns over Iran, Israel and the fate that awaits Iraq. None of them want a totally Shi'ite or a totally Kurdish region or state in the area. King Abdullah of Jordan knows that he cannot have a Shi'ite stringhold so close to his borders. Syria would love to have Shi'ite support, but not another Shi'ite stronghold because of the close ties to Iran that exist because of the ties between Iraqi clerics and Iranian clerics (i.e. Al-Sadr). While Syria is predominantly Shi'ite, the Syrian regime has an agenda all its own. Turkey does not want a Kurdish state to form out of Iraq. While Turkey would be willing to be rid of all of its ethnic Kurds, the problem is that Turkey knows that there would be ancient claims on lands now considered parts of Turkey. Turkey also knows that in an international court of law it would lose its claims to many areas it took by force... and the Turks would have to decide whether or not a war would be worth the price of losing entry into the EU.

But Bush and his minions are so busy "spinning" the events in the Middle east they haven't bothered to deal with them. That is all the more reason for laughter in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Egypt and Iran. Hell, if it were not for the troops at risk everyday in Iraq, maybe we would laugh as well.

As President Bush and his top diplomats try to halt the downward spiral in Iraq and Lebanon, they seem intent on their strategy of talking only to Arab friends, despite increasing calls inside and outside the administration for them to reach out to Iran and Syria as well.

Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are traveling to Jordan this week for talks that are to include Iraq’s prime minister and a number of Sunni Arab leaders but exclude the Iranians and Syrians, despite the influence they wield in Iraq and Lebanon.

Meanwhile, one of Ms. Rice’s most trusted aides, Philip D. Zelikow, announced Monday that he was resigning his post as State Department counselor. Mr. Zelikow, widely viewed as a voice of candor in the administration on the Iraq crisis, said in his resignation letter that he would return to teaching at the University of Virginia. He cited a “truly riveting obligation to college bursars” for his children’s tuition.

An administration official said Mr. Zelikow had been frustrated with administration policy on the Middle East, including Iraq, and North Korea.

There have been signs of strain within the administration, particularly at the State Department, where career Foreign Service officials have argued for increased dialogue with Iran and Syria to try to stem the violence in Iraq and Lebanon. “We’ve got a mess on our hands,” said a senior State Department official, who, like others discussing the subject, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.

When Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice arrive in Amman on Wednesday, they will try to enlist help from Sunni Arab leaders to try to rein in the violence in Iraq by putting pressure on Sunni insurgents. That was part of Vice President Dick Cheney’s message to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during a brief visit on Saturday, administration officials said, and Mr. Bush will repeat that entreaty with King Abdullah II of Jordan, as will Ms. Rice when she meets for talks with Persian Gulf foreign ministers at the Dead Sea on Thursday and Friday.

Specifically, the United States wants Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to work to drive a wedge between the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army has been behind many of the Shiite reprisal attacks in Iraq, a senior administration official said. That would require getting the predominantly Sunni Arab nations to work to get moderate Sunni Iraqis to support Mr. Maliki, a Shiite. That would theoretically give Mr. Maliki the political strength necessary to take on Mr. Sadr’s Shiite militias.

“There’s been some discussion about whether you just try to deal first with the Sunni insurgency, but that would mean being seen to be taking just one side of the fight, which would not be acceptable,” the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic practice.

But getting Sunni Arab nations to urge Iraqi Sunnis to back Mr. Maliki in the hopes of peeling him away from Mr. Sadr is a tall order under any circumstances, and it was made even taller last week after the killing of more than 200 people by bombings in a Shiite district of Baghdad, the deadliest single attack since the American invasion. The attacks led to violent reprisals; vengeful Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and Baquba.

“We’re clearly in a new phase, characterized by this increasing sectarian violence,” Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Estonia for a NATO summit meeting before Mr. Bush’s meeting with Mr. Maliki. “That requires us, obviously, to adapt to that new phase, and these two leaders need to be talking about how to do that and what steps Iraq needs to take and how we can support them.”

In return for helping on Iraq, the Sunni Arab countries have asked the Bush administration for a new push toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Mr. Bush has largely shied away from that longstanding demand, but things may be changing.

Ms. Rice may add two stops — Ramallah, in the West Bank, and Jerusalem — to her itinerary this week, administration officials said. While her schedule has not been made final, Ms. Rice is considering meeting with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president.

