Questioning 9/11

What Really Happened is carrying this post:

The Secret Service at Booker Elementary: The Dog That Did Not Bark
Posted Jul 12, 2004 04:46 PM PST
Several days ago, I posted this story and challenged redaers to send it in to media outlets all over the country, with but one question. With an unknown number of hijacked planes flying over the country and crashing into building, with the President's location made public the day before in the media, and with an airport just 4 miles away, how did Bush's Secret Service detail know for a fact that Bush was safe where he sat reading about goats.

Needless to say, nobody in the mainstream media has offered a reply. Indeed, the media admits receiving the emailed questions only off the record.

From the story:

Hijacked aircraft were wandering across the eastern half of the country. In theory nobody could have known how many there are or if more planes were not in the process of being hijacked. How could they? Two of the planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. There is an airport only four miles from Booker Elementary School, and Bush's presence at the school was known to the public 24 hours in advance. Nobody would have assumed he was not a target.

And yet the President's Secret Service Detail did not rush in and remove the President to a secure location, or at least to the safety of the armored Presidential Limousine. That's their job. That's what they do in the case of a real surprise attack with so many unknowns. They don't do anything else.

But the President's Secret Service Detail did nothing.

There are a lot of unaswered questions, and this is as good a one as any, I suppose. Another thing that I am reminded of is that there are reports of activity around where Bush was staying in Florida that appear as if he might have been a target there, which adds to the question of why they thought he was safe.

On the night of September 10th, Bush stayed at the Colony Beach Resort - "an upscale and relatively pristine tropical island enclave located directly on the Gulf of Mexico, a spindly coral island ... off Sarasota, Florida." [AP, 07/29/01] Zainlabdeen Omer, a Sudanese native living in Sarasota, told the local police that night that someone he knew who had made violent threats against Bush was in town and Omer was worried about Bush's safety. The man was identified only as "Ghandi." A police report states the Secret Service was informed immediately. [Hopsicker, 7/22/02]

  Cooperative Research article

More 9/11 questions and answers are on my 9/11 web page.

Critical Army report decoded

A "revealing and fairly critical" book-length study of Operation Iraqi Freedom can be found at Global Security's Web site.... FAS editor Steven Aftergood wrote that the Army took extraordinary steps to limit access to the new report entitled "On Point." coding it on the Army site so that it could not be downloaded, copied or printed, and attempting to eliminate any chance of its being read except at the Army site...Aftergood credits Francis Boo of GlobalSecurity.org with a "feat of textual engineering" in overcoming the Army's coding and making the report publicly available.

  Behind the Homefront article



Click graphic

Olympics attacks thwarted, and Gitmo prisoners still off the record

Despite pledging yearly reviews for all prisoners held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Pentagon officials tentatively agreed during a high-level meeting last month to deny that process to some detainees and to keep their existence secret "for intelligence reasons," senior defense officials said last week. The Los Angeles Times reported that under the proposal, some prisoners would in effect be kept off public records and away from the scrutiny of lawyers and judges. meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune reports that recent information from Guantanamo has derailed plans for attacks during the Athens Olympics next month and possibly forestalled at least a dozen attacks elsewhere. The detention facility has been cloaked in secrecy since the U.S. decided in early 2002 to bring prisoners from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Guantanamo. Now, the veil is lifting in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision giving prisoners held as enemy combatants the right to challenge their detention, the Tribune reported.  link

In what The New York Times calls "a last-ditch effort by the administration to retain control" over the Guantanamo detainees, the Pentagon yesterday announced a process under which the nearly 600 prisoners can challenge their confinement. The review process, outlined in this memorandum by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, does not include Fifth Amendment protections or the right to counsel. It is also doubtful that the proposed Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- composed exclusively of military officers, who are ultimately commanded by President Bush -- constitutes the kind of "neutral decision-maker" that the Supreme Court had in mind in its June 28 ruling that the detainees must be permitted to challenge the legality of their detention. The Pentagon continues to refuse to provide the names of the accused, their alleged crimes or the nationalities, the Times notes.   link

  Behind the Homefront articles

Lynndie's hearing postponed again

Now they want a military lawyer to assist her civilian lawyer.

I have a feeling those photos that appeared of her and Spc. Graner cavorting nude without any prisoners around have added a new complication.

The hearing had originally been scheduled for June 22, but two of her civilian lawyers resigned "for personal reasons", moving it to today. It has now been rescheduled for August 3.

Lynndie's six months pregnant now, by Graner who is still in Baghdad awaiting a court martial.

Like a bad comic

He uses the same tired line. (Or maybe it's like a little kid who thinks if something was funny once, it'll be funny a hundred times.)

In Tennessee this week...

"As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply," Bush said. "So, I had a choice to make. Either take the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice, I will defend America every time."

  article

June 19, Fort Lewis, Washington...

"I had a choice to make -- either trust the word of a madman or defend America," Bush said. "Given that choice, I will defend America every time."

  article

In Reno, Nevada, June 18...

"As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. He ignored the demands of the free world. So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman, or defend America. And given that choice, I will defend America every time."

  article

June 1, Denver...

"I had to choose either to take the word of a madman or to defend the security of this county, and given that choice, I will defend America every time," he said, adding that the United Nations and Congress believed the same intelligence reports as his administration.

  article

May 14 ACU speech...

"I had a choice to make: Either trust the word of a madman, or defend America. Given that choice, I will defend America every time."

  article

May 2, Niles, Michigan...

"I was faced with a choice: Do I trust the word of a madman who had used weapons of mass destruction, who professes hatred of America, who had ties to terrorist organizations, who had funded (suicide attacks) in Israel - or do I defend America?" Bush told a Republican-leaning crowd at Niles Senior High School.

"Given that choice, I will defend America every time," he said

  article

April 15, Des Moines, Iowa...

"Given the lessons of September 11, I was faced with a choice, either to trust the word of a madman, a tyrant, a dictator...or defend the country. Given that choice I would defend the country every time," President Bush told an applauding crowd.

  article

April 6, El Dorado, Arkansas...

Bush said Saddam Hussein chose defiance over compliance, so the president had to make a choice: "do I trust the word of a madman, a tyrant, somebody who had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and on countries within his neighborhood or do I remember the lessons of September the 11th and defend America?"

"Given the choice between a madman and defending the country, I will defend America every time," he concluded.

  article

Appleton, Wisconsin, March 31...

“I had a choice to make,” Bush said. “Do I trust the word of a madman, or do I make a choice to defend our country? Given that choice, I will defend our country every time.”

  article

March 30, speech to Wisconsin First Responders...

So I was faced with a choice: Do I trust the word of a madman, or do I do I my duty to defend America? And given that choice, I will defend our country every time.

  article

March 26, Albuquerque, New Mexico...

"Given that choice, whether to trust the word of a madman -- a man who had used chemical weapons on his own people -- or to defend our country, I will choose to defend America every time," Bush said.

  article

March 18, Fort Campbell...

I had a choice to make, either take the word of a madman, or take such threats seriously and defend America. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.

  article

Washington Convention Center, February 23...

As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. So we had a choice to make: Either take the word of a madman, or take action to defend America and the world. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.

  article

February 16, Fort Polk, Louisiana...

"Saddam Hussein showed defiance and we had a choice of our own: Either take the word of a madman, or take action to defend America and the world. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time," he said.

  article

Charleston, South Carolina, February 5...

"We had a choice: either take the word of a madman, or take action to defend the American people. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time."

  article

All right, already! Enough. (There are more.)

Somebody get this man some new material.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Parks chief is fired

"The American people should be afraid of this kind of silencing of professionals in any field," she said. "We should be very concerned as American citizens that people who are experts in their field either can't speak up, or, as we're seeing now in the parks service, won't speak up."

National Park Service officials said Chambers broke rules barring public comment about budget discussions and prohibiting lobbying by someone in her position.

Chambers said she did nothing wrong except argue for adequate funding for the Park Police, which falls under NPS authority -- and perhaps fail to understand that she was required to "toe the party line."

  CNN article

DeLay investigation

In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.

DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.

DeLay's fundraising efforts helped produce a stunning political success. Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, Texas congressional districts were redrawn to send more Republican lawmakers to Washington, and DeLay -- now the House majority leader -- is more likely to retain his powerful post after the November election, according to political experts.

But DeLay and his colleagues also face serious legal challenges: Texas law bars corporate financing of state legislature campaigns, and a Texas criminal prosecutor is in the 20th month of digging through records of the fundraising, looking at possible violations of at least three statutes.

...Cristen D. Feldman, the Texas lawyer who filed the suit, said in response, "I guess DeLay and his team forgot they were from Texas . . . [where] the prohibition against clandestine corporate cash is 100 years old."

...

  WaPo article

Four of the five Republicans investigating an ethics complaint against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have received campaign contributions from DeLay's political action committee, records show.

  Houston Chronicle article

That's always helpful.

Josh Marshall weighs in

Now that Newsweek has come out with this story (even though it's two weeks old), it has picked up interest again. Josh Marshall's concise opinion:

The rationale is that we need to have some policy in place for a possible election postponement before some precipitating event actually occurs. But my understanding is that we already have a policy in place on postponements: i.e., we don't do them.

Added to my suspicion is the increasingly common refrain from the White House that the Madrid bombing was responsible for Spanish 'appeasement' in Iraq and the obvious subtext that the answer to any future terrorist attack would be to 'not give in', i.e. reelect President Bush.

And the Washington Post reports that Homeland Security has asked the Justice Department to advise of the legal aspects of postponing the election. Of course, the Justice Department has already advised the White House that the president is King and torture is only torture if it's permanently disabling, but I'm sure they'll be more in line with America's ideals and Constitution on this one.

In one of those interesting White House type mysteries, the head of the new Elections Commission, DeForest Soaries, told The Post that he'd written to the Dept. of Homeland Security worrying about the lack of a plan for elections if there were a terrorist attack and said he never heard back. Brian Roehrkasse, Homeland Security Department spokesman, told The Post that they were reviewing Soaries's letter and had referred the matter to DoJ. But Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki says there was no letter and no request, but is refusing to say how the matter had come up.

Asked about that, a Homeland Security official said, "We have raised the issue with them, but we have not formally sent over a request." He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Well, jeez. Everything is so freaking secretive any more. But heaven knows there is no shortage of conflicting stories.

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says it's really a "doomsday scenario" exercise.

"This is a lot like what we were looking at in the Congress," Cox said on CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday. "What would happen if terrorists blew up the Congress and it disappeared?"

No comment.

Cox noted that "September 11, 2001, among all the other things remembered for, was a primary election day. And they were able, in New York, to cancel those primary elections and move them to some other time. There isn't anybody that has that authority to do that for federal elections, so what Secretary Ridge has asked the Justice Department to do is, give me a legal memo, tell me what will be necessary.

...By federal law, elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But by the same federal law, states may vary the date.

The one certainty is that presidential term must end on Jan. 20 every four years.

Gardner said he thought Congress probably has some implicit authority to deal with elections in a catastrophic situation. But, he said, it would be wise for Congress to take some clarifying action well in advance of such a scenario, rather than in the middle of it.

"You want some authority somewhere to deal with unforeseen problems like this," he said. "On the other hand, you don't want sitting politicians messing around with procedures established by law."

Which I think is Bob's point, and perhaps the one viable one I've seen so far. Still, if each state may vary the date of the federal election, I would think that would be sufficient to take care of any eventuality. And I still think the whole thing is something to keep people unnecessarily stirred up, and softened up to the idea that our laws and Constitution are flexible and our rights and liberties disposable in the face of "terror".

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.



Graphic from Old American Century

Soldier whistleblowers

The Army kept a soldier whistle-blower in a locked psychiatric ward at its top medical center for nearly two weeks despite concern from some medical staff that he be released, according to medical records.

The Army then charged him nearly $6,000 for the stay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, billing records show.

"They are definitely retaliating against me," said Army Reserve Lt. Jullian Goodrum, a 16-year veteran of the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Doctors say Goodrum suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or combat stress, from Iraq. Last summer Goodrum asked for an investigation into the death in Iraq of a 22-year-old soldier in his 212th Transportation Company. He was also quoted in a United Press International article about poor medical care at Fort Knox, Ky., that helped spark investigations in Congress.

Last fall Goodrum sought mental health care at Fort Knox but was turned away -- just days after complaining in the press about poor medical treatment at Fort Knox. "I said I was having problems. I told them I felt like I was having a breakdown right there," Goodrum said. "They did not care. They said leave."

... A form from Fort Knox from the day Goodrum says he sought help states that Fort Knox officials in charge of medical care "do not want him" in the medical-hold unit at the base.

Goodrum then went to see a private doctor who hospitalized him. That doctor alerted Fort Knox that Goodrum had been hospitalized, according to Goodrum's medical records and documents from that doctor. But Fort Knox cut off his pay, terminated his Army medical insurance and threatened to charge him as absent without leave.

Goodrum showed up at Walter Reed hospital in Washington Feb. 9, where doctors admitted him to Ward 54, the locked psychiatric unit.

Walter Reed medical records reviewed by UPI describe Goodrum as "cooperative and polite" when he arrived, but also "anxious and depressed" and "largely preoccupied with concerns about legal charges and financial stressors."

Records show Goodrum progressed well over the next few days. "Patient in bright spirits, good mood, thought processes logical," his medical records say on Feb. 14. "Denies (suicidal or homicidal thoughts) and has been fulfilling all responsibilities." He was encouraged to take a weekend pass out of the hospital. Doctors planned to move him to outpatient therapy -- out of the locked ward -- on Feb. 19.

But records show Fort Knox officials contacted Walter Reed on Feb. 18 and said to keep him in the locked ward.

More...

A US Army counterintelligence agent who accused fellow National Guardsmen of abusing Iraqi detainees says that his own commander coerced an Army psychiatrist into diagnosing him as "delusional." According to Sergeant Greg Ford, his commanding officer confronted psychiatrist Angelina Madera, a captain with the 30th Medical Support Element, after she had initially assessed Ford to be mentally stable.

Sgt. Ford says Captain Victor Artiga, a company commander in the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, told Dr. Madera she was to reclassify the whistleblower Ford as unfit for duty so he could be transferred out of Iraq immediately.

Reached at his home in California, Ford said that Captain Artiga rushed over to Dr. Madera's office as soon as he received her written evaluation and confronted her with the results. Ford says that Artiga told Madera that Ford was "delusional" and that her initial report "could not stay that way." He verbally intimidated her, according to Ford, and told her to change the report to reflect Ford's "delusions" because this was a "military intelligence" matter and Artiga wanted to get Ford out of Iraq "right away".

This exchange was witnessed by Sergeant First Class Michael Marciello, a counterintelligence team leader, who says he was ordered by Artiga to seize Ford's weapon and ammunition right after the torture allegations were made and to guard him 24 hours a day until Ford left Iraq after a second session with Madera.

Sgt. Marciello confirmed that he witnessed Artiga confronting Madera and said the commander made it very clear to Dr. Madera that she had to change her report and make sure Ford was sent to Landstuhl, Germany for a mental health evaluation. Marciello said that Dr. Madera appeared to be "shaken" by the exchange and eventually agreed to assist Artiga in evacuating Ford to Germany.

Ford had alleged having witnessed three fellow counterintelligence team members "torture" Iraqi detainees that were in their custody in Samarra, Iraq. "I walked in once right after an interrogation and saw a prisoner that was handcuffed and slumped against a wall," Ford recounted. "He was comatose. When I looked closer, I noticed a cigarette sticking out of each ear. When I removed them I saw that they were still lit."

More...

The links

Photos at All Hat No Cattle

La Belle says I have to apologize for another one

U.S. Sen. Kit Bond [R-MO] said Sunday that he would have voted to invade Iraq even if he'd had the critical report released last week by a Senate committee.

The committee found that CIA assertions about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs were unreliable.

“I think this country and the world is much safer now that we've deposed Saddam Hussein,” Bond said at a news briefing in Kansas City.

  Kansas City article

A perfect example of why we don't need the option of postponing the election.

(And, I might add, Senator Bond is actually a member of the Worthless Senate Intelligence Committee. That make you feel comfortable with the findings?)



And then I could apologize for Senator Talent, who is also a Repuglican. And then I could apologize for my district's representative to the House, Kenny Hulshoff, also a Repuglican, who didn't even think it was incumbent upon him to allow a group of peaceful protestors into his offices to express their views, nor even come out on the street to address them. He sent aides down to the parking lot with a book so they could all sign their names.

Like our votes matter, much less our concerns.

Update 1:35 pm: La Belle has a beef with Talent, too.

I got a newsletter from Talent today with this nice greeting:

Welcome to my new email newsletter. I appreciate the time you have taken to share your views with me in the past, and I welcome the opportunity to provide you with timely updates on my actions in the Senate:

Now, I'm pretty sure I have never shared any views with Talent so I attempted to send him an email informing him that I considered his newsletter spam... This is the response I got. Keep in mind I was using the form on their website for sending comments.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

administrator@TALENT.SENATE.GOV

So then the next step was to send an unsubscribe message according to their newsletter. Since I didn't subscribe it really pisses me off to have to UNscubscribe but tried anyway. So what response would you imagine I would get from that?

UNSUBSCRIBE TALENT-WEBNEWSLETTER
You are not subscribed to the TALENT-WEBNEWSLETTER list under the address your message came from (XXXXX@MCHSI.COM). You are being mailed some additional information with a few hints on getting your subscription cancelled. Please read these instructions before trying anything else.

Assholes

Indeed.

I have never had anything other than a party-line form letter response to anything I've ever sent an elected representative. Thank you for your interest on the such-and-such issue. This is what we believe here at party headquarters. Which I already knew.

I sent my views on Kerry's Venezuelan statement via email a while back, and received a form-email thank you reply for supporting him! Ever since then, I get Kerry crap by email, which I have asked my browser to view as spam.

