American Stains

Disgraced
Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday. The memos offer some of the clearest proof yet that the abuses and torture of prisoners in U.S. military custody weren't the isolated actions of low-ranking soldiers but a result of policies approved by senior officials, "These documents show that the abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib was not caused by rogue elements but rather it was the consequence of policies that were deliberately adopted by senior military and Pentagon officials."

Traitorous Acts
The Dubai company at the center of a political furor over its plans to take over some terminal operations at six U.S. ports said that it planned to close the deal in the week ahead, but that it would "not exercise control" over its new operations in the United States while the Bush administration tried to calm opposition in Congress. The action came after the Bush administration and leading members of Congress, including Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, quietly told the company that more time was needed to derail congressional action to block the deal.

Failure in an Adventure Based on Lies
The number of Iraqi army battalions judged by their American trainers to be capable of fighting insurgents without U.S. help has fallen from one to none since September, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Another Crooked Pol
Sen. Rick Santorum's charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period, well below Better Business Bureau standards - paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll. Operation Good Neighbor is based at the same address as Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum's campaign office in suburban Philadelphia, and some of the same people who have worked on his campaign are working for his charity and collecting money from it, records show.
Posted on The Human Stain