If you wonder why I distrust government and strongly object to restriction of habeas corpus rights or of expanding government power, especially where it comes to torture, read “Requiem” at Obsidian Wings in entirety.

Even following Hanlon’s Razor that this is attributable to incompetence rather than malevolence, it shows why safeguards such as habeas corpus are not optional but mandatory.

It is the responsibility of us all to defend liberty.

On the way in to work this morning, I listened to the podcast of “‘My Lobotomy’: Howard Dully’s Journey” which was broadcast on the NPR show All Things Considered yesterday. It is not a news story, and it illustrates exactly why we need public radio. It shows the aftermath of a complex story that started with a man who had good intentions that later morphed into something indescribably monstrous.

Go listen if you can, read it if you don’t have the software, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I had discounted these reports when I first read of them because I “considered the source” of both the accusations and the denial.

Unfortunately, I was wrong:

US used white phosphorus in Iraq

The Pentagon has confirmed that US troops used white phosphorus during last year’s offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

“It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants,” spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US earlier denied it had been used in Falluja at all.

Col Venable denied that the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - constituted a banned chemical weapon.

Washington is not a signatory of an international treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus devices.

Col Venable said a statement by the US state department that white phosphorus had not been used was based on “poor information”.

The BBC’s defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial has been a public relations disaster for the US military.

I’m not going to debate whether the use of this weapon is legal or illegal; since the US has not signed the treaty banning the weapon, then regardless of the effects of the substance on the human body it is not correct to say that we used an “illegal” weapon.

However, the use of this weapon in areas where there may be non-comabatants is not a way to make friends and influence people, and incorrectly claiming that we did not use weapons of this nature and then later saying we did does not enhance our already shaky credibility.

Pajamas Media, the folks who signed up some 300-plus bloggers for a “subversive new media” and then uncerimoniously dropped the 230-plus small-fry, publicly announced they had renamed themselves to Open Source Media last night.

Unfortunately, there is already an Open Source Media, and they are not amused.

The real irony is that by dropping the majority of those bloggers who enthusiastically signed the non-disclosure agreement so they could be a part of Pajamas Media, the now exclusive club became the antithesis of open source.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
   -William Shakespeare

The scent of a rose is not the smell that comes to mind…