Ms. Rice has argued in favor of stepping up work on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and several times this fall she has seemed to be on the verge of a major peace initiative, only to be overtaken by other crises.

A new cease-fire began Monday after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to end five months of fighting in Gaza. The truce got off to a shaky start when Palestinian militants associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired nine rockets into southern Israel, but American, Arab and European diplomats said this may be the most important chance in some time to end the fighting.

Mr. Olmert, in a speech on Monday, even suggested that the cease-fire could revive peace efforts. A visit by Ms. Rice to the region could further prod those efforts, American officials said.

“We have seldom seen the U.S. administration so focused on all of the constituent parts of putting the Middle East together as they are at this point,” a European diplomat said. “They seem to suddenly have got that this isn’t just about Iraq. It’s about a number of parts of the Rubik’s Cube that they have to put together again.”

Beyond Israel, another part of the puzzle is whether America will directly engage Iran and Syria, something the administration remains loath to do, despite indications that a bipartisan study group will recommend a regional diplomatic initiative to include both countries. The pressure to begin talks is rising, with former administration officials joining the call.

“The Syrians are saying, ‘We can negatively affect the situation in Lebanon and hurt your friends, we can negatively affect Iraq, but that’s all right, don’t talk to us,’ ” said Theodore H. Kattouf, President Bush’s former ambassador to Syria. “With diplomacy generally, if you’re not prepared to achieve your aims through warfare, then you have to engage in some horse-trading. Unfortunately, there isn’t much give-and-take between the U.S. and Syria right now.”

Former Abu Ghraib Commander Repeats Allegation That Rumsfeld Ordered Abuses

Now that the mini-dictator, Donald Rumsfeld, has stepped down from the office of Secretary of Defense, more generals are stepping up with their reactions and feedback regarding his manner of leadership and failure to take responsibility for his policies, practices and actions.

Although Rumsfeld was in the Navy, he never served in combat and never faced the realities of war. As a naval aviator serving in predominantly peace time, and never in a combat area, he never really had to put his life on the line. He never had to hump a 75-pound pack through all kinds of terrain. He was never responsible for the lives of hundreds of troops. As a result, he really was not able to deal with the decisions that led to putting troops into harm's way.

Perhaps that is why he did not understand the need for proper armor in vehicles being attacked by IEDs and geurilla tactics. Maybe it is because he never had to face the dangers of war in a personal manner that he did not supply our troops with proper body armor that could have prevented over 80% of our casualties and injuries. Perhaps it is because he did not understand the needs of ground troops that he allowed his ideology, ego and stubbornness to undermine our troops, our field commanders and our generals. Perhaps it is because he never had to face actual capture that he was all too willing to allow torture, maltreatment and violation of the Geneva Conventions, our own Constitution and the very principles of justice and human decency.

But whatever the reasons, Rumsfeld was a lousy leader for our military. He shut down objections of field commanders and refused to hear any criticism of his plans. He refused to hear any criticism that indicated he was acting unjustly--at least until such time as it was clear that the political and public opinion winds were blowing against him.

We have seen lower-ranked troops blamed and prosecuted for the events at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We have seen the career of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski undermined because she followed orders (note bene: PBS Frontline has several documentaries that support my understanding of these events). Yet, we have not seen Rumsfeld held accountable for his loss of control and lack of adherence to our laws and principles.

Finally, however, people that were subjected to the domineering despotic dicatator-style leadership of Rumsfeld are now free to speak out. While I truly believe that each soldier involved in the violation of basic human rights and breach of the Constitution and several treaties should be prosecuted, I believe it is a grave injustice to allow Rumsfeld and those generals and underlings that exhibited unquestioning loyalty to his unlawful actions and orders to go untouched by the long-arm of our law. Rumsfeld is as responsible for Abu Ghraid as was PFC England and the NCOs that were on duty when incidents occurred.

Former Abu Ghraib commander Janis Karpinski has repeated her claim that outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered "making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume" and so on at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Karpinski told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview published Saturday that she saw a memorandum ordering the use of these methods, which rights groups and others consider torture in violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. The letter was allegedly signed by Rumsfeld with the handwritten words, "make sure this is accomplished." Karpinski, who claims to have been unaware of the abuses at Abu Ghraib until pictures surfaced in the press, earlier alleged the existence of the memo in an interview with law professor Marjorie Cohn, now president of the National Lawyers Guild, in August 2005. The former Army Brigadier General has also charged that Rumsfeld further violated the Geneva Convention by "ordering us to hold [a] prisoner without registering him... on various occasions."