I am so impressed by how responsive our elected officials are to us. And every time somebody says "write your representatives", I pass. If they can't tell the difference between a pro-message and a con-message, then what the hell's the point?

Saudi citizen released from Abu Ghraib after 11 months

A Saudi businessman arrested in southern Iraq was held in extreme conditions and tortured, even though there was nothing to tie him to terrorism or the Iraqi insurgency. He was finally released only after the Abu Ghraib photos were published and the U.S. military started releasing large groups of prisoners. Even at that, he was told to get out of Iraq within 72 hours or face rearrest. One small hangup - they didn't give him back his passport.

Iraq Net Story

Progress Report on election postponement proposal

In a major exclusive, Newsweek reports the Bush administration is exploring legal justifications for postponing the November 2004 election in the event of a terrorist attack close to the election. ...[T]he White House is seizing on the right-wing myth that the Spanish election was won by al Qaeda, instead of being lost by a government that lied to its people. And while the administration has trumpeted the prospect that al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the U.S. election, "counterterrorism officials concede they have no intelligence about any specific plots."

Newsweek reports the plan to give the president authority to postpone the election is being pushed by DeForest "Buster" Soaries Jr. – the White House's recent appointee to the newly-formed U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Soaries wants the administration "to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call." But while Soaries is using his agency to feign nonpartisanship, he is anything but. As a GOP candidate for Congress less than two years ago, he relied on major Republican big wigs to assist his campaign. In a New Jersey speech during the campaign, President Bush called out, "My friend Buster Soaries, thank you, Buster, for coming. I'm glad you're here."

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission tomorrow is holding a public meeting at 1:00pm at 1225 New York Ave, N.W., Suite 1100 in Washington, D.C. Go to the meeting and tell the Bush administration to preserve American democracy and back off its plan to hijack the election for its own political gain. If you're not in Washington, e-mail them at this address: HAVAinfo@eac.gov

Progress Report

I'm wondering why we need an "Election Assistance Commission". We have election laws. We ought to enforce them. And we have the option of election auditors and monitors, just like we send to other countries to keep an eye on their election proceedings.

Anti-coalition amnesty - it's a choice

Iraq's new interim government plans to introduce an amnesty for rebels who have been fighting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq within "a couple of days," the country's president told British newspapers on Monday.

"We are offering an amnesty definitely, for people who have not committed too many atrocious acts; everybody except murderers, rapists and kidnappers," interim President Ghazi al-Yawar told the Financial Times in an interview.

  Iraq Net article

It is not clear how many atrocious acts is too many.

"We will offer the amnesty first, then we will have this law for executions so there is a menu to chose from. It's up to (the insurgents) to make a smart choice.

"If they sincerely feel that they are sorry for what they have done and they sign an undertaking that it will never happen again we shouldn't ask any questions.

Very Christian.

If it's a choice between signing a piece of paper or an execution, I'm guessing there'll be lots of signing. On the other hand, if they're going to have to turn themselves in, then I'm guessing there might be a large number who will choose to continue fighting and die a martyr's death.

Just speculating. I don't have any intelligence information. But I'm not the national security adviser.

....and you do what you want....you will anyway.

Abu Ghraib makeover

Fresh paint for one thing.

U.S. political prisoners are now in tents outside the prison for another. (It's called Camp Redemption.)

But some changes are a little more subtle. The newly appointed prison warden is an Abu Ghraib prison employee of 25 years under Saddam.

But who else has the experience?

Story from Iraq Net

Pipeline sabotage

Saboteurs launching attacks on Iraq's oil and electricity infrastructure appear to be employees working in the industry or others acting on inside information, reconstruction officials said Sunday.

...The Western diplomat said insurgents were suspected of using blackmail and threats to coerce Iraqi workers to launch attacks or to provide information on vulnerable locations in the country's oil pipelines and electric power lines.

Funding and information for the sabotage also may be flowing into Iraq from other countries, the diplomat said.

  Iraq Net article

The simpler possibility that Iraqi workers could be willingly sabotaging the U.S. puppet government couldn't possibly be true. Or that the workers are Saddam loyalists. I guess that's not a possibility either.

More great intel

Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday unconventional weapons material might have gone to neighboring states in the war and Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is probably trying to get some.

  Iraq Net article

Because, if he were Zarqawi, that's what he'd do? This is publishable intelligence? This is the kind of drivel someone in the high position of national security adviser spouts? Oh yeah, I guess if Condi can, why not Mowaffaq?.

The dangers of cronyism and purchased politicians couldn't be more evident than it is in the world today. Unfortunately, I don't think it can be otherwise, because we seem to be really short on wise folk. Or they're hiding very well. (And I couldn't blame them.) Maybe the creator has a better model human in some other part of the cosmos. The model in this part certainly isn't going to win any medals.

Mowaffaq al-Rubaie also said the Iraqi interim government had approved the transfer of all radioactive material in its possession to the United States, but said he could not be sure more material was not hidden inside Iraq by Saddam Hussein

Or looted and sold. As we've established a thousand times over, more material could be anywhere and everywhere at this point.

And, by the way, Bubba doesn't think he's all that crazy about bringing the stuff here, either.

"I have no shadow of doubt that..., with his evil mind, he (Zarqawi) will try to acquire these unconventional weapons," [Rabaie] told a news conference.

And if you have to have an "evil mind" to acquire unconventional weapons, then what does that say about all the countries who have them? Hogwash and rubbish. This stupid rhetoric is getting to be altogether too common. Everybody seems to be dumbing down to Bush's level.

"Just imagine if these weapons of mass destruction or any of these capabilities of making a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon or anything like this, if it falls in the hands of Zarqawi's gangsters and Zarqawi's people and these global terrorists or Saddam's former regime, what will happen?" he said.

Perhaps the warring field will level a little? And, since we don't have a freaking clue what happened to those weapons we're being told over and over that Saddam had access to and we still haven't found, then how do we know some evil-minded terrorist doesn't already have them?

Asked if unconventional weapons material may already be in the hands of Zarqawi or others like him, Rubaie said: "We don't know. We have no intelligence information on that."

Funny. The lack of intelligence information didn't stop him from being certain without a doubt that the Evil Doer is trying to get them.

Rubaie said there were indications that some unconventional materials had crossed borders into neighboring states, and said Iraq would seek to have it returned if so.

And I can only wonder who might have it and actually return it.

"There are some indications that these (unconventional materials) have gone that way during the conflict and immediately after the conflict," he said but gave no details.

No, of course not.

One of those fly-by comets sprayed the earth with stupid gas. Maybe we should take blood specimens and create a vaccine in case it comes by again.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Getting nuclear material out of Iraqi

The atomic materials from Iraq, which Oak Ridge will neither confirm or deny they are storing, include non-weapons grade uranium, cobalt, cesium, and strontium. You may recall a month or so ago that the DOE was hauling some of these same materials away from contaminated Oak Ridge facilities to a landfill when one of the trucks sprang a leak, exposing an unknown number of people to radiation.

Personally, I'd feel a lot safer if they just left the stuff in Iraq. I am not aware of any previous incidents involving Iraqis exposing Americans to radiation.

  South Knox Bubba post

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway, Bubba did not say.

She'll never work in Florida

Teen stumps Bush with pop quiz

Postponing elections

I'm more in line with Digby on this idea. But, Billmon makes his point (which I think is similar to what Bob has been saying).

Billmon sets up a scenario where very close to the election there is a huge terrorist attack.

Under those circumstances, would you want the election to be held as scheduled? Or would you rather it was postponed for a month, until the initial shock had passed and the voters had had a chance to consider whether the administration's incompetence and the relative indifference of the GOP Congress to homeland security needs might not have contributed to the disaster?

I think the move to create some special rule or committee to postpone elections is another step in getting the people used to the idea that their constitutional rights can be altered. And that is not from a paranoid perspective, but from a reasoned one.

I see that Billmon's argument makes sense only if you accept his assumption that the attack would create a "rally around the president" mood amongst voters. And I don't accept that assumption. I think it could just as easily go the other way, to a mood of "he didn't protect us again". Especially now that his approval ratings for everything else have gone down the tubes, and especially since he has been sending even our National Guard overseas, leaving us less guarded here. Billmon's second question answers his first, and I think people already have their answer to the second. An attack would only be confirmation for either view. In fact, I think it would be more likely that there would be a tilt toward voting for Kerry if there is an attack, because I sense that the people who are following Bush are the ones that are buying his line that his policies have made us safer. And he keeps saying that, which I think is one of his bigger mistakes, politically.

Frankly though, I don't think it would tilt anything either way. I think people are very much decided at this point about whther they think the Bush administration has made us more or less safe and will find whatever justification or view of the matter fits that picture.

So, I'm still with Digby. If there isn't some disaster that makes it impossible for large numbers of people to get to a voting station on the scheduled date, there's no need to change it. And if something that huge happens, there's already a law in place permitting the pResident to call a state of national emergency and pretty much shut down everything.

P.S. check out Digby's post on the Armageddon Plan.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

John and Teresa Kerry

I watched the Kerrys on Larry King the other night. Larry is getting lamer and lamer as an interviewer as time goes by.

Mrs. Kerry said she was a registered Republican until just recently when they attacked Max Cleland, triple amputee from Vietnam war injuries, as being unpatriotic when he didn't back Bush's push to war. She said that was so over the top that that's when she changed her party registration to Democrat. It would have been an interesting situation if she hadn't, wouldn't it?

She also said when asked what she thought of Nader and his supporters (and she said it very strongly) that Nader supporters are smart people and that she, having come from a dictatorship, would never presume to take away their right to vote for Ralph. That's it. She didn't say anything about hoping they'd change their minds or anything about the possibility of them voting for Kerry. Just, they're smart, and they can damn well vote for who they want because this is a democracy. Period.

Maybe we should make Teresa president.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Zell at the RNC

How funny. Zell is apparently the most "like-minded" speaker the Rethugs have for The Idiot in Chief at the Republican National Convention. The Republicans they've lined up are too moderate for the Christian zealots. So they're acting like the rabid juveniles they are.

[C]onservatives have noted with alarm that so far, aside from Mr. Bush, the only like-minded social conservative with a featured speaking role is Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia.

"When the only Reagan Republican to enjoy a prominent supporting role at the party's convention is a Democrat, the G.O.P. has a serious identity problem," Kate O'Beirne, the Washington editor of the conservative National Review, wrote in a column posted on its Web site last Wednesday. The list, she wrote, "is not the mark of a self-confident party establishment," adding, "if the lineup is intended to make an overwhelmingly conservative party attractive to swing voters, it does so by pretending to be something it's not."

..."I hate to say it, but the conservatives, for the most part, are not excited about re-electing the president," warned Paul Weyrich, the longtime Christian conservative organizer, in an e-mail newsletter on Friday. "If the president is embarrassed to be seen with conservatives at the convention, maybe conservatives will be embarrassed to be seen with the president on Election Day."

  NY Times article

Japanese vote

Sunday's House of Councilors elections offered Japanese voters a chance to express their anger at their government's foreign and economic policies over the past year, and the result was a major blow to the country's leading political party.

... As a result, of 121 seats up for grabs in the Upper House, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party won only 49 seats, while the opposition Democratic Party won 50. The Buddhist-influenced Komei Party won 11 seats. Granted, the LDP remained the biggest party in the Upper House, occupying 115 of the 242 seats compared to 82 for the Democrats and 24 for Komei. The LDP is also the biggest party in the Lower House, which wields more power than the House of Councilors.

...The LDP's survival depends on forming a coalition government with a religious party, while the Democratic Party remains strong as the opposition, with a real chance of forming a government when elections must be called within the next two years. In the meantime, it will become increasingly difficult for the LDP to get legislation passed, with the opposition wielding power with greater confidence.

The silver-maned Koizumi was a breath of fresh air when he took office, from his distinctive, photogenic good looks, to his rallying cries to weaken the power of the bureaucracy and his calls for sweeping structural reforms to jump-start the economy. But three years on, his promises have not materialized.

  article

Apparently it isn't playing any better in Japan than it is here.

Koizumi said he would reshuffle his Cabinet by September to reflect the latest election results. LDP Secretary-General Shinzo Abe is expected to resign at the end of the month due to his party's poor performance. Koizumi, however, emphasized that he would remain prime minister.

"This is not an election that decides the government; it's a midterm poll that measures the public mood. Koizumi does not have to take responsibility," Abe told state-owned NHK television.

Well, there's something George can appreciate.

That may well be, but it is clear that public disgruntlement toward the prime minister has intensified since his government decided to deploy Japanese troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing." According to opinion polls conducted by major local dailies, only about one-third of voters supported Japan's decision to join the coalition. But in spite of such low public support, Koizumi decided to send the country's self-defense forces to Iraq, even though Japan's post-World War II constitution prohibits deploying Japanese troops abroad except for self-defense purposes.

And he can relate to that, too.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

I wonder who he'll vote for

Democrat Senator Zell Miller will be speaking at the Republican National Convention.
Source

Do the people of Georgia know that Zell is a closet Republican?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Anthrax cleanup

Workers began pumping a potent chemical into the former headquarters of a supermarket tabloid Sunday to clean up the first target in a series of deadly anthrax attacks in 2001.

The cleanup is being led by BioONE, a company established by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sabre Technical Services, which decontaminated other buildings hit by anthrax attacks.

"It will be a symbol that we can deal with these new risks that have developed in our new world," Giuliani said.

After a call of "Let's go" from Giuliani, workers started the flow of chlorine dioxide, a chemical used to disinfect drinking water, into the American Media Inc. building to kill the spores. A high concentration of the chemical is kept in the sealed building for 12 hours to be effective.

  ABC article

Isn't that cute? "Let's go". Reminiscent of the "Let's roll" battle cry.

A symbol. Isn't that sweet. Three years later they start the cleanup. And whatever happened to the investigation into who sent the anthrax? Hmmmmm? Where's that perp? Hanging out with Osama somewhere? Maybe it's not important.

That's some pretty swell dealing with these new risks, all right.

Possible postponement of elections

For some reason, this two-week-old news is now mainstream news. Actually, I guess that's pretty quick for the mainstream to catch up. I posted on it July 1, when I saw it in a Maru post June 30 from an article in the San Diego North County Times on June 25. Now, a Google Search makes it look like Reuters may have "broken" the story just today. Weird.

Aljazeera is reporting the story, with this interesting commentary:

A quick monitor of web log forums and discussion boards on the Internet reveals that many alternative websites have been discussing for some time the prospect that the Bush administration may postpone elections in a security event.

Some websites are referring to what has become known as the 'October surprise', an event where either a "terrorist attack" hits the American mainland, or, as some politicians like former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright have speculated, a captured Usama bin Ladin is finally paraded on television.

Perhaps the new websites that track hot topics in blogland were set up by or as a resource for mainstream news outlets, and when a story reaches critical mass in the blogs, they report on it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Planning for an election postponement

Remember that?

Digby comments today:

This is absurd. Unless the terrorists are somehow able to prevent large numbers of people from exercising their right to vote by bombing individual polling places there can be absolutely no reason to postpone this election.

Besides, if I recall correctly, the Bush administration made quite a case a few years back that there should be no changing of the rules, even when certain rules are contradictory, in election procedures. I remember that deadlines, particularly, were sacrosanct. Indeed, the dates surrounding election laws were seen as written in stone.

Somehow, I have to believe that if terrorists attack us around the election, Americans will crawl out of the rubble on their hands and knees to vote. But then, that's obviously what they're really afraid of, isn't it?

The college type

Once in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, on a forum some right winger looked in my personal profile, and seeing my .edu email address, posted something snide about "intellectuals" and "college types", and suggested we go to Iraq if we thought so much more of it than we did our own country. I suggested in return that when the wingers were done deporting all peacenicks and intellectuals to Iraq, they might import Iraq's warmongers and religious fanatics to the states, and then Iraq would be America and America would be Iraq. Okay, it wasn't a great retort, but honestly, I wonder what the pride is in being ignorant and uneducated.

This from Maru today:

'A vandal spray painted in blue paint "Libural!" on a window at Sen. Lisa Murkowski's campaign headquarters on Northern Lights Boulevard, her campaign said Thursday.'

And for any of you who feel you have just met a compatriot, try to remember that some people with educational institute url's/email addresses just work there, so it won't always pan out to assume that they are "intellectuals".

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Presidential Auction 2004

Somebody tell O'Reilly he doesn't have to eat his freedom fries plain any more.

W Ketchup would like to thank President Reagan for his selfless service to this nation.

Reagan won the Cold War, let private enterprise flourish, and most of all made Americans proud to be Americans again.

“We look for that fine day when we will see him again, all weariness gone, clear of mind, strong and sure and smiling again, and the sorrow of this parting gone forever. May God bless Ronald Reagan and the country he loved.”

All Ketchup is not created equal

W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA.

The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in one flavor: American.

G5s or GIs? A Tough Choice

Choose Heinz and you're supporting Teresa and her husband’s Gulfstream Jet, and liberal causes such as Kerry for President.

----

FAQs

What does the “W” stand for?

The “W” stands for “Washington”.

Is W Ketchup Kosher?

Yes! Our new 24oz bottles are certified Kosher by OU, and the OU symbol appears on the back label.

Where can I buy W Ketchup?

W Ketchup is available on this website, and will be in select stores soon.

Why do I have to buy 4 bottles?

The added handling costs of unpacking, repacking, and shipping a single bottle would make it the most expensive ketchup you've ever tasted. We didn’t want to sell a product that was priced too high for many people, so we decided upon the 4 bottle minimum in order to bring the average price down. The average price drops if you buy in bulk — so order a case of W Ketchup and share it with your friends!

No comment.

No, really.

....but hey, you do what you want....you will anyway.

