"Just as there isn't one Iraqi people, there isn't one Iraqi army," Great georgie. Just great.

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August 28, 2005
Big Guns For Iraq?

Not So Fast.


By CRAIG S. SMITH

EVEN though President Bush keeps saying American forces won't leave Iraq until its forces can fight on their own, the United States isn't rushing to give the Iraqi military heavy weapons.

There is an official explanation for that - that such things take time.

But there is also another reason to go slow, one that illustrates how tightly American military success is intertwined with the political prospects of Iraq itself. This reason is little discussed in public by military officers, but it was evident last week on the explosion-scarred streets of Baghdad, in the skirmishes between rival Shiite forces in Najaf, and in the confusion of Iraq's struggle to complete a new constitution.

Simply put, Iraq remains too fragile for any planner to know what shape the country will be in six months or a year from now - whether it will reach compromises and hold together or split apart in a civil war.

And that presents a conundrum for American military planners. With those questions up in the air, they have to fear that any heavy arms distributed now could end up aimed at American forces or feeding a growing civil conflict. And the longer Iraq's army has to wait for sophisticated weapons, the longer American forces are likely to be needed in Iraq as a bulwark against chaos.

In public, the commanders cite many reasons for the slow pace of equipping the Iraqis: the supply chain is long, Iraq's soldiers are barely trained and largely untested, and the rebels they face are better fought with rifles than tanks.

In private, some officers acknowledge other concerns, too. "We're worried about civil war or a coup," said a senior American officer in Baghdad charged with outfitting Iraq's new army. He would not agree to be identified because the concerns he was discussing are so sensitive.

Indeed, Iraqi commanders are growing restive, saying their troops are dying at three times the rate of American soldiers because they lack basic equipment.

"Soldiers with Kalashnikovs and pickup trucks is not an army," said Gen. Abdulqader Mohammed Jassim, commander of the Iraqi ground forces, during a recent interview at his office in Baghdad. "To make the Iraqi Army stand on its own without American or coalition forces, we need command and control equipment, transport vehicles and training." He wants helicopters and artillery, more powerful guns and bigger tanks - weapons the Americans say he doesn't need now.

At the same time, the Americans are building at least four semi-permanent military bases that could hold 18,000 troops each. These are usually described as way stations on the eventual route home for the Americans, places where they will stay while ever-more-capable Iraqi troops engage the insurgents on their own. But that will clearly take time. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top military commander in Iraq, when asked this month about how the bases would be used, dismissed the question: "You're talking years away." And if Iraq's politics remain unstable, the bases could offer a continuing rationale for not providing heavier weaponry, since the Americans would still be close by for the Iraqis to rely on.

"We're trying to build an army to fight the current fight," one American officer said when asked about the Iraqi complaints. "It's too early to start talking about M1A1 tanks, and they don't need helicopters when they have American military support." The officer couldn't be identified by name under military rules that restrict attribution without clearance from higher up the chain of command.

These days, with the possibility of civil war in the air, the Americans emphasize diversity when organizing Iraqi units. Still, the officer corps draws heavily from Sunnis, troops in the south are largely Shiites and troops in the north are largely Kurds.

"Just as there isn't one Iraqi people, there isn't one Iraqi army," said Peter Galbraith, a former United States ambassador to Croatia who is now in Iraq and has worked closely with the Kurds. "We won't be arming a national army, but armies that are loyal to three different groups."

The current draft constitution would also let each region maintain its own guard force, making the Kurdish pesh merga the military force in the north and the Shiite Badr Corps the likely force in the south. "But the Badr Corps is very heavily influenced by Iran," Mr. Galbraith noted. "Are we going to be in the business of arming them?"

"There might be a certain logic to postponing much of this arming until you've resolved the issues that might in fact trigger a civil war," he said. "The other peril," he added, "is that we may be arming people that may be at best only temporarily our friends."

American officers say that isn't what worries them now. They say they try to balance "speed and need" in equipping the Iraqis, and in some cases they blame logistics for slow delivery. For example, they are trying to get the Iraqi infantry armored personnel carriers and armored Humvees to replace unarmored Ashkok Leyland flatbed trucks and Nissan pickup trucks. But the first 100 of 2,073 Humvees ordered aren't expected until November, and orders for the rest are competing with urgent demands from the United States Army and the Marines.

The American military also notes that it takes time to train mechanics and gunners and drivers to use new vehicles, communications equipment and weapons.

"The pace is as rapid as we can handle right now," the senior officer said.

Meanwhile, the American military and Iraq's Ministry of Defense have been scouring former Soviet bloc countries for equipment that can arrive faster. Pakistan is supplying six Vietnam War-era M113 armored personnel carriers and 20 armored jeeps, and the American military hopes to deliver 468 wheeled armor vehicles late next year. Iraq's Defense ministry has ordered 600 Polish Dzik-3 armored personnel carriers and 115 BTR-80 mechanized combat vehicles for a total of $150 million. And Hungary has donated 77 Soviet-era T-72 tanks.

General Jassem wants more. The AK-47 assault rifles his troops use, he notes, cannot be fitted with laser aiming devices and night-vision sights. "The Russians stopped using this weapon in the 1980's," he said. He wants the more modern and powerful American M4 or Russian AK-105.

He also complained that the United States wants to supply his troops with RPG-7's, the Soviet-era rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "Why are they always giving us the oldest models?" he asked, saying he likes the more modern, larger caliber RPG-29, which penetrates armor better.

But such weapons could raise a threat against the United States if they fell into the wrong hands, a concern that General Jassem acknowledges. "They are thinking they will only give new weapons to the Army when everything has calmed down," he said.

American officers insist that the old Soviet equipment is easier to maintain, that Iraqi troops are familiar with it and that a huge amount of ammunition for it is stockpiled in Iraq. "The RPG-7 is more versatile than other antitank weapons, which really only have one use - destroying armor," the senior American officer said. The insurgents, he noted, have no armor.

"We don't want it to become overly complicated," the American officer said, adding that the day will come when a stable and secure Iraq needs a fully equipped military, but that day is still years away.

General Jassem isn't mollified.

"We want helicopters," he said. "We need them because we don't know what the war is going to look like."


--What a clusterfuck.--

Ohhh, REALLY..?

BREAKING: “Independent”

Ethicist Defending

Roberts Actually A

Pentagon Consultant

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In April, Judge John Roberts “heard arguments about the Bush administration’s policy [on military commissions in Guantanamo] as he was discussing a Supreme Court appointment in private conversations with the White House.” On July 15, “when Judge Roberts met with President Bush for the job-clinching interview, he joined a ruling in favor of the defendants, who included Mr. Bush.”

In an article that has recieved considerable attention by the media, Stephen Gillers, David J. Luban, and Steven Lubet – three respected legal ethicists – argue that Roberts conduct was unethical. They noted “[f]ederal law deems public trust in the courts so critical that it requires judges to step aside if their ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’ even if the judge is completely impartial as a matter of fact.”

To rebut their claims the papers are quick to turn to another legal scholar, Professor Ronald Rotunda who argues that Roberts did nothing wrong. Here’s what they don’t tell you: until very recently Ronald Rotunda was employed as a military advisor to the Department of Defense on military commissions – the exact subject of the case in controversy.

You can find the information on his public website.

But when the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsday and Fox News reported on Rotunda’s views, they didn’t bother to mention this obvious conflict. (The Wall Street Journal, to their credit, gave it a brief mention this morning.)

Also, when Ronald Rotunda wrote a letter describing his views on Roberts’s conduct to Senator Arlen Specter, he didn’t disclose his connection to the Department of Defense.

It is completely irresponsible for the media to refer to Rotunda as a neutral “legal scholar” in this circumstance. He is as conflicted as Roberts and is in no position to be passing judgment.

Charges Dropped Against 'Raging Grannies'

Judith Miller: Embedded Over Her Head

Judith Miller: Embedded Over Her Head
column left posted August 24, 2005 (web only)


Tim Robbins, in tackling the pretenses of patriotism, has risen to a challenge that mainstream journalism has largely failed to meet. Robbins' provocative play about the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq war and the obsequiousness of an embedded press made its TV debut Sunday on the Sundance Channel.

*Embedded/Live* nails the media's craven complicity in amplifying the drums of war. As the Los Angeles Times noted in its review of the filmed version of the play (which premiered here in 2003), when a chorus invokes the name of Robert Novak, the audience's "laughter is followed by uneasy recognition. We might wish this were old news, but it's still there staring us in the face every day."

Indeed it is, for columnist Novak was the first to "out" Valerie Plame -- wife of whistle-blower Joe Wilson, a former ambassador--as a CIA agent. The case landed New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail, turning her into a *cause celebre* for her refusal to testify before a grand jury about her contact with sources in the Plame case. "If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press," said Miller, dramatically equating the protection of secret sources with the survival of a free press.


But what her avowedly principled defense of journalistic sources may turn out to be is a window into the practice of official corruption of journalistic integrity in times of war, which is what Embedded/Live so effectively highlights.
Unfortunately, rather than a story about a martyr to the cause of journalistic ethics and a free press, this is about a reporter embedded over her head. It is a depressing example of how far Big Media has moved away from the journalistic ideal of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable."

Sure, the idea of protecting sources is a good one, in that reporters should keep their word and, by doing so, maintain their ability to secure information in the future. But ultimately the journalist is not morally or professionally beholden to sources but rather to the public. The salient fact of this ugly episode is that the White House was trying to use cultivated journalists, secret sourcing and classified information in an attempt to smear a legitimate whistle-blower who was challenging its rationale for leading the nation into war.

Wilson's information was clearly important to the public debate, as evidenced by the CIA's admission that he was right to be angry that phony reports of Iraq attempting to purchase enriched uranium had made it into President Bush's State of the Union speech. Yet Miller and her defenders can't or won't understand that a free press in a democracy depends on the protection of honest witnesses and not on the coddling of those who use the power of government to smear critics.

Miller is still in jail, refusing to talk, even though one of her purported sources, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, supposedly has signed a general waiver freeing journalists to speak to the grand jury about their conversations with him. But the biggest problem with Miller is that her commitment to a biased and manipulative Bush Administration and Iraqi exile sources clearly has been stronger than her commitment to reporting the truth.

Here are some of the front-page headlines for "scoops" Miller landed before and after the invasion that have since been discredited: "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts"; "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert"; "U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs To Germ Arms"; "Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites for Chemical and Nuclear Arms"

To be sure, Miller didn't make anything up, she just relayed whatever her anonymous sources told her--nearly all of which turned out to be garbage. In this way, Miller and other reporters like her can pretend to follow the letter of journalistic protocol while flouting its spirit and purpose. What she should have done was challenge her sources and then stop protecting them when she found out their information was false.

All of which was conceded by the New York Times in a too-little, too-late mea culpa about the reporting of Miller and others that appeared on page A-10 in May of last year. "[W]e have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been ... information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged," wrote the Times. "Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of [Iraqi] exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq."
Unanswered was how this embarrassment came to pass. Miller is surely not stupid, so how was she duped so regularly for so long?

Raw ambition is one likely culprit, yet Miller's protection of her secret sources begs the question of whether she is ideologically loyal to the neocons who guided her for so long.

The bottom line is that every aspect of practicing journalism involves a complex maze of ethical decisions. And, despite being one of the most powerful journalists in the nation, Miller horribly lost her journalistic way when it mattered to our democracy most. Too bad she couldn't see Embedded/Live before she set out to report.

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Charter Talks in Iraq Reach Breaking Point

By DEXTER FILKINS and JAMES GLANZ
Published: August 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 25 - Talks over the Iraqi constitution reached a breaking point on Thursday, with a parliamentary session to present the document being canceled and President Bush personally calling one of the country's most powerful Shiite leaders in an effort to broker a last-minute deal.

Mr. Bush intervened when some senior Shiite leaders said they had decided to bypass their Sunni counterparts, as well as Iraqi lawmakers, and send the document directly to Iraqi voters for their approval.

The calls by Shiite leaders to ignore the Sunnis' request for changes to the draft constitution provoked threats from the Sunnis that they would urge their people to reject the document when it goes before voters in a national referendum in October.

At day's end, American officials in Washington declared that the Iraqis had made "substantial and real progress" toward a deal on the constitution. And senior Iraqi leaders said they would make a last-ditch effort on Friday to strike a deal.

But after so many days of fruitless negotiations, some senior political leaders here suggested that time had run out.

"There are still some negotiations, but if we don't have any compromise, then that's it," said Sheik Khalid al-Atiyya, a Shiite negotiator. "We will go to the election to vote on it."

A decision by the Shiites to move ahead without the Sunnis would be a considerable blow to efforts by the Bush administration to bring the leaders of the Sunni minority into the negotiations over the constitution.

Mr. Bush and American officials here have expressed hope that bringing the Sunnis into the drafting of the constitution could help coax them into the political mainstream, and ultimately begin to undercut support for the guerrilla insurgency. The Sunnis largely boycotted the parliamentary elections in January.

In recent weeks, Sunni leaders across north and central Iraq have begun telling their communities to register for and vote in the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution and in the parliamentary elections scheduled for December. That trend could be endangered if Sunni leaders are not part of a deal on the constitution.

