In the dark humor that has become so popular in Baghdad these days, one recently released Abu Ghraib detainee I interviewed said, "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house!"
www.truthout.org/docs_05/010805F.shtml


In other words, the US can turn over alleged terrorists to repressive foreign governments to be tortured, and then feel free to use the tainted results thus obtained. It is well known that the CIA has used other governments to detain and interrogate hundreds of detainees in this fashion.

This exchange reveals the real attitude of the Bush administration to torture. [...]

Statements given under torture have not been admissible as evidence in US courts for over 70 years. Originally, courts reasoned that such evidence was highly unreliable, since tortured persons will often say anything to alleviate their suffering. Later, the US Supreme Court issued rulings based on the unacceptability of the brutality and lack of fairness in the extraction of such statements, and affirming the principle that confessions are of value only if uncoerced.
wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/guan-j11.shtml


Americans Use Small Children As Human Shields

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Ramadi reported that US occupation forces on Thursday morning drove into the western neighborhoods of ar-Ramadi, arresting 32 small children.

Local residents told Mafkarat al-Islam that the US troops lured the children from in front of their houses with candy then put them in tanks or armored vehicles and then attacked the al-Bu Farraj Neighborhood and the 17 April Neighborhood to raid and search houses there.

The correspondent wrote that the Resistance was in an extremely anguished situation, for they could not attack the Americans out of concern for the children whose relatives appealed to the Resistance not to attack the US column for fear that their children would be killed.

US troops stormed into the city at 9am Thursday and were still there when the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent sent in his report, posted at 12:25pm Mecca time Thursday afternoon. The Americans arrested 12 persons on charges of being with the Resistance, as the children, being held on the tops of the tanks, were reduced to tears in their terror.

The Resistance did not dare attack the American column which drove around the city however it wanted, taking advantage of the fighters self-imposed restraint out of consideration of the captive youngsters.

One father agreed that the Resistance should attack the American column even if is son, Hudhayfah, aged 3 would die. But the Resistance rejected his offer.
www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php


Jespersen was fired when she objected that the new standards "forced her to be feminine" and made her feel "dolled up" like a sex object. Jespersen said that when she had worn makeup in the past, she had felt that it interfered with her ability to win the respect of customers that would be necessary or her to deal with them when they were unruly. The 2-1 decision rejected Jespersen�s suit, saying that she had not shown that feminine standards were significantly more burdensome than those imposed on men. The Court held that sex stereotyping rulings � such as the landmark Supreme Court case decisionHopkins v. Price Waterhouse � did not specifically address the issue of sex-differentiated grooming standards.
www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php


"Enron benefited from taxpayer support and multilateral organization support to extend its international reach, including the Guatemalan power project with its questionable payments." The report further notes that US government agencies have failed to pursue evidence of tax evasion and foreign corrupt practices associated with the scheme.
www.corpwatch.org/article.php
www.moneyfiles.org/temp.html


But neither the classes as a whole nor the parties and individuals through which their socioeconomic interests find more or less adequate expression function as free agents. The breadth and nature of their activity are essentially defined by the laws of the capitalist mode of production.

This is true not only for the working class, but for the bourgeois ruling elite as well. The political perspective of our party does not proceed from subjectively motivated hopes and desires. Marxists conceive of revolution neither as punishment for the evil-doings of capitalists, nor as reward for their own altruistic efforts to abolish poverty. The perspectives of the revolutionary party must develop out of an analysis of the objectively real contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. This analysis forms the most general basis of the revolutionary perspective.
wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/dnp1-j11.shtml