Kenny Boy's Ace in the Hole?

Wait a minute. Hold the presses.

"Lay himself rued his ties to Bush, suggesting Thursday that his connections to the president were at the root of his indictment."

  Dan Froomkin article

Does this mean that it's possible Kenny Boy will not be going down without squealing on the Pig in Chief?

A little sanity

We'll take all we can get.

A judge on Friday dismissed all charges against five anti-war activists who were arrested last year on their way to President Bush's ranch.

The five were convicted in February of violating the city's protest ordinance and fined $200 to $500. But McLennan County Judge Tom Ragland ruled the ordinance was overly broad and violated the First Amendment.

The ordinance required 15 days' notice and a $25 fee before the police chief could issue a permit for a protest. Crawford officials have since amended the ordinance to require seven days of notice.

"This is a great victory for free speech in the president's own backyard," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. "This decision guarantees that the free speech rights of other protesters will not be silenced by the city of Crawford."

The five protesters were on their way from Austin to President Bush's ranch to protest the war in Iraq in May 2003 when they were arrested and put in jail overnight.

The attorney for the five has said they were not demonstrating at the time of their arrests after being stopped by a police blockade.

  Fox News article

A second chance

I wonder if the NAACP really wants The Dark Lord to speak at their meeting now, or if they're just turning up the heat.

Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, said it was "unbelievable" that Bush had declined an invitation to speak at the organization's annual meeting for the fourth consecutive year.

"When you are president, you are elected to be president of all the people," Mfume said at a news conference as the convention opened. "You won't do that if you refuse to talk."

He asked Bush to change his mind and promised that the Republican president would be treated with respect at the Philadelphia event this week even if many delegates oppose his politics.

... "I would ask the president to reconsider his unnecessarily harsh stance and to show America that he's bigger than that," he said.

  Yahoo article

Well, but he's not.

Mfume, a former congressman from Maryland, said Bush was courteously received the last time he spoke to National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites) at its 2000 meeting in Baltimore.

But, somebody once said something he didn't like....

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond last month said Bush and other Republicans were part of a "dark underside of American culture."

Truth to Bush is like sunlight to a vampire.

Presidential Auction 2004: Florida

Keep the scrutinizing pressure on Florida.

In what looks like admission that the 2000 voter scrub which excluded mostly black Democrat votes was even worse than I thought (good Lord), it appears that not only were they going to pull the same stunt in 2004 had they not been pressured, they actually were excluding Hispanic felons from the scrub list, because in Florida, they tend to vote Republican.

The glitch in a state that President Bush won by just 537 votes could have been significant -- because of the state's sizable Cuban population, Hispanics in Florida have tended to vote Republican more than Hispanics nationally. The list had about 28,000 Democrats and around 9,500 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.

"Not including Hispanic felons that may be voters on the list ... was an oversight and a mistake," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "And we accept responsibility and that's why we're pulling it back."

  NY Times article

A mistake. Sure it was. The incredible audacity. Coming up with a felon list that would include blacks and excludes Hispanics. Somebody had to actually work on that.

[W]hen voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the potential felons database has no Hispanic category, which excludes many people from the list if they put that as their race.

Just an honest mistake.

The purge of felons from voter rolls has been a thorny issue since the 2000 presidential election. A private company hired to identify ineligible voters before the election produced a list with scores of errors, and elections supervisors used it to remove voters without verifying its accuracy. A federal lawsuit led to an agreement to restore rights to thousands of voters.

The new list was released July 1, with officials saying Gov. Bush's administration was simply complying with federal election law. Problems with the list were quickly detected.

State officials have said there are people on the list who are not felons, and elections workers have flagged more than 300 people listed who might have received clemency.

Read Greg Palast's account of the choice of private companies, and just exactly what went down. It will blow you away. (A detailed accounting is in Palast's excellent book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.) Not only was the Supreme Court installation of The Thief in Chief a Constitutional outrage, the 2000 election was unarguably stolen at the polls in Florida.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Fool me 2002 times

Following The New Republic article, July Surprise?, in which evidence was proferred that the Bush administration is pressuring Pakistan to deliver a "high value target" before November 3, and possibly around the time of the Democratic National Convention, the White House was in defensive lie mode (as expected).

Sean McCormack, the National Security Council spokesperson, said he could find no evidence to corroborate any of the assertions in the article. Pakistan has been a firm ally in the war on terrorism, he added.

He said the White House has been working to bring bin Laden to justice 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, since Sept. 11, 2001.

  The Star article

Uh-huh.

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

Source

In 2002 at a press conference Bush said, "I don't know where he is, I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not important."

Source

Ken Lay's missing relations

Ken Lay is a bipartisan supporter. Scott McClellan says so. He said that Lay has supported both Republicans and Democrats. And he's right.

[Lay] and his wife, Linda, donated $882,580 to federal candidates from 1989-2001... All but $86,470 went to Republicans."

  Cursor article

I hadn't known what Ken Lay looked like until he was arrested recently. The minute I saw the pictures, I was reminded of an old Twilight Zone story depicting what greed looks like in a human face.

Here's Ken Lay:


graphic from BenFrank

And, here's the Twilight Zone show:

On the eve of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, dying millionaire Jason Foster (Robert Keith) summons his greedy relatives to his mansion. In a faint but firm voice, Foster informs his niece Emily (Virginia Gregg), nephew-in-law Wilfred (Milton Selzer), and Emily and Wilfred's despicable offspring Wilfred, Jr. (Alan Sues) and Paula (Brooke Hayward), that -- despite his hatred of them -- he intends to leave them his entire fortune. But there's a condition -- all four relatives must don grotesque masks which reflect their true natures -- and they are forbidden to remove those masks until the stroke of midnight.

And of course, they agree, because they want that fortune. At the stroke of midnight, the old man dies, the greedy relatives remove their masks, and to their horror, they have taken on the characteristics permanently.



The Lay family, isn't it? Well, the resemblance is striking.

Here, look at them side by side.



Eh?


As for the Twilight Zone, while I was searching for a photo, I came across this little Twilight Zone trivia quiz. I figured I'd know most all of them, since I have seen so many of the old shows. In fact, I only knew seven of the fifteen. I guess I've now ruined eight episodes should I ever see them.

But, if you want to know the answers, click here.

1. A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major find themselves trapped inside an enormous feature-less cylinder, with no memory of who they are or how they got there. (One of my favorites - I can relate.)

2. Janet Tyler undergoes her eleventh operation to mend her freakishly bad looks.

3. A lonely old crippled woman receives two unaccountable phone calls in the middle of a stormy night.

4. A schoolteacher is visited by a young girl who insists about talking about a man the teacher saw earlier that day.

5. A mild-mannered bank teller, Henry Bemis, can never find enough time to read.

6. The daughter of a scientist demands that her father dismantle the robot servants that staff the house, because her parents are getting too dependent on them. (Another one of my favorites.)

7. On maneuvers at Little Big Horn, a three-man tank unit keeps finding mysterious evidence of General Custer's 7th Cavalry, and Indians on the warpath.

8. Following a blowout in Pennsylvania, Nan Adams repeatedly sees the same ominous hitchhiker.

9. An old woman, alone in a farmhouse, is terrorized by tiny robot-like spacemen.

10. It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and a dying man insists that to earn their inheritances, his heirs must wear grotesque masks until midnight.

11. An amnesiac in a jumpsuit awakens in a town strangely devoid of people.

12. A used car salesman buys an old Model A that forces its owner to tell the truth.

13. The first manned space flight crashlands on a dry deserted asteroid, with three survivors and only five gallons of water.

14. An overworked dancer recovering in a hospital has a recurring dream that late at night, a nurse leads her to Room 22-- the Morgue-- throws open the door for her, and says, "Room for one more, honey."

15. The Kanamits arrive on Earth to aid mankind using their superior technology.

GOPolitics

That GOP pressured and monkeyed vote that means the FBI can snoop into your library records without your knowledge (among other things) brings our old friend Nick Smith back into focus.

One of the vote switchers was Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan, who resisted pressure to switch during the extra three hours that GOP leaders held open the Medicare vote. He said at the time that he had been bribed and threatened, and then recanted the claim.

  Cursor article

I'm thinking I may have given old Nick too much credit the first time for trying to buck the GOP machine. Maybe he was after something selfish after all. I mean, if he's going to bend over at the last minute each time, why doesn't he just save himself the pressure stress and vote the party line in the first place? Masochistic? Wants to be begged? Power trip?

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Terror alerts for political purposes?

No!

Yes. Hard to believe as it is.

Mike at Cursor posts:

A terrorism warning issued by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge came six weeks after a similar alert from FBI Director Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft. The Los Angeles Times reports that "An FBI counterterrorism official said the bureau has not received any substantive new intelligence about an attack since then."

CNN reports that U.S. Senators briefed by heads of the CIA and FBI, were told "the current terror threat against the United States is at its highest level since the attacks of September 11, 2001."

Ridge's announcement coincided with a tour of the Homeland Security Operations Center by Vice President Cheney.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Presidential Auction 2004

Bush, unlike Kerry, has shown he is not willing to share a ticket with a rival more appealing than he is.

  SF Gate article

Which perhaps explains keeping Cheney on the ticket. It may be quite difficult to find someone less appealing.

Toward the end of a long campaign day in Pennsylvania last Friday, George W. Bush had one of those primal moments of joyous aggression that come to all good politicians. He was talking about John Kerry's vote last year against the $87 billion appropriation to support the troops and begin the reconstruction of Iraq. "Only a small, out-of-the-mainstream minority voted against the legislation—and two of those 12 Senators are my opponent and his running mate." The crowd booed lustily, but Bush was not done. He cited Kerry's now infamous quote: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." The President paused, chuckled and said, "That sure clears things up." Then came Bush's moment. "The American President," he said, slowly, percussively, chin out, finger stabbing the air, "must speak clearly and mean what he says."

  Time article

That's funny.



Bush dyslexicon aside, let's have a look at the implications of those statements:

1) A minority vote means you are wrong (with us or against us, pal).

And, by omission from the list of what is incumbent upon a president when speaking,

2) He can lie all he wants.

Presidential Auction 2004: The danger of Edwards

JUDGING BY the testy back-and-forth between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry the day after Kerry announced Sen. John Edwards as his running mate, this is going to be one of the meanest campaigns in history.

  SF Gate article

Well, we've gotten there steadily and surely, and it doesn't look like we'll be changing course any time soon.

Since they have to tread lightly on the inexperience issue, considering Bush's great lack of experience in 2000, it appears they are going to rip at the fact that Edwards is a trial lawyer. If they didn't mind being so two-faced with such huge double-standards, they might want to be careful - an awful lot of politicians are lawyers.

The head of the National Association of Manufacturers, representing 14,000 companies, said Edwards "demonstrates conspicuous hostility to manufacturing and business" that drives companies into bankruptcy and puts thousands of Americans out of work.

"As a trial lawyer, Edwards brings to his job an inherent bias against innovation and the American entrepreneurial spirit that is essential to compete and create jobs," said Jerry Jasinowski, the group's president.

  article

I have lawyers and judges in my family. I worked with lawyers in San Francisco for eight years. I got sick of the b.s. - it all too often comes down to a game, with justice not even in the back seat, but having to get there on her own, walking. I don't like the legal business myself. But I can't for the life of me imagine how John Edwards' status as a personal injury attorney should be a negative issue when running for political office. Now, if he were a lobbyist or a corporate lawyer, I might see the point.

I think the suggestion in Mr. Jasinowski's statement is that by representing individuals and winning judgments against businesses, Edwards is throwing up obstacles to complete corporate rule. It's the same argument against minimum wages. You can't work for human rights at the expense of business profit or you'll destroy the very fiber of America. I will never understand how these people think businesses will make profits and sales when the humans producing for them are crushed. I guess there is a never-ending supply of wage slaves on the planet.

Perhaps if businesses were careful to stay away from practices that create conditions where they might be sued enough to bankrupt them, they wouldn't have the problem. I wonder what percentage of laid off workers comes from a bankrupted company due to some unreasonable lawsuit versus ones from a company that closed down and moved its operation offshore to avoid paying decent wages or to scrape out one more penney of profit.

So, anyway, here are my concerns about Edwards (to date): He's for staying in Iraq and essentially continuing America's foreign policy of dominance, and more subtly, but not altogether separate, his own personal history of "raising himself up by his bootstraps" from a poor boy to a multi-millionaire is going to be latched onto by people who refuse to acknowledge the causes of inequity in our society. People refusing to tell the truth about the system's need for wage slaves. As though it could exist without the very poor.

I used to read on an arborist forum comments about the poor being inherently lazy, or unworthy, from men who worked for themselves as arborists or small business owners, a great source of self-pride. That kind of talk seems to be such a common claim and such an ignorant one. As though the economic system we have could possibly permit everyone to be self-employed. So many people never seem to see the whole picture and understand that for the few to be independently wealthy, and for there to be any market for self-employment and small businesses, there must be a large supply of hourly wage workers. For that self-employed arborist, there has to be a seller of arborist supplies he needs to do his job. For the guy who owns that arborist supply store, there has to be factory workers making the goods he sells. And for that factory owner, there has to be a large supply of people poor enough, uneducated enough, and otherwise unskilled enough to accept factory wages. They could be overseas, however. How many people are self-employed that do something which doesn't involve using something that uses hourly wage workers? Where would the proud self-employed person or small business owner be if everybody were self-employed? It can't happen. Free market capitalism owes its life to the poor. The big capitalists know it. I guess it behooves them to let the small capitalists think otherwise.

And to let them strike out at each other, rather than catch on to what's really happening. Wars are good for that. All you anti-war people who don't support the troops because you're agitating against our war policy? Shut up or move to France.

Bullshit. It's the government and the contractors that are supposed to be providing the troops what they need that don't support the troops. What the hell do they care? A dead soldier doesn't lose them the profit that providing the services to keep that soldier alive would. Dead soldiers? Injured soldiers? Disabled soldiers? No problem. The taxpayers will take that burden.

All you anti-war people who spit on returning Viet Nam vets? What? Nobody really did that? Oh, okay. Well, anyway, you disparaged them and showed them no respect, no honor for their service.

Bullshit. It was the government and the business owners who showed their disdain for the returning troops, because they didn't provide jobs for thousands of them. They'd done the only job they were ever needed for, and there were plenty of wage slaves to fill any jobs the business owners had. And there always will be. We have to keep a steady supply of poor to fill hourly wage jobs and the ranks of the military, or the whole system crashes.

So, okay, back to Edwards...



....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.



Update 1:50 pm: Archpundit has a post on this topic of whether being a trial lawyer will hurt John Edwards.

An interesting question running around blogs is how will John Edwards background as a trial lawyer affect people. It'll certainly harden the views of some doctors and the Chamber of Commerce, but one has to remember that people like trial lawyers individually and dislike the idea of lawyers in general.

Time has some polling data they are releasing today. Only 28.4% say being a trial lawyer negatively affects their opinion of Edwards. 54.8% says that background makes them think he fights for the average person.

Check it out. There are some interesting comments as well.

Total chaos

"My first reaction was, 'Wow, there [are] a lot of nude people here'... I, myself, have never been in a prison... So I had no experience at all as far as a warden or that type of thing."

--Army Captain Donald J. Reese, a reservist and salesman in civilian life, installed in October 2003 as warden of the hard site at Abu Ghraib.

  US News article

Can you get to be an Army captain and be so naive that you imagine it might be normal prison standards to have prisoners kept nude?

US News has obtained the classified portions of General Taguba's report from Abu Ghraib.

"One of the tower guards was shooting prisoners with lead balls and slingshot," a company commander testified. Soldiers ran around wearing civilian clothes, and covered latrines with so much graffiti that a commander had them painted black, and then threatened to post a guard at each location. An Army captain allegedly secretly photographed female subordinates while they were showering in outside stalls.

The most serious riot, at Camp Vigilant, took place on the night of November 23 when guards shot and killed four detainees. "The prisoners were marching and yelling, 'Down with Bush,' and 'Bush is bad,'" another Army review said. "They became violent and started throwing rocks at the guards, both in the towers and at the rovers around the wire..." Guards feared for their lives "the sky was black with rocks," the report saidand a mass breakout appeared imminent. The review of the November riot cited the failure of guard commanders to post rules of engagement for dealing with insurrections. Soldiers were hesitant to shoot, and when they did shoot, they often didn't know whether they were using lethal or non-lethal ammunition because they had mixed the ammo in their shotguns.

They what? Had mixed ammo in their guns? Why?!?

Another classified annex reported that the prison complex was seriously overcrowded, with detainees often held for months without ever being interrogated. Detainees walked around in knee-deep mud, "defecating and urinating all over the compounds," said Capt. James Jones, commander of the 229th MP Battalion. "I don?t know how there's not rioting every day," he testified.

Among the more shocking exchanges revealed in the Taguba classified annexes are a series of E-mails sent by Major David Dinenna of the 320th MP Battalion. The E-mails, sent in October and November to Major William Green of the 800th MP Brigade, and copied to the higher chain of command, show a quixotic attempt to simply get the detainees at Abu Graib edible food. Dinenna pressed repeatedly for food that wouldn't make prisoners vomit. He criticized the private food contractor for shorting the facility on hundreds of meals a day, and for providing food containing bugs, rats, and dirt.

"As each day goes by tension within the prison population increases," Dinenna wrote. "...Simple fixes, food, would help tremendously." Instead of getting help, Major Green scolded him. "Who is making the charges that there is dirt, bugs or what ever in the food?" Major Green replied in an E-mail. "If it is the prisoners I would take it with a grain of salt." Dinenna shot back: "Our MPs, Medics and field surgeon can easily identify bugs, rats, and dirt, and they did." Ultimately, the food contract was not renewed, an Army spokeswoman says, although the contractor holds other contracts with the military.