Indeed, the events of Thursday raised the prospect that the Sunnis would try to reject the constitution when it goes before the voters. Under the rules agreed to last year, a two-thirds majority voting against the constitution in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces would send the document down to defeat. The Sunnis are thought to constitute a majority in three provinces.

By Thursday night, Sunni leaders were declaring that they had been victimized by the majority Shiites, and they were already making plans to sink the constitution at the polls.

"We will call on people to say no to this constitution," said Kamal Hamdoun, a Sunni leader who is head of the Iraqi Bar Association. "This constitution was written by the powerful people, not by the people."

"This constitution achieved the ambitions of the people who are in power," he added.

The Sunni leaders adamantly oppose language in the constitution that could allow the Shiites to create a vast autonomous region in the oil-rich southern part of the country. In the current draft, the constitution says each province may form its own federal region and join with others.

In the debate over autonomous regions, the Kurds, who already have one such region in the north, largely stood on the sidelines. But the Sunnis say that such an arrangement could cripple the Iraqi state, and that the Shiite autonomous region would probably fall under the sway of their Shiite-dominated neighbor, Iran.

Despites their protests, there are widespread doubts about the sincerity of the Sunni negotiators. Most of the 15 members of the Sunni negotiating committee were members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, and there is a growing sense among Shiite leaders that their primary goal is to block any agreement at all.

In any case, the Shiite leadership has been ardent in its desire to set up a Shiite-dominated autonomous region, particularly Abdul Aziz Hakim, a cleric and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. As advocated by Mr. Hakim, the Shiite region would comprise nine of Iraq's 18 provinces, nearly half the nation's population and its richest oil fields.
Mr. Hakim and many of the senior members of his group, the Supreme Council, lived for many years in Iran and even fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's. The Supreme Council is suspected by American officials of receiving large amounts of assistance from the Iranian government.

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Britain heads for clash with US

Disagreement over America's bid to derail UN reform
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Saturday August 27, 2005The Guardian

Britain will join an international alliance to confront George Bush and salvage as much as possible of an ambitious plan to reshape the United Nations and tackle world poverty next week .

The head-to-head in New York on Monday comes after the revelation that the US administration is proposing wholesale changes to crucial parts of the biggest overhaul of the UN since it was founded more than 50 years ago.

A draft of that plan had included a review of progress on the UN's millennium development goals - poverty eradication targets set in 2000 for completion by 2015 - and the introduction of reforms aimed at repairing the damage done to the UN's reputation by Iraq, Rwanda and the Balkans.

But it was revealed this week that Mr Bush's new ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, was seeking 750 changes to the 36-page draft plan to be presented to a special summit in New York on September 14 to 16. Mr Bolton's amendments, if successful, would leave the plan in tatters.

The Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that Britain was standing behind the original plan, putting it at odds with Mr Bush.

The concern in British and other international circles is that the American objections, if adopted, would severely undermine the UN summit, the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders.

At least 175 world leaders have accepted an invitation to attend. The UN said yesterday that Mr Bush had confirmed that he would be there.

A wide range of organisations, from aid groups to the anti-arms lobby, voiced dismay about Mr Bolton's objections yesterday and expressed concern that the summit may end in failure.

The Make Poverty History campaign said there was a danger that the millennium development goals, the original reason for holding the summit, would be reduced to a footnote.

A source close to the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan said it was too early to declare the UN plan dead. "Bolton wants to knock down the plan and start from scratch," the source said. "He will find that his opinions are not shared by most of the rest of the world."

The president of the UN general assembly, Jean Ping from the Gambia, has been working on the draft, covering issues of poverty, climate change, genocide, small arms, the creation of a permanent UN peacekeeping capability and reform of the UN management structure, for the past year.

A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that the UK and the European Union, of which Britain holds the presidency, "are broadly content with the summit draft. It reflects the ambitious agenda thrown up by Kofi Annan".
The spokesman said it was "important that we do not row back from previous high-level summits", such as the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in July and the UN millennium summit in 2000.

He stressed that a lot of negotiation on the draft still lay ahead. "There is a long way to go before leaders meet in September."

As well as divisions about the agenda, the summit is in danger of being overshadowed by the publication of an internal UN report into the running of the organisation's oil-for-food programme in Iraq from 1996 to 2003, which was beset by scandal and corruption, by Paul Volcker.

UN officials are worried that Mr Volcker's final report, tentatively scheduled for September 6, could severely damage Mr Annan's reputation and raise questions over whether he could continue as secretary-general.

Mr Bolton's comments provoked a negative reaction from many agencies involved in development work.

Martin Kirk, the public affairs adviser of Save the Children, said this year had promised so much for the world's poor, but, "instead of a breakthrough we are now looking at a possible retreat from the millennium development goals by the UN".

Nicola Reindorp, the head of Oxfam International's New York office, said: "We are less than three weeks away from the UN world summit and the next two weeks are crucial in determining the outcome ... If the US and other governments substantially weaken the outcome document, the summit will result in failure."

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Latino marchers to protest Iraq war, today's injustices

By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer

It was 35 years ago when a phalanx of police officers fired tear gas at a crowd of Latino war-protesters, but Jaime Cruz remembers the event as if it was yesterday.

A student at what was then San Fernando Valley State College, Cruz is among a handful of organizers and participants whose lives have been shaped by the Chicano Moratorium, an Aug. 29, 1970, anti-war protest that degenerated into a deadly riot. The march marked an awakening of political consciousness for many of those who are now leaders in the Latino community.

Decades later, some of the original organizers are reuniting to commemorate that day. They also plan to protest the Iraq war, as well as the vigilante effort mounted by the "Minuteman Project" to halt illegal immigration into the U.S. from Mexico.

"(The protest) showed us how devastating the system could be," said Cruz, coordinator for the Chicano Moratorium
Committee which is organizing the commemoration. "For many of us, it solidified our commitment when we knew there was an injustice."

More than 20,000 protesters marched in the original moratorium in East Los Angeles - the heart of Los Angeles' Mexican-American community - to protest the disproportionate number of Latinos being drafted into the military, as well as their high dropout rates in public schools.

The organizers - many of them students like Cruz - argued against what they viewed as an inherent bias toward their wealthier, white counterparts who were able to enter college and avoid the draft. But what was billed as a peace march turned into violence.

Police and protesters skirmished, and officers and sheriff's deputies sprayed tear gas into the crowd, trying to stop what they said was looting of a nearby liquor store - a claim that activists still dispute.

In the ensuing chaos, three people were killed, including Ruben Salazar, one of the region's most prominent Mexican-American journalists, who was hit by a tear-gas canister launched by law enforcement.

Businesses along Whittier Boulevard were burned, and more than 100 people ultimately were arrested.

Many there were galled by the police action, seeing it as further proof of insensitivity to the Mexican-American community by the city's politically powerful.

"It was a painful period because many of us believed that the system would be more equal and more fair. When we realized the inequities were so great, it inspired and motivated a lot of us," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who participated in the march as a 19-year-old student at East Los Angeles College.

But just as incensed as she had become with police, she also became frustrated with organizers. Many of the male
organizers - who were entrenched in a burgeoning Chicano rights movement - sidelined the women and some of
their concerns, such as child care.

Moreover, she said, the disparate groups that participated in the march - from union members to peaceniks - diluted the message. It became apparent to her and other women that if they wanted to see a change, they would have to rattle the halls of power.

"It was a call to action," Molina said. "You were sensing it and feeling at the time, but there was nothing because so many of our institutions handled it so poorly."

At the time of the march, there were no Latinos on the Los Angeles City Council, just one in Congress and little representation in law enforcement.

Richard Alatorre, a protest organizer who later sat on the City Council and in the state Assembly, helped bail out several marchers arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest or disrupting the peace that day.

"I don't think anybody could have forecast the number of people marching, people joined along the route," Alatorre said. "It was one of the greatest experiences of my time."

Molina and Alatorre note that much has changed in the generation since they marched.

Now, Los Angeles' mayor, city attorney and nearly one-third of its City Council are of Latino heritage, as are California's lieutenant governor, 10 state senators, 19 Assembly members and seven members of its congressional delegation.

Despite greater representation, Molina said, many of the issues are the same today.

"The dropout rate is as high as ever, retention rates in college are horrible and now you don't even have affirmative action.

"It should be a real call to action for the young people that are turned off (by politics). They need to hold us accountable."

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The falsehoods of the Iraq War

Welcome to Jamrock
Damian "Junior Gong"
MarleyMusic from Universal
Release date: 13 September, 2005





Let us briefly analyse this War on Terror and War in Iraq, as it appears apparent that this struggle, death and destruction could have been avoided?

Following 9/11, the “War on Terror” has raged; reportedly to neutralize the activity of international terror groups and nations considered to support them. The War in Iraq was originally billed as an effort to dispose of Saddam Hussein for refusing to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors, possessing WMD, and end his oppression and genocide against Iraqis, by regime change. With a merelyhazy link made between Sadaam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, it has shifted to become a “War on Terror” in terms of the incorrectly labelled terrorist affiliated “insurgents” it seeks to neutralise. Where is this war leading to in terms of its necessity, purpose and objectives as instability, death and destruction reign supreme in Iraq and other parts of the world? A direct result of the Presidential lies of GW Bush, alongside the global political/military support that follow him like sheep!

President GW Bush and Prime Minister T Blair, LIED that Iraq could use WMD’s against Britain and the USA within 45 Minutes. None have been found. GW Bush ignored the requests of UN Weapons Inspectors to wait and ignored the Operation Rockingham findings that Saddam had destroyed his weapons. Therefore the invasion of Iraq can only be considered an illegal war, even though GW Bush shifted the goalposts in his State of the Union speech, in declaring Saddam Hussein as protecting and aiding terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. Claims the Western media perpetuated by over-reporting political rhetoric regarding terrorist groups in the Middle East and Iraq. Adversely, Iraq became a mascot for various individuals and groups now causing death and destruction in Iraq against military and civilian targets. The current justification for the present Western armies who slaughter and torture!

Bush reported the war as over, though it continued to produce daily Military and Civilian casualties on both sides. The elected interim government resulted in Iraq becoming divided along sectarian lines, with each group asserting their own political identity and threatening Civil War. Groups rejecting the West’s occupation in Iraq have claimed responsibility for various attacks in Iraq and elsewhere. The key group reported as being the CIA trained “Al Qaeda”; that argues for the cessation of Western attacks and oppression of Islam and Muslim countries, and support for Israel. Zawahiri, deputy to Osama Bin Laden has stated; “You spilled blood like rivers in our countries and we exploded volcanoes in yours”.

….When will it end?

Did God tell Bush launch Iraq war?

September 11/Iraq war myth continues...
8/27/2005 2:14:00 PM GMT

Dear Dr. Kareem…
Contrary to what Bush said repeatedly during the built up to his war in Iraq, he made the decision to start his bloody, expensive, unjust war before the first troops were even sent.

9/11 served as a convenient reminder of the 'threat of terrorism' and the 'evildoers' who need to be brought to justice. Bush juxtapositioned Iraq and Al Qaeda at every op-opportunity and was able to get away with it because of the Muslim/Arab phobia instilled in most Americans immediately following 9/11.

Bush was able to get away with this because many Americans are fairly ignorant of the culture, geography, and life styles of the people in the Middle East and many probably still can't pronounce 'Iraq' properly let alone find it on a map. This is especially true among Bush supporters. Many of whom are so dumb that they still say 'I - rack' instead of 'ear- ROCK' and think that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11!

During the military buildup, Bush repeatedly said that 'Saddam Hussein must comply with the UN and allow UNSCOM inspectors'. When the inspectors were let in and allowed unfettered access to locations given to them by the CIA, Bush became nervous. The longer the inspectors came up empty-handed the less likely it looked like there were any of the phantom WMDs he had been preaching about and hence, less need for a war that he had been rushing too.
So a ridiculous ultimatum was issued to justify war.

The scariest part was when Bush said that 'God' told him to start a war against a third world country one tenth America's size, with one percent of its wealth, and a nation with no navy, no air force, no long range ballistic missiles, no nukes, no WMDs of any kind, and an army consisting of twenty to thirty year old Russian tanks lacking spare parts.

Did God tell the leader of the world's only superpower to start a war that has cost to date over two hundred billion dollars, fifteen thousand American casualties, one hundred thousand dead Iraqis, more instability and terrorism in the world, and a loss of respect for America in the world?

Russ BroadwaySacramento, California
Dear Russ,

With more lies of President Bush being exposed, an increasing attention is now being given to the true reasons that made the United States decide to invade Iraq.

More than two years have passed since the war began, and the American President still repeats same claims that the U.S. forces are fighting in Iraq to protect Americans against the threat of attacks similar to those of September 11.

Several reports have revealed that the United States plotted for Iraq invasion months before September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Five hours after the Pentagon building was hit by American Airlines Flight 77, the U.S. secretary of Defence was asking his aides to try and come up with a plan to invade Iraq and topple its leader Saddam Hussein. Notes taken by aides who were present with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on September 11 2001 can confirm what I’m saying.

So Iraq war wasn’t a result of 9/11, but the attacks, together with the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims gave Bush’s administration a convenient reason and excuse to bomb Iraq without facing international condemnation.

But the deepening quagmire in Iraq doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason for the President to admit his mistakes and lies.