Karpinski, the only high-ranking military officer to be punished in connection with the abuse scandal, alleged early last year that the interrogation techniques were approved by top US officials and has testified to that effect in support of a recent bid to have the German federal prosecutor bring war crimes charges against Rumsfeld and others under German universal jurisdiction laws. According to that testimony:

[a Sergeant at Abu Ghraib] pointed out a memo posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. The memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and it discussed Authorized Interrogation techniques including use of loud music and prolonged standing positions, amongst several other techniques. It was one page. It mentioned stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those types of techniques. There was also a handwritten note out to the side in the same ink and in the same script as the signature of the Secretary of Defense. The notation written in the margin said “Make sure this happens!” This memorandum was a copy; a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. I thought it was unusual for an interrogation memorandum to be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block, at least to my understanding and knowledge. Interrogations were conducted in one of the two interrogation facilities outside of the hard site.

This was the command of Donald Rumsfeld himself talking about the specific interrogation techniques he was authorizing. And there was the note – the handwritten note out to the side. It said, "Make sure this happens." And it seemed to be in the same handwriting as the signature. And people understood it to be from Rumsfeld. This is all of what I can say about the memorandum.

Karpinski maintains her innocence in the Abu Ghraib scandal, claiming to be a scapegoat targeted for being a woman and a reservist. She has also derided "corruption like I've never seen it before" in the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq before a transitional Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

The Never Ending Ideology Leads To The Never Ending War

Iraq War About to Equal Time U.S. Spent Fighting WWII

Imagine that... Our troops have spent almost the same amount of time fighting in Iraq that we spent fighting in World War II. We have also spent that much time in Afghanistan. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are anywhere near where we expect them to be. Our troops are pulling extended duty in both places without any clear idea of when they will be rotated home.

In WWII we had some causes that were just and focused. Despite several failures along the way, the goal in WWII was focused and fully understood. In WWII, despite any violations committed by the other side, and despite despicable acts in battle, and despite the need to end the war in a timely manner, we adhered to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. We did not treat our prisoners with disrespect, maltreatment or torture. We did not strip them down, collar them like animals, and humiliate them in front of others. Certainly living as a POW was not the best of circumstances, but our prisoners were not mistreated deliberately by our troops.

In WWII, if our troops acted unjustly, they were brought to justice. The number of deliberate massacres, rapes, murders and mistreatment of civilians by our troops in WWII never approached the number we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan. The warlords, drug dealers and pockets of Taliban resistance fighters are winning the battle in Afghanistan. The sectarian militias and secretive pockets of insurgents are winning almost every battle in Iraq.

Soon there will be a complete breakdown into civil war in Iraq and there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it. The funding for the Shi'ites is coming from Syria and Iran and is undermining every effort to negotiate a peaceful approach. The Sunnis are undermining peace everywhere there is a Sunni majority. While the Kurds are trying to stay above the fray, there is every hope that there will be a kurdish homeland at the end of the conflicts that are occurring in Iraq. Funding for the Kurds is coming from every corner in the Middle East where the Kurds have been mistreated and isolated, including corners of Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and many of the Muslim states that were once under the domination of the Soviet Union.

We have not approached the events in Iraq with an effective plan from the gitgo. Now, due to the incompetence of our own leadership--an incompetence that was caused by the fact that ideology meant more than justice, principle or fact--we are stuck. If we pull out--even in a phased pullout--we leave the entire status of Iraq in disarray. We will promote the idea of an all-out civil war, open the region to undue influence by regimes that are inherently focused on supporting terrorism to obtain its goals, and we will undermine every effort to effect stability in the entire Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Sub-Continent.

The Iraqi defense forces and police are essentially powerless and maintain a sectarian identity within its own command structure. While other nations in the region import police forces from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan and elsewhere--places that already have established police force training units and owe no loyalty to sectarian masters--our efforts have been to re-establish police forces from people that are not prepared to do what it takes. There are very few heroes among the Iraqi police forces.

When the US undermined and disbanded the Iraqi military--a move supported by the Bush-appointed ambassador, his Secretary of Defense, and every member of the Bush administration--the goal of ever establishing justice, a fairly implemented security
approach, and a means to subdue the insurgents and geurillas was also undermined.

