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Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse

A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo

By ADAM ZAGORIN

Posted Friday, Nov. 10, 2006
Just days after his resignation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Something to think about

Submitted by OperaGirl on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 6:37pm.

Miniature Earth

Horrofic Video of Slain American Journalist in Mexico

Submitted by Secret Communiqué on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 3:44pm.

NEWS DIRECT FROM: http://secretcommunique.blogspot.com/

"Journalism seems like a precarious profession to practise in Mexico. It’s ranked by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. The latest tragic example of this came on Friday 27th October, in the southern state of Oaxaca (in Mexico) with the shooting of Brad Will. Brad was in Oaxaca as a journalist for New York City Indymedia, trying to get stories out about the protests in Oaxaca (see Seattle journalist latest post). While filming skirmishes between paramilitaries and protestors in Santa Lucia on Friday afternoon, Brad was shot in the abdomen and neck, and died from his injuries."

ABOVE VIDEO: Now Indymedia (his employer) has released the tape that was in Brad’s video camera & in his hands when he was shot. The above video is 16mins w/ English subtitles, and beware, the last minute (from 15:30) is very difficult to watch, as it shows him getting shot in first person point of view.

Video in Original Spanish: Link.

Victories and setbacks as the Oly 22 trial gets postponed

Submitted by Drew3000 on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 3:30pm.

Phan Nguyen writes:

Hi, everyone. I want to give you an update on the case of the Olympia 22 -- the antiwar activists who were arrested at the Port of Olympia, Washington on May 30.

17 of the 22 arrestees had joined their cases to defend themselves from charges of second degree criminal trespass.

At our Oct. 3 pretrial hearing, Judge Susan Dubuisson of Thurston County District Court accepted our right to invoke the "necessity defense" for the trial, which was then set to begin on Nov. 13. The necessity defense allows us to argue that our actions were necessary to prevent greater harm. In this case, the greater harm was sending Stryker vehicles to Iraq, which would subsequently be followed by a massive deployment of soldiers from Fort Lewis to guard permanent military bases in Mosul and continue the illegal and immoral war and occupation of Iraq.

This was a historic precedent, as we were the first defendants in the US to be granted the right to argue necessity in a case involving Iraq War protests.

Last Monday, just one week before our scheduled Nov. 13 trial, Thurston County Deputy Prosecutor Debra Eurich filed a motion to "stay", or postpone, court proceedings so that she could try to get our right to argue necessity revoked in Superior Court. On Nov. 9, Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee granted the stay in order to address Eurich's arguments.

Triage #2

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 3:21pm.

Triage #1

Triage

I froze. For a slender moment, I was there with him. Then I was back. We were back. In Seattle, Washington. In the U.S. of A.

We cut our walk short and returned to Eric's van. I don't remember if we talked on the way home. And I don't remember what happened to Eric's cigarette while he flashed back to Vietnam. Did he drop it as he reached for his gun? What do you do with your lit cigarette, in a dark jungle, when the bushes rustle?

Eric had been a helicopter pilot. I was told this by our mutual friend Martin, and his hushed tone underlined "helicopter". Unspoken, but present, was a certain respect, and a knowledge that Eric had experienced events we could never imagine.

Eric could not sit with his back to a door. And he winced whenever he saw a discarded coca cola can on the ground. He told me that in 'Nam, coke cans were occasionally rigged as lethal bombs. Eric never did tell me why he had to sit in corners facing the door, or why he had a way of constantly scanning a room without moving a muscle. Only now, so many years later, can I begin to understand.

"Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" is the phrase for it now. Other wars named it "shell shock", "battle fatigue", and then "operational exhaustion". As I read books written by veterans, books on how severe trauma affects the survivor, their families, their communities - puzzle pieces fall into place. I read these books and I think of Eric. Eric with his collection of guns and bullets carefully and precisely laid out on a striped blanket. Eric describing to me the function of each type of bullet: how one fragmented on impact and another fragmented after. Eric drinking coffee at his favorite omelette restaurant, with his back against the wall. Eric telling me about lifting leaking barrels of Agent Orange, while I envisioned a thick orange haze and tumbling fruit.

