Dispatch From Down Under
Habib labelled as al-Qaeda gun for hire
Australia's two most senior security chiefs have accused Mamdouh Habib of working as a mercenary in Pakistan before his capture by local authorities in October 2001, saying he was paid to train with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba and offered his services to al-Qaeda.
For the first time in Parliament, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, and ASIO's director-general, Dennis Richardson, yesterday spelt out in detail their case against Mr Habib, who was released last month from Guantanamo Bay without charge.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/15/1108230006300.html
Dance of Death
What is life like for a U.S. Soldier In Occupied Iraq
Lambs led to slaughter or centurions for the Empire? Soldiers and their families speak out against the war and their lost loved ones.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Legacy of Fallujah
Video Report From FallujahThis amateur video was shot on the first day of one of the biggest festivals in the Muslim year. But instead of buying new clothes for their children and visiting family and friends, the men of Falluja are digging graves. Watch it online now!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims Scientist
An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today said the CIA censored his reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed.He also accused the head of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee of wanting to to make the report “sexier.”Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian TV he quit the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=41
Thirteen Iraqi security personnel and one American soldier killed:
FIVE Iraqis were killed and nine others wounded in a string of insurgent attacks across the country, security sources said today.
Two soldiers were killed and another wounded when a bomb exploded near the restive Sunni town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, Captain Assad Amjad said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12265929-23109,00.html
Six bodies, six grieving families, more accusations against troops
Ghanem Kaghan Gatteh al-Roaimi, father of three
The al-Roaimi family lives in Basra beside the Shatt-al Arab waterway which is regularly patrolled by the British military. Ghanem, 17, had just returned home after attending a neighbourhood wedding on 2 January last year when he was allegedly shot dead at the front door.
The marriage ceremony had been accompanied by ceremonial gunfire. According to the dead man's family, a group of British soldiers disembarked from a boat. They opened fire from around 200 yards away. They claim Mr al-Roaimi was shot in the back. He was taken to the Basra teaching hospital where he was pronounced dead with a bullet through the heart. His mother Khaldiya, say family members, "lost her mind" through grief.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=611487
Blast cited by U.S. in anti-Syria move
WASHINGTON The Bush administration, condemning the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, is suggesting that Syria is to blame and moving to get a new condemnation of Syria's domination of Lebanon at the UN Security Council.U.S. and European officials also said the administration was studying the possibility of tougher sanctions on Syria, effectively tightening penalties imposed in May, when Washington said the Syrian government had failed to act against militant groups in Israel and against a supply line from Syria to the insurgents in Iraq.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/15/news/lebanon.html
'Qaeda' Says Jihadists Didn't Kill Hariri
DUBAI (Reuters) - A statement attributed to al Qaeda and posted on the Internet on Tuesday denied Islamists had killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, saying Lebanese, Syrian or Israeli intelligence were behind the attack.
The statement, signed by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organization in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by al Qaeda a day after another unknown Islamist group said it was behind the huge Beirut blast that killed Hariri.
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7630327
Iraq war was illegal, British court told
LONDON (AFP) - British opponents of the Iraq (news - web sites) war arrested for breaking into military bases were denied justice because the conflict itself was illegal, a court case with potentially far-reaching implications was told.
A group of protestors convicted of aggravated trespass should no have been found guilty because they were simply trying to prevent an illegal war, their lawyer told the High Court in London.
The case is a potentially sensitive one for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), which always insisted the March 2003 war was justified under international law but has refused to release the legal arguments behind this.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1538&ncid=732&e=5&u=/afp/20050215/wl_uk_afp/iraqbritainjustice
Shia victory is blow to US line on Iran's N-arms:
The victory by Shia clerics in Iraq's elections is likely to complicate US efforts to press Iran to dismantle its nuclear programme.
//
The United Iraqi Alliance is dominated by two political parties formerly based in Iran, and many members of the bloc still have close ties with their Shia neighbour.
