Friday, June 24, 2005
Shadows in the Hoods - Hoods in the Shadows
1969: Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. Nixon's Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst, "calls for the repression of 'ideological criminals'", and declares the anti-war movement an "epidemic" of "national subversive activity".
Kleindienst: "When you see an epidemic like this cropping up all over the country-the same kind of people saying the same kinds of things-you begin to get the picture that it is a national subversive activity."*****
"Tortures range from simple but brutal blows from a truncheon to electric shocks. Often the torture is more refined: the end of a reed is placed in the anus of a naked man hanging suspended downwards on the pau de arara [parrot's perch] and a piece of cotton soaked in petrol is lit at the other end of the reed. Pregnant women have been forced to watch their husbands being tortured. Other wives have been hung naked beside their husbands and given electric shocks on the sexual parts of their body, while subjected to the worst kind of obscenities. Children have been tortured before their parents and vice versa. The length of sessions depends upon the resistance capacity of the victims and have sometimes continued for days at a time." ~ (Amnesty International report on torture in Brazil during 1960's while under operational control of military and US-Office of Public Safety)
"During his 7 "Public Safety" years in Brazil, the use of torture against opponents of the military regime became virtually routine. In addition, the Brazilian police, many of whom were trained by [Dan] Mitrione, formed a vigilante "Death Squad" which disposed of over 100 "undesirables" without arrest or trial. - River of Painted Birds/July 20, 2004
VFW accepts Durbin apology
Pundits debate effect of Nazi remarks on senator's political future | Thursday, June 23, 2005 | By Dori Meinert of Copley News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Veterans of Foreign Wars on Wednesday accepted the apology of Sen. Dick Durbin for his controversial remarks comparing the actions of American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and other murderous regimes.
"The senator was totally out of line for even thinking such thoughts," said John Furgess, the commander-in-chief of the 2.4-million-member organization. "But his public apology Tuesday to our service members and their families helps bring to a close an unfortunate yet preventable accident."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that Durbin's apology "was the right thing to do, and I think it was the right thing to say to our men and women in uniform who are serving and sacrificing in defense of freedom."
Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, made an emotional public apology on the Senate floor Tuesday night after a week of growing criticism. The controversy began June 14 when Durbin read part of a report from an FBI agent detailing the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said on the Senate floor last week.
Dan Mitrione was a policeman in Richmond, Indiana from 1945 to 1957. In 1959 he would join the FBI. Eleven years later, in August of 1970, Mitrione was kidnapped, held for ransom, and eventually executed by Tupamaros guerrillas (Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional) in Uruguay; sparking an international incident.
Poster above reads: Radio Berlin - It is officially announced - All men of Lidice - Czechoslovakia - Have been shot - The women deported to a concentration camp - The children sent to appropriate centers - The name of the village was immediately abolished. - 6/11/42/115P
*