Digby posts:

Since Bush came into office it seems as if he has made it his purpose to corrupt every single institution in the United States. From the Supreme Court to the press to the SEC to the US Military there is nothing left of us but the bare bones of the constitution and the hope that we at least have one more free election.

Neither anarchists or terrorists have ever been so efficient.

And from Digby's commenters:

Bertrand de Jouvenal's line also fits us: "A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."

This is what our dominant culture has glorified for as long as I have been alive, and even longer: the triumph of the strong over the weak, contempt for the weak, demonization of all who oppose "us" or our surrogates in fiction, a complete turn to the Dark Side. I have not been surprised by anything except the incompetence, and that surprises me less than it might.

Apparently Digby, like so many people, didn't see it coming. Bush didn't create this. He just lifted the edge of the rug and "legitimized" it.

So many people are so desperately wanting a change in political party leadership to be the answer. And it's not.

But who's counting?

Ted Rall

Here's to you, Irv

I just turned on the tube, and the CNN ticker tape said that Pastors for Peace had gone to Cuba "in defiance of U.S. law".

One of my Global Exchange Venezuelan tour compadres (Irv) is on that trip. They're taking medical supplies.



My friend Irv is 91 years old.

It just keeps getting better all the time

Following up on the post quoting Josh Marshall, here's the story on those inspired patriotic Americans hanging captives by their heels in Afghanistan in a home they made into a makeshift "prison":

[Jonathan] Idema and his colleagues told Afghan authorities they were operating the prison because they wanted "to take part in the war on terror," the Afghan official said.

The Americans did not torture their prisoners, but did administer "some beatings," the official added.

...The Americans were mainly detaining men with long beards on the outskirts of Kabul who they suspected -- based on their appearance -- to be members of al Qaeda, the interior ministry official said.

  CNN article

Why oh why do they hate us?

The American patriots will not be turned over to the Afghanis, as you might assume would only be right.

Here's some more on Idema's rich past from DailyKos, and from Jesus' General.

Pray for Dick

Jesus' General has a countdown page going. it was inspired when Dickhead lost control and told Senator Leahy to go fuck himself.

Keep up now. And keep praying for Dick.

And buy yourself a T-shirt.

Joe Wilson, liar?

Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post claims the Senate Intelligence Committee report proves that Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame's CIA cover was blown by someone high in officialdom yet to be fingered, is a liar.

Josh Marshall rebuts and then expounds.

Get the background and keep up with the story and the investigation on my Plame page.

...or do what you want...you will anyway.

Sibel Edmonds' case is thrown out of court

Ms. Edmonds is the FBI translator who has been gagged from speaking openly about an infiltration of the agency by a terrorist organization, and the FBI cover-up role in the events of 9/11.

From her press statement July 8:

Judge Walton reached this decision after sitting on this case with no activity for almost two years. He arrived at this decision without allowing my attorney and I any due process: NO status hearing, NO briefings, NO oral argument, and NO discovery. He made his decision after allowing the government attorneys to present their case to him, privately, in camera, ex parte; not allowing us to participate in these cozy sessions.

...To this date John Ashcroft’s relentless fight against me, my information, and my case, on various fronts, from the Congress to the courts, and from the 9/11 Commission to the Inspector General’s Office, has been taking place under his attempt at a vague justification titled ‘Protecting Certain Foreign & Diplomatic Relations for National Security.’

...As I have stated many times previously, I will continue this fight, since in taking my citizenship oath I pledged that I would support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Therefore, as an American Citizen, I have the right and the obligation to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against John Ashcroft’s assaults.

  Break for News article

Because what foreign country that Sibel's testimony would embarass could actually threaten our national security?

In his decision, Walton acknowledged that dismissing a lawsuit before the facts of the case can be heard is "Draconian" and said he was throwing out the lawsuit "with great consternation."

"Mindful of the need for virtual unfettered access to the judicial process in a governmental system integrally linked to the rule of law, the court nonetheless concludes that the government has properly invoked the state secrets privilege," Walton ruled.

Edmonds' lawyer, Mark S. Zaid, called the decision "another example of the executive branch's abuse of secrecy to prevent accountability."

  Fox News article

Full coverage of the Sibel Edmonds case.

A Neo-Con coup in the making

All this folderol about how the neoconservative moment is over, and the War Party totally discredited, is just so much wishful thinking, as the prospect of John F. Lehman's nomination as CIA chief makes all too clear. Rumor has it that Porter Goss is out – too partisan – and Lehman is leading the pack. If so, this is a testament to the neocons' bureaucratic staying power.

...In 1983, a mysterious package of documents arrived at the New York Times, a fortuitous delivery that led to a piece by reporter Jeff Gerth in which Lehman, along with Richard Perle, was accused of accepting payments from Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz and his son, Chaim Zabludowicz, who were Perle's clients in 1980. They paid $90,000 to Abington Corporation [a lobbying firm whose president was Lehman]: Perle kept $50,000, while Abington got the rest.

Lehman blamed his wife: Perle said he did the work for the Zabludowicz clan before he was employed by the government. Whatever.

In any case, as per the custom in Washington, Lehman and Perle survived the scandal, as neocons always do, and lived to fight another day.

...Lehman's most recent position has been as a member of the 9/11 Commission, where he excoriated Richard Clarke for writing a book, and went on Meet the Press declaring that a prominent member of Saddam's militia had been identified as a member of Al Qaeda, confusing two different Arab names in the process and getting it thoroughly wrong. The Washington Post pointed out the discrepancy to Lehman, who brushed it aside, claiming it really made no difference: he stood by his claim.

... He has long exhibited a Laurie Mylroie-like obsession with Iraq, claiming, for instance, that Saddam was behind the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. The bombing, as it turned out, was the work of al-Qaeda, and had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. A few days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks Lehman signed an open letter calling on the President to attack Iraq.

  Antiwar article links added

So somehow, in spite of Lehman's inattention to detail in the serious issue of defense against terrorism, our intelligence is going to improve with his appointment?

In the early 90's, Lehman joined up with the Committee on U.S. Interests in the Middle East, a neocon front group organized by Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and Douglas J. Feith, and headed up by Frank Gaffney. The Committee lobbied for more U.S. tax dollars for Israel...

The principal founders and sponsors of the Committee, which broke with Dubya's dad over this issue, are now in charge of U.S. foreign policy, and of the last two holdouts – the Department of State and the CIA – it looks like they're about to take Langley.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Filipino hostage

Okay, not exactly released. EVerybody is so anxious to get the news out first, they sometimes jump the gun.

Negotiations stalled. The captors are demanding the Philippines troops be out by July 20.

Thinking about the International Court of Justice

In 1986, surmounting massive political obstacles, the ICJ ruled against the United States in Military And Paramilitary Activities In And Against Nicaragua (also known as Nicaragua v. United States of America) , ordering the United States to pay an amount later fixed at $17 billion in reparations to Nicaragua for its illegal contra war, mining of Nicaraguan harbors, etc. In response, the Reagan administration said that the United States no longer recognizes the authority of the court.

  Empire Notes post

And of course, we have never recognized its authority since. But I'm wondering why, if we don't recognize its authority, we are allowed to have a voting member.

The International Court of Justice has found that Israel's wall is a violation of international law, and amounts to an attempt at "de facto annexation."

...Interestingly, it ignored Israel's protests that the wall was only temporary, saying that it would constitute a "fact on the ground" that might then lead to de facto annexation. Apparently the Court is going by the famous Texas maxim (or maybe it's from Tennessee), "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me continuously and repeatedly, on a daily basis, for 56 years, shame on me."

And, not surprisingly, the vote was just like it always is on the Security Council -- 14-1, with the American judge dissenting (no veto on the ICJ, fortunately).

Apparently Israel doesn't have a voting member of its own.

Palestinians will seek UN sanctions against Israel, a senior Palestinian official said.

"The next step is to approach the UN General Assembly and Security Council to adopt resolutions that will isolate and punish Israel. As of today Israel should be viewed as an outlaw state," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, senior adviser to Arafat.

"We hope the United States today will see to it that they will work to have Israel comply with the (court's) resolution," Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said.

  Ha'aretz via WorldPress

Like that's going to happen.

Well, there you go

I figured the truth would come out about why the spoiled brat king wouldn't speak at the NAACP meeting. And, of course, as I suspected, it was because they hadn't spoken adoringly of him. (Expect the same to come out about why he won't speak to the Latino organizations.)

President Bush has decided not to speak to the country's largest civil rights group, the White House said on Friday, citing openly hostile comments by its leaders about the president.

The White House initially attributed Bush's decision not to accept the invitation to speak at the NAACP annual convention to a scheduling conflict. The convention opens on Saturday in Philadelphia.

But White House spokesman Scott McClellan, traveling with Bush on a campaign bus trip through Pennsylvania cited "hostile political rhetoric about the president" from the group's leaders.

"It's disappointing to hear," McClellan said.

  Yahoo News article

And if you disappoint Little Lord Fauntleroy, believe me, you'll pay.

McClellan said that "the president is going to reach out to everyone in the African-American community and ask for their vote based on his record and his vision for the country."

And his vision does not include any negative remarks about himself.

In an interview with reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local Pennsylvania newspapers, Bush described his relationship with current NAACP leaders as "basically nonexistent."

"You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me," he said, according to a report on the Knight Ridder Web site.

Can you believe this crybaby?!?

And they still talk about reaching out for the black vote?

Well, obviously no oxygen can get to your brain when you have your head that far up your ass.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Want to know a secret?

They are even more inept than you ever imagined.

Washington has spirited 1.8 tons of enriched uranium out of Iraq for safekeeping, more than a year after looters stole it from a U.N.-sealed facility left unguarded by U.S. troops, U.S. and U.N. officials said on Wednesday.

  Iraq Net article

Unguarded? Excuse me. We guarded the oil fields, but not the uranium facility? Well, perhaps it wasn't weapons grade.

The slightly enriched uranium, which could be used in a dirty bomb, was airlifted to an undisclosed U.S. site after its removal from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad, a one-time center of Iraq's nuclear weapons development program.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called the shipment to a secure Department of Energy facility "a major achievement for the Bush administration's goal to keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists."

It might have been a major achievement to have guarded it in the first place, don't you think? For the love of Pete. I don't even want to think about it.

In June 2003, after repeated IAEA warnings that the looted materials could be used to make weapons, an embarrassed United States allowed an IAEA team to return to the site to try to gather them up.

Alarms had been raised as villagers near Tuwaitha, especially children, showed symptoms of radiation sickness.

Much of the material, the IAEA experts found, had been dumped on the ground by residents more interested in the containers than the materials themselves.

And just how much of it did they not recover? And where did that go?

Oh well.

The IAEA team managed to account for all but some 90 pounds of the 1.8 tons of uranium, which had been enriched to 2.6 percent uranium-235. That level of enrichment makes the material suitable for use in a dirty bomb or -- with further enrichment -- a nuclear weapon.

Well that is just great. At least they got most of it. How much damage could 90 pounds do?

The team wrote off the remaining missing material as so small an amount as to pose no security threat.

I feel so much better.

Actually, truth be known, I don't trust the U.S. with nuclear capabilities. I don't think anybody else is likely to be any more dangerous or untrustworthy. But I'm just amazed that they were so irresponsible, so incredibly stupid, as to fail to guard what they claimed they were going over there to secure.

We are living in a circus of insanity. And I am surprised we haven't blown ourselves to smithereens already. We are truly on borrowed time.

Enjoy yours.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Lynndie England has some more 'splainin' to do

Apparently the Washington Post has photos of Lynndie and Spc. Graner cavorting au naturel sans Iraqis. "Creating and possessing" those photos are against military rules. I also think they will present a bit of a problem when she tries to say the photos with Iraqis were scenes she was ordered to create.

Richard Hernandez, a lawyer on England's defense team, told The Post the photos were personal and had nothing to do with the prison abuse charges.

  Iraq Net article

Oh, but they do now.

Stooopid.




...but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Oil money funny accounting

An audit report has been released saying the accounting methods used by the CPA to keep track of the oil revenues in Iraq since the U.S. takeover have been less than transparent.

The accounting framework at issue was maintained by a single accountant, KPMG said, without entry of credits and debits that makes tracing transactions easier.

  Iraq Net article

I'm no accountant, but that does seem like a strange way to keep accounts. No entries of credits and debits. Isn't that kind of...oh....basic....to accounting?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Filipino truck driver is freed

The announcement came just hours after Arroyo's spokesman said the Philippines' small peacekeeping contingent in Iraq would be withdrawn when its tour ends Aug. 20. Dela Cruz's captors had demanded that Manila pull out its tiny 52-strong force within three days, a deadline that was drawing near as word came of the release.

  Iraq Net article

Update 2:00 pm: Okay, not exactly released. Negotiations stalled. The captors are demanding the Philippines troops be out by July 20.

I'm getting a little sick of apologizing

Another serious asshole turns out to be from Missouri.

La Belle sends this link:

Lay to Kewpie grads: Sorry for ‘commotion’
By NATE CARLISLE of the Tribune’s staff

Former Enron Corp. executive Ken Lay sent an e-mail to his old Hickman High School classmates Wednesday - the same day it was revealed he had been indicted - in which he apologized "for causing so much commotion."

...In the e-mail, Lay wrote: "I apologize for causing so much commotion. It appears that the media continues to be interested in my welfare. They are particularly interested if they think my welfare may not be good.

"To the contrary," the message continues, "Linda and I and our family are doing fine. We strongly believe that our God is stronger than all of the prosecutors, FBI agents, SEC investigators, other attorneys, etc. in the world."

...Near the end of the e-mail, Lay then attempts to direct his former classmates to a New York Times article. But Baird said no link or attachment was included.

Ooops.

Lay provided an interview for a June 27 New York Times article. Lay told the newspaper he took responsibility for Enron’s fall but maintained he did nothing criminal. He said executives in Enron’s finance organization mismanaged the company’s balance sheet and misled him and others.

That old "I'm responsible" meaningless phrase, since he's not actually taking responsibility. Well, he's being forced to now, isn't he?

Yes, the Hickman Kewpies are right here in my home town.

And, once again, I am truly sorry. Ashcroft, Limbaugh, Truman....

....but hey, we also offered Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), Josephine Baker, Scott Joplin, Charlie Parker, Edwin Hubble, Roy Wilkins, Sacajawea, Dred Scott, T.S. Elliot, Tennessee Williams, Calamity Jane, Langston Hughes, Walter Cronkite, Redd Foxx, Robert Altman, Betty Grable, Dick Gregory, Jean Harlow, John Huston, Dick Van Dyke, Dennis Weaver, Vincent Price, Bill Bradley, Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, Satchel Paige and Stan Musial. And we have La Belle.

(We gave the world Walt Disney, too, and I'm not sure whether that's on the plus or minus side. Both, I guess.)

Honey, it's for you

Answer the phone, will you?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Presidential Auction 2004

Exit neo-conservatives, enter neo-liberals.

Prepare for a continuation of pro-war policies if Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is elected in November. Please recall that candidate Kerry—a renowned liberal even by Massachusetts’ standards—voted nevertheless in favor of Bush’s pre-emptive war on Iraq. In addition, Kerry’s recent critiques of the Bush administration’s war policies focus primarily on strategic failures and human rights fiascoes that haunt Team Bush. So what does the Democratic presidential hopeful have to say about there being no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or any demonstrable connection between Saddam Hussein and either 911 or Al Queda? Virtually nothing.

Further, Kerry expresses no interest in fundamentally reassessing the policies that have brought America to this precipice in the first place; additionally, he’s offered absolutely no commitment to end the discredited, multi-billion dollar invasion and occupation of Iraq. Kerry is a Company Man, willing to do it the Company Way. Like Bush, he’s committed to imposing upon the world an American Empire. In Iraq, the Democratic hopeful intends to “internationalize” the occupation, boost troop numbers (and benefits), and “destroy the terrorists”.

Even more loathsome, in a recent policy paper Candidate Kerry supported Ariel Sharon’s policies of Jewish colonization in the West Bank, de facto ethnic cleansing there, and the internationally reviled Israeli method of territorial expansion through conquest and subjugation. The Kerry candidacy therefore represents an insidious political merger. Seldom before have two candidates’ ‘stark similarities’ been so pronounced. On the question of U.S. aggression in the Middle East, the Democrats and Republicans have colluded to provide America with a ‘one party’ doctrine.

...Kerry’s criticisms of Bush’s unnecessary war are cautious and narrowly focused. Recent statements reveal that Kerry’s commitment to Israeli “security” may exceed even The President’s. Following the revelations of U.S. misconduct at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, Candidate Kerry called for the largely symbolic resignation of one U.S. official, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld. Fundamental American war policies however get an unhesitant Thumbs Up from Kerry, who now supports Israel’s “separation fence” (called the Apartheid Wall by many) without condition.

...That America’s “liberation” of Iraq is now opposed overwhelming by the very people we were recently claiming to “liberate” is barely considered news. The Big Picture, we are told, concerns stopping the irrational, fundamentalist, terrorist bogeyman, bringing ‘democracy’ to the Arab world, or freeing Muslim women from the chains of religious fundamentalism. But when the bombs drop, who really benefits? Once again it’s our ‘plucky, democratic ally’ who has managed to drag the world’s only superpower into its perpetual, ethnic-based war against its besieged regional enemies.

While the implications of this phenomenon are increasingly understood, they are still only whispered about, since a candid critique of Zionist power in America remains our greatest taboo.

...Another telling example of America’s acquiescence towards Israeli resolve can be seen in the question of how and when the Zionist state acquired nuclear capabilities, today estimated to be between 200 to 400 warheads. How do Israel’s weapons of mass destruction affect Arab security, or global security? Or is nobody interested? One thing is clear: the very rumor that an Arab country intends to seek strategic parity with the Jewish state is enough to launch a dozen U.S. battleships.

