Thursday, April 14, 2005

Just another sign it's 1970 X lines US airmen held over Ecstasy haul Two US military airmen are being held on charges of smuggling millions of dollars worth of Ecstasy into the country, federal officials have said. Capt Franklin Rodriguez, 36, an Air National Guard pilot, and Master Sgt John Fong, 35, were arrested on Tuesday on return from a mission in Europe. Both men admitted during interviews to bringing the drugs from Germany on several occasions, the officials added. They face a maximum of 20 years in jail and a $1m fine. They were ordered to be held without bail at initial court appearances on Wednesday evening, the Associated Press news agency said. Hotel room Around 290,000 Ecstasy pills in 28 large bags were found in the two men's luggage after their Air Force C-5A cargo aircraft arrived at the Stewart Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York State. The pills are said to have a street value of up to $40 each. You have to be fucking kidding me. No seriously. When do they start shipping the heroin back in body bags? But the radical right says this is nothing like Vietnam and we're winning the war. Let's see, you have PTSD cases all over the place, a Stryker battalion thisclose to throwing down on the 11th ACR and now this, smuggling dope back to the US in military aircraft. But it's not like Vietnam. Oh yeah, Sgt. Akbar's fragging trial kicked off yesterday. I wonder how many dirty piss tests are coming back, especially from Afghanistan. [Steve Gilliard's News Blog] 6:14:03 PM     White House Impeding Payolagate Investigation. No shocker here. The White house is not eager to show just how far down the rabbit hole goes: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is impeding an investigation into the Education Department's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams by refusing to allow key... [MyDD] 6:10:33 PM     Starving Iraqi Children: the price of freedom Ungrateful urchin, we gave you freedom, did you expect food as well Let them eat bombs The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling Terry Jones Tuesday April 12, 2005 The Guardian A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now. This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations. It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering. These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them. A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it." But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling. They just hate freedom. That's why they starve. [Steve Gilliard's News Blog] 6:08:13 AM

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