One of the parties is Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), whose militia, the Badr Brigades, was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Daawa, the other Islamist party to make up the bulk of the Alliance candidate list, was also based mainly in Tehran
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bb316aaa-7e2c-11d9-ac22-00000e2511c8.html
The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping
- The case is extremely sensitive. A German citizen may have been kidnapped by American agents and illegally taken to Afghanistan. Now, German authorities are quietly investigating the case. But no one here wants it to interfere with US-German rapprochement.That all-important piece of evidence is pitch black and about 20 centimeters long. It's a single strand of hair from the head of Khaled el-Masri, 41, and spent most of its life heavily oiled and slicked back. Now, the hair has become a global player; current German-American relations largely hinge on it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8066.htm
U.S. Missile Defense System Flunks Test
WASHINGTON - A test of the national missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile did not launch from its island base in the Pacific Ocean, the military said. It was the second failure in months for the experimental program.
A statement from the Missile Defense Agency said the cause of the failure was under investigation.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050214/ap_on_go_ot/missile
Court: Reporters Must Testify in CIA Leak Case:
- A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that two journalists must testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources in an investigation into a leak that exposed the identity of a covert CIA officer.
The three-judge panel ruled that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine must comply with a subpoena from a grand jury investigating whether the Bush administration illegally leaked the agent's name to the news media.
"There is no First Amendment privilege protecting the evidence sought," Judge David Sentelle wrote in the opinion that went against the two journalists. The decision upheld a ruling by a federal judge that Miller and Cooper were in contempt of court and should be jailed for refusing to testify about their confidential sources.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=501100
Cheney Daughter Also Rises -- at State Department
Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, will become the second-ranking U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, the State Department said on Monday.
Cheney, who previously worked in the department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and left to work on her father's 2004 re-election campaign, will become the bureau's principal deputy assistant secretary of state.
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7634058
New Aids nightmare shocks US
A strain of HIV that is highly resistant to almost all anti-retroviral drugs and which leads to the rapid onset of Aids has been detected in New York. Doctors and hospitals across the city have been placed on alert and told to test all new HIV cases for evidence of the strain.
The development has alarmed city health officials and was described as 'a scary phenomenon' by US Aids expert David Ho. In addition, Robin Weiss, professor of viral oncology at University College, London, described the case as 'worrying'.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1411916,00.html
White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs
Gulf War pilots tortured by Iraqis fight the Bush administration in trying to collect compensation.
- The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention.
Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States.
But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says.
"It seems so strange to have our own country fighting us on this," said retired Air Force Col. David W. Eberly, the senior officer among the former POWs.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021505F.shtml
Hannity claimed "absence of evidence" that Kerry "was in combat in Vietnam"
FOX News and radio host Sean Hannity made the obviously false claim on his February 11 radio program that "there is an absence of evidence" that Senator John Kerry "was in combat in Vietnam." Echoing a syndicated column by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, Hannity compared Kerry's record in Vietnam to that of Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who compared some victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks to Nazis: "[T]here is an absence of evidence, just like John Kerry, that he [Churchill] ever was in combat in Vietnam."
In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, Kerry's Silver Star citation noted that he was awarded the medal for "extraordinary daring and personal courage ... in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire." And according to Kerry's Bronze Star citation: "Kerry's calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."
Not even the discredited Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth), which made numerous baseless allegations in an effort to discredit Kerry's military record, went so far as to question whether Kerry "ever was in combat in Vietnam." Despite right-wing efforts -- promoted in part by Hannity -- to smear Kerry's record of service, the Navy investigator general confirmed that all of "Senator Kerry's awards were properly approved."
On the February 11 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity referenced Coulter's February 11 syndicated column, in which she claimed: "Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record -- just like John Kerry! ... In addition to an absence of evidence about [Churchill's] Indian heritage, there is an absence of evidence that he was in combat in Vietnam." From Hannity's radio show:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502150010
Is Bush Press Aide Gay?
(Washington) An online investigative journalism site Monday suggested that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is gay and was a regular at gay bars in Texas.
Quoting an unnamed source, The RawStory.com reported that McClellan visited an Austin, Texas gay bar on March 19, 1995. The date was fixed in the mind of the source because a local memorial service was held the same day that McClellan attended.