  Al-Jazeerah article

Did you know that our ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, aside from being involved in the Iran-Contra activity and death squads in Honduras, is Jewish?

If America is being targeted because terrorists are “jealous of our freedoms” as Bush and his speechwriters claim, why then don’t terrorists attack other Western democracies like Canada, New Zealand, Sweden or Japan?

Dead or alive

Zarqawi's attracting followers, whether he actually lives or not.

Elusive Jordanian activist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has been attracting sympathic Iraqis and his ranks have swelled in recent months, a nigh-ranking US military officer has said.

The officer says Zarqawi's can count on between 500 to 1,000 armed men among his immediate support.

His clandestine cell-structure stands alongside a separate revolt of 5,000 hardcore Sunni Muslim fighters, motivated by issues from communal aspirations to the politics of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, which can grow even larger in times of crisis, the official told AFP.

The two movements are separate, and contrary to claims by the Bush administration, Zarqawi and Saddam's followers have probably never mixed, the official said.

...In reviewing the multiple strains of anti-US violence in Iraq,

the officer was adamant that Zarqawi most likely never had any ties to the former president of Iraq, either before the US-led invasion in March 2003 or after.

"Saddam didn't have any love for foreigners and... thought they had to be very closely watched. We have not found any evidence he cooperated with Zarqawi himself... In any case, I think he would be very wary of that kind of cooperation with Zarqawi."

White House officials have repeatedly cited Zarqawi as a missing link between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda network in the buildup to the 2003 war.

A high-ranking, unnamed military officer, of course. And I guess if a military officer is going to say Bubbleboy's administration doesn't know jack shit, or is selling a crock of shit, then he (or she) would probably do well to remain unnamed.

I think you just have to believe what you want these days. There's too many groups to keep straight, and heaven knows the propaganda machine is working overtime. But, we'll just keep tossing these reports out there, and you just keep filing them where you will.

And speaking of dead or alive....

File this:

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." -- George Bush, 9/13/01

"I want justice... There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'" -- George Bush, 9/17/01

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority" and "I am truly not that concerned about him." -- George Bush, 3/13/02

Source

Egyptian captured, execution threatened

Another truck driver.

An unidentified group in Iraq has captured an Egyptian driver who was delivering petrol to the US military.

Aljazeera aired a video on Wednesday from the unnamed group, which said it represents the "legitimate Iraqi resistance", showing four armed men standing behind the seated hostage, named as Sayid Muhammad Sayid al-Arabawi.

The captors said they kidnapped Arabawi because he was collaborating with the US forces in Iraq. He was seized while driving a petrol truck from Saudi Arabia. The group has not made any demands.

  Aljazeera article

Pakistani man, freed from captors witnessed two beheadings

Amjad Hafeez was working for KBR. He says that his captors beheaded two white English-speaking people in his presence (on or about June 27), and told him he would suffer the same fate. Hafeez was working as a truck driver, as were the Turks, the Filipino and two Bulgarians who have been captured and faced execution. Where are all those private security forces?

Hafeez said initially his captors thought he was an American CIA agent, but when they knew that he was a Pakistani driver and a Muslim, they freed him.

Hafeez said the insurgents also told him that they released him because his mother had made tearful pleas through the media to save his life.

  Fox News article

I dont' think that's working for the infidel mothers.

After his capture, insurgents released a video threatening to decapitate him unless all Iraqi prisoners were freed. In the video, Hafeez was shown urging Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to close the Pakistani Embassy in Iraq and ban all Pakistanis from going to the country.

Musharraf, who has made Pakistan a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, refused to accept the demand, but urged the kidnappers not to harm Hafeez.

Hafeez said after his release he received a call from President Bush, who congratulated him.

I don't suppose he'll be congratulating that Filipino fellow if he's released after the Philippines pulls their troops.

Saddam's American lawyer is filing a Supreme Court suit

Doebbler, the lone American on Saddam's legal team, wants the high court to declare the detention of the ousted Iraqi president unconstitutional.

The long-shot legal maneuver comes as Saddam's lawyers await the chance to meet with their client and find out what charges he will face in a war crimes trial by Iraq's new government.

...The filing at the Supreme Court, dated Tuesday and titled "Saddam Hussein v. George W. Bush," asks the court for permission to file an indigent appeal on his behalf. The court will have to grant special permission, however, because the documents lack Saddam's signature vouching that he has no assets and cannot afford the filing fee.

...[Doebbler's] work for his latest client has earned him threats but not deterred him, he told reporters Thursday. "Whether it's a former president or whether it's a refugee, individuals have the same basic human rights," he said.

...In an article on his Web site, he wrote, "The world's most powerful army is an army of cowards. They are soldiers who are willing to risk the lives of innocent civilians to protect their own. I don't know about my fellow Americans, but I don't feel very much protected by such cowards."

  Fox News article

Two things: 1) yes, I'd say this is a long shot, and 2) I'd say Mr. Doebbler should watch his back if he's still in the states.

The Supreme Court is on a three-month summer break and likely will not act on the request until the justices return to work in late September.

What is this? Did you know they do that? Take three months off? What a deal! Put justice on hold, we're on summer break.

Good god.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Philippines will pull troops out of Iraq

Secretary of Foreign Affairs Delia Albert, in a statement Saturday, did not say if the decision not to extend the Filipino troops' mandate past August 20 was part of the ongoing hostage negotiation process.

  CNN article

Well, gee, I guess it could be coincidence.

The Philippines had considered extending the mandate for its 50 troops in Iraq, as it did last year.

So it won't be a huge loss number-wise. But it will be very symbolic and a loss in terms of maintaining a "willing" coalition. President Arroyo had already banned any more contract workers going into Iraq. The status of those who are already there is not mentioned.

In the meantime, it doesn't appear that the Bulgarian government is going to offer any hope to its two citizens whose heads are on the block.

The Marine that didn't get beheaded

Juan Cole has a little more information.

Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun came into the US embassy in Beirut after allegedly being kidnapped and held hostage and is going to a US base in Germany. The entire story has become so murky that I am reluctant to say anything at all about it. A firefight broke out among Hassoun's clansmen and others in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, with enemies charging that the Hassouns are collaborators because he is in the Marines. The Marines are not entirely sure whether the hostage incident was real or staged.

Perhaps he wouldn't have been found and returned to the embassy if the fighting hadn't broken out?

I still say his best bet is to cut a deal to create a story about a heroic escape.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

I can relate

It just seems like someone must have been paying this guy to do something, unless it's like a blog where you just set up shop and figure that someday a revenue stream might turn up.

Actually, Josh is talking about an American guy who's just been arrested for torturing Afghanis in his privately owned jail.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

You think Cheney should step down?

Yeah? Well, go f@#k yourself.

The Vice President is currently under investigation by French authorities for bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets while at Halliburton and also faces a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission probe of a $180 million "slush fund" that may have been used to pay bribes.

Although the White House Counsel analysis is not available to the public because of the secrecy of “attorney-client privilege,” it has generated speculation among senior White House aides who suggest the Vice President should step down as President George W. Bush’s running mate for the November Presidential elections. Such talk has increased in GOP circles lately with former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato Wednesday calling on Bush to dump Cheney.

Vice President Cheney
Those who have read the analysis say it presents a “devastating” case against the Vice President and concludes Cheney has violated both the “spirit and intent” of federal laws on conflict of interest.

Even worse, Cheney faces indictment by a French court on charges of bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets because of fraud associated with the construction of a $6 billion petrochemical plant built by Halliburton in Nigeria in partnership with Technip, one of France’s largest petrochemical engineering companies.

...London Lawyer Jeffrey Tesler, a consultant to Halliburton, admitted under oath in May that he made payments from the [slush] fund to Albert “Jack” Stanley, president of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root and a longtime friend and associate of Cheney. The payments, Tesler said, were personally approved by Cheney, who headed Halliburton at the time.

...Sources within Halliburton say the company’s internal investigation clearly implicates Vice President Cheney but acknowledge the investigation will remain sealed in light of the company’s $7 billion sweetheart contract with the Pentagon for work in Iraq.

French Judge Ruymbeke, however, is said to be offering Stanley a deal if he implicates Cheney and sources within the French legal system say the judge has more than enough to indict the Vice President on charges of bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate assets.

The assessment of the White House counsel’s office agrees that Cheney faces “serious legal implications” from the pending French indictments and add that the Vice President’s illegal and unethical lobbying on behalf of Halliburton for the no-bid contract “raises additional questions.”

Cheney, however, is standing firm and recently told Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont to “fuck off” when the Senator questioned him on the Halliburton matters.

According to White House sources, President George W. Bush laughed the matter off at a recent cabinet meeting.

“Fuck ‘em all,” Bush said.

  Infoshop article

Dignitude in the White House.

May I say it again? The whole lot of them should be behind bars. These mobsters have got to be held accountable.

Cheney won't be there in November. But he can still pull the strings. After all, Al Capone still ran the mob from his jail cell. And Oil Slick Dick is certain to avoid that fate.

And he doesn't have to answer your insulting questions

US President George W. Bush walks away from a briefing with the media, refusing to answer questions after he was asked about Enron and the reported indictment of former CEO Kenneth Lay, who was a close adviser and fund-raiser for Bush and his father, earning him the presidential nickname of 'Kenny Boy.'(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

Source

He's not planning on an election. I promise you.

The President, visibly upset, stomped off the stage when reporters pressed him about his relationship with Lay and left White House press secretary Scott McClellan to deal with the questions.

It has been "quite some time" since Bush and Lay talked with each other, McClellan said Thursday, brushing off questions about whether the two were friends.

"He was a supporter in the past and he's someone that I would also point out has certainly supported Democrats and Republicans in the past," McClellan said.

  Capitol Hill Blue article

Meltdown in the Big House. Watch for radioactivity.

Controlling the foreign press

Oh yes. That has to be done, too, in a fascist country.

A crackdown by US authorities on issuing visas to foreign journalists threatens to cause chaos for overseas broadcasters and newspapers just five months before the presidential election.

The new rules, which come into force next week, will ban overseas reporters and news crews stationed in the US from renewing their visas without leaving the country first.

Just five months before American voters decide who will be appointed to the most powerful office in the world, the US state department said it would no longer allow overseas journalists to renew visas from within the country.

From next week the estimated 20,000 foreign journalists stationed in the US, who used to be able to renew their visas with ease in any major city, will be forced to leave the country to do so.

Rather than applying to renew their visas in Washington or New York, they will be forced to leave the country and re-apply at a US embassy or consulate abroad, delaying their application for between four weeks and six months.

  Guardian article

Not his base, and they don't have a castle

He knows they're not voting for him. (And he knows nobody's counting votes, anyway.) But, man, this is just bold....

President Bush declined to speak at the NAACP's annual convention for a fourth time, the organization announced yesterday. The president's decision means he will be the first sitting president since Warren G. Harding not to address the NAACP.

  WaPo article

Sounds like a deliberate snub to me.

A White House spokeswoman said Bush had a scheduling conflict, but would not specify the conflict with the six-day convention, which is scheduled to open Saturday in Philadelphia. Bush last addressed the NAACP convention in 2000, as a presidential candidate.

They probably asked questions he didn't like. No more visits for them.

Bush's decision comes after the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign and the Republican National Committee have pledged to reach out more to black voters.

Nice beginning.

Devona Dolliole, a spokeswoman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, disagreed: "It is clear that Bush only uses African Americans when it is convenient for him, not because he's sensitive to their issues. His civil rights record is abysmal."

But Alvin Williams, president and CEO of the conservative-leaning Black America's political action committee, said the president may have had other motives. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he said, the NAACP endorsed a series of ads depicting the heinous dragging death of a black man in Texas.

"I think they placed the blame at Bush's feet when he was governor, and I think he was, rightly, greatly insulted by that," Williams said.

Sweet Jesus. Ha!

Bush also declined an invitation to speak at last week's gathering of the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization, for the fourth time. "He has not attended our conventions, as well as our sister organizations'," said Raul Yzaguirre, La Raza's president. "Apparently we're not enough of a priority to merit his time."

Hoo-boy. Are we getting the picture?

Bush last attended the La Raza convention in 2000.

Hmmmmmmm....wasn't as sure about getting installed then? Or did they offend him, too?

Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said there is an "aggressive effort to reach out to African American and Hispanic voters that's ongoing."

Clearly.

I read that at the Kerry celebrity bash last night, John Leguizamo said Latinos voting for Bush was like roaches for Raid.



....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

GOP pressure and shenanigans pull through another win

By a 210 to 210 tie vote that GOP leaders prolonged for 23 tumultuous minutes while they corralled dissident members, the House rejected a proposed change to the USA Patriot Act that would have barred the Justice Department from searching bookstore and library records.

...But the victory came only after GOP tactics infuriated Democrats and a number of Republicans. The vote, scheduled to last 15 minutes, dragged on for 38 minutes despite outraged shouts and a unified chant of "shame, shame, shame" from Democrats across the aisle.

  WaPo article

Please. Rethugs in Congress have no shame.

Rep. C.L. Butch Otter (R-Idaho), a conservative and an advocate of the defeated provision, told reporters after the vote: "You win some, and some get stolen."

A lot like the Medicare vote.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

DHS be ready

Ridge assures us that we are secure, even though there is going to be another attack this summer, and probably next fall, and perhaps for the rest of our lives.

The DHS now has "full nationwide connectivity" to a new Homeland Security Operations Center, which Ridge described as a "nerve center for homeland security information and incident management." He also said homeland security directors in all 50 states have direct access to the DHS through a recently deployed Homeland Security Information Network, known as the Joint Regional Information Exchange System (JRIES).

..."The most advanced technologies, including the newly created Internet-based Homeland Security Information Network, allow us to maintain up-to-the-minute information, to map that information against our critical infrastructure and known threats, and then share it instantly with the White House, all 50 states, more than 50 major urban areas, and thousands of state and local agencies."

  ComputerWorld article

But if we don't scramble the jets, it's really not going to matter, now is it?

If the Commander in Chief and President of the United States, in whom resides the authority to shoot down airliners, sits around reading pet goat stories waiting for someone to tell him what to do, all the technology in the world won't be of much use, will it now?

If all 50 states had "full connectivity" on 9/11, what would have been done differently? How would that have helped?

You're right. It wouldn't have. But by golly, I bet you feel like this administration with its Department of the Fatherland is making you safe at last, don't you?

Don't you?

The Pointless Commission issues its report

SENATOR JAY ROCKEFELLER: There is simply no question that mistakes leading up to the war in Iraq rank among the most devastating losses and intelligence failures in the history of the nation. The fact is that the administration, at all levels -- and to some extent us -- used bad information to bolster its case for war. And we in Congress would not have authorized that war -- we would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now.

Which is what the blogosphere knew then. There's no excuse for Congress not knowing.

ROCKEFELLER: That's not to say that there aren't areas of disagreement; there are, especially on the question of whether the administration pressured the intelligence community to reach predetermined, in my judgment, conclusions.

And I have to say, that there is a real frustration over what is not in this report, and I don't think was mentioned in Chairman Roberts' statement, and that is about the -- after the analysts and the intelligence community viewed an intelligence product, how is it then shaped or used or misused by the policy-makers?

...So again there's genuine frustration -- and Chairman Roberts and I have discussed this many times -- that virtually everything that has to do with the administration has been relegated to phase two. My hope is that we will get this done as soon as possible.

But not before November, eh? And if BushCo stay in the White House....well, Senator, stay out of small airplanes.

Now check this out:

ROCKEFELLER: The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was, in this senator's opinion, exaggerated by the Bush administration officials was relegated to that second phase, as yet unbegun, of the committee investigation, along with other issues.

We've done a little bit of work on the number three guy in the Defense Department, Douglas Feith, part of his alleged efforts to run intelligence past the intelligence community altogether, his relationship with the INC and Chalabi, who was very much in favor with the administration wanting them to come on in. And was he running a private intelligence failure, which is not lawful.

Is Feith going to be the fallguy? Because if he is, then he may get to be the fallguy for the Valerie Plame outing as well. Why not? Limit the fallout to one guy.

QUESTION: Given the 800 American G.I.s who have lost their lives so far, thousands have had serious injuries, lost limbs, all on the basis of false claims, as much as the American taxpayers have had to kick in almost $200 billion, doesn't the American public and the relatives of people who lost their lives have a right to know before the next election whether this administration handled intelligence matters adequately and made statements that were justified -- before the election, not after the election?

SENATOR PAT ROBERTS: Well, as Senator Rockefeller has alluded to, this is in phase two of our efforts. We simply couldn't get that done with the work product that we put out. And he has pointed out that that has a top priority. It is one of my top priorities. It's his top priority, along with the reform effort.

Good question. Nice deflection.

ROBERTS: Now, we have 20 legislative days. We want to have hearings from wise men and women in regards to the reform effort, and we will proceed with staff on phase two of the report. It involves probably three things -- or at least three.

One is the prewar intelligence on Iraq, which is what you're talking about.

Secondly is the situation with the assistant secretary of defense, Douglas Feith, and his activity in regards to material that he provided with a so-called intelligence planning cell to the Department of Defense and to the CIA.

And then the [last] one -- what is the last one? What's the third one? Help me with it.

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERTS: Well, that's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

There is a third one, and I don't know why I can't come up with it right now. But, anyway, it is a priority.

Excuse me? I guess I have a hard time remembering my priorities sometimes, too. Okay, then.

ROCKEFELLER: Can I make a comment? I find it interesting that we have -- neither Chairman Roberts nor myself, except through the use of the word "Al Qaeda," have said anything about the war on terrorism for approximately one hour here. And that was always and remains, was, is and will be our threat.

