BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
TODAY IN CHINA, CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O REVEALED THAT HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY WRITE HIS TWITTER TWEETS. THOUGH HE DID NOT SAY WHO DID, WE'VE GOT $50 IN THE PRESS POOL ON BILL AYERS.
MEANWHILE BARY'S BOW JUST WON'T GO AWAY. NO ONE ELSE DOES IT.
"I'M THINKING OF TELLING PEOPLE," BARRY O INFORMED THESE REPORTERS, "THAT I WAS REHEARSING FOR AMERICA'S GOT TALENT AND WAS GOING TO PERFORM MADONNA'S 'TAKE A BOW'. DO YOU THINK THAT WILL WORK?"
WE ADVISED HIM THAT WE DOUBT PEOPLE WILL STOP TALKING. WE REALLY DOUBT IT. JAKE TAPPER (ABC NEWS) EXPLAINS:
"This picture shows two things," my friend writes.
"1) The 'right' is wrong about Obama's bow.
"2) The 'left' is wrong about Obama's bow.
"His bow is neither (1) unprecedented nor (2) a sign of cultural understanding.
"At their 1971 meeting in Alaska, the first visit of a Japanese Emperor to America, President Nixon bowed and referred to Emperor Hirohito and his wife repeatedly as 'Your Imperial Majesties.'"
(See that picture HERE.)
"Yet, (and?) Nixon gets the bow right. Slight arch from the waist hands at his side.
"Obama's handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush's back-rub of Merkel.
"Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.
"The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms....The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
In England there is an ongoing inquiry into Baha Mosua's death -- Baha is an Iraqi who died while in British custody. The November 9th snpashot noted that day's developments: British soldiers Gareth Aspinall and Garry Reader testified that Baha was abused repeatedly while in British custody, that he was beaten to death and that they were ordered to keep quiet about what took place. This morning, Robert Verkaik (Independent of London) reported that Donald Payne, already convicted for his role in Baha's death (and kicked out of the military) will testify today. Verkaik notes that Reader and Cooper identified Payne and Aaron Cooper as being responsible for the death of Baha -- to clarify that, they did not see him killed. They saw Payne and Cooper enter the room, they heard the cries and shreiks of Baha while the two were in the room and they saw Baha died after the two men left the room. The Daily Mail reports that Payne has testified today that he saw "every member of the unit commanded by Lt [Craig] Rogers, known by the call sign G10A, 'forcefully kick and/or punch' the group of Iraqi prisoners that included Mr Mousa." Payne also asserted that abuses covered up by him were done due to "misguided loyalty."
Under questioning from Gerald Elias, Payne stated that the purpose of the hooding was to "disorient" the prisoner. Elias then went through various documents before picking back up on this thread.
Gerald Elias: You were told, you say, about the shock of capture. What do you remember being said about the shock of capture?
Donald Payne: Keep it going.
Gerald Elias: Were you told why?
Donald Payne: No.
Gerald Elias: Your statement goes on: ". . . lack of sleep and to keep prisoners confused as much as we could."
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: Was anything said as to what the purpose of that was: shock of capture, lack of sleep?
Donald Payne: It was to aid the tactical questioner, or the interrogator.
Gerald Elias: How did you understand it aided the interrogator to maintain the shock of capture, lack of sleep and keep them confused?
Donald Payne: So that they were disoriented when they was questioned.
Gerald Elias: That was your understanding, was it?
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: You go on in this statement to say: "We were to keep this up until tactical questioning was completed."
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: Was that what you were told?
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: What did you understand then would happen when tactical questioning was completed?
Donald Payne: They could go to sleep.
Payne referred to receiving orders from a superior doing a handover but he stated he could not remember who it was or what he looked like. This was when, according to Payne, they were informed to keep the prisoners hooded and in stress positions until questioning ended. Not noted in the exchange but worth noting here is that questioning was not a few hours. For example, Baha's questioning went on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and might have continued was he not murdered Tuesday. While he was alive and in British custody, his questioning never ended. The Chair of the inquiry, the Right Honourable William Gage, asked for a clarification regarding when the stress positioning and other things ended and Payne established that it ended not when they were done questioning the prisoner but when they were done questioning everyone brought in with that prisoner.
Gerald Elias: Did you find this instruction from the TQer contrary to what you believed to be your orders for humane treatment of detainees?
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: Did you raise that question with anybody?
Donald Payne: No.
Gerald Elias: Why not?
Donald Payne: Never did.
Gerald Elias: Why not?
Donald Payne: Just didn't.
The "misquided loyalty" was a prepared statement he submitted to the inquiry today before questioning began. Gerald Elias asked him about that and about his admission that, despite what he stated previously (including in his court-martial), he did use "greater" force with each visit to the prisoners brought in with Baha.
Gerald Elias: Did your conduct in fact include kicking and punching --
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: -- routinely to detainees?
Donald Payne: Yes.
Gerald Elias: And in relation to these detainees, what I have called the Baha Mousa detainees, why did you involve yourself in kicking and punching them?
Donald Payne: No reason.
Did others do that as well? Yes, Payne stated, the whole multitude. Everyone but, under questioning, the drivers, he declared. But he could not give specifics, he stated he just knew that everyone was involved at one time or another because he saw them.
As Elias brought in Payne's past statements -- now agreed to by Elias and Payne to have been lies -- Payne yet again did a turn around. From the "misguided loyalty" excuse for his silence in the prepared statement he submitted to . . .
Gerald Elias: Can you help about this, Mr Payne: why were you lying about orders that you had received?
Donald Payne: Self-preservation.
Payne took issue with Gerald Elias suggestion that the prisoners were given "a regular beating" by the Payne and those serving with him, "I wouldn't say a regular beating, no. [. . .] They were given a beating, yes, but not constant." Under questioning from Elias, it was established that Baha and those in his group were being beaten for 48 straight hours. It might have continued after that, Payne didn't know. He stated that he left after Baha died.
Gerald Elias: From that time of assaulting the detainees on the Sunday evening through until the death of Baha Mousa, should the Inquiry understand -- tell me this is wrong if it is -- from your evidence that more or less whenever you went back to the TDF you would involve yourself in more violence of this kind?
Donald Payne: Yes.
We'll stop there. I don't believe Payne's account of his last treatment of Baha and don't see how anyone reading the transcript could believe it. It was all the more embarrassing when you grasped that Payne had already been convicted -- meaning there was no reason to continue lying, especially when he kept insisting that 'this time' he was 'finally' going to tell the truth. Stephen Bates (Guardian) observes, "Other members of the unit told the inquiry they covered up a violent assault by Payne on Mousa shortly before he died. Former private Aaron Cooper told the inquiry in a statement: 'He seemed to completely lose his self-control. He started to lash out wildly, punching and kicking Baha Mousa's ribs. Corporal Payne also certainly kicked Baha Mousa's head, which rebounded off the wall'." Michael Evans (Times of London) reports, "Colonel Daoud Musa, Mr Musa's father, who attended the hearing today, emerged tearful from the morning session."
Meanwhile news out of Iraq is the possible blocking of the election law Parliament passed last Sunday. Waleed Ibrahim, Michael Christie and Micheal Roddy (Reuters) reports Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, has stated the law needs to be changed to allow external Iraqi refugees to participate and to be represented. If the law is not changed (by Tuesday afternoon), he states he will veto it. (The Presidency Council is made up of Iraq's President and two vice presidents. After Parliament passes a law, it goes to the council which decides whether to implement it or not.)
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