RawStory, which has outed other anti-gay Republicans, said its source "reserved comment on whether McClellan was actually gay, but said he was frequently seen at gay clubs." It says that another source confirmed McClellan was a regular at gay clubs.
McClellan is an Austin native.
“He was often seen in gay clubs in Austin, Texas and was comfortable being there,” the source told RawStory. “He’s been seen in places that normal people who are looking for heterosexual relationships are not seen alone.”
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/02/021405whAide.htm
A Corrupted Election
Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right
Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since.
Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970
U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses
Four men say they witnessed shooting of unarmed civilians
There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6947745//
Shelters, soup kitchens turning people away, study finds
WASHINGTON -- Many homeless shelters and soup kitchens faced with more requests for emergency services are turning people away because they lack the beds, food and money to meet the demand, says a survey from an advocacy group for low-income Americans.
The report being released today by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness found a 28 percent rise last year in emergency food assistance requests, and a 27 percent increase in requests for emergency shelter.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5241589.html
British troops face new charges as bodies of Iraqi civilians are exhumed
Charges against British troops are believed to be imminent following fresh allegations of crimes committed in Iraq, including cases relating to the deaths of civilians.
Army investigators have exhumed the bodies of civilians who were allegedly shot dead by soldiers in the British-controlled region of southern Iraq for investigators to perform forensic tests. Their reports are in the final legal stages with the Army Prosecuting Authority.
The Independent has uncovered evidence relating to the deaths of six Iraqi civilians whose families claim they were killed by British troops.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=611496
Scandal in the White House Press Corps;
Gannongate Gains Steam
The White House Press Corps is an experienced group of journalists from major news outlets that have undergone rigorous FBI background checks in order to be allowed within 10 feet or less of the President of the United States. It's an honor to be given credentials from the Congressional Press Office, and it's not easy to get those day passes that let you into the White House Briefing Room to grill Scott McClellan about who we're invading next. So, given that background and that we are still targets of al-Qaeda (remember them?) and are fighting a war in Iraq, you'd think that security would be pretty tight in the press room at the White House, right? Well, you'd be dead wrong. A guy with no journalism background, with a fake name and a fake press badge, who runs a gay escort service for gay military men, and who trolls for gay encounters on the Internet was vetted by the White House and inserted into the press corps to ask softball questions of President Bush and/or Scott McClellan whenever the questioning got too hard. He also regularly posted White House memos verbatim on Talon News site and reported them as news, and received a copy of the infamous Valerie Plame memo, which outed her as a CIA operative (that meant a direct call from someone in the West Wing). He also wrote numerous anti-gay articles which were posted on Talon News, which have since been removed from the site
http://www.writenews.com/cgi-bin/mediacynic.pl?cynic=44214051
. Unknown aircraft fires missile
AN unknown aircraft fired a missile today in a deserted area near Iran's southern port city of Dailam in Bushehr province, where the country has a nuclear power plant, Iranian state television said."A powerful explosion was heard this morning on the outskirts of Dailam in the Bushehr province. Witnesses said that the missile was fired from an unknown plane 20km from the city," Iran's Arabic language Al-Alam said.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12276274^1702,00.html
Gunmen kill oil official
GUNMEN killed an army colonel in charge of security at oil pipelines at a northern town west of the oil city of Kirkuk today, police said.Police said Colonel Ibrahim Ahmed was killed in his car in the town of Ajeel west of Kirkuk.
The attack came as an explosion hit an oil pipeline east of the refinery city of Baiji today, causing a large blaze and sending thick clouds of black smoke over the city, officials and witnesses said.
The pipeline hit was not thought to be Iraq's main northern export pipeline, but rather an internal line running to the Baiji refinery from the oil fields at Kirkuk, about 80km to the north-east.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12273827^1702,00.html
PICTURES: Victims of the Anglo-American Aggression
"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words"
Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo- American Aggression in Iraq
Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small children and those who have weak hearts. These photos are only of a very tiny fraction of the thousands of Iraqi Civilian Victims who have been terrorised, humiliated, injured, maimed and killed through British and American bombing of civilian areas in various cities of Iraq. Due to insecurity, independent reporters could not and still can not reach many areas to photograph and report the atrocities. Several independent reporters and journalists were deliberately bombed to prevent them reporting the atrocities.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm
A Different Kind Of 'Route Irish'
In 2004 more than 158,000 US Troops flew through Shannon Airport, most on their way to Iraq. During much of that same period of time approximately 5,500 US Troops have deserted, gone into hiding, sent to jail and some have escaped to Canada.