When about 6000 people died in September 11 attacks, which I greatly denounce, the act was internationally condemned as a bloody, horrifying, merciless “terror attack”. Whereas there’s been a little or no outcry for the innocent lives lost everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both launched without a logic justification or evidence or involvement in 9/11.

None of the world leaders stood up and accused America of committing war crimes in Iraq, no one criticised the actions of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and instead their attitude was justified.

Is this Bush’s version of democracy? Killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq? Devastating the country and destroying its infrastructure? Stealing the country’s oil wealth?

No wonder the Iraqis don’t want this democracy and fight it with every means.

Sheikha Sajida,

Replying on behalf of Dr. Kareem

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches ** Two “Green Zones”

August 27, 2005

As the US-backed Iraqi puppet government flails about arguing over the
so-called constitution, Iraq remains in a state of complete anarchy.
There is no government control whatsoever, even inside the infamous
“Green Zone” where the puppets seem to have tangled their strings.

Why the harsh tone for the conflagrations of the so-called Iraqi government?

Because the price paid for this unimaginably huge misadventure of the
neo-conservative driven Bush junta is being paid by real human beings
who shed real blood and cry real tears. Because well over 100,000 Iraqis
and over 1,800 US soldiers would be alive today if it wasn’t for the
puppeteers of Mr. Bush.

The coward sits behind his guards in Crawford, Texas, too afraid to deal
with the reality of the grief he and his masters have caused to
thousands of military families who have lost loved ones in Iraq.
Meanwhile, fires are raging out of control not only in Iraq, but right
here in the US.

“I ask you, Mr Bush, if you believe that this war is for “Our Freedom”
and “Our Values” why don’t you send your daughters to fight for
freedom,” wrote Fernando Suarez del Solar recently, who lost his son in
Iraq due to the lies of Mr. Bush.

He continued, “Why don’t your closest associates send their children to
defend these values? Why are the children of immigrant families dying?
Why are children from working families who are the least privileged
dying? Why Mr. Bush? Why?”

Of course Suarez del Solar knows the answer. It’s a rhetorical question
asked of a prep school punk who has never earned nor risked anything. A
smirking dimwit, who has never truly served his country, let alone
fellow human beings outside of his gangster corporate crony pals who
inserted him into the highest office…twice.

Today he chooses to ignore the fire which is spreading across the US as
he ignores the debacle in Iraq, where the US military must leave, will
leave, but are unable to leave for fear of tarnishing what is left of
the now sordid reputation of the US.

I get emails daily from sources throughout Iraq…both Iraqi and American.
Even inside US bases in the newest colony things don’t seem to be going
so well, according to an American man who is working there as support.

“I don’t know how much longer I can stand working for these idiots and
their brothers’ mothers’ sisters’ cousin,” he wrote me recently, “They
have acres of armored air conditioned trucks but won’t pay to fix the
alternators, so the drivers must use the worst of the equipment…no
armor, no air conditioning…You know the heat here, now add the heat of
an engine to that cab and throw in a few rockets, mortars, and IED’s
[roadside bombs] and it makes for a very bad day. I’m trying to expose
the corruption of the Third Country National contractors by finding them
a forum to send the truth. Prisoners, slaves, concubines. My life may be
a contradiction, but I will not compromise with evil. The enemy is
inside the wire.”

Wars for empire don’t change…and Iraq is the perfect example. Invading
armies using slave labor (foreign in this case due to their deep
distrust of Iraqis), taking advantage of those who lack privilege, the
poor, minorities, to do the dirty work while the top 1% make more money
than ever before.

And the pirates behind the US policy-making in Iraq have chosen, perhaps
to their chagrin at this point, to disregard some of the latest history
from a past occupation of Iraq.

During the previous British occupation of Iraq, the resistance began in
Fallujah. As a response the British shelled half of that city to the
ground, much like the US military did recently as part of their failed
policy. (US soldiers are now dying in and near Fallujah again.)

It was said that if the British left Iraq civil war would ignite. Just
as we are hearing today, even though state-sponsored civil war is in
full swing, thanks to the occupiers.

The rule of the British Empire over Iraq went on for three decades
before the Brits withdrew. Every year of that time found an uprising
against the occupiers…and now less than three years into the failed US
occupation, lesser uprisings occur daily.

Attacks on US forces in Iraq are now back up over 70 per day…we’ll cross
the 2,000 dead mark before too much longer, and things are about to get
much, much worse. As Iraqis continue to say, “Today is better than
tomorrow.” The same goes for US troops there.

There is a reason why a relatively recent Army survey found that 54% of
all soldiers in Iraq reported either “low” or “very low” morale.

There is also a reason why, again according to the Army, that 30% of all
soldiers returning from Iraq develop mental health problems 3-4 months
after their return.

And there is a reason why soldiers like Nicolas Prubyla come home and
join organizations like Iraq Veterans Against the War.

“Up until five days ago, I had large amounts of blood in my stool,” he
told me recently, “I’ve felt tired all the time, I have had loss of
hair…loss of the feeling in my right arm…I’m battling this stuff.”

What he is battling is exposure to uranium munitions in Iraq. He is
battling radiation sickness as the result of the most recent nuclear war
waged by the United States of America. There is a reason why over 11,000
veterans from the ’91 Gulf War are dead today, and over 250,000 others
are on medical disability. That reason (hundreds and hundreds of tons of
uranium munitions dropped on Iraq) is the same thing Prubyla is battling
today.

“As the years go on this is going to effect a hell of a lot more people
than we think…radioactive dust and the clouds of smoke and dust from
firing the DU [depleted uranium] is getting to us now,” he said, “And I
know I’m not the only person in my unit-my boss got diagnosed with
cancer, one of my other buddies who is 23 years-old is getting
rashes….every time I do more research on DU-I’m seeing that I have all
the side effects.”

Prubyla has realized what more and more veterans understand…that the
powers that be in our military plutocracy (also known as the US
government) could care less for their well being. One of the shadow
members of the current plutocracy who is also an exalted
neo-conservative, Henry Kissinger, has referred to military men as
“dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy.

People like Prubyla get this; they have had enough, and are now doing
something about it.

Meanwhile in the Crawford “Green Zone,” Mr. Bush chooses to ignore the
resistance movement that is standing outside his fence. But that is
alright, because the hundreds of people there now protesting represent
tens (if not hundreds) of millions across the country who, like the
Iraqi resistance, are not going to go away.

Link Here

_______________________________________________

O.M.G. Washington Post Acts Like Real Reporters and BROADSIDE bush. Slam Shazaam.

Rallying the Troops and

Avoiding Reality

By Colbert I. King
Link Here
Saturday, August 27, 2005; Page A17

There is something almost surreal in the juxtaposition of President Bush's statements on Iraq and news reporting on the war. The two are simply irreconcilable.

Bush's upbeat take collides with recent news reports about events in Iraq as well as with the judgments of senior officials within his administration. If the media have got it wrong, then we deserve to get hammered. If, however, it turns out that Bush is not being straight with courageous U.S. service members and their families, then it will be the Bush presidency and his legacy that will pay dearly.

At the moment he's hitting it off in visits to military posts, where he dons his commander-in-chief hat. One Bush line always draws applause: "We will stay on the offensive. Whatever it takes, we will seek and find and destroy the terrorists, so that we do not have to face them in our own country." It went over well last year with a gathering of applauding Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne, Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group and the Night Stalkers, at Fort Campbell, Ky.

In June the president went to Fort Bragg, N.C., and in a televised address described Iraq as the latest battlefield in the war on terrorism, saying: "America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend . . . . We will stay in the fight until the fight is won."

And to cheering military families at Nampa, Idaho, this week, Bush said: "Terrorists will emerge from Iraq one of two ways: emboldened or defeated . . . . for the sake of our children and our grandchildren, the terrorists will be defeated."

Bush's portrayal of America as a nation besieged by a cruel enemy that has made Iraq the battleground is one of the reasons America's military families willingly send sons and daughters off to war. Yes, it's hard duty, but what goal is worthier than defending America? Stated that way, there's no argument, at least where I'm concerned. That was one of the reasons that I, along with many in my generation, suited up during the Cold War.

The country should be grateful to all who wear the uniform of the United States and to the families that are sacrificing to achieve Bush's stated mission to fight the terrorists over there, and "stay until the fight is won."

But what if something else is in the works? Suppose staying on the offense "until the enemy is broken," an applause line, is just that -- an applause line?

There are good reasons to ask.

In an Aug. 12 Page One story that included interviews with U.S. officials involved in Iraq policy, The Post's Peter Baker wrote: "Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves." Bush, the piece said, is only trying to buy time until the Iraqi political process moves along and Iraqi troops get up to speed.

Two days later, The Post's Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer reported an even gloomier assessment based on interviews with senior administration officials and analysts who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Washington now does not expect to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it," they reported. Said a U.S. official: "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us."

In other words, while Bush is out rallying the troops and reassuring their families that their sacrifices won't be in vain, administration officials in Washington are quietly playing down expectations of what can really be achieved in Iraq.

Far from the cheering crowds, this is the word in the Nation's Capital: Forget all that prewar talk about a secular, modern and united Iraq emerging after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Get ready instead for some form of Islamic republic in Iraq that gives special status to clerics and majority ethnic groups, and less deference to women's rights. A new Iraq free of violence and divisions? Oops, never mind.

Which brings us back to the troops who are doing the suffering and dying. Are their sacrifices worth it?

Consider the Iraq now unfolding on the ground.

What's the value of Americans giving their lives so that cleric-dominated Shiites and northern Kurds can get their hands on political power and oil revenue?

Why are American women and men sacrificing lives and limbs in a country where women may have to settle for less?

Stay the course. What course? So religious-based militia can divvy up the northern and southern portions of the country? So Islam can be enshrined as a principal source of new Iraqi legislation?

Are any of those things worth dying for? Do any of those likely outcomes represent an American victory? They certainly aren't why Bush said we went over there.

Okay, the Bush folks also promised us weapons of mass destruction, and greetings with rice and rose water, and Iraqi oil money to pay for reconstruction, and a model new democracy in the Middle East, none of which has happened.

But this is different.

President Bush is out selling a vision of victory in Iraq while U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad are resigned to settling for less. George Bush can't make good on his original promise, and they know it. They also know that more Americans are going to die in Iraq for what may end up as a theocracy-tinged spoils system.

When those carrying the burden of this war realize what they have sacrificed and died for, the worst days of George W. Bush will have just begun.

kingc@washpost.com

--A new day is dawning. Once this is on the FRONT PAGE where it belongs, then we will be hit with the cold light of day.--

That is really interesting considering LAST WEEK a military official said they were down to 500 prisnors in Abu Ghraib

Nearly 1,000 Abu Ghraib detainees released

Saturday, August 27, 2005
Link Here

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nearly 1,000 detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were released this week at the request of the Iraqi government, Multi-National Forces said Saturday.

"This major release, the largest to date, marks a significant event in Iraq's progress toward democratic governance and the rule of law, demonstrating the involvement of Iraq's government in the effort to provide both security and justice for all Iraqis," the forces said in a written statement.

The detainees were released from Wednesday through Saturday, with the assistance of the Iraqi government, the statement said. They represent all Iraqi communities and had been brought to Abu Ghraib from detention facilities throughout Iraq.

Those chosen for release were not convicted of violent crimes, the statement said, "and all have admitted their crimes, renounced violence and pledged to be good citizens of a democratic Iraq."

Each individual case was reviewed by a combined board of Iraqi and Coalition officials, the statement said, "and decided in the light of Iraq's ongoing efforts to create peace and stability and build a brighter future for its citizens."

'Facilitator to bombers' killed
Meanwhile, a man described as a "major facilitator of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into northern Iraq" was killed by coalition forces Thursday in Mosul, the U.S. military said Saturday.

Abu Khallad, a Saudi national, was found after intelligence sources and tips led Multi-National Forces to his location in Mosul.

"Upon arrival at that location, multi-national forces stopped his vehicle, a gunfight immediately ensured and Khallad and an unidentified terrorist were shot and killed," the military said in a written statement.

Recent detainees have said Khallad contacted recruiters in Saudi Arabia to coordinate the movement of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into northern Iraq, the military said.

Also, "once in Mosul, he allegedly directed the distribution of the foreign fighters and suicide bombers to the various terrorist cells operating in Mosul."

In addition, the military believes Khallad was active in supporting foreign fighters smuggled into the Mosul area, supplying them with money, weapons and bomb-making materials, according to information from detainees.

The resources, the detainees have said, were from donations to the same Saudi contacts who recruited the fighters and sent them to Mosul.


--FUCKING SAUDIS. Now there is a war we would ALL volunteer for.

I would not only sign myself up, twice, I would gladly sign up all five of my kids too. And my lover, mother and siblings.

RIP THEM FROM THEIR TOWERS!!!

Fucking Saudis.--

Blast From The Past

-

Monroe in Korea

7,000 are expected in Crawford for rallies

By Jack Douglas Jr.
Star-Telegram

As many as 7,000 people are expected to participate in two large rallies today in Crawford, and local law officials and the Secret Service have stepped up security to "accommodate the numbers."

While the protests are expected to be peaceful, authorities will be watching for anyone in the crowd who is "possibly not a peaceful demonstrator," said Mark Lowery, special agent in charge of the Secret Service in North Texas.

