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Message to Canada -- Just say NO 
Missile pitch stuns Martin by Tim Harper and Susan Delacourt
George W. Bush has further fuelled a Canadian controversy with an aggressive pitch for Ottawa's participation in a continental ballistic missile defence program, something Prime Minister Paul Martin had sought to avoid during the U.S. president's first visit to the nation's capital.
It was a harshly discordant note in a day when the two leaders, showing genuine comfort with each other, spoke often about what Martin called the "unshakeable friendship between our two countries."
The president paid tribute to Martin for Canada's contribution in Afghanistan and Haiti and its help in reconstructing Iraq as the two men sought to rebuild a relationship that soured under former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
But Bush surprised Martin and Canadian officials by raising the missile defence plan -- something not on the official agenda.
The president talked about the future of NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defence Command) and the continental defence plan in a private meeting with Martin, then talked about it publicly as the two men met reporters following a working lunch at the Lester B. Pearson building here yesterday. Martin, according to his advisers, told Bush there was a debate on the missile shield program in this country and the Prime Minister had made a commitment to consult Parliament before making a decision on Canadian participation.
"We talked about the future of NORAD and how that organization can best meet emerging threats and safeguard our continent against attack from ballistic missiles," Bush said, as Martin stood silently beside him and thousands protested Bush's visit outside the building. [more]
The real message of Christ be damned.
The United Church of Christ intends to air an ad, nation wide, on cable and network television from December 1 through December 26. You can view the ad here.
Apparently their message -- "that -- like Jesus -- the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation" -- is too controversial for CBS and NBC so they won't be airing the ads.
America is becoming less and less recognizable to me as the country in which I thought I lived. Phony patriotism, phony values and morals, phony christianity. With either the blessing or the paranoid acquiescence of the press, this country is sliding, inexorably, into chronic jingoism and bigotry.
Josh Marshall has more to say. As does Atrios
United Church of Christ press release
(...)
"It's ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial," says the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president. "What's going on here?"
(...)
"We find it disturbing that the networks in question seem to have no problem exploiting gay persons through mindless comedies or titillating dramas, but when it comes to a church's loving welcome of committed gay couples, that's where they draw the line," says the Rev. Robert Chase, director of the UCC's communication ministry. [more]
Does Jesus sanction torture?
U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds by Josh White
A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.
The report, which was not released publicly and was recently obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that some U.S. arrest and detention practices at the time could "technically" be illegal. It also said coalition fighters could be feeding the Iraqi insurgency by "making gratuitous enemies" as they conducted sweeps netting hundreds of detainees who probably did not belong in prison and holding them for months at a time.
The investigation, by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington, also found that members of Task Force 121 -- a joint Special Operations and CIA mission searching for weapons of mass destruction and high-value targets including Saddam Hussein -- had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq and had been using a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.
Herrington's findings are the latest in a series of confidential reports to come to light about detainee abuse in Iraq. Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib -- a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington's report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency -- a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort. [more]
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