July 2008

From ESPN.com: Hammon’s Olympic dream puts her in Russian uniform

“The jersey that I wear has never made me who I was. It has nothing to do with what’s written on my heart,” Hammon told ESPN.com Tuesday. “Will I be playing for Russia? Yes. But I’m absolutely 100 percent still an American. I love our country. I love what we stand for. This is an opportunity to fulfill my dream of playing in the Olympics.”

What might make Hammon’s decision an eye-opener in this country is that — in addition to her scrappy point-guard play — her popularity stems partly from the perception that she is the ultimate small-town all-American girl: blond hair, ponytail and near perfect smile. And now the all-American girl will suit up for Russia, which could knock a dent into that image.

Becky Hammon, a popular WNBA player, is U.S. born with no Russian ancestors.  Hammon became a naturalized Russian citizen last year to be able to play on the Russian team.

I have no problem with naturalized citizens joining a country’s Olympic team- there are a number of them that have been on the U.S. Olympic team.  However, I think if you become a citizen of a country you should show some allegiance to the country. 

When Hammon says that she’s 100% American, that should be a slap in the face to every member of the Russian Olympic team.  I’m surprised that the Russians would allow her to stay on the team with statements like that.  Imagine an U.S. Olympic team member saying that he/she had 100% allegiance to another country.

From NYTimes.com: China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

Come on!  Do we have to import everything from China?  What happened to old fashioned American torture?

Seriously, this is a disturbing article about how torture was used to gain confessions of captured American soldiers, often false.