Rallies for and against the war in Iraq are expected to involve between 4,000 and 7,000 people, and some may be "celebrity types," Lowery said.

He said federal authorities have been meeting daily with the McLennan County Sheriff's Department to ensure that demonstrations do not get unruly.

Chief Deputy Randy Plemons said that sheriff's patrols will be beefed up for the demonstrations outside Crawford, population 788, and that extra law enforcement assistance will be available if the town's small police department needs help.

Political observers disagreed on whether the peace movement, which started Aug. 6 in Crawford when President Bush began vacationing at his nearby ranch, will lose steam once Bush returns to Washington.

Cindy Sheehan, the leader of the new anti-war movement and the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, has said she will leave Crawford next week -- about the same time Bush leaves -- and will embark on a bus tour. She has said she will participate in an anti-war rally Sept. 24 in Washington, at the same time that similar rallies are scheduled on the West Coast.

Hundreds of protesters have set up camps near Bush's ranch since Sheehan began a vigil asking for a personal meeting with the president to talk about the war that killed her son, Casey.

Though their numbers have so far been smaller, pro-Bush groups have also set up sites in and around the town to counter the anti-war movement.

Both sides are expected to turn out in large numbers today.

Bush supporters, many of them arriving in caravans, plan a rally near the school stadium in Crawford while, at the same time, Sheehan's followers have scheduled a large gathering 10 miles away, at "Camp Casey II" near a back entrance to Bush's ranch.

The movement triggered by Sheehan is likely to have a lasting effect even after the crowds disperse from Crawford, said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

For Sheehan's star status to remain strong in the protest movement, she must keep her message "simple and sincere," focusing on her loss as a mother, Jillson said. If she becomes more politically charged and begins throwing "incendiary bombshells" at the president, "she begins to lose her effectiveness," he said.

Brian Mayes, a Republican political consultant from Dallas, said Sheehan's efforts have only motivated the "far left" activists who are "looking to relive the '60s hippie movement."

"She is equally motivating the conservative base of the country as well as turning off the middle-of-the-road people who view her as a radical, left-wing activist," Mayes said.

--Oh how that bushevik just don't want it to be true.. Hey dimbulb... yall have been stedily loosing REAL republicans since 2000.--

"Damn, will you PLEASE get up!"

Iraqi forces may

need years of

preparation


By Tom Lasseter / Knight Ridder Newspapers

HIT, Iraq - (KRT) - American Sgt. LaDaunte Strickland, sweat pouring down his face, stared at the four Iraqi soldiers sitting in the shade of a truck.

They were supposed to be helping Strickland and a group of U.S. Marines man a vehicle-control point, a basic operation in which troops hope to catch insurgents at traffic stops they set up quickly on the roadsides.

"Come on. Come on! Get up," said Strickland, 30, of Cleveland, stabbing a cigar in the air to make his point. "Damn, will you PLEASE get up!"

The Iraqis didn't stir. Without an interpreter - a common occurrence - the Iraqis didn't understand Strickland, no matter how loud he got.

Three weeks of patrols and interviews in restive Anbar province suggested that Iraqi security forces will need years of preparation before they're ready to take charge of the complex and violent tribal areas of western Iraq. President Bush has said repeatedly that U.S. troops will withdraw only when Iraqi troops are ready to take over.

Many of the Iraqi troops were in poor condition, unable or unwilling to complete long foot patrols without frequent breaks. They often didn't know what to do in complicated situations, standing back and letting American Marines and soldiers take the lead.

Most of the Iraqi troops interviewed were Shiite Muslims - the majority religious group in Iraq - who were long oppressed by Sunni Muslims, Anbar's predominant ethnic group but a minority across Iraq. That history creates obstacles to establishing trust with the locals.

In Fallujah, after a U.S. assault last November routed the insurgency that had demolished the town's police force, the Interior Ministry sent in its Public Order Battalion. Residents accuse the battalion of being a de facto Shiite militia.

Marine Maj. Shaun Fitzpatrick, 36, of San Antonio said the Marines were aware of the sectarian problems and were hoping to put a predominantly Sunni police force on the streets in coming months. Until then, he said of the public-order troops, "Basically, they're Shiite and they're from Baghdad or Basra (a Shiite town). We've had problems. There are inevitable cultural clashes."

In the meantime, insurgents are attacking new police stations and intimidating contractors.

The Iraqi National Guard, heralded last year as the answer to security in the area, has been disbanded because morale was low and insurgents had infiltrated it. The old national guard trucks, with their blue emblems, now sit rusting. As with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, the predecessor to the national guard, American officials say the new Iraqi army and police will establish security in places such as Anbar.

However, the police force has collapsed in Ramadi, the provincial capital. Two divisions of Iraqi soldiers - a total of 12,000 men - are to establish security, but so far only 2,000 are available, and half of them lack basic training.

Hit, a city of 130,000, has no police force. North of Hit, in Haditha - near the site of attacks that killed 20 Marines this month - the police chief handed over all the patrol cars to the Marines in January.

"He said, "We can't protect these anymore,'" said Maj. Plauche St. Romain, the head intelligence officer for the Marine battalion that oversees Haditha, Haqlaniya and Hit. "He turned in the uniforms and (armor) vests, too."

That police chief was assassinated in April.

"It was pretty obvious what happened with the police. Their police stations got blown up and a lot of them were murdered," said Army Maj. William Fall, 48, of Cresson, Pa., who oversees Iraqi security-force operations in Ramadi.

Marine Capt. John LaJeunesse, who works with the police in Ramadi, said it wasn't fair to put too much blame on the police. Those who've remained to get trained and be part of the new force haven't been paid in two and a half months, he said.

So far, a little more than 5,900 police officers have been screened for all of Anbar, about half the number needed. Most of those still must be trained, said LaJeunesse, 30, of Boise, Idaho.

"The ones that stay are working without pay, and the insurgents are threatening their families," he said.

During a recent operation in Haqlaniya, a squad from the Iraqi Intervention Force, one of the more seasoned units in Iraq's army, swept through neighborhoods looking for insurgents. One of the soldiers was so overweight that he had trouble putting on his flak vest.

During a raid on a suspected insurgent hideout, the Iraqis discovered they'd forgotten their bolt cutters. Instead of sending someone back to get them, they tried breaking a lock off an outside gate with the butts of their AK-47s. By the time they were through, they'd made so much noise that everyone in the neighborhood was aware of their presence on what was supposed to be a stealth operation.

When they arrived at their second objective, still without bolt cutters, the men wanted to use grenades to breach the door.

Their supervisor, U.S. Army Capt. Terrence Sommers, stepped in and said they'd risk hurting themselves and would give away their position to insurgents.

"They've still got a ways to go," said Sommers, 34, of Trenton, N.J.

One of the Iraqi officers, Maj. Ahmed, said his men were less than motivated because they didn't understand why the Americans kept sweeping through towns and moving on without leaving troops behind to secure them.

"The people are scared to give us information about the terrorists because there are many terrorists here. And when we leave, the terrorists will come back and kill them," said Ahmed, who gave only his first name out of fear of retribution from the insurgents. "The army has to stay in these cities; that way we would have control. But this way, no, it doesn't make any sense."

On a nighttime raid in Ramadi this month, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Chris Chapin, a military adviser to the Iraqi army, said he hadn't been able to get the Iraqi troops to mount a platoon-sized operation. Chapin had no interpreter with him, and none of the Iraqis could speak English.

"We definitely need to do something about this interpreter thing," said Sgt. 1st Class Anthony James, 33, of Vicksburg, Miss. "I don't see things changing here. We're not reaching the people."

Because the Iraqis and Americans couldn't communicate with one another, they frequently ended up wandering in the middle of the street, yelling commands in English and Arabic and heading in opposite directions.

Chapin, 39, of Proctor, Vt., walked around at one point, yelling, "Lieutenant, where is my lieutenant?" Two of the target houses were within a block of each other, and the entire neighborhood was probably aware of the soldiers' presence, blowing any chance of making a quiet entrance.

"They're always getting bunched into a gaggle, especially at night. I think it's because they're scared," said Sgt. Adam Detato, 24, of Montoursville, Pa. "Between the language barrier and a lot of them having a fifth-grade education, it's hard to teach them our tactics."

In Hit, Strickland finally managed to get three of the Iraqi soldiers to help him with the checkpoint. The fourth remained in the shade, making hand gestures indicating that he needed a light for his cigarette. Within five minutes the other three were making frequent motions toward the sun and then in the direction of the base. "Finish?" they asked. "We finish?"

A Marine standing nearby suggested to Stickland that maybe the answer was to train Iraqis as traffic police, give them orange vests and have them do traffic stops on their own.

Strickland laughed. "Yeah, until the muj finds out the Americans gave them the vests; then they'll kill `em," he said, referring to the insurgents by the Arabic word for "holy warrior," mujahedeen. "When they have problems, these guys will just leave their uniforms and walk off."

Art For Girls

-

Iraq on brink of meltdown:

Oliver Poole in Baghdad
08/26/05 "The Telegraph

" -- -- The credibility of Iraq's political process was in danger last night as parliament again failed to vote on a draft constitution which a Sunni politician said was "fit only for the bin".

The government had earlier announced plans to bypass parliament in an attempt to push through the document.

But as the final hours ran out before the deadline for approving the constitution, Hajim al-Hassani, the speaker of the parliament, appeared to overrule the country's leaders by insisting that negotiations would continue today, meaning that the deadline would be missed for the third time.

The impression of growing crisis in Iraq was reinforced when a new front erupted in the violent rebellion, with Shia Muslims fighting each other with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, made an emergency television appeal for peace and sent two police commando units to Najaf where the fighting had started.

Throughout the day in Baghdad, politicians bickered over how to proceed with the constitution without driving the country to civil war.

As night fell, the government's official spokesman, Laith Kubba, announced that a final version of the document had been decided and compromise reached on three issues, although he did not say which.

Sunni leaders said that no consensus had been reached.Hussein al-Falluji, a Sunni member of the drafting panel, said: "If this constitution continues to include federalism, it should be put in the bin and done again.

"The chances of the parliament convening declined by the minute. Kamal Hamdoun, a Sunni negotiator, said the Shia politicians - the dominant force in the national assembly - had not turned up for a meeting."

They are acting according to the law of force instead of the force of law. We call on all Iraqis to vote No in the constitutional referendum." Shia politicians made clear that they did not see any need for the parliament to vote.

The draft is to be put to a referendum in October.

The drafting began amid the optimism engendered by January's successful elections, when Iraqis turned out to vote in defiance of bombers and gunmen.

But US hopes of establishing the first secular democracy in the Arab world have foundered on ethnic and religious divisions.Gunmen opened fire yesterday on a convoy of cars used by the president but Jalal Talabani was not in it.

Four bodyguards were wounded.In what appeared to be an attempt to inflame sectarian tensions, the bodies of 37 Shia soldiers, killed with a single bullet to the head, were found in a shallow river south of Baghdad, the latest of several such grim discoveries.

Police said they had been stripped to their underwear.The minority Sunnis, who were the masters under Saddam Hussein, are implacably opposed to the federal nature of the constitution.

They fear that it will place oil wealth in the hands of the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south.

The constitutional vacuum drew in another opponent of federalism, the firebrand Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who was responsible for two uprisings in the south last summer but who has since been quiet.

At least 12 people were killed as his Mahdi Army militia clashed with members of the Iranian-linked Badr Brigade in six cities and a Baghdad suburb.

Sadr has now formed common cause with the Sunnis, fearing that federalism will play into the hands of Iran.

The Badr Brigade is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which dominated the elections.

It wants the southern states to become a semi-autonomous region with partial control over its revenues and security.

The speed of the violence underlined that even a "defeated" militia such as Sadr's still has a formidable arsenal and that the security forces are nowhere to be seen when the fighting starts.

Armed clashes broke out in British-controlled Basra before dawn but later subsided.

In Amarah, where British troops are also stationed, Sadr supporters were reported to have killed five people when they mortared Badr Brigade headquarters.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited

Link Here

The Fire Sermon::A Spark is Lit in the Texas Scrub

By Chris Floyd

08/26/05 "Moscow Times"

-- -- In his inaugural speech last January, President George W. Bush repeatedly invoked images of unbridled, ravaging destruction as the emblem of his crusade for "freedom." Fire was his symbol, his word of power, his incantation of holy war. Mirroring the rhetoric of his fundamentalist enemies, Bush moved the conflict from the political to the spiritual, from the outer world to the inner soul, claiming that he had lit "a fire in the minds of men.

"But words are recalcitrant things; they have their own magic, and they will often find their own meanings, outside the intentions of those who use them. Bush has indeed inflamed the minds of men -- and women -- with his military crusade. But it is not the "untamed fire of freedom" that scorches them: It is the fire of grief and outrage at the lies that have consumed the bodies of their loved ones. This bitter flame burns in the rubble of blasted houses in Iraq and in the quiet, leafy suburbs of America, where the dead are mourned and the mutilated are left as the enduring legacy of Bush's cruel, wilful and unnecessary war.

