We remember, Madrid.

Joi Ito is in Madrid for the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security; it’s no accident that this meeting was timed to take place there. He’s moderated a Democracy, Terrorism, and the Internet panel, and there’s another meeting he’s in called the Atocha Creative Policy Workshop, too. It appears from the schedule and comparing Chicago time to Madrid time that the session he’s in starts in a minute or so. It’s currently 929am as I type, and the conference starts at 4:30pm Madrid time – right about now. And yes, it appears that it’s being updated in more or less real-time in the comments.

He also moblogged the five minutes’ silence, remembering the victims of last year’s rail disaster/terrorist attack here.

It all seems like so much effort – thousands of people all earnestly talking, meeting, and formulating policy. I wish them all success. Something good must come from tragedy. At the very least, a lot of cells and networks have been broken up due to the many arrests made since the tragedy.

But then, of course, there’s no guarantee that the 600-pound gorilla in the Uncle Sam costume will pay any attention to the issues raised and the policy solutions proposed at the meeting, which ends today. There’s hope yet – people from all over the world are talking it over and trying to come up with a better way to deal with terrorism, especially terrorism inspired by religious fanaticism.

Ironically, NPR reported today that the Pentagon has recently been forced to release records and transcripts relating to Abu Ghraib, with the “shocking” news that children were incarcerated there.

Um, yes, we know this, because of that story that keeps getting buried about the rape of a young boy, allegedly by a Titan contractor. Sy Hersh hinted about it in the original New Yorker article, but about the only other well-known news organization that covered it was NPR’s Marketplace, on May 21st, 2004. I heard the original story when it was broadcast, and continue to be shocked that only the “alternative” or “guerilla” press ran with it, which still seems to be the case according to Google.

And yes, our dear Senate Intelligence (?) Committee is wrapping up hearings on whether the Bush administration manipulated pre-war intelligence reports in order to justify going to war. It seems that since they already found that the intelligence was flawed anyway, there’s no need to continue digging. :eyeroll:

UPDATE: More on the “child prisoners at Abu Ghraib” story: it appears from Gen. Janis Karpinski’s testimony, which has just been unsealed under a FOIA suit, that she was aware of and concerned for women and children prisoners.

And that she was ordered not to release prisoners, some of which were being kept “off the books.”

Geez, no wonder they railroaded the woman into early retirement. She knew far too much.