We have not worked well with the powers that have some influence in the Middle East. The idea of non-Muslim, western forces being present in any Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East is an offense to most Muslims. Even the short polls conducted in Iraq demonstrate that we are no longer wanted there. If we had worked with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt, we could have a non-sectarian, politically disconnected peace-keeping force in place that could facilitate re-establishing stability in a much more effective manner. But we are not really interested in peace, we are committed to extracting our pound of flesh in the way of oil. After all, someone has to pay us for allowing Halliburton and others to operate without any restrictions on fraud, misappropriation, and outright rip-offs.

So we have munged the whole deal and now we are in a situation where we have essentially become not only the world's terrorism cops, but also the idiots that have no idea how to really deal with terrorism... the proof of those statements is that prior to our invasion and occupation of Iraq there were no connections to terrorism in Iraq--outside of the terror that Hussein and the Baathists inflicted upon their own people.

In the USA Today article that prompted this post the WWII veterans interviewed express not understanding the war on terror. I have to admit, that as a veteran of two branches of military service, I too have trouble understanding this approach. My training in social work, psychology, sociology, legal studies and criminal justice allows me to understand the need to rein in criminals that effect terror, but there is no military action that can be justifiably used to find, arrest and deal with terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. We need to address the issue of terrorism via methods used in all investigations of crime. Conducting a war on terrorism is the same as conducting a war on water. It doesn't make sense.

The Rich Get Richer... Even In Terms Of Financial Aid

Public Colleges as ‘Engines of Inequality’

As more of our private colleges and universities are catering to foreign students because of the financial aid and subsidy packages offered by their governments, we now here that the public institutions--once considered the great equalizers for those of us without the money to attend Ivy League or other big buck institutions--are now skewing the financial aid package in the direction of the already better off. There needs to be an equal and just approach to not only government aid, but also admissions, institutional aid, scholarships and internships.

We are so far behind in terms of education at all levels, we can ill afford to be even more discriminatory. We need to balance our need to assure that students are capable of studying at the college and graduate level, but also we need to provide for an equal and level playing field for financial aid.

Democrats who ran for Congress this fall made the cost of college a big campaign issue. Now that they’ve won control of the House and Senate, they can prepare to act swiftly on at least some of the factors that have priced millions of poor and working-class Americans right out of higher education. The obvious first step would be to boost the value of the federal Pell Grant program — a critical tool in keeping college affordable that the federal government has shamefully ceased to fund at a level that meets the national need.

But larger Pell Grants can’t solve this crisis alone. Policy changes will also be required in the states, where public universities have been choking off college access and upward mobility for the poor by shifting away from the traditional need-based aid formula to a so-called merit formula that heavily favors affluent students. The resulting drop in the fortunes of even high-performing low-income students — many of whom no longer attend college at all — is documented in an eye-opening report released recently by the Education Trust, a nonpartisan foundation devoted to education reform.

The public universities were founded on the premise that they would provide broad access in exchange for taxpayer subsidies. That compact has been pretty much discarded in the state flagship campuses, which have increasingly come to view themselves as semiprivate colleges that define themselves not by inclusion, but by how many applicants they turn away, and how many of their students perform at the highest levels on the SAT, an index that clearly favors affluent teenagers who attend the best schools and have access to tutors.

The flagship schools compete for high-income, high-achieving students who would otherwise attend college elsewhere, while overlooking low-income students who are perfectly able to succeed at college but whose options are far more narrow.

In recent years, aid to students whose families earn over $100,000 has more than quadrupled at the public flagship and research universities. Incredibly, the average institutional grant to students from high-income families is actually larger than the average grant to low- or middle-income families.

Partly as a result, high-performing students from low-income groups are much less likely to attend college than their high-income counterparts — and are less likely to ever get four-year degrees if they do attend.

These are ominous facts at a time when the college degree has become the basic price of admission to both the middle class and the new global economy. Unless the country reverses this trend, upward mobility through public higher education will pretty much come to a halt.

The Inhumanity Of The Death Penalty

A Growing Plea for Mercy for the Mentally Ill on Death Row

Former governor, and now felon, George Ryan of Illinois, has called for a permanent moratorium on the death penalty because, as governor of Illinois, he saw that far too many people were being sentenced to death that had not done the crime, had not been fairly represented, or had otherwise been denied justice. Even after being convicted for corruption during his term in office, he spoke to a large crowd at De Pauw University on the matter.

But in places like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and a few other states, the entire apporach to handling convicted persons is to either lock them up and throw away the key, or to sentence them to death no matter what cognitive, developmental or mental health status they might be experiencing.