This "fire in the mind" has now found its own symbol in the unlikely figure of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain American soldier. Here again, Bush's war-rousing words have gotten away from him. Sheehan's campaign -- which began as a lonely vigil outside Bush's vacation ranch and has now spread across the country -- centers on a single, simple request: that Bush explain to her what he means when he describes the war as "a noble cause.

" Sheehan is no professional activist, no savvy insider or political junkie. She's an ordinary citizen whose unadorned speech has none of the sweep and grandeur of Bush's expensively tailored rhetoric. But she has one thing that his professional scripters can never put in the presidential mouth: truth.

They must labor in the service of a lie, but Sheehan has read the Downing Street memos, the Duelfer WMD report, the September 2000 manifesto of a group led by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld calling for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the top-level revelations by Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Seymour Hersh and many others. She knows the mountain of freely available, credible evidence that shows unequivocally that Bush and his minions sought this war of aggression from their first day in power; that they openly longed for "a new Pearl Harbor" to use as justification for their plans; that they deliberately manipulated, "stove-piped" and fabricated intelligence to concoct a false case for war; that they used UN diplomacy as a cynical sham to mask their military intentions and then invaded before the weapons inspection process, which they themselves had insisted upon, was even halfway complete.

Every housewife and truck driver, every Wal-Mart clerk and office worker in the United States has access to this information, these established facts. The death of her son drove Sheehan to throw off the torpor that has afflicted so many of her compatriots for so many years and look reality in the face. There she has seen Iraqi civilians and American soldiers being shredded, gutted and burned alive by the fire of Bush's death-dealing lies. As New York Times columnist Frank Rich notes, she and other war survivors have watched Bush turn the search for WMD -- the ostensible reason for the sacrifice of their children -- into a comedy routine, a filmed skit for sycophantic journalists, showing the president of the United States goofily searching under desks and behind curtains, then shrugging with a dullard's grin: "No weapons here!"

Bush's audience, the highly paid cream of the national media, roared with laughter at the Leader's barbaric wit. Now these same blind guides are struggling to comprehend the fire of dissent that Cindy Sheehan has lit with her vigil in the Crawford scrublands. Many of them have mocked and vilified her, trumpeting the lies that the Bush machine began pumping out like bilgewater the moment her campaign found resonance with the wider public. Others have dismissed it as a flash in the pan, a copy-filler for the August doldrums, a minor blip soon to be swept away by the president's proven mastery of the national agenda.

Perhaps they're right. Perhaps this too shall pass, just as every other scandal and tourbillion that has momentarily shaken the Bush regime -- from Enron to Abu Ghraib and beyond -- has fallen by the wayside. It's true that the polls show that Bush is now deeply unpopular, mistrusted by more than half the electorate, who say, as Sheehan says, that he misled the nation into a pointless war. But by hook and crook, with fear and lies, he and his faction have gathered all the reins of power into their hands. With a complaisant media, a feckless opposition, unprecedented control over the nation's electoral machinery -- and the full backing of the corporate oligarchy they have enriched beyond all measuring -- the Bush elitists are not much concerned with the "consent of the governed" anymore. They will wade on through the swamp of blood they have created, generating more terrorism, sacrificing more sons and daughters, engendering more hatred, anguish and death.

But what if the form that Sheehan has somehow given to the nation's growing sense of betrayal does not simply fade at summer's end? What if that spark takes hold in the Texas scrub and sets off "an untamed fire of freedom" from the murderous lies that have led America into crime and disgrace? We might yet see Bush undone by his own incantation -- and truth become the new word of power.

Link Here

No Title;Sorry luv think it is important;Anti-War Protestors Tormenting Iraq War Wounded

Right wing propaganda removed from this site

Can you believe how obscenely stupid this Wanker really is, I mean sorry wanker, I think finally the people of America have woken up from their slumber, and have come to realise just what they let happen, when they allowed, Your Awol President a degenerate to be precise, never a Patriot does not know the meaning of the word Patriotism because he had no balls or patriatism when he was called to serve his Country, and his goons to take you to war, to invade and occupy a country on a whim, to outdo his daddy, and to loot and secure the natural resources of another country in the name of terrorism


Can you tell me which of these


chickenhawks in this


administration served there


country? I dont think so .



And what did these innocents of Iraq


do to you as a nation? nothing I think.




The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
Jonathan MurphyBook from Harvard University
PressRelease date: 01 October, 1999






CNS News has broken the story on anti-war protesters outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. This is the facility where those with significant injuries are sent to from the battlefield. They are there holding up signs such as "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton". The organization organizing this is Code Pink, the same organization that has funded terrorists with the apparent knowledge of Rep. Waxman.

For the most part the anti-war crowd doesn't see a problem with this, mostly because it garners attention which is what they are seeking. They think by kicking around a few wounded soldiers that they'll be able to change people's minds about the war. They also seem to think that the wounded are oblivious to the debate on the Iraq war and for that matter the rest of the nation. This war has been debated 24x7 since about 14 months before we went in to Iraq. The rush to war included having the Army camp out for months in Kuwait waiting for the order and turning away Iraqis who wanted to surrender.

Everyone knows what the war has cost because the press covers it endlessly. These protesters are looking for more than that, they want some gimmick, some stunt that will convince people because all of their arguments have been rejected or disproved. They need the one mother of a slain soldier in Crawford and conveniently ignore the approximately 1900 other mothers who aren't protesting and do support the troops. They aren't covering that the insurgency is over and the remainder of fighting is mostly people from Iran and Syria and the targets are Iraqis.

That brings us to Walter Reed where to point is precisely to irritate people and get press. Should the protest somewhere else? Absolutely and they know it. If the Pentagon has to sneak people into Walter Reed it is because of those protesters trying to dance all over the body in celebration that they have another club to try to go after the President with. In closing, I have to wonder what these people do for a living because I don't have time to run out to a VA hospital and be kicking around wounded soldiers for fun.

Link Here
You go Girls ,

, We need to ask this wanker what his degenerate President and his Goons in his Administration have done for the Sons and Daughters of your nation except send them to die and be maimed in a country that was no threat to America, Mind you this Goon and most of his administration did not see fit to be Patriotic, when they were asked to serve thier nation. But they are very good indeed when it comes to killing and maiming other peoples sons and daughters, as long as it is not their own that they are killing and maiming.

Hit-And-Run Victim Was Iraq War Veteran

Officials are still searching for witnesses who saw the crash that took the life of the 29-year-old captain, who was riding a bike to work on Kearny Villa Road just after 6 a.m. when a vehicle hit him right before an on-ramp to state Route 163.


Police Continue Search For Driver Who Hit Marine

POSTED: 6:51 am PDT August 25, 2005
UPDATED: 7:18 am PDT August 25, 2005

SAN DIEGO -- A bicyclist killed in a hit-and-run in San Diego was an Iraq war veteran, according to Marine Corps officials

Patrick Michael Klokow, 29, of Santa Clara, Calif., died Tuesday morning while riding his bike on Kearny Villa Road near an on-ramp to state Route 163. Klokow was a Marine captain stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot as the commanding officer of the instructional training company. He was riding to work when a vehicle hit him from behind.

MCRD spokeswoman Janice Hagar said Klokow served in Kuwait from January 2003 to March 2003 and was then deployed in Iraq until July 2003. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1999 and has been stationed at the recruit depot since September 2003.

The driver who hit Klokow fled the scene and police have not found any witnesses to the collision.

Police impounded a van with extensive damage to the front end and windshield spotted near the accident scene about two hours later. The driver was released after claiming the damage happened in an unrelated accident. Police said they were skeptical of the man's explanation and planned tests to determine if the van hit the Marine.

Link Here

The CIA leak: Infighting, grudges, justifying a war

By Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Toward the end of a steamy summer week in 2003, reporters were peppering the White House with phone calls and e-mail, looking for someone to defend the administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

About to emerge as a key critic was Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who said the administration had manipulated intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.

At the White House, there wasn't much interest in responding to critics such as Wilson that Fourth of July weekend. The communications staff faced more pressing concerns: the president's imminent trip to Africa, growing questions about the war and declining ratings in public-opinion polls.

Wilson's charges were based on an investigation he undertook for the CIA. But he was seen inside the White House as a "showboater" whose stature didn't warrant a response.

"Let him spout off solo on a holiday weekend," one White House official recalled saying. "Few will listen."

In fact, millions were paying attention that Sunday as Wilson — on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post — accused the administration of ignoring intelligence that didn't support its rationale for war.

Underestimating the impact of Wilson's charges was one in a series of misjudgments by White House officials.

They soon would cast doubt on Wilson's CIA mission to Africa by suggesting to reporters that his wife was responsible for his trip. In the process, her identity as a covert CIA agent was divulged, possibly illegally.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for 20 months has been looking into how the media learned that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. Top administration officials, along with several influential journalists, have been questioned.

Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against critics and the justification it used for going to war.

What motivated President Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove; Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; and others to counter Wilson so aggressively? How did their roles remain secret until after the president was re-elected? Have they cooperated fully with the investigation?

The answers remain elusive. Few witnesses have spoken publicly. White House officials declined to comment for this article, citing the inquiry.

But a close examination of events inside the White House two summers ago and interviews with administration officials offer new insights into the White House response, the people who shaped it, the deep disdain Cheney and other administration officials felt for the CIA and the far-reaching consequences of the effort to manage the crisis.

Wilson goes public

What made ex-diplomat's view dangerous to the administration

Ten weeks after Bush landed aboard an aircraft carrier adorned with a "Mission Accomplished" banner to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq, Wilson created his own media moment by questioning one of the central reasons for going to war.

He told how the CIA dispatched him in February 2002 to investigate a claim that Iraq had sought large quantities of uranium from Niger. Wilson told "Meet the Press" that he and others had "effectively debunked" the claim, only to see it show up nearly a year later in the president's State of the Union speech.

That speech had been a pillar of the case for war, and Wilson was raising questions about a key element of it: the claim Iraq was a nuclear threat.

At the time of Wilson's disclosure, U.S. and U.N. officials had yet to turn up evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. A ragtag Iraqi insurgency had begun to strike back.

In public, the White House was predicting weapons of mass destruction would be found.

Behind the scenes, officials were worried about the failure to find those weapons and the possibility that the CIA would blame the White House for prewar intelligence failures.

Wilson seemed a credible critic: His diplomatic leadership as charge d'affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before the 1991 bombing of Baghdad had earned him letters of praise from President George H.W. Bush.

That made him dangerous to the administration.

Rove takes notice

Response seems to focus on Wilson, not his words.>>>continued

Link Here

Photo: Remembering Iraq war dead

Brian Wallace
Juneau Empire

Veterans for Peace demonstrate Thursday in Marine Park against the Iraq war and in remembrance of Americans who have died in the war. The group plans to hold a vigil every Thursday. "It's primarily a quiet, respectful vigil for those who have died," said Ed Hein, member of Veterans for Peace. The number 1,857 in front of the flag-draped coffin is the number of U.S. war dead as of last Thursday.

I wonder what the real numbers are, the ones who died in transit back to the shores of America, and the ones who have died at home.

Link Here















And do we remember the deaths of the innocent Iraqi children

Iraq war vet in Vegas slaying may be granted medical treatment

August 26, 2005
By KEN RITTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS


LAS VEGAS (AP) - A judge granted prosecutors and defense lawyers more time Friday to arrange psychological treatment instead of a trial for an Iraq war veteran accused of killing a woman and wounding a man in a Las Vegas alley.

Matthew Sepi, 20, acknowledged that postponing his arraignment until Sept. 9 will keep him at the Clark County jail without bail for at least two more weeks.

"It's in the state's best interest, the defendant's best interest, and above all the community's best interest," Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe M. Bonaventure said of efforts to avoid trying Sepi on felony murder and attempted murder charges.

"Is it all right to pass this for two weeks?" he asked Sepi.

"Yes, your honor," Sepi replied
.
It was the third time arraignment has been postponed since Sepi's arrest in the early morning July 31 shooting near his apartment in a gritty neighborhood off the Las Vegas Strip.

Sepi, a Navajo Indian from Winslow, Ariz., told authorities he was ambushed in an alley and he reacted according to his military training when he shot and killed Sharon Jackson, 47, and wounded Kevin Ratcliff, 26.

Sepi told police he pulled an assault rifle from beneath his coat and reacted when he was confronted by a man with a gun in the alley. Sepi said he carried the weapon on his way to buy beer because someone threatened him with a knife in the same alley the night before.

Police confiscated the assault rifle, and found a 9 mm pistol and three bullet casings in the alley that they believe belonged to Jackson or Ratcliff. Authorities have not said who they think fired first.

Sepi's lawyer, Deputy Clark County Public Defender Nancy Lemcke, has said Sepi acted in self-defense and should be eligible for treatment instead of trial.

Chief Deputy Clark County District Attorney Chris Owens told the judge that the two sides were "still working through a resolution on alternate treatment." He has called inpatient treatment at a Veterans Affairs program a possibility.

Sepi served in Iraq before he was honorably discharged in May as an Army infantry specialist and qualified sharpshooter. The Army has said he remains a member of the Individual Ready Reserve.

Link Here
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A Rare Glimse Inside North Korea

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That's the false story Americans had been told when they cast their votes for the presidency in November. Time knew better but didn't say.

