Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Two government reports, one civilian and one military, were issued on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. The Army reported that military intelligence officers and civilian contractors were deeply involved in the abuse; the civilian report went to great lengths to avoid the logical conclusion that the Bush White House had created the conditions (legal, operational, and military) that directly led to the Abu Ghraib horrors. Both reports found that many of the techniques employed at Abu Ghraib originated in CIA torture chambers in Afghanistan.¹ Army investigators discovered that military police dogs were used to terrify teenage Iraqi prisoners as part of a game. The object of the game was to make the youths urinate on themselves. "It had nothing to do with interrogation," said an unnamed Army officer. "It was just them on their own being weird."² A lawmaker in California threatened to require performers in pornographic films to wear condoms.³ Military trials were underway at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.⁴ Scientists found that when fruit flies are missing one of two genes that control the circadian clock, they have much greater sexual endurance. "What has been found in fruit flies," said one of the study's authors, "turns out to be true in humans in many ways."⁵ A Sudanese sheikh accused of being a leader of the Janjaweed militias that have been killing and raping black farmers in Darfur admitted that he had been "appointed" by his government to "defend their land."⁶ Sheep, scientists found, feel calmer when they look at a picture of another sheep of the same breed.⁷

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in New York City to denounce George W. Bush and his policies, particularly the war in Iraq.⁸ President Bush declared that John Kerry is a bigger hero: "I think him going to Vietnam was more heroic than my flying fighter jets."⁹ The Census Bureau reported that there were 35.8 million Americans living in poverty in 2003, an increase of 1.3 million over 2002, and that the number of people without health insurance rose from 43.5 million to 45 million.¹⁰ Sir Mark Thatcher, the 51-year-old son of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, was arrested in South Africa under suspicion of financing an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea.¹¹ Colombian police discovered a genetically engineered variety of coca plant that produces up to four times more cocaine than the traditional varieties.¹² Moktada al-Sadr's militia surrendered the shrine of Imam Ali, U.S. tanks withdrew, and Iraqi ambulances began to recover the decaying bodies of casualties.¹³ Iraqi saboteurs attacked two oil pipelines.¹⁴ Nine children and one adult were killed in a school bombing in Afghanistan's Paktia province, and several¹⁵ people died in a truck bombing in front of a security company in Kabul; the Taliban claimed responsibility.¹⁶ Two Russian airliners were destroyed by suicide bombers, and people¹⁷ in Chechnya apparently elected Vladimir Putin's choice for president, though there was widespread evidence of fraud.¹⁸ General Augusto Pinochet was stripped of his legal immunity by Chile's supreme court.¹⁹

A federal judge in New York City ruled that the Partial Birth Abortion Act is unconstitutional.²⁰ Dick Cheney said that he opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; he explained that he has a gay daughter and that marriage policy is best left to the states.²¹ Social workers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, were handing out crack pipes to addicts as part of a "harm-reduction strategy."²² A Bush Administration report on global climate change admitted that human activity is responsible for global warming.²³ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross died.²⁴ A study found that women who drink more than one soft drink per day are more likely to develop diabetes.²⁵ Polio continued to spread in Africa.²⁶ A new study showed that the air pollution created by cigarettes is 10 times worse than diesel exhaust.²⁷ Dust storms were on the increase, and the²⁸ head of the EPA said that fish in almost all lakes and rivers and streams in the United States are contaminated with mercury, for which there is no safe exposure level.²⁹ Scientists created genetically engineered mice that can run farther and longer than normal mice.³⁰ The United States for the first time issued an outline for a plan for possible actions that might be taken to prepare to respond to an influenza pandemic.³¹ Canadian fisheries experts found that Puget Sound orcas are contaminated with fire retardants, and³² Japanese seismologists predicted that Tokyo will be hit with a major earthquake within the next 50 years.³³ It was reported that a janitor at Tate Modern in London threw out a work of art because he thought it was just a bag of garbage; the artwork, entitled "Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art," was in fact a bag of garbage.³⁴ Swiss researchers found that people really do enjoy revenge.³⁵