Texas has executed 277 convicted felons in the last ten years (1996-current) with another 9 death row inmates awaiting execution in 2007. Out of 389 executions, 269 have been either African-American, Hispanic or another minority. Additionally, only 10 have been women. Out of the last 71 persons executed in Texas, only 16 graduated from high school and only 2 had any post-secondary education. The level of violence involved in these crimes indicates patterns of escalation, rage, loss of control and quite possibly pre-existing mental health issues (c.f. Texas DCJ Executions Statistics Pages) USA-Amnesty International reports that since the re-introduction of the death penalty in Texas there has been "a litany of grossly inadequate legal procedures fail to meet minimum international standards for the protection of human rights." Texas has also gone on record to indicate that even if there was new evidence that demonstrated innocence after a conviction and death sentence, it would be right and lawful to still put the convicted felon to death.

Arizona, home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the "Tent City" approach to county incarceration, there are 126 people awaiting execution as we speak. A review of those cases demonstrates similar dynamics regarding the pattern of escalation, rage, loss of control and the possibility of pre-existing mental health issues.

The point of illustrating these statistics is not to "gross out" or frighten the readers of such information, but to demonstrate that something is seriously amiss with our approach to criminal justice, especially in regard to the death penalty. The number of people wrongfully convicted, in part due to an inequitable process, and in part due to the over-vigilance of prosecutors in many states, is on the rise. Those persons not able to afford the "dream team" of defense lawyers that were prent in the O.J. Simpson and the Robert Blake cases, are often not represented in a full and fair manner. The psycho-social, educational, cognitive and developmental functioning of those convicted seems to represent a pattern of putting to death those that might be suffering some form of mental imbalance.

The death penalty needs to be abolished solely on the basis of the wrongs we are using to implement it. But further, the death penalty needs to be abolished because it serves no moral purpose outside of vengeance. It does not establish justice in accordance with the Preamble of the Constitution, it does not demonstrate our spiritual nature, and it does not indicate the compassion that we are called to have toward those that have harmed us.

For those of us that are Christian, which is the majority of our nation, we are taught that Jesus said to forgive our enemies. Even one of the most often recited prayers, the Lord's Prayer, cites that we should "forgive those that trespass against us..." The act of putting someone to death is an inherently inhumane act. We claim to be one of the most humane nations in the world, yet we not only execute people, but some states do so with a passion for the execution. As Amnesty International has stated, we do not want to dismiss the violent nature of the crimes, nor do we want to excuse the crime on the basis of mental health alone, but when we look at all the wrongs that go into our death penalty process--unfair representation, lack of due process, execution of the uneducated/mentally ill, pursuit of vengeance rather than justice, wrongful convictions, etc.--we cannot justify keeping the death penalty as an option.

Scott Louis Panetti says he was drowned and electrocuted as a child and that he was recently stabbed in the eye in his death row cell by the devil. Mr. Panetti says he has wounds that were inflicted by demons and healed by President John F. Kennedy.

“The devil has been trying to rub me out to keep me from preaching,” Mr. Panetti, explaining why he faces execution, said in an interview from behind thick glass in the Polunsky Unit here in East Texas, where condemned prisoners are held before transfer to the death house 45 miles west in Huntsville.

Despite Mr. Panetti’s obvious mental illness — he was a mental patient long before he gunned down his in-laws in 1992 — he served as his own lawyer at his murder trial, throwing the courtroom into chaos with frequent gibberish. Now the hyperactive and gangling Mr. Panetti, 48, has become an illustration of the growing quandary over the application of a 1986 Supreme Court decision barring execution of the insane.

The ruling appears to be limited to those without the capacity to understand that they are about to be put to death and why. Whether Mr. Panetti fits that definition is a matter of dispute.

In an appeal to the Supreme Court that could affect the cases of other mentally ill prisoners awaiting execution, Mr. Panetti’s lawyers argue that while he has a “factual awareness” of his execution, he has a “delusional belief” that it is unconnected to his crime, and that he should therefore be spared lethal injection.

The case of another mentally ill death row inmate, Guy T. LeGrande, who represented himself and is scheduled to die Dec. 1 in Raleigh, N.C., is going through its final state appeals, with his lawyers arguing that he, too, is delusional, and that he hastened his execution by abandoning his defense.

