Politics

Communist Vietnam responds to Tiger Force report

Communist Vietnam Seeks to Move
Past Reported U.S. War Crimes
HANOI -- Communist Vietnam said Tuesday it wanted to move forward from its war past with America, following a U.S. newspaper report that an army unit known as Tiger Force may have committed war crimes. The Blade newspaper from Toledo, Ohio, reported Sunday that the unit killed scores of unarmed civilians, but an investigation was closed with no charges being brought. Asked to respond to the report, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that while the war with America, which ended in 1975, "caused much suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people," it wished to close the door on such events. The newspaper said the accusations against the unit included killing women and children, torturing prisoners and severing ears and scalps for souvenirs. The paper said the Army's investigation of Tiger Force found 27 soldiers who said the severing of ears from dead Vietnamese was an accepted practice. One soldier told the newspaper that troops would wear necklaces of ears to scare Vietnamese civilians. A Pentagon spokesman, reading from a prepared statement, told Reuters on Sunday: "Absent new and compelling evidence there are no plans to reopen the case. The case is more than 30 years old."
(Editor's note: "30 years old." About the same time of Roe v. Wade, which began the U.S. federal government's homicidal reign of terror and death -- murdering millions of innocent American children -- and there is no absents of "compelling evidence" to prove it! --Jim Rudd).

While Being Shot at and Killed by Muslims in
Iraq, No Punishment for Trigger-Happy U.S. Troops?
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq are resorting to lethal force too readily and are unlikely to be held accountable for their actions, according to a new report released here Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). In an investigation undertaken in late September, HRW collected what it calls "credible reports" of 94 civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces from May 1 to October 1, all of which appear to have taken place in circumstances that warrant an official investigation.

U.N. Coalition Forces Take Action in Iraq
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Iraq's hit-and-run resistance struck U.S. forces in this tense city west of Baghdad for a second day Monday, killing one American paratrooper and wounding six others, the U.S. command reported. Early Tuesday, the U.S. military said coalition troops and Iraqi security forces were "taking action against criminal elements" in Karbala, the city where an American lieutenant colonel was killed in a firefight outside the home of a Shiite Muslim cleric on Thursday. The Central Command office in Baghdad refused to provide any other details.

U.N. Coalition Forces Crack
Down on Oil Smugglers in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- U.N. Coalition forces intensified a major crackdown on oil smuggling from southern Iraq during the weekend, a U.S. military spokesman said. Rampant smuggling of oil and refined products has hampered efforts to revive Iraq's key oil industry.

U.S. May Delay Oilfield Refurb Work Award
WASHINGTON/LONDON -- The United States could delay awarding Iraq oil field contracts worth up to $1 billion to check if firms bidding can meet criteria required, a source close to the contracts told Reuters on Monday. An announcement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, scheduled to come in mid-October, would now most probably come on Wednesday, the source said.

Republicans Try to Debate Class Action Bill
WASHINGTON -- Republicans sought on Monday to bring to the Senate floor a bill to curb abuse of class action lawsuits, but Democrats objected, branding it a sop to industry at consumers' expense. The Senate's Republican leadership announced it would seek a procedural vote at mid-week on whether to take up the bill. The measure would move most large class action lawsuits from state to federal courts, where judges may be less sympathetic.

Medicare Drug Bill Eludes Lawmakers
WASHINGTON — With hundreds of billions of dollars to spend and tens of millions of constituents to please, lawmakers have plotted a slow course to providing a Medicare drug benefit, despite earlier promises to seniors that negotiators would have a compromise ready last week. House and Senate negotiators insist that they have made a lot of progress on their differing versions of the $400 billion drug benefit program now under consideration. But conflicting demands have made it difficult to reach a final agreement.

Insiders Expect Clan Loyalties To Trump Party Ties
After Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy died in 1995, her son Ted asked a small group of family members and friends to contribute essays to a small book about the Kennedy family matriarch titled Her Grace Above Gold, to be published privately. Among those who contributed an essay: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The essay — which recounts some of Schwarzenegger’s fondest memories of Rose Kennedy — speaks to the close personal relationship he formed with the Kennedy family after marrying her granddaughter Maria Shriver. Now that Schwarzenegger is Republican governor-elect of the nation’s most populous state, some political observers are questioning whether those personal relations will transform into an informal political network with the nation’s leading Democrat family. Posted by Editor at October 21, 2003 11:56 AM