Did Time hide the truth

to help Bush win

reelection?
Link Here

The Los Angeles Times takes a long look at Plamegate today. There's little new here -- except for a claim by someone close to Karl Rove that Rove first heard Plame's name from Bob Novak -- but the Times does raise an interesting question along the way. We know now that Rove and Scooter Libby were involved in the outing of Plame. But how is it, the Times asks, that their roles remained secret until after George W. Bush was reelected?

The answer, at least in part: Their roles remained secret because some members of the mainstream press helped to keep them secret. According to the Times' report, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper chose not to ask for a waiver of confidentiality from Rove until this summer -- in part because his attorney advised against it, and in part because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year." As a result, the Times says, "Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection."

Translated, as John Aravosis explains at AMERICAblog today, that means that Time's editors didn't want Cooper to reveal information that could be damaging to Bush's reelections hopes until after the election was over. "It's one thing for Time to do its job and ignore the effects of its reporting and overall work on US elections," Aravosis writes. "It's quite another for Time to make decisions based on whether they'll influence US elections."

In a way, it may be even worse than that. By not seeking a waiver from Rove -- by not reporting what its reporter knew to be true -- Time allowed Americans to go the polls believing that which the magazine knew to be false. Until Time turned over Matthew Cooper's e-mail messages to Patrick Fitzgerald this July, the White House was free to proclaim -- as it did, repeatedly and vociferously -- that Karl Rove had nothing whatsoever to do with the outing of Valerie Plame. That's the false story Americans had been told when they cast their votes for the presidency in November. Time knew better but didn't say.

-- T.G.

"The problem is that we have a "chickenhawk" epidemic on our hands,"... HeHe.. Oh My

Chickenhawk: The other

right meat

Salon editorial fellow Aaron Kinney looks at the conservative outcry over the "chickenhawk" debate.
Link Here

Cindy Sheehan has returned to Crawford, Texas, and brought back with her all the questions she's raised about the Bush administration's war in Iraq. One issue that's clearly ruffled the feathers of conservatives is the word "chickenhawk," which has risen in prominence since Sheehan began to demand that those who are gung-ho about the war should pick up a gun and replace a grunt in the midst of his third rotation.

Fresh-faced pundit Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg of the National Review are among the conservative commentators who have pecked angrily at the "chickenhawk" assertion, arguing that just because they're not fighting in the war doesn't mean they can't support it. Goldberg clucked last week that "arguments must stand on their own merits, regardless of who delivers them," while in a two-part series titled, "Why the 'chickenhawk' argument is un-American," Shapiro squawked that for liberals to mock supporters of the war who haven't served in the military "undermines fundamental values of representative democracy."

It looks like Shapiro and Goldberg need some context. Contrary to what Shapiro says, we don't disagree with the principle that "those who do not serve in the military have just as much of a right to speak out about foreign policy as those who do." The problem is that we have a "chickenhawk" epidemic on our hands, beginning with an administration that's top-heavy with people who lust for war but haven't served in any themselves.

It starts with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom avoided serving in Vietnam but nonetheless supported the war. Many of our political leaders served in Vietnam, saw it for what it was, then came back and opposed it. The president and vice president's experience was the exact opposite, and it shows, because they appear not to have learned critical lessons that Vietnam imparted. Bush administration hawks have demonstrated their ignorance of the Vietnam experience by underestimating the enemy; assuming the occupation would be easy; failing to consider the domestic opposition that might arise to a bloody, prolonged and seemingly pointless struggle; and making military decisions with political goals in mind.

The Bush team behind the war in Iraq is glutted with others who learned about war in college, not on the battlefield, including Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. What being in combat teaches most people is not to take war lightly, and those who haven't served might be seduced into thinking that war is thrilling, sexy or easy. Taking war lightly means sending people to die when it's not absolutely necessary. The cabinet member with the highest degree of military experience, former Secretary of State Collin Powell, turned out to be cautious and was forced out.

The other important bit of context here is the military's shortage of soldiers. Now that the ranks are thin, where are the war supporters who are willing to follow former professional football player Pat Tillman's lead and abandon a life of privilege to sacrifice for his country? People like Goldberg and the editors of The Weekly Standard may throw the word "sacrifice" around at Washington cocktail parties, but whether they'd be willing to sacrifice a family member to install an Iranian proxy in Iraq is another issue altogether.

Shapiro wrote that liberals employ "chickenhawk" because they are "incapable of discussing foreign policy in a rational manner" and must engage in "purely emotional, base personal attacks," since they are "unwilling or unable to counter the arguments" of Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz. Wrong. First of all, "chickenhawk" is a pretty mild epithet. Second, are there any liberals above the age of four who are unable to counter the president's pillow-fluff reasoning for the war? Third, and most important, the left has tried to engage the administration and its allies in a rational manner, but the right has operated in bad faith, from distorting the threat posed by Iraq to denouncing the liberal opposition as traitors to declaring that liberals want to provide Osama bin Laden with therapy. Is there, in fact, any better example of eschewing a rational debate of the facts in favor of base personal attacks than the Bush administration's assault on the credibility of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame?

In other circumstances, facing a war that was necessary, in which the United States was faced with "a grave and gathering threat" and not a crippled regime, the term "chickenhawk" would not be relevant. But the Bush administration's pre-war deception and subsequent public refusal to face the reality of the war have made the administration's unflinching supporters seem like they too are in the throes of denial. The "chickenhawk" challenge calls their bluff -- If you're not just playing politics, if you really believe this war is a noble cause, then go and fight it yourselves.

--AMEN!!!--

Yup. The Tide Has Turned. A Reckoning Is Coming.

My mom, not Cindy

Sheehan, is Bush’s

biggest problem

Thursday, August 25, 2005
By John Yewell/City Editor
Link Here

With Cindy Sheehan gone home to take care of her stroke-stricken mom, President Bush can enjoy the last week of his Texas vacation free of the distraction of her encampment outside his ranch. But a grieving liberal mom whose son died in Iraq demanding an audience may not be Bush’s biggest problem.

His biggest problem may be my mom.

My mother is a lifelong Republican. She got it from her father, a yellow-dog Republican if ever there was one. As unofficial GOP godfather of Fillmore, Calif., he collected absentee ballots every election for his large family and marked them himself. No sense in taking chances that someone might vote for a Democrat.

So when my mother called me the other day and told me she was considering registering as a Democrat, I was, well, stunned. Somewhere in a cemetery plot near Fillmore a body is spinning.

For the last year or more my mother has been gradually expressing ever greater exasperation with President Bush, the war, and the religious right. “Have you heard about this James Dobson guy?” she asked me on the phone, referring to the head of Focus on the Family. “If they overturn Roe vs. Wade, that’ll be it for me,” she said.

Then she mentioned Cindy Sheehan.

For all the efforts to discredit Ms. Sheehan, what she accomplished in drawing attention to the human cost of the war, if my mother’s opinion is any indication, crossed party lines. There’s a Mom Faction in American politics, and while it isn’t a monolithic Third Rail, it’s at least and second-and-a-half rail. When their children are dying on a battlefield of choice, you touch it at your peril.

My mother has her fingers on the pulse, and scalps, of many such women. She’s a hairdresser with a clientele that has been coming to her regularly for decades. Now grandmothers, these women were moms during Vietnam, in which over 50,000 American sons and daughters died. They worried then about their kids’ safety, now they’re worried about grandkids - theirs or someone else’s. Most are pretty mainstream, most Republican, and most, my mother tells me, pretty much fed up with George Bush.

There is other evidence of trouble on the Republican horizon. According to the latest compilation of state polls produced 10 days ago by surveyusa.com, of the 31 states Bush won in 2004, he now enjoys plurality job approval in only 10. This includes a 60 to 37 percent disapproval rate in the key state of Ohio, and a 53 to 44 disapproval rate in Florida.

A recent assessment from the influential and scrupulously nonpartisan Cook Political Report reads: “Opposition to and skepticism about the war in Iraq has reached its highest level, boosted by increased American casualties, a lack of political progress inside the country and growing signs of an imminent civil war. Given the centrality of the Iraq War to the Bush presidency and re-election, a cave-in of support for the president on the war would be devastating to his second-term credibility and influence.”

If Republicans are wondering where Cook is finding this “cave-in of support,” they could start looking in worse places than my mother’s one-chair salon, where Cindy Sheehan found sympathetic ears.

According to various reports, Bush and his team concluded that granting Sheehan an audience would only have encouraged other malcontents to demand similar attention from the president. Whatever the rationale, the decision alienated the clientele of Natalie’s Beauty Shoppe.

In the end my mother decided against changing her registration. Any criticism she might have of Bush, she decided, would be more credible if she stayed in the party, a sophisticated conclusion I admire and applaud.

Although Democrats can’t count on being the automatic beneficiaries of such dissatisfaction, Bush’s refusal to acknowledge fault, his “because I’m the Daddy and I say so” attitude, doesn’t work for a lot of women anymore. Women resent being patronized, and that’s how many view the president’s treatment of Cindy Sheehan.

The next election may be 14 months away, but when my mom and a lot of others like her walk into their voting booths, they may well be reflecting on their children and their choices, and which party is less likely to put either in harm’s way.

John Yewell is the city editor of the Hollister Free Lance. He can be reached at jyewell@freelancenews.com.

I suppose bush supporters find this funny...?

-

IS it really a JOKE to you busheviks or do you REALLY just not give a DAMN about our soldiers...??

Bring our troops home.... They have a president and secretary of defense to question.

"The insurgency in Iraq is comprised of at least 20 groups.-They agree on one thing - the United States is an invader and must be expelled."

--Note this was written by a REPUBLICAN C.I.A. agent--
Why We Must Leave Iraq
By Larry C. Johnson
Davidcorn.com
Go to Original
Thursday 25 August 2005

Sometimes in life there are no good options. It is part of our nature to always assume that we can fix a problem. But in life there are many problems or situations where there is no pleasant solution. If you were at the Windows on the World Restaurant in the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9 am on September 11, 2001 you had no good options. You could choose to jump or to burn to death. Some choice.

A hard, clear-eyed look at the current situation in Iraq reveals that we are confronted with equally bad choices. If we stay we are facilitating the creation of an Islamic state that will be a client of Iran. If we pull out we are likely to leave the various ethnic groups of Iraq to escalate the civil war already underway. In my judgment we have no alternative but to pull our forces out of Iraq. Like it or not, such a move will be viewed as a defeat of the United States and will create some very serious foreign policy and security problems for us for years to come. However, we are unwilling to make the sacrifices required to achieve something approximating victory. And, what would victory look like? At a minimum we should expect a secular society where the average Iraqi can move around the country without fear of being killed or kidnapped. That is not the case nor is it on the horizon.

We may even be past the point of no return where we could impose changes that would put Iraq back on course to be a secular, democratic nation without sparking a major Shiite counteroffensive. Therefore the time has come to minimize further unnecessary loss of life by our troops and re-craft a new foreign and security policy for the Middle East.

The Current Situation

Iraq has devolved into a tripartite state, split among the Kurds in the North, the Shias in the South, and Sunni tribes in the middle. While things are relatively peaceful in the North and South, the central part of Iraq is in the grips of a defacto civil war. Most of the trained and deployed Iraqi police and military forces are Shia. Most of their operations are directed against Sunni targets. The Sunnis do not feel that they have a legitimate voice in the political process. As a result they have decided to fight.

The Shia majority, long oppressed in Iraq, are not willing, nor likely, to relinquish their new status as the tops dogs. They are receiving significant intelligence, economic, and political support from the Islamist government in Iran. The Shia also are well positioned to control a significant portion of Iraq's vast oil resources. They are not likely to share this wealth with the Sunnis.

There is no effective national government in Iraq. The current group meeting inside the Green Zone to draft the constitution has no real clout. True power is held by tribal chieftains and religious leaders scattered around country. Those leaders are playing both sides of the fence - keeping a toe in the political negotiations in Baghdad while providing money and protection to insurgents.

The insurgency in Iraq is comprised of at least 20 groups. Some of these are Baathists, some are Sunni Islamic extremists, and a few are Shia. They agree on one thing - the United States is an invader and must be expelled. While there is no single leader who can claim the status or mandate as did Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam days, the insurgents in Iraq are as firm and serious as those we faced in Vietnam.

The continued presence of US combat forces and our operations against Iraqi civilians is recruiting new jihadists from around the Muslim world. Notwithstanding US efforts to win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people, the sectarian strife and the images of US soldiers kicking in the doors of peoples' homes while searching for insurgents is creating more anger rather than support.

The Sunni insurgents have control of the battlefield in the central belt of Iraq. Even today the United States military cannot keep a six mile stretch of highway open that runs from downtown Baghdad to the International Airport. US diplomatic personnel and many key Iraqi Government officials live inside a security ghetto known euphemistically as the Green Zone. Even during the bleakest days of the war in South Vietnam, US diplomats and soldiers could travel freely around Saigon without fear of being killed in bomb blast or kidnapped. We don't have that luxury in Baghdad.

Options?

We could potentially defeat the Sunni insurgents if we were willing and able to deploy sufficient troops to control the key infiltration routes that run along the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys. But we are neither willing nor able. It would require at least 380,000 troops devoted exclusively to that mission. Part of that mission would entail killing anyone who moved into controlled areas, such as roadways. In adopting those kinds of rules of engagement we would certainly increase the risk of killing innocent civilians. But, we would impose effective control over those routes. That is a prerequisite to gaining control over the insurgency.