Charged in the contract killing of a woman whose husband pleaded guilty to plotting the murder and is serving life, Mr. LeGrande, 47, says he is innocent and was framed. He appeared in court in 1996 in a Superman T-shirt, cursed the jurors as “Antichrists” and taunted them, “Pull the switch and let the good times roll.” They took less than an hour to sentence him to death.

Experts and advocates in the field say the issue of executing the mentally ill is the next frontier in death penalty law.

“This is an emerging issue,” said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research institute in Washington that opposes capital punishment.

Mr. Dieter cited the Panetti and LeGrande cases as gray areas in which “the death penalty may be extreme punishment given their reduced culpability.”

Franklin E. Zimring, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment” (Oxford University Press, 2003), said there was something “indigestible” about these cases.

“We assume people don’t want to die,” Mr. Zimring said. “But these are defendants that call the legal system’s bluff.”

Concern over execution of the mentally disabled prompted the American Bar Association last August to join a widening chorus of professionals calling for a halt to death sentences and executions for defendants with severe mental disorders that “significantly impaired” their rational judgment or capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct. The moratorium was endorsed earlier by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The groups also opposed death sentences for prisoners with mental disorders that impaired their ability to assist their lawyers and make rational decisions on their appeals. The Supreme Court has already barred execution for the mentally retarded and for juveniles.

“An increasing percentage of people executed are people giving up their appeals,” said Ronald J. Tabak, a lawyer at the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Manhattan and a specialist in capital cases who led the bar association’s death penalty task force. “And of these, a significant percentage have serious mental illness.”

The Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling, on a Florida case, Ford v. Wainwright, left much unclear. Although no state permitted execution of the insane, the justices affirmed that the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment prohibited it. But they did not provide a standard for determining when someone was competent enough to be executed.

In a concurring opinion later adopted as law by lower courts, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. said it was enough “if the defendant perceives the connection between his crime and the punishment.” Justice Powell also said that the Constitution “forbids the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Mr. Panetti had the requisite legal awareness. And the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, has argued that the execution, as yet unscheduled after having been postponed in 2004, should proceed.

There is no dispute that Mr. Panetti is “profoundly mentally ill,” his lawyers Gregory W. Wiercioch, Keith S. Hampton and Michael C. Gross said in a petition seeking to overturn the Fifth Circuit ruling. In the decade before the murders, they said, he was hospitalized 14 times in six institutions for schizophrenia, manic depression, auditory hallucinations and delusions of persecution. Believing the devil was in his furniture, he buried it in the backyard, and thinking the devil was in the walls, he hallucinated that they were running with blood.

On Sept. 8, 1992, Mr. Panetti, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a sawed-off shotgun, a rifle and knives, invaded the Fredericksburg home where his estranged wife, Sonja Alvarado, had taken refuge with her parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado. In front of his wife and their 3-year-old daughter, known as Birdie, he shot the Alvarados to death and took his wife and daughter captive before releasing them unharmed and surrendering.

In 1994, a first jury deadlocked on his mental competency, but a second found him able to stand trial.

Waiving legal counsel, Mr. Panetti represented himself, appearing in court in cowboy garb and seeking to subpoena Jesus before deciding “he doesn’t need a subpoena — he’s right here with me.” He attributed the killings to an alter ego named Sarge Ironhorse and, testifying in Sarge’s voice after calling himself as a witness, recounted the killings:

“Sarge is gone. No more Sarge. Sonja and Birdie. Birdie and Sonja. Joe, Amanda lying kitchen, here, there blood. No, leave. Scott, remember exactly what Sarge did. Shot the lock. Walked in the kitchen. Sonja, where’s Birdie? Sonja here. Joe, bayonet, door, Amanda. Boom, boom, blood, blood. Demons. Ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, lord, oh, you.”

When Judge Stephen B. Ables tried to cut him off, Mr. Panetti said, “You puppet.”

Mr. Panetti does appear to have moments of lucidity, and these disconcerted the juries at his competency hearing and trial, planting suspicions that he might have been faking.

“Not to make excuses,” he said in the death row interview, “but when someone’s insane, they’re insane.”

Psychiatrists testified that schizophrenic patients often spoke intelligently.

Asked in the interview if he understood he was on death row for crimes he committed, Mr. Panetti said: “Certainly not. They are in a strong delusionment. They’ll be undeceived by delusionment.”