Sarah's blog
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Bellevue getting wifi downtown (thoughts on our downtown and wifi)

Submitted by emmettoconnell on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 2:20pm.

150 acres for $60,000:

The core of downtown Bellevue will be getting free wireless Internet access in the next few weeks.
Workers this week are installing 28 wireless boxes on street lights and utility poles to provide Web access in a 150-acre "hot zone." The coverage area stretches from Bellevue Square to Meydenbauer Center, between Northeast Fourth and Eighth streets and curving slightly south to include Downtown Park.
The $60,000 installation is part of a six-month pilot project that may become permanent and then eventually expand to provide Wi-Fi access to the entire city, said David Kerr, a city information-technology manager.
Public access to the network, though, probably will be limited to the outdoors. The wireless signal will not enter most buildings and was designed primarily for city workers, such as police officers and building inspectors, to use in the field.
Still, residents and downtown workers will be able to access the Internet for free via laptops in many of the most popular public spaces, such as Downtown Park and the Northeast Sixth Street pedestrian corridor

While it will certainly benefit those who want to use downtown, it was mostly for the benefit of the city and creating efficiencies there.

Maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of waiting for the city to do something, why not the PBIA? They're budgeting for $123,000 this year, how much work would it take to convince them to spend $60,000 on a wifi network downtown?

Wouldn't wifi make downtown a better place?

Local Author: Fritz Wolff

Submitted by spete on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 1:41pm.

Start: Dec 2 2006 - 2:00pm

End: Dec 2 2006 - 3:30pm

Join Olympia author Fritz Wolff for a reading, discussion and signing of his boook, A Room for the Summer: Adventure, Misadventure, and Seduction in the Mines of Coeur d'Alene.

The memoir shares his three summers working as an apprentice engineer for the Bunker Hill silver mining company in the 1950s. He focuses on the mining families and the workers, from miners to the cooks in the rooming houses.

This is a free program.

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Calendar

Model Airplanes for Adults

Submitted by spete on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 1:29pm.

Start: Nov 29 2006 - 7:00pm

End: Nov 29 2006 - 8:30pm

Bob Benjamin will introduce the art of model airplanes, showing some planes and explaining how his interest led him to competition on the world championship level. Mr. Benjamin has been involved with aeromodeling for over 50 years and has published nearly a hundred articles in model aviation magazines in the U.S. and Europe.

This is a free program.

PBIA budget, rate increases, all sorts of budget stuff, and Neighborhood meeting

Submitted by emmettoconnell on Fri, 11/10/2006 - 11:47am.

This week on the Council

Budget, budget budget and a neighborhood's meeting

As always this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

On Tuesday there will be a public hearing on all this budget stuff below at no later than 8 p.m. at city hall.

1. The budget for the downtown business local taxing district next year should include, if the council approves it:

1. Environmental Maintenance Worker. $50,000.
2. Hanging Flower Baskets $15,000.
3. Administrative Support (ODA) $12,000.
4. Downtown Art Grant $10,000.
5. Web Cams $10,000.
6. DT Shop/Buy Marketing Program $8,000.
7. Community Court Support (Partner with Judge) $6,000.
8. Spring & Fall Downtown Clean-ups $5,000.
9. Green Machine support $4,000.
10. Holiday Lights $3,000.

Webcams? Sounds saucy. That will get people down there.

Also, Community Court support? What is that about?

2. The council is also considering some increases in the utility rates:

The Utility Funds propose the following rate increases:

Water: 7.9% revenue increase.

Wastewater: 13.5% increase

Solid Waste:
Residential 5% increase
Drop box 12% increase
Yard Waste 5% increase

Stormwater: 3% increase in residential and commercial rates

In addition to the rate increases, GFC (General Facility Charge) and ERU (Equivalent Residential Unit) will also increase as follows:

Drinking Water 4%
Wastewater 28%
Stormwater 4%

3. Also on Tuesday, starting at 5 p.m. at city hall, there will be a meeting between the General Government Committee and neighborhood association presidents on the following topics:

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