What if the funnel to Iraq, called Shannon Airport, were to be transformed into a sanctuary for US Troops resisting the Iraq War by requesting asylum in Ireland?
The refueling of USAF military planes has taken place in Shannon for over 30 years but has caused renewed contraversy when in 2001 Ireland's Government waived persmission to the USAF to refuel at Shannon Airport in 2001 for Bush's aggresive 'war on terror'. Protest in the courts and at Shannon Airport enusued but still today USAF planes share runways with commerical airlines and some of the 1,000 soldiers a day mingle in the airport terminal with international passengers using the Shannon stopover. Report.http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
Group: US killed detainees
A US human rights group has alleged that at least 37 detainees died of torture in US detention centres at Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.asia-stat.com/
The Lot Of Us
The White House's acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times.
This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of WMD and the war in Iraq played a central role. In the lead-up to the invasion, and throughout its aftermath, President Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a threat to the US and the world. The failure to find WMD should have been his Achilles heel, but the Democratic contender, John Kerry, floundered, changing his position on WMD and Iraq many times.
Ironically, it was Kerry who forced the Bush administration to acknowledge that it was WMD that solely justified any military action against Iraq. Before the US Senate in 2002, secretary of state Colin Powell responded to a question posed by Kerry about what would happen if Iraq allowed UN weapons inspectors to return and they found the country had in fact disarmed.
"If Iraq was disarmed as a result of an inspection regime that gave us and the security council confidence that it had been disarmed, I think it unlikely that we would find a casus belli."
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=7150§ionID=15
Iraq, Afghan wars exceed $300 billion
Cost per soldier in today's wars baloons; $4.3 billion a month in Iraq alone.
http://www.rawstory.com/
Australia's two most senior security chiefs have accused Mamdouh Habib of working as a mercenary in Pakistan before his capture by local authorities in October 2001, saying he was paid to train with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba and offered his services to al-Qaeda.
For the first time in Parliament, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, and ASIO's director-general, Dennis Richardson, yesterday spelt out in detail their case against Mr Habib, who was released last month from Guantanamo Bay without charge.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/15/1108230006300.html
Dance of Death
What is life like for a U.S. Soldier In Occupied Iraq
Lambs led to slaughter or centurions for the Empire? Soldiers and their families speak out against the war and their lost loved ones.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Legacy of Fallujah
Video Report From FallujahThis amateur video was shot on the first day of one of the biggest festivals in the Muslim year. But instead of buying new clothes for their children and visiting family and friends, the men of Falluja are digging graves. Watch it online now!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Britain Wanted A 'Sexier' Iraqi Weapons Report Claims Scientist
An Australian scientist involved in the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today said the CIA censored his reporting so that it suggested the weapons existed.He also accused the head of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee of wanting to to make the report “sexier.”Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, told Australian TV he quit the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) in disgust at the censorship of its interim report presented to the US Congress in March last year.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=41
Thirteen Iraqi security personnel and one American soldier killed:
FIVE Iraqis were killed and nine others wounded in a string of insurgent attacks across the country, security sources said today.
Two soldiers were killed and another wounded when a bomb exploded near the restive Sunni town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, Captain Assad Amjad said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12265929-23109,00.html
Six bodies, six grieving families, more accusations against troops
Ghanem Kaghan Gatteh al-Roaimi, father of three
The al-Roaimi family lives in Basra beside the Shatt-al Arab waterway which is regularly patrolled by the British military. Ghanem, 17, had just returned home after attending a neighbourhood wedding on 2 January last year when he was allegedly shot dead at the front door.