In a related matter, the Kentucky Supreme Court has made a ruling that is somewhat counter-intuitive and creates cognitive dissonance when considering the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment:

While conceding that the chemicals used to execute death row inmates in Kentucky might cause needless pain, the state’s Supreme Court ruled yesterday that using them did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Bush Crowed, But The Trial Blowed

Human Rights Watch: Saddam Dujail Trial 'Fundamentally Unfair'

Following up on my last post about Bush crowing over the verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial, in which I asked questions about the validity of process, the justice achieved and the hypocrisy of Bush, et al, making political hay out of the conviction.

Do not misunderstand my point. Saddam Hussein was a despicable dictator and a dispicable excuse for a human being. He killed other people indiscriminantly, based on the idea of maintaining his stranglehold over the people of Iraq. Overthrowing his government can be seen as a "good thing," except that we (the US) should not have been the ones to take on the task of doing so. Hussein deserves to be brought to trial, judged and sentenced. However, we (the US) should not be the ones to do it.

From where I sit, because Iraq has not fully developed its government to assure fairness, due process, and eliminate US influences in the government, it was not possible for Hussein to receive a fair trial. The Hussein trial should have been transferred to a more appropriate venue, similar to those that have been convened for crimes against humanity or war crimes that occurred in the breakup of Yugoslavia. If there were an international approach to the trial, perhaps the claims about unfairness and improper process would have been quelled. In this case, though, I would imagine that a panel of judges from Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Egypt and Syria might have been more appropriate than the typical international court. The judges from these predominantly Arab, predominantly Muslim nations would be familiar with the Qu'ran, Sha'ria and the issues that confronted Hussein as a leader of a nation in the Middle East. The balance of the panel, having Iraqi and Kuwaiti members that might hold harsher views of Hussein, but also having other Arab judges that would not have harsher views of Hussein, could have assured that some modicum of justice, fairness of process and fairness of sentence would have been effected.

I don't agree with all of the claims made by HRW, but I do think that the bottom line assessment of the process and the fairness of the sentence is in question.

Saddam Hussein's trial for crimes against humanity committed in Dujail was "fundamentally unfair" and the guilty verdict lacks legitimacy due to procedural and substantive flaws, according to a report released by advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Monday. Nehal Bhuta, the report's author, said that the Iraqi High Tribunal "squandered an important opportunity to deliver credible justice" and called the court's decision to impose the death penalty in light of the trial's procedural shortcomings "indefensible." Based on 10 months of court observation and interviews with judges and lawyers, the report concludes that:

* Hussein and his co-defendants were not given adequate notice of charges against them, or enough time to prepare a defense;

* prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory statements, and failed to disclose witness statements and other evidence in advance of trial;

* chain of custody issues were dismissed without argument;

* 29 witness statements were read into the court record, denying Hussein his right to confront his accusers;

* judges failed to explain their reasoning on key issues in writing;

* Hussein's defense counsel acted inappropriately and failed to adequately represent Hussein;

* the turnover of judges hurt the trial, and that the presiding judge exhibited unseemly bias in favor of the prosecution;

* and that substantively, the judges should have required "linkage evidence" from political, historical, or military experts to demonstrate how much knowledge Hussein should have had of the acts he was blamed for.

Hussein's defense lawyers welcomed the report Monday, saying that HRW's findings "bolster" the defense team's arguments that the trial was "unfair and illegal."

Last week, defense lawyers accused Iraqi officials of interfering with the appeals process of the Dujail verdict, where Hussein and two co-defendants received the death penalty for crimes against humanity committed in Dujail. Hussein was charged with killing, torturing and illegally detaining Dujail residents, including the execution of 148 Shiites, after an unsuccessful attempt on his life there in 1982.

Hussein is also currently on trial on genocide charges for allegedly killing 100,000 Kurds in the "Anfal" campaigns in the late 1980s. That trial was adjourned last week until mid-December. The Washington Post has more.

George W. Has Nothing To Crow About... Neither Will The Winners At The Polls

Bush Trumpets Iraq Verdict to Rally Support

President Bush on Sunday seized on the conviction of Saddam Hussein as a milestone in Iraq, seeking to rally Republican voters with the issue of national security as some polls suggested that his party might be making gains in the final hours of the campaign.

The White House said the timing of the announcement, two days before Election Day, had nothing to do with American politics and had been dictated by the Iraqi court. But Mr. Bush moved quickly to put it to use in what has been his central strategic imperative over the past week, trying to rouse Republican voters to turn out.

