Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Three stories worth reading in this morning's Times plus readers say avoid Judy Miller

Three stories worth catching in today's NY Times.
 
1) Neil A. Lewis' "Red Cross Finds Detainne Abuse in Guantanamo" which discussed the Red Cross report (which the U.S. Government received in July).
 
* "the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion 'tantamount to torture'"
 
* "some doctors and other medical workers at Guantanamo" took part in interrgoation planning which the report calls "a flagrant violation of medical ethics"
 
* "doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators"
 
2) Adam Liptak's "Colleges Can Bar Army Recruiters" discusses the ruling by the three panel member of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, which found that "educational institutions have a First Amendment right to keep military recruiters off their campuses to protest the Defense Department policy of excluding gays from military service."
 
3) Richard A. Oppel Jr. and James Glanz's "U.S. Officials Say Iraq's Forces Founder Under Rebel Assaults" offers an on the ground look at the state of the Iraqi security forces.  (John F. Burns, Eric Schmitt and an unnamed Iraqi employee of the Times provide assistance with this article.)
 
Note DynCorp's John Champman (former deputy sherrif in Johnson County, Texas) defining success for the recruit training program:  "Show up for work.  Anything besides show up on pay day."
 
Judith Miller has an article on A10.  Which has already resulted in five e-mails asking why the Times allows Miller to continue her "war on the U.N."  As Matt notes,  "Nobody forced her to choose Chalabi over the U.N.  Her decision to live with."  Janeane writes to note the article and that Miller "will be on the hot seat tonight on Charlie Rose.  May be fun watching her pretzel logic, twisting and bending, hiding behind her tattered claim to be a journalist to avoid telling who broke the law by outing Valerie Plame to her.  If nothing else, it'll be fun to laugh at her bangs!"
 
Though the Times continues to cover the Ukraine, the best piece thus far is Katrina vanden Heuvel's (http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7)  "Truth and Consequences in Ukraine."  And KvH, editor of the Nation, is donating her time in the People for the American Way's celebrity ebay auction which is going on now at http://auction.pfaw.org/ .  If you have time, check out this on going auction.
 
In addition on Democracy Now! this morning, Amy Goodman spoke with Jesse Jackson and Alliance for Democracy's Cliff Arnebeck regarding the Ohio vote.  Click the link to watch, listen or read the transcript  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/30/1526202 .


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