The marriage ceremony had been accompanied by ceremonial gunfire. According to the dead man's family, a group of British soldiers disembarked from a boat. They opened fire from around 200 yards away. They claim Mr al-Roaimi was shot in the back. He was taken to the Basra teaching hospital where he was pronounced dead with a bullet through the heart. His mother Khaldiya, say family members, "lost her mind" through grief.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=611487
Blast cited by U.S. in anti-Syria move
WASHINGTON The Bush administration, condemning the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, is suggesting that Syria is to blame and moving to get a new condemnation of Syria's domination of Lebanon at the UN Security Council.U.S. and European officials also said the administration was studying the possibility of tougher sanctions on Syria, effectively tightening penalties imposed in May, when Washington said the Syrian government had failed to act against militant groups in Israel and against a supply line from Syria to the insurgents in Iraq.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/15/news/lebanon.html
'Qaeda' Says Jihadists Didn't Kill Hariri
DUBAI (Reuters) - A statement attributed to al Qaeda and posted on the Internet on Tuesday denied Islamists had killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, saying Lebanese, Syrian or Israeli intelligence were behind the attack.
The statement, signed by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organization in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by al Qaeda a day after another unknown Islamist group said it was behind the huge Beirut blast that killed Hariri.
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7630327
Iraq war was illegal, British court told
LONDON (AFP) - British opponents of the Iraq (news - web sites) war arrested for breaking into military bases were denied justice because the conflict itself was illegal, a court case with potentially far-reaching implications was told.
A group of protestors convicted of aggravated trespass should no have been found guilty because they were simply trying to prevent an illegal war, their lawyer told the High Court in London.
The case is a potentially sensitive one for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), which always insisted the March 2003 war was justified under international law but has refused to release the legal arguments behind this.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1538&ncid=732&e=5&u=/afp/20050215/wl_uk_afp/iraqbritainjustice
Shia victory is blow to US line on Iran's N-arms:
The victory by Shia clerics in Iraq's elections is likely to complicate US efforts to press Iran to dismantle its nuclear programme.
//
The United Iraqi Alliance is dominated by two political parties formerly based in Iran, and many members of the bloc still have close ties with their Shia neighbour.
One of the parties is Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), whose militia, the Badr Brigades, was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Daawa, the other Islamist party to make up the bulk of the Alliance candidate list, was also based mainly in Tehran
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bb316aaa-7e2c-11d9-ac22-00000e2511c8.html
The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping
- The case is extremely sensitive. A German citizen may have been kidnapped by American agents and illegally taken to Afghanistan. Now, German authorities are quietly investigating the case. But no one here wants it to interfere with US-German rapprochement.That all-important piece of evidence is pitch black and about 20 centimeters long. It's a single strand of hair from the head of Khaled el-Masri, 41, and spent most of its life heavily oiled and slicked back. Now, the hair has become a global player; current German-American relations largely hinge on it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8066.htm
U.S. Missile Defense System Flunks Test
WASHINGTON - A test of the national missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile did not launch from its island base in the Pacific Ocean, the military said. It was the second failure in months for the experimental program.
A statement from the Missile Defense Agency said the cause of the failure was under investigation.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050214/ap_on_go_ot/missile
Court: Reporters Must Testify in CIA Leak Case:
- A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that two journalists must testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources in an investigation into a leak that exposed the identity of a covert CIA officer.
The three-judge panel ruled that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine must comply with a subpoena from a grand jury investigating whether the Bush administration illegally leaked the agent's name to the news media.
"There is no First Amendment privilege protecting the evidence sought," Judge David Sentelle wrote in the opinion that went against the two journalists. The decision upheld a ruling by a federal judge that Miller and Cooper were in contempt of court and should be jailed for refusing to testify about their confidential sources.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=501100
Cheney Daughter Also Rises -- at State Department
Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, will become the second-ranking U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, the State Department said on Monday.
Cheney, who previously worked in the department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and left to work on her father's 2004 re-election campaign, will become the bureau's principal deputy assistant secretary of state.
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7634058
New Aids nightmare shocks US
A strain of HIV that is highly resistant to almost all anti-retroviral drugs and which leads to the rapid onset of Aids has been detected in New York. Doctors and hospitals across the city have been placed on alert and told to test all new HIV cases for evidence of the strain.