We cannot meet the increased manpower requirements in Iraq without a draft. We do not currently have enough troops in the Army and the Marine Corps to supply and sustain that size of force in the field. But, even with a draft, we would be at least 15 months away from having the new batch of trained soldiers ready to deploy. More importantly, there is no political support for a draft. In other words, we're unwilling to do what is required to even have a shot at winning.

While the insurgency is not likely to acquire sufficient strength to fight and defeat our forces directly in large set piece battles, they do have the wherewithal to destroy infrastructure and challenge our control of lines of communication. The ultimate test of a government's legitimacy is whether or not it can protect its citizens from threats foreign and domestic. Thus far the Iraqi Government has made scant progress on this front. Today's attack in central Baghdad, by a uniformed unit of masked insurgents, represents another disturbing milestone in the continued growth of the insurgency. One of these days we should not be surprised when an insurgent force breaches the Green Zone and takes some US diplomats hostage.

An ideal, but unlikely outcome, is that the secularists, who are trying desperately to craft a legitimate government, will persuade a sufficient number of Shia and Sunni leaders to turn their back on a religious-based government. Unfortunately, they don't control weapons or militia. Force remains the ultimate means for deciding a country's fate. In this case the guns are in the hands of those who favor an Islamic state over a secular nation.

If the United States tries to intervene now to compel power sharing on behalf of Sunni interests we are likely to trigger a backlash by the Shia majority. Mullahs like Moqtada al Sadr have demonstrated that they can mobilize combat units to kill Americans when their interests are challenged.

There are some indications that once we are out of the picture that the insurgency will turn on itself. As noted earlier a significant portion of the insurgents are not Islamic extremists. There is evidence that the different groups will fight each other. Sunni tribal chiefs are not likely to cede control of their territory to foreign Islamists once the United States is no longer on the scene. Our departure will likely lead to a brutal civil war, but such a war creates opportunities for the United States where it can rebuild its credibility with those forces who represent modernity and secular progress.

So What's Next?

Staying the course and enduring further casualties while the insurgency grows stronger is an insane policy. If we persist on that front we will end up strengthening the hand of Islamic extremists and their role within the Iraqi insurgency.

Our choice is simple - either we invest in the military resources and personnel required to defeat the Sunni insurgents and allow the Shia and Kurds to consolidate power or we withdraw and let the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds find their own solution. We cannot ask our soldiers and Marines to give their lives and sacrifice their bodies for a new Islamic state. It is true that our withdrawal will create a major vacuum and damage our prestige. But the alternative, i.e., that we stay and try to train up sufficient Iraqi forces and help the fledgling Islamic Government get on its feet, will leave us the favorite target of insurgents and terrorists. And after we have shed the blood of our sons and daughters in trying to create a new government that will be controlled by Islamists, those Islamists will ultimately insist that we leave Iraq and no longer meddle in their affairs.

Rosy scenario does not live in Iraq. Until we come to grips with this truth American soldiers will continue to be killed and maimed for no good reason.



Larry C. Johnson is a former Deputy Director of the US State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, who has spoken out for censure of Bush. Earlier, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and is an expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security and crisis and risk management. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international firm that helps multinational corporations and financial institutions identify strategic opportunities, manage risks, and counter threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. He is a Republican who supported and raised funds for George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.

Myers troubled by lagging support for Iraq war

PENTAGON Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Richard Myers says he's troubled by a growing disconnect between how American troops who are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq feel about the war there and what the polls suggest Americans at home think.

Myers just returned from the region and he says morale couldnt be higher. He says the vast majority of the soliders he spoke with know why they're there, and after serving for a time, feel more commited to the job than ever.

Myers says soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned about attitudes back at home and they want reassurance that they will be allowed to finish what their country began four years ago.

Myers has just returned from a 25-thousand mile, around-the-world tour of spots in which American troops are serving.

He is retiring as Joint Chiefs chair next month

Link Here

Art For Everyone

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The Bush administration - don't care if this war is won or lost. Either outcome will reinforce the ethos of war and cut off any alternative

Iraq Wasn't a Test of

Democracy.

It Was a Test of War


Link Here
As Iraq's constitutional process breaks down, the blame for whatever follows will fall on America's head. This "test of democracy" in the Middle East no doubt is bound to fail, given that Iraq-watchers long before the U.S. invasion warned that the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions were not a nation-state but a confederation held together by terror and armed might under Saddam.

I imagine we will see a flood of posts condemning the Bush administration for its folly, manipulation, self-deception, and ideological blindness, as it well deserves.

I'd only like to raise a deeper question. When is America going to take peace seriously? I aim this question not at the war-mongering baddies but at the good people who never wanted this war and feel more justified every day.

Many of the same liberals and moderates who excoriate Bush have not lifted a finger to form a peace movement. The mainstream media reports on the current standoff at the Crawford ranch in David-versus-Goliath terms when in truth it is more like a pea shooter versus a million tanks.

The U.S. has been on a war footing since Dec. 7, 1941, mounting one of the world's largest peacetime armies and currently spending more on the military than the next 14 countries combined. If one heeds Yeats' prophetic warning that "the worst are full of passionate intensity," what about the other half of the line: "The best lack all convictions"?

If Bush's gamble had paid off, if the Iraqis had danced in the streets when the U.S. marched into Baghdad and kept dancing as they gratefully constructed a new democracy--despite the loss of perhaps tens of thousands of citizens--what then? Would liberals and moderates have sighed and been relieved that this war "worked"?

If this war had worked, the momentum to keep building an aggressive militant super-power would have only accelerated. As it is, simply to return to pre-Iraq levels of defense spending is more or less unthinkable. By holding on to this outmoded model of international aggression, a militant U.S. betrays the ideal of peace in every way.

Iraq was in reality a test of war, and it passed. More war is in the offing, and by passively allowing this conflict to happen, the good people helped pave the way for our next invasion or intervention. Passivity, not blood-thirstiness, is going to lead us into a hugely militarized future. America's addiction to war has just received another fix. The Bush administration and its cohorts don't care if this war is won or lost. Either outcome will reinforce the ethos of war and cut off any alternative.

Kerry and the Democratic National Committee knew that his only strategic option was to vote for the Iraqi war originally, because no anti-war candidate has a chance in a general election. That act of self-contradiction didn't win Kerry the Presidency, however, even against one of the weakest opponents imaginable. I think we should realize that liberals and moderates are in a lose-lose situation. Stop passively assenting to the U.S. as a war power and stand up for your belief in peace. You might be surprised, as I have been for the past five years how many people will stand up with you. To those who believe we can create a critical mass of peace consciousness, I recommend they visit www.www.anhglobal.org (Alliance for the New Humanity).

No Way. This will NEVER stand. HELL NO.

Fury over loss of 9/11

heroes' health program

By MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Link Here

WASHINGTON — A program supposed to monitor the health of thousands of federal workers who answered the call of 9/11 has been lost for more than two years, the Daily News has learned. "We seem to have inherited our own Loch Ness monster in terms of being able to find this monitoring," said Jon Adler, vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association.

Programs were developed to check on the health of every other group that rushed to Ground Zero during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, primarily the World Trade Center Medical Screening Program run by the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Officials involved told The News the feds barred their workers from that program because they were setting up their own.

Unfortunately, that program vanished during the bureaucratic shuffle creating the Department of Homeland Security.

After trying for months to find out what happened, Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney's office was able to uncover only that a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services got $3.7 million for the work. But it started and stopped in 2003, seeing fewer than 600 people.

"I was told there was a 'lull,'" said Maloney, who fired off a letter to HHS yesterday seeking explanations. "This is unacceptable, these men and women are certainly not experiencing a lull in the health effects they are suffering from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero."

An HHS spokesman insisted the program had not been lost, but that screeners with the Federal Occupational Health Service ran into more problems than they expected.

"It was put on a temporary hold while we have been fixing those problems," said Bill Hall, an HHS spokesman. He could not explain the problems or why monitoring stopped for more than two years. He said it would resume soon with workers who signed up originally.

But of nearly a dozen federal law enforcers contacted by The News, only one said he ever got a chance to ask for monitoring.

"We're not asking for anything crazy," said an investigator who wants to sign up. "We just want someone to take a look at us in case, God forbid, 20 years down the line we start getting some strange kinds of cancer from everything we were exposed to down there."

--Unbelievable. This situation has just become intolerable.--

Poll: Many Back Right to Protest Iraq War

By WILL LESTERThe Associated Press
Friday, August 26, 2005; 2:52 AM

WASHINGTON -- An overwhelming number of people say critics of the Iraq war should be free to voice their objections _ a rare example of widespread agreement about a conflict that has divided the nation along partisan lines.

Nearly three weeks after a grieving California mother named Cindy Sheehan started her anti-war protest near President Bush's Texas ranch, nine of 10 people surveyed in an AP-Ipsos poll say it's OK for war opponents to publicly share their concerns about the conflict.

'WASHINGTON -- An overwhelming number of people say critics of the Iraq war should be free to voice their objections _ a rare example of widespread agreement about a conflict that has divided the nation along partisan lines.

"Part of the Constitution is the First Amendment," said Mike Malone, a salesman from Odessa, Fla. "We have the right to disagree with the government."

With the U.S. death toll in Iraq climbing past 1,870 with an especially bloody August, the public's opinion of the Bush administration's handling of the war has been eroding over the past two years.

Overall attitudes about the war _ while negative _ haven't changed dramatically through the summer and a solid majority, 60 percent, want U.S. troops to stick it out until Iraq is stable.

The poll found that most people disapprove of the Bush administration's conduct of the war and think the war was a mistake. Half believe it has increased the threat of terrorism. Democrats overwhelmingly question the president's policies, while Republicans overwhelmingly support them.

Public doubts about the war have gotten new attention since Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in Iraq last year, took her protest to Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 6.

Hundreds of fellow protesters have been drawn to Camp Casey, named for her 24-year-old son. Sheehan's protest sparked hundreds of vigils around the country a week ago.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that Republicans are the most likely to disapprove of people voicing opposition to the war.

Retiree Ruth Carver of Sellersburg, Ind., said she disagrees with Sheehan's protest. "I think her son would be ashamed of her," said Carver, a Republican. "If I don't like what's going on, I can go to the polls every four years."

The poll found that 37 percent approve of the way the Bush administration is conducting the war. Three-fourths of Republicans and only 15 percent of Democrats in the poll approve.

Support for Bush's handling of the war was stronger among those who know someone who has served in Iraq _ almost half _ compared with about a quarter of those who don't know someone who served in Iraq.

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Link Here

Theodore Roosevelt 1918

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

--Amen Teddy!--

"I wasn't trying to scare him, I was just surprised to see him," Death replies.

In Iraq, the Grim

Reaper Creeps

Closer

Link Here
By Luke Baker

(August 26, 2005) -- Death creeps up on you in Iraq. The longer you remain amid the country's violence, the more insistent, the more bullying it becomes. Over time, more people you know die, or are left maimed, or have scrapes with death that leave them psychologically scarred.

All along there have been stories about it -- those killed by aerial bombardments, children blown apart by suicide bombs, families caught in crossfire, slain at the hands of insurgents or murdered by criminals. In March of last year, I stood in the street in Kerbala as suicide bombers exploded among crowds of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims, killing more than 100 people, including dozens standing around me, strangers who became new victims of Iraq's conflict.

But in recent months, the deaths have grown more personalized. It's not just random people who die anymore, but people you've met, people you've interviewed, some you know quite well, colleagues you work with everyday, friends even. Almost every week, someone on the staff at Reuters, just one of a dozen or so news organizations still operating in the country, has a new tale to tell of a relative -- a brother, a mother, a cousin, or a son -- killed in terrible circumstances.

Last month, one of the team of drivers, Yassin, said he needed some time off to look for his brother who had been missing from his job as a blacksmith for five days. Relatives searched fruitlessly, until, desperate, they decided to look in Baghdad's morgue, a building on the banks of the Tigris that is literally overflowing with bodies.

After trawling through the autopsy rooms, pulling out the cold trays on which the bodies are kept, Yassin found his brother, Ibrahim. He recognized him by a tattoo on the inside of his arm and by the clothes he was wearing. He couldn't recognize Ibrahim's face because his body had been left outside in the sun after he was killed and the intense summer heat had burned his skin beyond recognition.

Two days ago, another driver, Saed, still wearing the black clothes of mourning he has worn since his brother died in a car accident, heard that his cousin had been killed. A Shi'ite Muslim who had lived all his life in a mostly Sunni Muslim area, he was killed for belonging to the "wrong" religious sect. "Death squads" from either sect now operate. They drive around ridding neighborhoods of Sunnis or Shi'ites.

In recent months, the litany has continued: the brother of the man who buys food for the office was killed by a roadside bomb, the cousin of our Arabic service correspondent was tortured and killed after being taken by the police, the father-in-law of one of our translators was shot by U.S. troops and had to have his leg amputated, the brother of our reporter in Falluja was killed by Iraqi troops.

Last month, a Sunni Muslim politician who became a regular source was gunned down in Baghdad because he was working on writing the new constitution. His name and number are still in our list of contacts -- emotionally, it's not easy instantly to erase them.