“Today we witnessed a landmark event in the history of Iraq: Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal,” Mr. Bush said to roars of approval in a hockey auditorium packed with supporters in Grand Island, Neb. “Saddam Hussein’s trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.”

It seems odd to me that George W. Bush would crow about another person's death sentence and use it as a way to make political hay for all the wrong reasons. It strikes me as bold, ego-centric and quite indecent to blow a horn about an inhumane outcome of an inhumane use of force against an enemy that was no actual threat to us ab intitio. It also strikes me as the epitome of hypocrisy to use the death sentence against Saddam Hussein as a mark in the win column when everything that we have been involved in over in iraq has been an utter failure. The fact is Bush and the members of his administration have lied to us every step of the way in regard to matters involving Iraq. We know this... and yet we allow him and his administration to crow about facilitating the death of another human being.

How odd it is that we use maltreatment, torture, unjust invasion, corrupted intelligence and an improperly implemented form of "democracy" to convict someone that used maltreatment, torture, unjust invasions of homes/communities, corrupted secret police, and an improperly implemented form of government to inflict inhumane acts against people (his own people).

During a recent training on political leadership it was discussed that democracy implemented by military force necessitates military force to maintain it. We are seeing that in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least in Afghanistan we have some reasoned causes for action, even if the actions we have chosen to implement are the wrong actions.

So I have to ask exactly what Bush and company are crowing about? Is it the death of another human being? Is it the fall from power and grace that an egomaniac has undergone? Is it justice, and if it is what sort of justice is it?

I also have to ask if the court that convicted Hussein was even a fair court? Can a court formed in a rush--under a government that really doesn't have its own stability or ability to stand on its own in any real manner--acting without any real sense of common law, precedent or principles that have been adequately put to the test really administer a just trial, never mind a just sentence.

The idea that justice and principles were not met in this case is not one of my own thoughts alone. The New York Times has asked the very same question in an editorial entitled The Saddam Hussein Verdict. In that editorial there are some issues raised that warrant us asking such questions, including whether or not the trial was merely a way for those victimized by Hussein's regime to strike back for political and power posturing purposes.

But it still demonstrates something about Bush's character, his values and his willingness to do or say anything to maintain his control over our lives, be in the position of peddling influence, lining the pockets of those powerful and privileged people who have had nothing but support from the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled government.

It also says something about the character of his beliefs as a Christian. What kind of Christian seeks to manipulate the systems of society in active pursuit of vengeance, greed and power? What kind of Christian acts knowingly on lies and information proven to be false and misleading? What kind of Christian continues to lie, manipulate and act based on ideological hypocrisy, even when the words of Christ speak volumes against such hypocrisy? What kind of Christian supports such a man or the government led by such a man?

I would plead with the ultra-conservatives--especially the Christian Right--to contemplate this issues carefully if I thought it would do any good. But once these folks become entrenched, it is impossible to convince them that they are wrong. Oddly, the Scriptures speak to the issue of what to do when someone presents evidence that a wrong is being committed in the name of God. Unfortunately, not many Christians genuinely practice those parts of Scripture or tenets of faith that are the most difficult to understand or follow.

I have written in the past that we need to return to the principles--the first principles--embedded and embodied in the Constitution. It is clear to me that the founders and framers were on solid spiritual ground when they developed and presented the Constitution. Unfortunately, we do not see many politicians with the faith, conviction of principle, connection to humanity or intellectual reasoning abilities to put principles, values and reason together in the process of governing.

It is unfortunate that these unprincipled, malfeasant leaders have control over us and have committed us to a long war that has no real objective, no just rationale, no just process and is by definition a war of ideology rather than necessity. In a guest editorial Ted Koppel offers some insight into the cost of this type of militaristic action. But what Koppel and others have not addressed, and what many Americans do not grasp, is that an unjust war or military action, led by an entrenched militaristic ideologue and like-minded supporters, undermines not only our leadership, our government, but our spirit.

I do not know that the Democrats will do any better at leading us by principle, just causes or even by reason. But what I do know is that the punishment received by Bush, his supporters, and the GOP leadership that has failed to invoke the constitutional provisions and powers to keep things from getting out of hand will be a lot more lenient--and a lot more just--than the trial and sentence received by Saddam Hussein. Indeed, there will be a lot for the Dems to crow about should they take back the House. Even more will be cause for gloating should the Dems take back the Senate. The question is whether they will spend their time gloating and crowing, or acting to bring our nation back in line with its first principles?