The development has alarmed city health officials and was described as 'a scary phenomenon' by US Aids expert David Ho. In addition, Robin Weiss, professor of viral oncology at University College, London, described the case as 'worrying'.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1411916,00.html
White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs
Gulf War pilots tortured by Iraqis fight the Bush administration in trying to collect compensation.
- The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention.
Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States.
But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says.
"It seems so strange to have our own country fighting us on this," said retired Air Force Col. David W. Eberly, the senior officer among the former POWs.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021505F.shtml
Hannity claimed "absence of evidence" that Kerry "was in combat in Vietnam"
FOX News and radio host Sean Hannity made the obviously false claim on his February 11 radio program that "there is an absence of evidence" that Senator John Kerry "was in combat in Vietnam." Echoing a syndicated column by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, Hannity compared Kerry's record in Vietnam to that of Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who compared some victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks to Nazis: "[T]here is an absence of evidence, just like John Kerry, that he [Churchill] ever was in combat in Vietnam."
In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, Kerry's Silver Star citation noted that he was awarded the medal for "extraordinary daring and personal courage ... in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire." And according to Kerry's Bronze Star citation: "Kerry's calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."
Not even the discredited Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth), which made numerous baseless allegations in an effort to discredit Kerry's military record, went so far as to question whether Kerry "ever was in combat in Vietnam." Despite right-wing efforts -- promoted in part by Hannity -- to smear Kerry's record of service, the Navy investigator general confirmed that all of "Senator Kerry's awards were properly approved."
On the February 11 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity referenced Coulter's February 11 syndicated column, in which she claimed: "Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record -- just like John Kerry! ... In addition to an absence of evidence about [Churchill's] Indian heritage, there is an absence of evidence that he was in combat in Vietnam." From Hannity's radio show:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502150010
Is Bush Press Aide Gay?
(Washington) An online investigative journalism site Monday suggested that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is gay and was a regular at gay bars in Texas.
Quoting an unnamed source, The RawStory.com reported that McClellan visited an Austin, Texas gay bar on March 19, 1995. The date was fixed in the mind of the source because a local memorial service was held the same day that McClellan attended.
RawStory, which has outed other anti-gay Republicans, said its source "reserved comment on whether McClellan was actually gay, but said he was frequently seen at gay clubs." It says that another source confirmed McClellan was a regular at gay clubs.
McClellan is an Austin native.
“He was often seen in gay clubs in Austin, Texas and was comfortable being there,” the source told RawStory. “He’s been seen in places that normal people who are looking for heterosexual relationships are not seen alone.”
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/02/021405whAide.htm
A Corrupted Election
Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right
Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since.
Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970
U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses
Four men say they witnessed shooting of unarmed civilians
There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6947745//
Shelters, soup kitchens turning people away, study finds
WASHINGTON -- Many homeless shelters and soup kitchens faced with more requests for emergency services are turning people away because they lack the beds, food and money to meet the demand, says a survey from an advocacy group for low-income Americans.
The report being released today by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness found a 28 percent rise last year in emergency food assistance requests, and a 27 percent increase in requests for emergency shelter.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5241589.html
British troops face new charges as bodies of Iraqi civilians are exhumed
Charges against British troops are believed to be imminent following fresh allegations of crimes committed in Iraq, including cases relating to the deaths of civilians.
Army investigators have exhumed the bodies of civilians who were allegedly shot dead by soldiers in the British-controlled region of southern Iraq for investigators to perform forensic tests. Their reports are in the final legal stages with the Army Prosecuting Authority.