Yes, I think it's terrific that Saddam was taken down, brought out of a hole. Has it changed things in Iraq for the better? I'm not sure it's made any difference. I'm not sure the jury is in on that but I don't, so far, see any huge difference.

Dammit, Jay. You've obviously not been listening to the Little King. What jury? We have a freaking king. We don't need a jury. And he has told you over and over and over, and is still telling you, every time he makes an appearance, that, not just Iraq, but the whole world is better off with Saddam Hussein in a cell.

ROBERTS: Now, the debate over many aspects of the U.S. liberation of Iraq will likely continue for decades. But one fact is now clear: Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president, as well as the Congress and the public, that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and if left unchecked, would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade.

Well, today we know these assessments were wrong. And, as our inquiry will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence.

...The committee has looked behind the intelligence community's assessments to evaluate not only the quantity and quality of the intelligence upon which it has based those assessments, but also whether or not those assessments themselves were reasonable.

The report contains a detailed and a meticulous recitation of the intelligence reporting and the evolution of the analyses.

It would appear that Senator Roberts is saying the intelligence community lied to the pResident and Congress. So now, I guess we wait for part 2, as Kennedy suggested, to hear that the pResident wanted to be lied to.

But, not to fear, the Committee didn't hang the "intelligence community" out to dry alone....

ROBERTS: While we did not specifically address it in our report, it is clear that this group-think also extended to our allies and to the United Nations and several other nations as well, all of whom did believe the Saddam Hussein had active WMD programs. This was a global intelligence failure.

Nothing to do with US bribes and threats, I'm sure. Just a whole bunch of people all over the globe unable to correctly gather and interpret intelligence.

One of the suggestions of the Committee is that we should have a "red team" whose job it is to question everything the intelligence analysts come up with. This could get really wild.

Read the transcript. They rip the CIA, and George Tenet just left. Yesterday, wasn't it?

ROBERTS: Assessments were built or were based on previous judgments without carrying forward the uncertainty of those judgments. This is what we have termed the intelligence assumption train.

Sort of like the press and the American public, when it comes to what the White House tells us?

Just turn off your engines and crack open a good book. This train is gonna be a long one.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

OK, it's only a poll....

...and a CNN QuickVote poll (definitely not scientific), but...go have a look.

....Okay, do what you want....you will anyway.

Dear Leader catches another lucky break

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

...The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

...The loss was announced by the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush's complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President's military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was "AWOL" for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director who has said that the released records confirmed the president's fulfillment of his National Guard commitment, did not return two calls for a response.

  NY Times article

How obvious can you get?

Joke's on you, America.

Go ahead, vote to keep yourself dumbed down, lied to, duped and disrespected, not to mention hated by the rest of the world and in mortal danger by virtue of your nationality in some places.

There was a report a while back that someone in the National Guards records office back when The Liar in Chief was running for Governor of Texas said he witnessed The Smirking Liar's records being ordered to be destroyed. Or something very like that. The charge was vehemently denied by the WH, of course. I can't find the reference immediately, but will keep looking.

Update 10:34: Aha. Here it is.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett alleges that in 1997, he overheard Allbaugh asking the Texas Guard commander to remove items that could discredit Mr. Bush.”

Burkett: “The comment that probably concerned me a little was, 'make sure there wasn't anything that embarrassed the Governor.’”

O'Donnell: “Burkett also alleges he later saw papers from Mr. Bush's records in a trash can.”

Allbaugh: “I don't know who this fellow is, never heard of him before, but his charges are groundless, they're baseless, they're false. He's got an outstanding record that he's proud of. He served, end of story.”

Burkett: “This is not political to me. I don't have a grudge, I'm just telling what I saw.”

  MediaResearch article


And, here's a November 2000 report: Bush Aides Possibly Altered National Guard Records To Conceal Grounding and Missed Duty.

Bill Burkett, a Lt. Colonel who was the State Plans Officer of the Texas National Guard at the time, said Bush operative Dan Bartlett headed a high-level operation to "scrub" Bush's Air National Guard record, to make sure it was in synch with the biography that the campaign was preparing.

But read it. Very interesting.



Seen at Maru's place

And in other personal rights issues....

Jesus' General responds to Senator Frist's call for support in the Federal Marriage Amendment proposal.

Dear Sen. Frist,

Thank you for writing me about the Homosexual Discrimination Amendment. I was pleased to see that you have teamed up with Donald Wildmon to get it passed. He's been a hero of mine ever since he exposed Mighty Mouse's abuse of cocaine--that took a lot of guts considering the wretched rodent's super strength and ability to fly.

I'm one hundred percent with you in this effort to deny homosexuals the right to marry those they love. The very thought of two men or two women entering into a covenant to love, honor, and cherish each other until the day they die just sickens me.

It's good for a society to reserve the granting of basic human rights to selected groups. It gives people something to which to aspire once their white collar salaries become service economy hourly wages or unemployment benefits. Americans may not be able to reclaim their former standards of living, but, by gosh, they have an opportunity to overcome oppression and achieve status in those classes that are privileged with rights. All they need to do is suppress their innate attraction to those of the same sex. It's the new American Dream.

Well, I'm off to write my Senators.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

The General offers you links to send similar messages of support to your Senators.

And here's another one:



....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Stop America's march backward

Dena sends the following email:

Earlier this week, our Senate confirmed a federal judge who, as recently as 1997, wrote that "the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband," and that her job "is to place herself under the authority of the man."

Incredibly, six Democrats joined with most Republicans to support James Leon Holmes for U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Arkansas.

This confirmation is part of a clear and disturbing pattern. Anti-choice hardliners in the White House, Congress, and in state legislatures across the country have launched a war on women. Holmes' confirmation is just the latest outrage in the mounting body of evidence showing the anti-woman agenda of the Bush administration.

Gloria Feldt, President of Planned Parenthood, said it best: "James Leon Holmes' confirmation is a mark of shame on the Senate roll call, but a call to action for women nationwide." If you want to stop this war, there is something you can do.

Join with Planned Parenthood to call on anti-choice politicians to stop their war on women. Sign this petition and demand that our government help save lives, protect our health, and respect our privacy by supporting legislation that affirms reproductive and social justice for women at home and abroad.
Sign here: http://www.care2.com/go/z/15696

Greg Palast wants the Thief in Chief to give back the loot that bought him the White House

GIVE IT BACK, GEORGE: THE LAY LOOT THAT BOUGHT WHITE HOUSE
Bush and Republicans Should Give Up Ill-Gotten Gains
by Greg Palast

When the feds swoop down and cuff racketeers, they also load the vans with all the perp's ill-gotten gains: stacks of cash, BMWs, whatever. Their associates have to cough up the goodies too: lady friends must give up their diamond rocks.

Under the racketeering law, RICO, even before a verdict, anything bought with the proceeds of the crime goes into the public treasury.

But there seems to be special treatment afforded those who loaded up on the 'bennies' of Ken Lay's crimes. If the G-men don't know where the tainted loot is cached, try this address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Ask for George or Dick.

Ken Lay and his Enron team are the Number One political career donors to George W. Bush. Mr. Lay and his Mrs., with no money to pay back bilked creditors, still managed to personally put up $100,000 for George's inaugural Ball plus $793,110 for personal donations to Republicans. Lay's Enron team dropped $4.2 million into the party that let Enron party.

OK now, Mr. President, give it back - the millions stuffed in the pockets of the Republican campaign kitty stolen from his Enron retirees.

And what else did Ken Lay buy with the money stolen from California electricity customers? Answer: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Just before George Bush moved to Washington, Kenny-Boy handed his hand-picked president-to-be the name of the man Ken wanted as Chairman of the commission charged with investigating Enron's thievery. In a heartbeat, George Bush appointed Ken's boy, Pat Wood.

Think about that: the criminal gets to pick the police chief. Well, George, give it back. Dump Wood and end the "de-criminalization" of electricity price-gouging that you and Cheney and Wood laughably call "de-regulation." Give us back the government Lay bought with crime cash.

And while we're gathering up the ill-gotten loot, let's stop by Brother Jeb's. The Governor of Florida picked up a cool $2 million from a Houston fundraiser at the home of Enron's former president long AFTER the company went bankrupt. Enron, not incidentally, obtained half a billion of Florida state pension money -- which has now disappeared down the Enron rat-hole.

And Mr. Vice-President, don't you also have something to give back? In secret meetings with Dick Cheney in the Veep's bunker prior to the inauguration and after, you let Ken and his cohorts secretly draft the nation's energy plan - taking a short break to eye oil field maps of Iraq. Let us remember that the President's sticky-fingered brothers Neil and Marvin were on Enron's payroll, hired to sell pipelines to the Saudis. The Saudis didn't bite, but maybe a captive Iraq would be more pliant.

So, Mr. Law and Order President, please follow the law and give up the Energy Plan that Mr. Lay bought with other people's money.

When I worked as a racketeering investigator for government, nothing was spared, including houses bought with purloined loot. Let there be no exception here. It's time to tape up the White House gate and hang the sign: "Crime Scene: Property to be Confiscated. Vacate Premises Immediately."

Visit Greg's website.

....or hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Bulgarians captured, heads threatened

In addition to the Filipino, we now have two Bulgarian truck drivers captured for bargaining. Although the Filipino man is reported to be held hostage by a group that was not specifically noted to be connected to Zarqawi, Voice of America's report claims that the Bulgarians are being held by a group connected to him. Sky News reports that these are the people who committed the other executions.

Three masked kidnappers are seen in a video, aired on Arabic satellite television Al-Jazeera, demanding Bulgaria pulls its 500 troops out of Iraq.

They threatened to execute the two men if the US military do not release all Iraqi detainees within 24 hours.

The Bulgarian government has refused to comply and pledged its continued support for the US-led coalition.

The Filipino people are said to be pressuring President Arroyo to agree to the demands to withdraw Philippine troops and save the hostage.

Ooops. Not orange.

Still yellow. Even though it was announced that there is practically a guarantee of an attack between now and November, and that "the al-Qaida threat remains high from here on -- not necessarily peaking during this summer's party conventions or in early November."

You just don't understand. After all, you're just a dumb citizen.

Appearing today on morning network news shows, Ridge denied that the Bush administration was talking publicly of a threat -- without increasing the official alert status -- to insulate itself from criticism in the event an attack happens.

"I would say to those who would criticize this kind of public statement that if you ask the homeland security officials at the state and local level, they get it. They understand," he said on CBS's "The Early Show."

"I think it's very important to keep the public informed," Ridge said.

  Houston Chronicle article

Of what? That there's going to be an attack, but we don't know who, when or where? Now that's information I can use. Thank God for the Homeland Security's public announcements.

Should I watch the color bar? What will it mean if it goes to orange? That we know the who? The when? The where? That there's more of 'em coming? That they're closer? What?







courtesy wackyneighbor.com

But, hey, we are Missourians. We be ready!

I created that page back when the government scared people stupid enough to think they could seal their houses in plastic and duct tape to save them from terrorists. My eyeballs hurt from rolling on that one. I may yet have to get back to that page for whatever new stupidity is coming our way, but frankly, there's so much that I probably don't have server space for it. So just keep an eye on YWA. And don't get stupid.

Okay?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We don't have to go by the rules

We're Americans Israelis.

The International Court of Justice ruled Israel's barrier in the West Bank is illegal, according to an advisory opinion received by the European Union, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported today.

The ruling is expected to be announced by the court in The Hague at 3 p.m. today. Israel says the court doesn't have jurisdiction in the case.

  Bloomberg article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meanwhile in Sudan

The US says Sudan has so far failed to deliver on its pledge to help civilians in the troubled region of Darfur.

Secretary of State Colin Powell made the statement a week after visiting Sudan and urging the government to disarm the Janjaweed Arab militia.

...After last week's visits by both Mr Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Sudanese government committed itself to the immediate disarmament of the dreaded Janjaweed.

But on Thursday Mr Powell said the authorities had not so far kept this promise.

  BBC article

Which, as we have recently seen, is inviting invasion.

"President Bush, the United States Congress, Secretary General Annan and the international community want more than promises," he said.

"We want to see dramatic improvements on the ground right now," he added.

Incredibly rich considering the situation in Iraq, eh?

Colon Bowell spewing more shit. I think he needs to get off the Ambien.

Those who have fled their homes say the Janjaweed ride on horses and camels into villages which have just been bombed by government aircraft, killing the men and raping the women.

If the government is bombing the villages, it's kind of hard to see how there's going to be much government concern about the Janjaweed, isn't it?


Janjaweed militia.
Like a scene out of Star Wars, and the name is perfect.


Scene from Darfur - and this is the 21st century.

Earlier on Thursday, African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa decided that a protection force they agreed to send would defend Darfur civilians, as well as guard African Union ceasefire observers.

The Chairman of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, said the 300 troops would arrive in Sudan by the end of July.

The BBC's Barnaby Phillips says the union is determined to be taken seriously as a body devoted to solving the continent's problems, but is severely hampered by a lack of resources.

I'm sure the IMF would be happy to lend money. With certain conditions, of course.

Burning Bush

Hey, how come Google can print that as a headline...





...and some schmuck who made the crack in a bar got three years in prison for it?

Oops, that was quick. The Google headline has changed.

Well, it's from the PCC Courier. We'll see if they get away with it, here in the land of free speech zones.

And hail to the daring duo who thought the whole of the U.S. should be a free speech zone, refusing to recognize the New Republic of Fascistan police state we used to call America. Where's the media coverage? Barely there.

[T]he crowd was a select group. Those who had opinions that differed from the Republican line were removed. Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi, Texas, were taken out in restraints by police. They were issued citations for trespassing and released, said Jay Smithers, acting director of the Capitol police force.

...Smithers said the pair had tickets to the event and wore clothing over their anti-Bush T-shirts. Once through the security checkpoint, they removed their outer layers and mingled in the crowd.

"We asked them to go out to the designated protest area but they refused," Smithers said. "They told our people they would not leave and sat down on their hands. We didn't have any choice."

  article

Of course not. No choice at all. Did anybody refund the money they spent for the tickets they had to the event? How do you trespass onto an event you bought tickets for?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Marine still has his head

For now.

With his disappearance now the target of a criminal investigation, U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters the corporal is now at the American embassy in Beirut.

"He made contact with us and arranged for a place to meet and we went to pick him up and brought him back to the embassy," said Mr. Boucher.

Whether he's been detained for questioning or just being cared for is not known. Nor is how he made it from Iraq to Lebanon and whether he deserted his unit or was abducted as initially claimed.

  Voice of America article

And I'm going to advise him to cut a deal. He can offer a story of capture and brave escape.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Whoops, there it is

Get scared. And this time, stay scared.

An intelligence official said there's a steady stream of information signaling that militants have nearly completed plans for attacks in the U.S., aimed at disrupting this fall's election.

...The intelligence source said the al-Qaida threat remains high from here on -- not necessarily peaking during this summer's party conventions or in early November.

...Ridge said officials don't have any specifics on when, where or how an attack would come.

  News8 Austin article

Of course not. They passed up that chance on the 9/11 threat.

But, even though you're scared enough that you don't want to change horseshit in the middle of the road (but you don't mind doing without the director of the CIA), you get on out there and shop. Go to Disneyland.

If you live in Missouri, your real concern right now is that the beautiful spring weather that we've somehow been gifted with since April (for the first time in many, many years, we got a spring between winter and summer) has come to an end, and you know that now that the rain has stopped and the clouds have blown away, and you didn't get a chance to acclimatize (which you never do any more), those ninety degree temperatures starting right now, today, with relative humidity matching numbers are going to cook your code orange ass.

Welcome to summer, Missourians!

Bush-Lay relationship

Remember when the Enron fiasco broke and The Liar in Chief was claiming he barely knew Ken Lay?

La Belle sends a link to a few pieces of correspondence that might have been the give-away when no one was buying it (aside from the record amounts of financial support Kenny-Boy gave him).

Or perhaps it was a different Ken Lay, living at the same address.


From The Smoking Gun archives

The correspondence.

The Hospital

La Belle Soeur sends this link to something really.....different.

You might not want to enter if you don't have high speed hookup, but if you do....

The Hospital

stay awhile,

stay forever

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The pluck of the Irish

(thank you Dan Froomkin)

John Nichols at the Madison Capitol Times reviews the Carole Coleman Bush interview::

On the eve of his recent sojourn in Europe, President Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist.

He did not react well to the experience.

Bush's minders usually leave him in the gentle care of the White House press corps, which can be counted on to ask him tough questions about when his summer vacation starts.

Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who "cover" the White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network.

...Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.

... Did Coleman step out of line? Of course not. Watch the interview (it's available on the www.rte.ie Web site) and you will see that Coleman was neither impolite nor inappropriate. She was merely treating Bush as European and Canadian journalists do prominent political players. In Western democracies such as Ireland, reporters and politicians understand that it is the job of journalists to hold leaders accountable.

The trouble is that accountability is not a concept that resonates with our president. The chief executive who gleefully declares that he does not read newspapers cannot begin to grasp the notion that journalists might have an important role to play in a democracy. And, if anything, the hands-off approach of the White House press corps has reinforced Bush's conceits.

  article

The picture you've all been waiting for

Ken Lay frogmarched in handcuffs.


AP photo courtesy Washington Post

Bad joke - Part II

When I posted the article about the guy who got the third degree for scribbling a sentence with the word "bomb" in it (not even in the military meaning), I was thinking that the tendency to abuse power by small-minded control freaks in mundane jobs is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the PATRIOT ACT and the fascist tendencies now running their course in our country. Digby posted about that same article, and provides another account of a journalist trying to enter at LAX, which you really should read. His conclusion:

If this keeps up, sooner or later we will all end up, in one way or another, on the "Homeland Security Watchlist" where anyone from a professional rival to a vengeful neighbor can be the instrument of terror in a way that bin Laden and gang can only envy. In fact, these little people with too much power scare me a hundred times more than the Islamic terrorists. The threat that lives among us is ourselves.

