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Harper's Magazine, http://www.harpers.org/
Weekly Review
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004. By Roger D. Hodge.

[image]
caption: Lost Souls in Hell, 1875.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized for the torture of Iraqi
prisoners and said that there are "many more photographs and indeed some
videos" of American soldiers engaging in "blatantly sadistic, cruel, and
inhuman" behavior; Rumsfeld took "full responsibility" for the abuse but
still refused to resign. "It's going to get a good deal more terrible, I'm
afraid." Specialist Sabrina Harman, who faces court martial because of her
role in the torture, said in an email that she never even saw a copy of
the Geneva Conventions until recently. "I read the entire thing," she
said, "highlighting everything the prison is in violation of. There's a
lot." Harman said her job was to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation.
[Telegraph] American soldiers allegedly put a harness on an elderly Iraqi
woman and rode her like a donkey. [Newsday] New charges included rape,
murder, and child molestation. [Intelwire] "The system works," Rumsfeld
told the Senate. [Guardian] President Bush, who authorized his staff to
leak the fact that he had privately rebuked Donald Rumsfeld for failing to
tell him about the torture photographs, apologized on Arab television;
British Prime Minister Tony Blair also apologized, though there were
questions about the authenticity of the British images. [New York Times,
Agence France-Presse] President Bush continued to maintain that the Abu
Ghraib torturers were un-American, but human-rights advocates pointed out
that similar abuse takes place in U.S. prisons all the time, especially in
Texas. [New York Times] The Council on American-Islamic Relations
reported that anti-Muslim bias incidents are up 70 percent, and a [New
York Times] new Justice Department report warned that Al Qaeda is
recruiting supporters in American prisons. [New York Times] Someone
desecrated the grave of James Byrd Jr., the black man who was dragged to
death behind a pickup in Texas, for the second time. [New York Times] It
was reported that CACI International, the company that employs one of the
accused Abu Ghraib torturers, also sells the Bush Administration ethics
training tapes. [Intelwire] "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of
defense the United States has ever had," said Vice President Dick Cheney.
"People ought to let him do his job." [New York Times]

The Bush Administration was trying to persuade European and other leaders
to support Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, even
though Sharon's own Likud Party rejected it. [New York Times] Sudan, where
government-sponsored Arab militias called Janjaweed have been slaughtering
black farmers, was elected to the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights over the objections of the United States. One Sudanese diplomat
scoffed at the U.S. objection and pointed to the American atrocities in
Iraq. [New York Times] U.S. officials postponed the release of this year's
international human-rights report because the timing was somewhat
embarrassing. [New York Times] Ethnic violence continued in Nigeria
between the Taroks and Fulanis. [Reuters] The prime minister of Nepal
resigned after weeks of violent street protests against the king. [New
York Times] President Akhmad Kadyrov of Chechnya was killed along with a
dozen more officials in a bomb attack at Dynamo stadium in Grozny, where a
celebration of the defeat of Nazi Germany was under way. [CNN] Russian
legislators hired a Siberian shaman to purge the parliament building of
"negative energy." [Ananova] Sheikh Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, an aide to
Moktada al-Sadr, offered rewards for the capture or killing of British
soldiers; he said that female soldiers could be kept as slaves. [Guardian]
Alabama police were chasing a gang of cross-dressing car thieves, and [New
York Times] Al Gore and a group of investors bought a cable television
news channel they plan to market to young people. [New York Times] Chile
legalized divorce. [Associated Press]

A German ornithologist discovered that urban nightingales, forced to
compete with noise pollution, can sing so loud they break the law. The
loudest recorded was 95 decibels, which is as loud as a chainsaw. [New
Scientist] Brazilians were worried that President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva
drinks too much. [New York Times] The Congressional Research Service said
that Bush Administration officials broke the law when they ordered the
Medicare actuary to withhold information on the true cost of the new
Medicare law from Congress. [New York Times] A new federal building was
dedicated in Oklahoma City. [New York Times] Osama bin Laden offered a
reward of 10,000 grams of gold for the head of L. Paul Bremer, and at
[Associated Press] least ten people died in a suicide bombing at a Shiite
mosque in Karachi, Pakistan. [Agence France-Presse] Brooklyn police
arrested a forty-three-year-old armless man for raping and beating one of
his fellow nursing-home inmates. [NY1] Haitian farmers have been reduced
to eating the seed that they should be planting, a German aid agency said;
other [News24.com] Haitians were eating biscuits made out of butter, salt,
water, and dirt. [New York Times] Fifteen Chinese warehouse workers were
crushed to death by an avalanche of garlic. [BBC] World grain carryover
stocks were at a 30-year low, it was reported, well below the 70-day
consumption level that is considered the minimum for basic food security.
[Earth Policy Institute] The Pentagon was thinking about setting up a new
office to plan postwar operations for future wars, and the [New York
Times] Selective Service System proposed requiring women to register for
the draft. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] The Walt Disney Company refused to
distribute a new Miramax documentary by Michael Moore called Fahrenheit
911, which is highly critical of President Bush. [New York Times] African
clawed frogs were invading San Francisco. [Associated Press] It was
discovered that Paroxetine, an antidepressant, helps relieve
irritable-bowel syndrome, and a [University of Pittsburgh Medical Center]
new study found that Americans get substandard medical care most of the
time, despite the fact that they spend about $1.4 trillion a year for it.
[New York Times] Marijuana use was up in the United States. [New
Scientist] Chinese researchers found evidence that SARS is spread by
sweat, and [New Scientist] scientists announced that women with large
breasts and narrow waists are especially fertile.

[image]
caption: Clio, muse of history.

This is Weekly Review by Roger D. Hodge, published Tuesday, May 11, 2004.
It is part of Weekly Review for 2004, which is part of Weekly Review,
which is part of Harpers.org.

Written By
Hodge, Roger D.

Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/WeeklyReview2004-05-11.html

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