The Independent has uncovered evidence relating to the deaths of six Iraqi civilians whose families claim they were killed by British troops.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=611496
Scandal in the White House Press Corps;
Gannongate Gains Steam
The White House Press Corps is an experienced group of journalists from major news outlets that have undergone rigorous FBI background checks in order to be allowed within 10 feet or less of the President of the United States. It's an honor to be given credentials from the Congressional Press Office, and it's not easy to get those day passes that let you into the White House Briefing Room to grill Scott McClellan about who we're invading next. So, given that background and that we are still targets of al-Qaeda (remember them?) and are fighting a war in Iraq, you'd think that security would be pretty tight in the press room at the White House, right? Well, you'd be dead wrong. A guy with no journalism background, with a fake name and a fake press badge, who runs a gay escort service for gay military men, and who trolls for gay encounters on the Internet was vetted by the White House and inserted into the press corps to ask softball questions of President Bush and/or Scott McClellan whenever the questioning got too hard. He also regularly posted White House memos verbatim on Talon News site and reported them as news, and received a copy of the infamous Valerie Plame memo, which outed her as a CIA operative (that meant a direct call from someone in the West Wing). He also wrote numerous anti-gay articles which were posted on Talon News, which have since been removed from the site
http://www.writenews.com/cgi-bin/mediacynic.pl?cynic=44214051
. Unknown aircraft fires missile
AN unknown aircraft fired a missile today in a deserted area near Iran's southern port city of Dailam in Bushehr province, where the country has a nuclear power plant, Iranian state television said."A powerful explosion was heard this morning on the outskirts of Dailam in the Bushehr province. Witnesses said that the missile was fired from an unknown plane 20km from the city," Iran's Arabic language Al-Alam said.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12276274^1702,00.html
Gunmen kill oil official
GUNMEN killed an army colonel in charge of security at oil pipelines at a northern town west of the oil city of Kirkuk today, police said.Police said Colonel Ibrahim Ahmed was killed in his car in the town of Ajeel west of Kirkuk.
The attack came as an explosion hit an oil pipeline east of the refinery city of Baiji today, causing a large blaze and sending thick clouds of black smoke over the city, officials and witnesses said.
The pipeline hit was not thought to be Iraq's main northern export pipeline, but rather an internal line running to the Baiji refinery from the oil fields at Kirkuk, about 80km to the north-east.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12273827^1702,00.html
PICTURES: Victims of the Anglo-American Aggression
"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words"
Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo- American Aggression in Iraq
Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small children and those who have weak hearts. These photos are only of a very tiny fraction of the thousands of Iraqi Civilian Victims who have been terrorised, humiliated, injured, maimed and killed through British and American bombing of civilian areas in various cities of Iraq. Due to insecurity, independent reporters could not and still can not reach many areas to photograph and report the atrocities. Several independent reporters and journalists were deliberately bombed to prevent them reporting the atrocities.
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm
A Different Kind Of 'Route Irish'
In 2004 more than 158,000 US Troops flew through Shannon Airport, most on their way to Iraq. During much of that same period of time approximately 5,500 US Troops have deserted, gone into hiding, sent to jail and some have escaped to Canada.
What if the funnel to Iraq, called Shannon Airport, were to be transformed into a sanctuary for US Troops resisting the Iraq War by requesting asylum in Ireland?
The refueling of USAF military planes has taken place in Shannon for over 30 years but has caused renewed contraversy when in 2001 Ireland's Government waived persmission to the USAF to refuel at Shannon Airport in 2001 for Bush's aggresive 'war on terror'. Protest in the courts and at Shannon Airport enusued but still today USAF planes share runways with commerical airlines and some of the 1,000 soldiers a day mingle in the airport terminal with international passengers using the Shannon stopover. Report.http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
Group: US killed detainees
A US human rights group has alleged that at least 37 detainees died of torture in US detention centres at Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.asia-stat.com/
The Lot Of Us
The White House's acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times.
This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of WMD and the war in Iraq played a central role. In the lead-up to the invasion, and throughout its aftermath, President Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a threat to the US and the world. The failure to find WMD should have been his Achilles heel, but the Democratic contender, John Kerry, floundered, changing his position on WMD and Iraq many times.
Ironically, it was Kerry who forced the Bush administration to acknowledge that it was WMD that solely justified any military action against Iraq. Before the US Senate in 2002, secretary of state Colin Powell responded to a question posed by Kerry about what would happen if Iraq allowed UN weapons inspectors to return and they found the country had in fact disarmed.
"If Iraq was disarmed as a result of an inspection regime that gave us and the security council confidence that it had been disarmed, I think it unlikely that we would find a casus belli."
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=7150§ionID=15
Iraq, Afghan wars exceed $300 billion
Cost per soldier in today's wars baloons; $4.3 billion a month in Iraq alone.
http://www.rawstory.com/
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 10:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home