Yes. We can't escape ourselves. And that's why we must repeal the PATRIOT ACT, something both The Little Emperor and John Kerry support.

Foreign fighters in Iraq

IRAQ'S government said today it was holding 29 foreign fighters at its maximum security prison in Baghdad, throwing into doubt repeated claims by US and Iraqi authorities that foreign insurgents were largely responsible for the violence wracking the country.

The small number of fighters was a mere fraction of the thousands of detainees currently behind bars.

  Daily Telegraph article

Frankly, I imagine that the intention here in naming and numbering them was actually intended to be "proof" that the foreigners are the trouble, as ridiculous as that seems. Somehow I can imagine White House spokesidiots saying, "See? We told you." Why would I think that?

While both Iraqi and US officials have for months steadfastly blamed foreign insurgents for creating instability in the country and sabotaging reconstruction efforts, US intelligence officials privately acknowledge that the foreigners are not the crux of the problem.

They believe the overwhelming number of insurgents are Iraqi, mostly Sunni Muslims who are outnumbered by their Shiite compatriots and have the most to lose in post-war Iraq.

Whatever the makeup is, it's a hornet's nest now, eh?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

It's the Irish in me

Blarney must be called. And The Brat Prince gives us plenty of calling time.



For your listening pleasure from Ireland: funny, biting, Fintan Dunne satire at Break for News using Bush's interview with Carole Coleman. (I had to download the zip file to my hard drive. I couldn't get the direct link to work.)

Nicely done Dunne.

Al-Zarqawi or Al-Invention?

Today's Independent (06/[July]/04) has a front page story titled “A video nasty: Terror chief shows off his deadly work” and is about yet another “foreign-led” group of “militants” purportedly headed by the one-legged Jordanian and 'right-hand man' of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

...The tape we are told, is

“complete with graphics and professional-quality editing and camera-work [and is] the first significant raising of the stakes by militants since the return of partial sovereignty to Iraq by the US last week.”

Why a professionally edited videotape raises the stakes is not explained, nor does the piece unpack how a country can achieve “partial sovereignty” (sovereign: supreme, unmitigated), though it is in keeping with the rest of piece insofar as it presents assumptions as facts, so I suppose a country can be partially sovereign or supreme, especially after it's been ‘liberated’ by bombing it back into the stone age.

That the Independent led with this story is no doubt to 'balance' the one by Robert Fisk on July 4 that the paper also carried on its front page (So this is what they call the new, 'free' Iraq).

There is also the issue of whether this Zarqawi fellow actually exists or is simply an invention of US Psyops, given the reports on his death last year in northern Iraq or his losing a leg in Afghanistan before that...the article shifts the focus of the resistance from the Iraqis to these elusive foreigners, where the US and the UK want the focus to belong.

  William Bowles article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Fahrenheit 9/11 - an unwitting pawn?

Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 9/11” has done a tremendous favor for some proponents of a war upon the Arabian Peninsula. The film achieves what endless pages of conservative think-tank studies and panel discussions, hours of PR time and books can not: spill gasoline on the anti-Saudi sparks already ignited within the United States. Moore's film lambastes the Saudis not only for their business relationships but also for leaving the US after the attacks of September 11th 2001 as did other non-Saudi officials on the same day when specific flights were permitted. The overwhelming popularity of this documentary takes the anti-Saudi message to a whole new market. It is the latest manifestation of a rationale for war that could finally execute a long-term plan to invade and occupy the Kingdom. In spite of its progressive producer and target audience, “Fahrenheit 9/11” falls lock-step in line with the stated agenda of neoconservative hawks: rid Arabia of the House of Saud thereby granting the US and allies full access to the Middle East's biggest prize.

  Global Research article

This isn't the first I've read about the ultimate advantage of the fiasco in Iraq being an opening into takeover of the Saudi oil fields.

Seems like a terrible risk to have taken, though, if true. And one that looks likely to backfire.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The twin parties of the war machine

Read all about it, and join the protest if you're so inclined.

Excerpt

Bush insists that U.S. troops continue to occupy Iraq for the foreseeable future. John Kerry, who voted to authorize the war, is not supporting the removal of U.S. troops. In fact, he is calling for adding 40,000 troops to the Army on a temporary basis to ease the personnel shortage created by the Iraq deployment....Both the Democratic and Republican administrations maintained genocidal sanctions on Iraq that killed nearly 1.5 million people according to the United Nation's own statistics.

As the Bush administration gave the green light to Ariel Sharon to wage terror against the Palestinian people, John Kerry issued a paper in February titled, "The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America." Both oppose the legitimate right of Palestinian people to self-determination and return. The U.S. government - with the support of both parties - funds the war against the Palestinian people at the cost of $15 million a day.

...Bush has been slashing vitally needed social programs. Kerry, in spite of his fabulous wealth, decided that welfare recipients were receiving excess benefits when he voted in 1996 for the Welfare Reform Act that stripped millions of poor people, 70 percent of whom were children, of their right to food and housing.

...George Bush is proposing a constitutional amendment to ban marriage rights for all. Instead of a constitutional amendment, John Kerry proposes that each state enact a similar ban.

...Bush's reactionary "No Child Left Behind Act" passed with the support of the Democratic Party, including John Kerry. The bill punishes working class and poor communities by stripping funds from schools that fail to meet testing performance standards. This bill is inherently racist as it especially victimizes already underfunded schools in predominantly African-American and Latino communities. The bill is also known as "No Child Left Unrecruited," as it requires schools to turn over the name, address and phone number of every junior and senior to local military recruiters or face cuts in federal funding.

...We also know that what has not stopped the Bush administration is the Democratic Party, because that Party is an expression of the same corporate establishment and Military-Industrial Complex in whose interest the Bush administration functions. Although the Democratic Party leadership opposes some of the most right-wing elements of the Bush agenda, its record proves time and time again that it willingly capitulates to the Bush program and turns its back on the communities it claims to represent.

Both parties and both conventions represent the concentration of power in the hands of corporate and banking elites, the extension of militarism and war, and the assault carried out by the corporate establishment against workers' rights, civil rights and civil liberties. It was the massive and independent mobilization of the people that won union rights in the 1930s, civil rights in the 1960s, and the advance in women's and lesbian/gay/bi/trans rights. It was the people of the United States, combined with the resistance in Vietnam and around the world, which brought that criminal war in Southeast Asia to an end.

Not party action. Not elected representatives. The people.

Personally, I think we need to revamp the whole process. It doesn't work.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Yes, the USA is now a joke, but a bad one

Without further explanation, they took me to the onsite police station, where I waited for an "interview" with the Transportation Security Administration. By then I was being accused of writing "bomb" on a piece of paper and waving it around for people in the back of the plane to see. While two policemen guarded the door, the honcho behind the desk informed me that my choice of dialogue was unfortunate, that life was not a stage play and that the tiniest thing can ignite fear in American travelers these days. He wanted a summary of my novel's plot to get the context for why I'd written what I had.

I panicked. If five years of working on this narrative couldn't liberate me from software sales, how was a five-minute pitch going to keep me out of jail? I barely got three sentences out when the guy's lids started to droop. Convinced I was headed for the gulag, I prattled faster. Despite my stuttering, the inquisitor must have liked my story, because he let me off the hook. Or at least that's how he made sure I felt: that he was letting me skip ... this time....Even so, the honcho gravely warned me that while I hadn't crossed the line, I had walked right up to it. And for that I would be on Homeland Security's watch list.

...If I could give myself practical advice and take it, this is what I'd say: Forget the things you read in history class about America, Charlie. Forget all the stuff about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Just keep your head down and your eyes peeled for that "line." The coach of my old-man baseball team, for which I occasionally hit a bomb — though now I would never describe it that way in public — thinks I should start taking Greyhound. I should listen to him; he's a Vietnam vet.

  Houston Chronicle article

So don't be writing the word "bomb" in any context on anything in any public place. Better yet, a more appropriate response might be for all Americans who still have a fucking brain left in their head to go around writing the word "bomb" on absolutely everything everywhere.

Chirst on a fudgesickle stick. Insanity rules the day. But you knew that already.

E-Voting case adjudicated

A federal judge today upheld California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's April 30 directive that decertified touch-screen voting machines and withheld future certification until vendors of those systems could meet specific security requirements, including voter-verifiable paper audit trails

  ComputerWorld article

All right, then.

Gossip break

Political Conversation: Condi’s Slip
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.”

  NY Metro article

But why would an unmarried, never married, woman make that slip? A very strange slip to make under the circumstances.

Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Israeli interrogators at Abu Ghraib

The respected journal of military affairs, Jane's, is reporting that Israeli Shin Bet interrogators were used by the Americans at Abu Ghuraib. A twist: the article maintains that the US chose them because they were less likely to use heavy-handed torture techniques than secret police from US allies like Egypt and Jordan. Of course, it all depends on what you mean by torture.

  Juan Cole post

At least one aspect of the occupation of Iraq was well planned by Washington. The USA needed help conducting mass interrogations of Arabic-speaking detainees. Foreign Report can now reveal that, to make up for this shortfall, the USA employed Israeli security service (Shin Bet) experts to help their US counterparts 'break' their captives.

...US sources say that in spite of the incidences of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, such events are not representative of the sophisticated methods that Shin Bet used in Iraq.

  Janes article

Can now reveal.

Is anybody keeping track of how many things that have been denied, denied, denied by our government at long last "can now be revealed?"

So, then if it's true that Shin Bet has more "sophisticated methods" (which the article implies are psychological), then Rumsfiend and the brute squad must have decided Shin Bet's methods weren't working well enough or fast enough. Or perhaps the order to "soften up" the detainees to prepare them for interrogation is just another facet of the interrogation as a whole.

Or perhaps there's still something waiting for a time when it "can be revealed".

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Subordinating Afghanistan & Iraq to the U.S. Presidential elections

In Afghanistan, although there is still roiling chaos, and Karzai is begging for UN help which is being refused, the presidential election will occur in mid-October. But only the president, as it is assured that Karzai will win (being the only candidate), but it is not certain that other elected positions will find pro-American winners. So those elections will have to wait until after November. Voila! Success in Afghanistan: a "democratic" election of an American puppet.

Of course BushCo will be claiming a success in Iraq by continuing to claim that on July 1 Iraq became a sovereign nation, free from evil Hussein, thanks to BushCo. Elections there, with the very likely outcome of seeing anti-American winners, have successfully been postponed until well after November.

Never mind that neither country is free or democratic or in any way a success story for anybody but arms manufacturers and political puppets.

Isn't it nice when you can manipulate entire countries for election campaign material?

Isn't it grand when entire countries are merely pawns on your game board?

It's good to be king.

The Iraq war on civilians

It's multifaceted. Empire Notes has an article on one facet: hospital closings.

“Why do you keep asking about the closing of the Fallujah hospital?” my Iraqi translator asks in exasperation. I explain that this is big news, and it hasn’t really been reported in English. He looks at me, incredulous; all Iraqis know about it.

When the United States began the siege of Fallujah, it targeted civilians in several ways. The power station was bombed; perhaps even more important, the bridge across the Euphrates was closed. Fallujah’s main hospital stands on the western bank of the river; almost the entirety of the town is on the east side. Although the hospital was not technically closed, no doctor who actually believes in the Hippocratic oath is going to sit in an empty hospital while people are dying in droves on the other bank of the river. So the doctors shut down the hospital, took the limited supplies and equipment they could carry, and started working at a small three-room outpatient clinic, doing operations on the ground and losing patients because of the inadequacy of the setup. This event was not reported in English until April 14, when the bridge was reopened.

In Najaf, the Spanish-language “Plus Ultra” garrison closed the al-Sadr Teaching Hospital roughly a week ago (as of yesterday, it remained closed). With 200 doctors, the hospital (formerly the Saddam Hussein Teaching Hospital) is one of the most important in Iraq. Troops entered and gave the doctors two hours to leave, allowing them to take only personal items -- no medical equipment. The reason given was that the hospital overlooks the Plus Ultra’s base, and that the roof could be used by resistance snipers. Al-Arabiya has also reported that in Qaim, a small town near the Syrian border where fighting recently broke out, that the hospital had been closed, with American snipers positioned atop nearby buildings.

The United States has also impeded the operation of hospitals in other ways.

Continue reading

The Worthless Commission

Josh Marshall has a preview of a NY Times report on the Commission's "convenient" timing:

A bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday...

...Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election.

A deal, huh?

Are you still buying the idea that there's any real power in popular voting?

Missing Marine

Friends and relatives of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun urged patience and prudence as they and well-wishers waited for some word as to the missing Marine's whereabouts.

Which is not to say family members were idle Wednesday as another news cycle unfolded, bringing with it more conflicting reports about the 24-year-old from West Jordan, who was captured in Iraq two weeks ago and threatened with decapitation.

CNN, citing an unidentified State Department source, said Hassoun was safe and with relatives in Lebanon. That followed a report from an unnamed source "close to the family" that Hassoun had called relatives in Utah and Lebanon and asked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut to pick him up from an undisclosed location in Lebanon.

"That's a total lie," said Sami Hassoun, the Marine's older brother. "We have not had any direct call or any direct contact."

Speaking by phone from his father's home in Tripoli, Lebanon, Sami Hassoun told The Salt Lake Tribune his brother has not contacted any family members, although they believe he is alive and safe.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said officials there do not have any confirmation that the embassy was contacted by Hassoun. "We are fully aware of the reports and we are trying to ascertain his whereabouts," Elizabeth Wharton, embassy public affairs officer, told The Tribune. "We are following up to find out what is true and what isn't."

So, apparently, is the FBI, which sent two agents to the Hassoun family house in West Jordan on Wednesday, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is considering whether the entire episode is part of a kidnapping hoax.

  Salt Lake Tribune article

Even death won't stop people taking your money now

Robert Barrows from California has designed a tombstone that can accommodate video equipment operated by a remote control [that will] enable people to leave video messages before they [die], to be played to friends and loved ones from the grave side.

There would be a coin operated or credit card facility on the tombstone to enable cemeteries to charge for the use of headsets needed to listen to the messages.

  BBC article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Kenny Boy didn't leave the country

He must be pretty certain he's going to get off.

Former Enron Corp. chief executive Kenneth L. Lay surrendered to federal authorities this morning, a day after a federal grand jury in Houston issued a sealed indictment against him.

...Lay was driven to the federal courthouse by his pastor, Steve Wende, of Houston's First United Methodist Church. While Lay did not comment, Wende said that Lay and his wife "have been concerned about three things throughout this ordeal: God's blessing for all those hurt by the Enron debacle; for the truth to come out; and for God to guide the Lays."

  WaPo article

Apparently they share the same god as The Scoundrel in Chief.

He's indicted on both civil and criminal charges. And he says he's done nothing wrong. I note that is an interesting word to use.

Iraqi independence celebrations continue

The military says four American soldiers and an Iraqi national gaurdsman have been killed in the city of Samarra.

Officials say the soldiers were killed when insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi National Guard Headquarters.

A fifth U.S. soldier is unaccounted for, and 20 other people were wounded.

Explosions and gunfire have been heard all day long in Samarra.

  Volunteer TV article

Filipino man on the chopping block

The Philippines banned its citizens Thursday from going to work in Iraq after militants took a Filipino hostage and threatened to behead him unless Washington's staunch Asian ally withdraws its troops there.

Ministers met in emergency session, but made no decision on how to respond to the demand that Manila pull out its small force of about 50 humanitarian workers in what would be a symbolic blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize the country.

...Facing her first major test since winning a new term in May elections, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the ban on Philippine migrant workers heading to Iraq and sent her top Middle East envoy to Baghdad to assess the situation.

  Reuters article

Do these terrorists who keep capturing pawn sacrifices have the same supplier as the U.S. prison system? Why do they seem to be in orange jumpsuits? Do released terrorists get to keep their jumpsuits and do they donate them to terrorist organizations?

The government has come under pressure, particularly from left-wing politicians, to withdraw its forces from Iraq. Arroyo said in April she was considering pulling out the small, largely symbolic, reconstruction force.

About 120 workers due to leave for Iraq Thursday afternoon were stopped by immigration officials from boarding their flight after Arroyo issued the order to halt new deployments.

Many were angry, saying they had quit their jobs to go to Iraq. They refused to leave Manila airport.

About 8 million Filipinos work overseas, many driven to leave because of a lack of jobs and low wages at home.

"It's better to die working there than die hungry here," said Ceric Ramel...

We're counting on it.

The kidnappers identified themselves as members of the Khaled Bin Al-Walid Squadrons, part of the Islamic Army of Iraq.

  article

Not Zarqawi? Oh my. Perhaps they donate their jumpsuits to a central clearinghouse where any terrorist organization can shop.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Pressuring Pakistan

Remember Khan?

[Colin] During his March visit to Islamabad, Powell designated Pakistan a major non-nato ally, a status that allows its military to purchase a wider array of U.S. weaponry. Powell pointedly refused to criticize Musharraf for pardoning nuclear physicist A.Q. Khan--who, the previous month, had admitted exporting nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya--declaring Khan's transgressions an "internal" Pakistani issue.

...Powell conspicuously did not commit the United States to selling F-16s to Pakistan, which it desperately wants in order to tilt the regional balance of power against India. And the Pakistanis fear that, if they don't produce an HVT, they won't get the planes. Equally, they fear that, if they don't deliver, either Bush or a prospective Kerry administration would turn its attention to the apparent role of Pakistan's security establishment in facilitating Khan's illicit proliferation network. One Pakistani general recently in Washington confided in a journalist, "If we don't find these guys by the election, they are going to stick this whole nuclear mess up our asshole."

