Is the US trading prisoners to prevent hostages from being beheaded?

Here is a story that isnt getting much attention.Another story about itcan be found here. Basically it suggests that the Saudi government grabbed a number of Brits in Saudi Arabia, and tortured them to extract false confessions. Once they had the confessions they were sentenced to death by beheading and then ransomed back to the west with the US intervening by returning 5 al Qaeda suspects to Saudi Arabia. One interpretation of this would be that we basically turned over prisoners to Saudi Arabia in exchange for them not beheading hostages. This is of particular relevence given the outrage we have shown in this country towards the actions of the Philippine government. We are on very thin ground when we argue that we dont negotiate with terrorists. It's also disturbing that our government won't really come clean on this. Not that it is a surprise, but it is still disappointing.

Howard Stern, a voice for the American way.

Here is a very good article about the potential impact of Howard Stern on the upcoming election. You have to register there to read it but registration is free. To me the highlights of the article and the most interesting facts were the poll results. Howard Stern listeners are average Americans by most accounts. Also, 17% of likely voters listened to Howard. This very much agrees with the points that Howard and others have been making that as opposed to Limbaugh and Hannity, Howard isnt "preaching to the choir" but rather reaching a wide, by and large previously undecided or somewhat on the fence part of the electorate. And even better news is that now, Howard's listeners were VERY, much more likely to vote for John Kerry over George Bush , 59% to 37%. The article also talks about Howard's large market in some key states. Go Howard, win one for the Gipper!

We could be in for an interesting summer.

Again, this is a bit of an old article. It's from July 5 originally and back then there did seem to be somewhat of a feeling that the administration was going of the tracks. It has seemed less so in passing time. What isn't clear is whether that is because they are manageing to put out the fires or if it is just part of the normal ebb and flow. We might know by the time of their convention, although they must be desparate to keep things calm until at least the Democratic convention is completed to not give them any meet for a feeding frenzy.

How terrible that it takes a tragedy for people to speak out.

There is a lot of outrage missing over the policies of the Bush administration.But at least some people understand. It is tragic that it takes such terrible events for outrage to come to the surface. It should have been there all along. All of us should be outraged over this administration every single day.

If this wasn't so profoundly sad it would be funny.

Some of our military police raided an Iraqi police facility to interrupt torture there. It Iraqis were not impressed by our moral outrage at their activities. They thought their torture was a kinder, gentler torture than was ours.

Ah, its so good to have the comfort of knowing God is on your side.

Why isn't the media still looking at this?

This is a really interesting and important issue. It seems to have disappeared a lot faster than other, less significant stories. This seems like ones the "liberal" (and I use the term lightly) would be all over if they didnt have other, er committments.

It doesn't get much worse than this folks.

Don't read this one if you have a weak stomach or strong sense of patriotism. When I saw the headline that Saudis prisoners were being returned I was probably influenced by having seen Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. I just assumed that since the Bush administration looked so bad for letting Saudis leave the country right after September 11 that their friends in Riyadh had sent some guys over here to shore things up a bit. Silly me. We are sending people we think are dangerous from Guantanamo back to Saudi Arabia and it isnt clear they won't just release them. The reason, to spring some Brits we suspect were tortured into falsely confessing in Saudi Arabia. I guess this tells us who is really in charge. Where are all the Republicans that were complaining of Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.