Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

The Bush Administration reversed itself and declared that non-Iraqis captured fighting in Iraq are not protected by the Geneva Conventions; such prisoners, it was reported, have already been transferred out of Iraq in recent months and could be taken to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where torture is more common than it is in the United States.¹ Four British citizens who were held without charges in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, filed suit against Donald Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, and claimed that they were tortured while in custody. The Pentagon responded that the men were "enemy combatants" and thus had no right to sue.² A newly released document revealed that F.B.I. agents witnessed Iraqi prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib but failed to report it because they saw nothing unusual about the abuse. One agent said that what he saw at Abu Ghraib was similar to what goes on in prisons in the United States.³ A new study found that Iraqis are 58 times more likely to die a violent death than before the American invasion; the study concluded that 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion, and that coalition air strikes, which mostly kill women and children, were the primary cause of civilian deaths.⁴ President Bush suggested that the missing explosives from the Al Qaqaa military facility might have been removed before the invasion, and he claimed that by criticizing him John Kerry is "denigrating the action of our troops."⁵ Several news agencies confirmed that their embedded reporters were present at the facility with American troops and that they saw boxes labeled as explosives; KSTP Television in Minneapolis broadcast footage taken at Al Qaqaa of boxes of high explosives. KSTP also photographed the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which indicates that the explosives were known to be associated with Iraq's former nuclear program.⁶ Rudolph Giuliani went on television and said that it wasn't the president's fault that the Al Qaqaa explosives weren't secured; on the contrary, he said, "the actual responsibility for it would be for the troops that were there."⁷ The Pentagon extended the Iraq tours of 6,500 soldiers, and a⁸ federal judge ordered the Defense Department to stop giving troops the anthrax vaccine and said that the Food and Drug Administration broke its own rules by approving it.⁹ Congress approved a measure that will permit soldiers and their families to seek reimbursement for combat equipment, such as body armor, that they have purchased with their own money.¹⁰ U.S. forces were preparing for another large military assault on Falluja, and nearby Ramadi was said to be "slipping into chaos."¹¹ Osama bin Laden released a new video message and said that it was U.S. foreign policy, particularly U.S. support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that led him to plan the September 11 attacks. "Bush says and claims that we hate freedom, let him tell us then, 'Why did we not attack Sweden?'"¹² Bush-Cheney campaign officials were happy to hear from Osama: "We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said one. Another said that "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."¹³

Voter suppression campaigns were reportedly underway all around the country, though all indications were pointing to an historically high turnout.¹⁴ Wisconsin Republicans were trying to challenge about 37,000 voter registrations in Milwaukee, and there¹⁵ were reports of gay-marriage push polls in Michigan.¹⁶ In South Carolina a letter purporting to be from the NAACP claimed that voters will be arrested at the polls if they have outstanding parking tickets or child support payments and said that voters must provide a credit report, two forms of photo ID, a Social Security card, a voter registration card, and a handwriting sample.¹⁷ Early voters in Florida, especially in heavily Democratic districts, were standing in line to vote for up to six hours.¹⁸ Broward County's election supervisor said that up to 15,000 absentee ballots would be resent to voters whose ballots mysteriously disappeared.¹⁹ A federal judge said that political parties in Ohio may not station challengers at polling places and said that to do so would create a "substantial likelihood that significant harm will result not only to voters, but also to the voting process itself."²⁰ A Sarasota man failed to run over Florida Republican representative Katherine Harris in his car. "I intimidated them with my car," he said. "I was exercising my political expression."²¹ The Bush Campaign was forced to withdraw an ad that had been digitally altered to increase the number of soldiers in an audience listening to the president speak.²² The IRS decided to investigate the tax-exempt status of the NAACP.²³

Mobs of machete-wielding Christians and Muslims were slaughtering one another in Liberia,²⁴ Latvia's government collapsed, and there²⁵ was violence between Han Chinese and Hui Muslims in central China.²⁶ A teenage suicide bomber killed three people in Tel Aviv when he set off his explosives in a vegetable stall.²⁷ Fidel Castro banned the U.S. dollar, and²⁸ Pakistan's lower house of parliament passed a bill that would impose the death penalty for honor killings, which have traditionally been ignored.²⁹ Governor Rick Perry of Texas refused to proclaim "UN Day," and a³⁰ new study found that up to 21,000 people are injured every year from air rifles, paintball pistols, and BB guns.³¹ Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who underwent a tracheotomy last week, was recovering from treatment for thyroid cancer and was unable to return to work.³² A clinic in Cleveland was hoping to perform a face transplant using skin and the underlying fat from a donor.³³ Scientists announced the discovery of a species of hobbit-like humans on Flores, an island 370 miles east of Bali, that lived as recently as 13,000 years ago. The adult hobbits, who apparently hunted pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons for food, were about the size of a three-year-old modern human child.³⁴ New research found that it is better to be bullied for the first time as a young child than as an adolescent.³⁵ It was discovered that the stem cell lines approved for federally funded research in the United States are tainted with mouse characteristics, the³⁶ World Health Organization announced that avian flu probably has not mutated into a form that can pass from human to human, and researchers³⁷ in South Carolina concluded that high-fat diets can cause brain damage.³⁸ Young mice treated with Prozac, a study found, grow up to be depressed.³⁹ Scientists in California successfully implanted a brain prosthesis in a dish of rat brain slices.⁴⁰ The widow of former French president Francois Mitterrand auctioned off some of her designer furniture to raise money for the defense of her son Jean-Christophe, who is under investigation for selling arms illegally to Angola.⁴¹ Britain's House of Commons voted to stop calling visitors "strangers," and⁴² Russia's Federation Council ratified the Kyoto Protocol.⁴³ The U.S. murder rate was up.⁴⁴ The Boston Red Sox won the World Series.⁴⁵