  New Republic article

July Surprise

Sorry, Josh, I'm lifting your entire post....this one's too precious.

From TNR's new piece, 'July Surprise'...

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs [i.e., high-value al Qaida targets] before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Imagine that ...
-- Josh Marshall

Finally, an admission about the Saddam statue stunt

Now, after months of rumors, the U.S. military has confirmed that the entire stunt was conceived by the U.S. military and enacted with the help of a fast-thinking Army psychological operation (PSYOP).

  Editor and Publisher article

Gee, like we didn't already have the photographs to prove it was staged from the day it happened. (April 9, 2003, Indymedia report)

And there's plenty more where that came from. Scroll down to the bottom of my web page on propaganda for the oldest articles chronicling the lies and propaganda of the war.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Terrorist profile

According to Marc Sageman, now a Pennsylvania professor and author of a new book on terrorism, of the 400 members of terrorist networks from North Africa, the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia that he studies, 75 percent came from upper or middle-class backgrounds and most also from “caring, intact” families. Sixty percent were college educated and 75 percent could be considered professional or semi-professional. Seventy percent were married and most had children. Only half came from a religious background, and a large group raised in North Africa or France grew up in entirely secular communities, which “refutes the notion of culture, often cited as a factor encouraging terrorism.

He told a meeting here last month, says a report in the Washington Times Monday, the idea that terrorists were “inherently evil” was false. “None of these guys, really, are evil -though their acts definitely were.” Neither are they mentally ill, he said. Of those studied, he said, only one percent had hints of psychological disorders - the same as the world base rate. “Most of (them) were the elite of the country,” he added.

  Daily Times article

CIA infiltrated Congress

Because why? It's not like they pose any threat of having a real democracy or something.

Mark Kirk (Republican, 10th District – Illinois) admitted on the floor of Congress that he has been working for the Central Intelligence Agency at the same time he is serving in Congress. Lee Goodman, Kirk's Democratic opponent, called for Kirk's resignation from Congress. "The conflict of interest is blatant and appalling," said Goodman. "Congress has been struggling to investigate intelligence failures by the CIA and now it turns out Kirk is working for the CIA. No wonder Kirk voted not to investigate these failures after 9/11. He is working for the people who didn't want to be investigated. Any high-schooler who has studied the separation of powers in U.S. history class would recognize the problem."

Goodman pointed out that until this revelation, Kirk had concealed his CIA connection. "Up until now, all he said was that he was a Navy reservist who was spending some weekends at the Pentagon. Now it turns out he is working with the people who conduct covert operations.

Is there any way an agent of the CIA can be expected to function as a legitimate representative of the people in his district? The CIA is an organization that depends on secrecy. Congress is supposed to operate under public scrutiny. The two just aren't compatible."

  Lee For Me article

Get over yourself. It's riddled with illegitimacy.

I wonder how many others there are.

Mr. SIMMONS: Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my friend and distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), who is also a naval intelligence officer.

Mr. KIRK: Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Simmons amendment. Unlike some other amendments in this bill that are offered for partisan advantage, this amendment is offered by a former CIA officer with detailed knowledge of how the U.S. intelligence community works. To my knowledge, there are only three current Members of Congress who work with the CIA: our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the author of this amendment; the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons); and me, who is detailed to the CIA from navy intelligence.

...Denying the accuracy of the Congressional Record, Mark Kirk (Republican, 10th District, Illinois) said he is not working for the Central Intelligence Agency. The Congressional Record, the official verbatim transcript of everything said on the floor of the House of Representatives, shows that on June 23, 2004, Kirk said he "is" working for the Central Intelligence Agency. Kirk's Democratic opponent, Lee Goodman, pointed out that Kirk's employment by the C.I.A. while serving in Congress would be unethical and illegal. When questioned about the matter by a reporter for the Waukegan News Sun newspaper, Kirk said the Congressional Record was wrong.

  Infoshop article

What can I say?

Call the pound

The poodle got loose.

Blair on Iraqi weapons: 'We may not find them'

Blair says alliance with US causing friction

Blair: Guantanamo an Anomaly That Must End

So what do you suppose happened? Butt Plug didn't pay off? Or Tony just finally realizing he's losing his position in his own country and Butt Plug won't be in any position to help? European Union pressure?

(Don't get too excited about that Guantanamo must end thing. It seems he's just talking about the fiasco of the four British citizens being held there. Still, it's a rift with The Clown Prince.)

[T]he British leader said it was likely weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq.

"I have to accept that we have not found them, that we may not find them," Blair told the House of Commons Liaison Committee. "We do not know what has happened to them. They could have been removed, they could have been hidden, they could have been destroyed."

  CTV article

They could have been sucked into an alternate dimension when Venus passed in front of the Sun.

More on the Saudi-British terrorist trade

Six Britons convicted on terrorism charges in Saudi Arabia were released last year as part of a secret three-way deal in which the US set free a number of Saudi prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay. The deal was brokered to obtain Saudi support for the invasion of Iraq.

Diplomatic and intelligence sources have confirmed to The Independent that the Britons, convicted of a fatal car-bombing, were released last August after the US returned five Saudi prisoners, at least two of whom were believed to have trained in al-Qa'ida camps.

At the time, the release of the Saudis was opposed by the Pentagon and the CIA. But the joint releases were subsequently presented as diplomatic triumphs by both the British and Saudi governments.

  Independent article via Truthout

And TJ at POAC comments: Any question now as to whether Bush is the kind of guy who would allow terrorism to advance his agenda?

None.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The U.S. fighter pilot who bombed Canadians will appeal

The military judge sentenced Major Schmidt as heavily as he did, because he said Schmidt showed only arrogance and no remorse.

Apparently, Major Schmidt doesn't think he's got any reason to be remorseful.

Major Schmidt was not available for an interview. Mr. Gittins said his client's comments about the reprimand “could not be printed in a family newspaper.”

  Globe and Mail article

I'd say he's vice-presidential material.

An Illinois Air National Guard fighter pilot acted shamefully and arrogantly when he ignored an order to hold fire and dropped a bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers in 2002, an Air Force general has ruled.

Maj. Harry Schmidt was found guilty of dereliction of duty in the friendly fire disaster in Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, the 8th Air Force commander at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, issued a scathing reprimand of Schmidt and ordered him to forfeit two months' pay -- $5,672.

Yeah! Who the hell does that judge think he is anyway?! A reprimand and two months' pay for ignoring an order and bombing the Canadians. The nerve!

$5,672 is two months' pay for a wartime pilot? Well, good god. No wonder we don't always get the best results.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Kenny Boy indictment

Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lay, who ran the company as it grew into an energy trading giant then fell into ruins as a symbol of corporate greed, was indicted on Wednesday for his role in the company's collapse, sources said.

Sources said a federal grand jury charged Lay in a sealed indictment with undisclosed criminal charges for alleged misdeeds before the company fell into bankruptcy in December 2001.

  Reuters article

Ken Lay recently told The New York Times that he takes responsibility for what happened at Enron but that he did nothing criminally wrong.

  Money Central article

He takes responsibility like Rumsfiend takes responsibility for Abu Ghraib. What do these assholes think "taking responsibility" means? Just saying the words?

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

What they do best

Lambert at Corrente has this report from an LA Times article on more Rethug business/family values:

John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon's inspector general in conducting the investigations, sources said.

In one case, Shaw disguised himself as an employee of Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S. military, the sources said.

In that investigation, Shaw found problems with operations at the port of Umm al Qasr, Pentagon sources said. In another, he criticized a competition sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to award cellphone licenses in Iraq.

In both cases, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems by directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without competitive bidding, according to the Pentagon sources and documents. In the case of the port, the clients of a lobbyist friend won a no-bid contract for dredging.

Shaw's actions are the latest to raise concerns that senior Republican officials working in Washington and Iraq have used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and political allies.

After lying, looting is what Republicans do best!

....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The missing Taguba report pages

LA Times excerpted at Corrente:

The prospect of bombshells and damaging investigative reports coming out during the height of the political campaign or around the conventions is a concern for both the Bush administration and the Republicans who control both houses of Congress. But complicating it all is the contentious case of documents allegedly missing from an investigative report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Relations have soured between the Pentagon and senators who insist that they have been denied key documents in the investigation promised since May.

Among the missing documents, according to a Senate source, are two of 12 enclosures attached to a transcript of an interview of Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib. One of them, Enclosure 9, addresses how the unit handled reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The other, Enclosure 11, outlines at least three investigations for possible nonjudicial punishment after the alleged abuse of two girls, ages 13 and 14, taken to the prison in the middle of the night by CIA agents, the Senate source said.

However, Pentagon managers insist there are no missing documents. They said there was a perception that documents were missing because some items were not provided to the committee when they were publicly accessible — such as the Army's field manual, later provided on a computer disk at the committee's request, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

References to some annexes in the main report were simply mislabeled, making it look as if they weren't there, he added.

Child torture - Part II

The roof is gonna blow off of this one of these days. Sadly No has a transcript from a German video:

We look for additional proof of the detention of children. We find it at UNICEF, which has written this explosive report, published a few days ago [June 2004, -S,N!]:

"Children picked up in Basra and Kerbala were routinely transferred to a prison in Um Qasr." --UNICEF

The prison in Um Qasr. These images were shot in 2003. Today, it is too dangerous for reporters to drive to Um Qasr. This facility, a detention center for terrorists and criminals, would have also held children.

"This classification of children as 'prisoners' is alarming given that they are held for an undetermined period of time, without contact with their family or expectation of a trial." --UNICEF

UNICEF will not make any comments about this yet to be released report. [...] We look for additional information and contact the International Committee of the Red Cross. After several discussions, additional confirmation, including numbers:

"Over the course of 19 visits in 6 different detention facilities from January to May of this year, we counted 107 children. These facilities were under the control of coalition troops." --Florian Westphal, ICRC.

The ICRC found minors in both Qasr and Abu Ghraib. Two international organizations confirm, independently, that coalition troops have jailed Iraqi children. But information directly from the prisons remains unavailable. UNICEF was not able to visit the children's prison in Baghdad:

"UNICEF asked to visit this facility in July 2003, but access was denied." --UNICEF

No independent observers have been in this facility since December, according to UNICEF. [...]

During a visit for the press at Abu Ghraib, no children were seen. We stand by our report: Four sources confirm independently the detention of children in Iraq. Two witnesses allege abuse. [...]

--Report by Thomas Reutter.

Contacted for comments, the British Defense Ministry has said its troops have not detained minors and children. We have yet to receive an answer from the Pentagon. --Fritz Frey, Host.

American Eagle

Just came across this picture of a sculpture I saw at the North Carolina Botanic Garden in Raleigh three years ago. It's titled "American Eagle". Sorry, I didn't get the artist's name.

No again, Dickhead

The leaders of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on Tuesday disputed Vice President Dick Cheney's suggestion that he probably had access to more intelligence than the commission did about possible ties between the Qaeda terrorist network and Iraq.

In a one-sentence statement, the panel's chairman and vice chairman said that "after examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks."

  NY Times article

It has been said that those who think Cheney will be dumped from the ballot do not understand that Cheney is actually running the show. I agree that he has been puppet master, but he still isn't more powerful than the GOP apparatus itself. Unless he can arrange a state of emergency cancelling elections, which I think he can. We'll just have to wait and see about that.

I might have to wonder about this Worthless Commission rebuke, though, as the Commission was selected with the protection of the administration in mind, and they are going to do just that. If they are not protecting Cheney, then they probably decided that the GOP would be better off without him. If they were really concerned with actually winning an election, they would be thinking about dropping both the puppet master and the puppet. But that would mean possibly losing Jeb Bush's manipulating the Florida vote, and they probably can't afford that.

I put all that in the conditional, because it appears that the GOP won't have to dump either asshat. They just have to spin whatever the asshats say and do.

A spokesman for Mr. Cheney, Kevin Kellems, said on Tuesday that the White House welcomed the statement, calling it proof that the White House had fully cooperated in providing the panel all available intelligence relevant to its work.

"We are pleased with today's statement from the 9/11 commission, which puts to rest a nonstory," he said. "As we have said all along, the administration provided the commission with unprecedented access to sensitive information so they could perform their mission. The vice president criticized some press coverage of the draft staff report. He did not criticize the commission's work."

Oil Slick Dick is not a liar. The White House has cooperated fully. Always turn your best side to the camera.

Well, anything can happen between now and November.

And I imagine it will.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Child torture

Jay sends a link that is my fourth notice this morning, in four separate plots, of the issue of child abuse - the second that I'm posting for your view. Isn't the human being a wonderful creation? Created in the image of God? What a swell fucker he must be.

The Norwegian Government and individual politicians have reacted strongly to the alleged abuse of children in Iraqi prisons by American soldiers, as reported in a German TV documentary on Monday evening.

The leader of the Parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland (Labour), calls for those politically responsible in the US to step down.

-It is completely atrocious and contravening international law, if this is true, and it is difficult to understand if this should not have the consequenses that someone in the US take direct political responsibility and step down, Jagland says.

  Norway Post article

And tell me why the great Christian citizens of the United States of America haven't called for the same thing? No. I imagine they will be pointing to countries with child labor and child prostitution (oh, yeah, we have that here, too), and where girl babies are tossed, and say, "Look at them! They're godless and barbaric."

The Norwegian Government said earlier on Tuesday that they will bring up the matter with the US authorities at the earliest covenience.

Such abuse is unacceptable. It is in violation of International Law. We will take the matter up in a very sharp and direct way, said Undersecretary of State at the Prime Minister's Office, Odd J.Saeter, to public broadcaster NRK.

The Socialist Left Party (SV) has also reacted, and states that the alleged child abuse must have repercussions for the US authorities, but also for the relationship between the US and Norway.

If this turns out to be true, it must have consequenses for our relationship to a close ally in military operations. It will be very difficult to participate with an ally who is willing to carry out such a breach of International Law, says SV's Secretary General, Baard Vegar Solhjell.

No doubt that paragon of virtue, Bill O'Reilly will be wanting you to boycott Norway now. Put them on the list.

Falluja accounting - setting the record straight

One does not find the “break in tradition” of which Kaplan speaks, nor the reinvented abstract and ideological form of Islam he blames for radicalism. Instead one finds numerous centers for religious study that produce many of Iraq’s most important theologians. The vast majority of the armed fighters in Falluja were not motivated by radical Islamic beliefs, but were fighting to defend their families, homes, city and way of life from the brutal American onslaught and were motivated by nationalism and pride.

The fighters were not, as Kaplan has us believe by quoting Lieutenant Colonel Byrne, men who fought in Chechnya or Afghanistan. The vast majority of the fighters were local men who had prior military experience in the Iraqi military. A few dozen foreign fighters were also present, though most were too young to have fought anywhere else. Kaplan also fails to explain how Byrne’s orders to grow mustaches and subsequently to shave them had anything to do with cultural sensitivity. The Marines would have been more culturally sensitive had they not offended Falluja’s residents by humiliating their fierce pride through violent searches that terrified women and children and involved placing boots in the heads of men.

...Kaplan comments on the dominance of southern Christian fundamentalism among the Marines without judgment and reports that their chaplain compares their entry to Falluja with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, describing their impending destruction of much of the city as “a spiritual battle and you Marines are the tools of mercy.” Kaplan admires the Marines’ “matter-of-fact willingness to die.” Though he mistakenly insists that the defenders of Falluja were cowards who used the cover of women and children to attack the Marines, both the attackers and defenders had much more in common than he would have us believe.

Read more.

YWA articles on the systematic attacks on Falluja.

Privatizing war

Some more of the benefits....

One of the scandals that has been reported but hasn't really broken yet is the way in which Halliburton gained contracts to provide services to US troops in an emergency but has been unable actually to provide those services. The summer of 2003 was hell on the troops because they had no quonset huts or air conditioning. Their shaving cream cans were exploding in the desert. Why didn't the army just build them quonset huts? Because that task had been contracted out to civilians. And why didn't civilians do the job? Because civilians cannot be ordered into a war zone, and Halliburton and KBR often simply could not put enough civilian personnel into the field to do the jobs contracted for in a timely manner. Who suffered? The US troops. Why? Because the Bush administration gave a soldier's job to wealthy civilian corporations unequipped to handle it

  Juan Cole post

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Laurie Mylroie

You'd think that where people are writing about issues that involve life and death, war and peace in the contemporary world, it would be more important to have the books refereed. Nineteenth century history we could get wrong and survive.

The tragedy is that people will go on believing Mylroie's weirdness, and she will keep getting invited on t.v. and to speak to Congress, and AEI will not suffer a loss of credibility because of this fiasco. If an assistant professor in a university wrote such nonsense, the person would never get tenure and would end up unemployed.

I guess if you have the backing of enough incredibly rich people, you can get away with almost anything.

  Juan Cole post

Almost?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

WMD, oil, and targets

That Juan Cole is a pretty smart fella.

I would just add that the pretext of the "weapons of mass destruction" was made more manipulable by the miscategorization of chemical weapons as weapons of mass destruction. They are not. They are battlefield weapons. And, most states have them. Thus, when Iraq fell so easily, the drum beat began on Fox Cable News that Syria has "weapons of mass destruction." I fell off my chair laughing. No one could imagine a more dilapidated and ramshackle military than Syria's. And, it is so transparent, who put Fox up to this warmongering, which doesn't look nearly as funny with over 800 US troops six feet under the ground and thousands severely wounded. It was coming out of Dick Cheney's little national security team, especially David Wurmser. And it was in the service of the Likud Party, for the expansionist plans of which Syria is inconvenient.

I also would add something to the argument about petroleum resources driving the Bush-Cheney imperial project. Petroleum is fungible and cannot be "controlled." The question is who gets the profits from refining and distribution, and to what purpose the profits are put. The major new field in recent years is Te