That is just one office. Others have similar stories to tell.

The vast majority of those who have died are Iraqis, and a huge number are also innocent victims. There is no definitive record, but Iraq Body Count, a U.S.-British non-profit group, estimates 25,000 civilians were killed in just the first two years after the war began. They compiled the figure from media reports, which suggests the total is probably much higher -- far from every death is reported by the media. Almost none of those mentioned above were.

Over the same period, more than 1,850 U.S. troops have also died, 1,400 of them killed in combat, and more than 13,000 have been wounded, many of them horrifically, with the loss of limbs or their sight.

Journalists have not escaped either. More than 50 reporters and media workers have died in Iraq since March 2003, making it the most dangerous place in the world for the media to work.

Reuters has had two cameramen killed, shot dead by U.S. tank or machinegun fire. Another cameraman, a freelancer who worked for Reuters, was shot dead last November during a U.S. Marine offensive in Ramadi. Several other Reuters cameramen have been shot at, barely escaping alive.

Marla Ruzicka, a young American woman who ran an aid group that worked to win compensation for the innocent victims of war, and who was a constant presence among the press corps in Baghdad, was killed by a car bomb on Baghdad's airport road.

Sometimes the horror stories come out of nowhere. I met an Iraqi Airways official in northern Iraq two weeks ago and we chatted for a while about his life and family. Last week I called to see how he was doing and he broke down on the phone.

"It's too terrible," he said. "I came home from work three days ago and as my son was running to say hello to me, he collapsed on the ground. I went to him and he was covered in blood." His son, 10-year-old Mohammed, had been hit by a stray bullet. It went through his neck, severing his vertebrae, and left him paralyzed from the waist down.

One of Iraq's leading psychiatrists, Dr Harith Hassan, believes the country may be the most psychologically damaged in the world, thanks not just to 25 years of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime, but the past 2-1/2 years of violence. "The long-term implications are profound," he told me this month, estimating that up to 70% of the patients he sees are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. "What's going on is really a catastrophe from a psychological and a social point of view."

It is perhaps not for nothing that one of the legends of the grim reaper is set in Iraq. According to the legend, a servant sees Death in the market in Baghdad. Fearing his time has come, he runs back to his master and begs a horse to ride far away to Samarra. After he has fled, the master goes to find Death in the marketplace. "Why did you scare my servant?" he demands of Death. "I wasn't trying to scare him, I was just surprised to see him," Death replies. "For I have an appointment with him this evening in Samarra."

In Iraq these days, the Samarra of the legend can seem all around.

Art For Boys

-

The Empire No One Wanted

By Christy Cole

There is something ALL Americans do that annoys the hell out of people from, say, France, or even Australia. We ALL do it like it is an instinct. As we are not very famous for our impulse control, mostly till now the world let us get away with it while tolerantly rolling their eyes with love.

No matter what state you are from, no matter your birth nation.Independant of race, age, or religion, we are ALL arrogantly proud to be a citizen of the U.S.A. Even the meekest among us puffs out his chest some as he gleefully says 'I am an American'. It is almost child like in its innocent rapture, to say those blessed words. We even grin widely as we admit our conceit.

Yet, most never understand why those words make us each tremble, in awe of ourself. And of those that understand it, NONE dare call it by name.

Here is a fun game for non US citizens. Find an American and deliberately ask him about America. Not America the Beautiful. Not America, The Brave.

Say, America, the EMPIRE, and watch his or her reaction closely.

I would say not one American even read it without flinching. If you press ANY American about it, they will most probably squirm. I know I do, just thinking of the word.

Empire. Yuk.

It is contrary to EVERY belief we hold as patriots. It is EVERYTHING we have fought against and condemned.

There was a time we were just proud of ourselves as a nation. But times have changed. Now the arrogance of empire has been programmed into our very flesh as surely as our own thoughts. We not only were TOLD we are number one, but for so long, we WERE number one...in pretty much everything we ever touched. We were free to dream, and we dreamed BIG.

WE as a united people made empires bow to US, in fear, no less. We all liked it, even if we refused to admit it. We were the Champion of the weary, repressed, and those yearning to breathe free. They loved US for our laws that provided mercy, itself. Nothing on earth has EVER compared to what WE The People built. Only once has whats been accomplished here been parralleld in history.

They named themselves Rome.

Like us, their society was built on superior law. But Rome, itself, still pales in comparision. WHY??? As they say, it was not built in a day.

The Empire of Rome ruled through more than a thousand years. What they learned they actually stole by conquor and claim. It was a slow process, indeed, to anniahlate entire people and "assimulate' the survivors into the society safely. They stole people for slaves. They slaughtered innocents. They swollowed entire nations, cultures, histories....Sound familiar America...?

We did it ALL in less than 1/4th their time. Like all empires before, we only ever wanted to be faster, better, stronger, beloved. Unlike other empires, we had better laws to avert the injustice of monopoly. By shunning the thought, we grew bigger than any before us. Unlike others before us, the common people of the world NEEDED us to exist. They wanted us to rise above them all.

We, like the Romans, so do love the luxury of our empire. Just do not call it that, or we may have to discuss how every OTHER Empire has wound up. And how much blood it took to mortar the bricks. Rome did not fall in a day, either.

If the time curve holds true, we will fall faster than Rome ever could have. But we will fall for the same reason. Do not EVER doubt the same trap exists even if we refuse to see it.

The most basic assualt on our legal system that could occur is happening right before our eyes. Like a modern day Calligula, GW Bush and his merry band of oil thieves are committing both illegal and immoral acts and openly scorning anyone in the populace that has a problem with it. Our laws will not survive if they can not be applied at the highest reaches. Especialy there. It is the same as setting fire to our Constitution. It has been the death of EVERY empire.

Nehru not only fiddled as Rome burned he literally had been using his palace, the White House of Rome, if you will, as a brothel. We, too, also have known prostitutes running nakedly through the halls of power pretending to not be gay or incorrect, but still a whore, none the less. With the 'green card soldiers' dying in our uniforms in Iraq, I cannot help but think of the arrogant Romans who sat in thier luxury villas, as the children of virtual or literal slaves fought to expand the very empire that destroyed their lines and made them slaves. They only let their splendid sons out for platitudes or power.

The Romans too, were VERY proud. They wore red so blood could not be seen, lest their enemy think them weak for bleeding. Imagine such pride! Not even your BLOOD can bring honor to such a lofty ideal.

It is no wonder that eventually not even Romans could find a way to justify or sustain an empire. But pride goeth before the fall. Eventually Romans no longer wanted to be Rome. The empire was lost but the people remained.

When I hear one of my countrymen say, "I am an American", I, involuntarilly, have started seeing the image of a Roman General decked out in his full blood red and gold regalia. It is a viceraly beautiful image, but confused with resounding echoes not even time can slow the thrust of. I am reminded of Rome so much lately I see it in troubled dreams.

I am sure every single person in modern day Rome is fondly proud of their history. But, they do not hold the arrogance of their long ago power over history, itself. Maybe their arrogance was lost forever in the terrifying loss of their world as they knew it. How bitter it must have been. Their fall from grace took generations.

They had to let go of the dream of empire to save themselves. To live to dream another day.

When I speak to my friends overseas, I now openly wrestle with my own nationalistic arrogance. It is painful, yet amazingly, enlightening. It has made me look deeper at the America I love. Without the pride clouding my eyes I see our nation anew, and I am again awed by the sheer hope of it.

We can do what no empire could before.

We can restore it by rejecting it. By restoring the laws that made us merciful and just, we reject tyranny and regain our nation..

Bring our battle hardened soldiers home from global conquest, to restore order to their own leaders. Let us throw down our acts of nation building and rebuild our nation back to be the pride of the earth. The envy of both kings and slave alike. An empire every single soul on earth wanted.

When I humble my vison, I see only America The Beautiful. America The Brave. Untended and crumbling.

I wonder will our ruins be as lovely as Romes...?

Art For Girls

-

Reuters Demands US Release Detained Journalist

By REUTERS
Published: August 25, 2005
Filed at 7:53 a.m. ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Media rights groups demanded on Thursday that U.S. forces immediately release a Reuters journalist held in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq unless they could explain why he is being held without charge.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that campaigns to protect journalists detained or threatened because of their work, said it had written to top U.S. Middle East commander General John Abizaid to demand the release of 36-year-old Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani.

It also accused U.S. forces of carrying out summary arrests of journalists in Iraq without providing any justification.

``We point out that the decision to arrest a journalist should only be taken on an absolutely exceptional basis,'' the organization said.

``Journalists, especially Iraqi journalists, are already running very great risks to go into the field. More than 60 have already lost their lives in this country in two years. It is shocking that they are also being mistreated by the U.S. army.''

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also urged the release of Mashhadani, unless the U.S. military could offer an explanation for his detention.

``U.S. officials must credibly explain the basis for the detention of Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani and other journalists being held without charge, or release them at once,'' CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said.

``U.S. forces continue these alarming detentions of working journalists without any acceptable explanation, or anything resembling due process,'' she said.

``We believe our colleagues are being detained for merely carrying out their professional work. These long-term detentions by the U.S. military are a further unacceptable curb on journalists who already operate under near-impossible conditions in the field in Iraq.''

NO EXPLANATION

U.S. military spokesmen have refused to say why they are holding Mashhadani, 36, who has worked for Reuters for a year as a freelance cameraman and photographer in the city of Ramadi.

Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for U.S. detainee operations in Iraq, said the journalist was in Abu Ghraib prison and would not be allowed visitors for 60 days.

Reuters has demanded that the military release Mashhadani or provide a full account of the accusations against him.

An account from Mashhadani's family of his arrest on August 8 suggests that images found by U.S. Marines on his cameras during a general sweep in the neighborhood prompted his detention.

Relatives said that Marines conducting a routine search of the house turned hostile after viewing images stored on Mashhadani's video and stills cameras and his desktop computer.

Reuters has provided U.S. forces with footage by Mashhadani that shows scenes of conflict and gunmen operating in plain view of civilians. Nothing in his work has indicated activity incompatible with his status as an independent journalist.

U.S. military officials have responded neither to offers of further information from Reuters nor to proposals for meetings with Reuters editors to clarify Mashhadani's activities.

Journalists for Reuters and other media organizations in Iraq have been wrongly accused in the past by U.S. forces of having prior information of insurgent attacks -- suspicions apparently raised by their quick response to news events.

``U.S. and Iraqi military forces routinely detain Iraqi journalists without charge or explanation, and some have been held for months,'' the CPJ said. It said it had raised concerns in May about eight Iraqi journalists in detention in Iraq, including local staff for CBS News and Agence France Press.

Reporters Without Borders said the arrest and detention of Iraqi journalists ``does not reflect well on the United States, which nonetheless does not hesitate to give the rest of the world lessons on freedom of expression and democracy.''

Link Here

US Wants Changes in UN Agreement

By Colum LynchWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 25, 2005; Page A01

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 24 -- Less than a month before world leaders arrive in New York for a world summit on poverty and U.N. reform, the Bush administration has thrown the proceedings in turmoil with a call for drastic renegotiation of a draft agreement to be signed by presidents and prime ministers attending the event.

The United States has only recently introduced more than 750 amendments that would eliminate new pledges of foreign aid to impoverished nations, scrap provisions that call for action to halt climate change and urge nuclear powers to make greater progress in dismantling their nuclear arms. At the same time, the administration is urging members of the United Nations to strengthen language in the 29-page document that would underscore the importance of taking tougher action against terrorism, promoting human rights and democracy, and halting the spread of the world's deadliest weapons.

Next month's summit, an unusual meeting at the United Nations of heads of state, was called by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to reinvigorate efforts to fight poverty and to take stronger steps in the battles against terrorism and genocide. The leaders of 175 nations are expected to attend and sign the agreement, which has been under negotiation for six months.

But Annan's effort to press for changes has been hampered by investigations into fraud in the U.N. oil-for-food program and revelations of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers.>>>>continued

Link Here

MESSAGE FROM RANDI

August has been the bloodiest month yet in Iraq.

Not surprising that most Americans now want a simple question answered:

Why are we there?

Cindy Sheehan lost her son Casey in Iraq.

She wants the same question answered.

Bush's reply: make her GOP Public Enemy #1.

See just some of the disgusting smears below.

I will be in Crawford in on Saturday.

I hope you can join me as I join Cindy.

I'M ON MY WAY, CINDY! Thanks for listening.
Love ALLways,

Randi Rhodes

LISTEN: Caller Stacy's husband must fight in Bush's wars. This call moved me. If you do not have a family member in the military, this will help you relate to those who do.

Gas Station Workers Face Angry Customers

By SHEILA FLYNN
Associated Press WriterAugust 26, 2005, 2:25 AM EDT

DALLAS -- It's a scene gas station workers say is becoming increasingly common and frightening: Customers angry over gas prices nearing $3 a gallon storm in and decide to take it out on the employees.

"They just yell and scream," said Selam Berhe, assistant manager at a Dallas Tetco station. "They think it's only us that are high-priced."

Incidents of consumer anger and gas-station crime have made headlines across the country, including the killing of a gas station owner in Alabama last week by a driver attempting to steal $52 worth of gas. Alvin Benefield, 42, surrendered Thursday and was being held on theft and manslaughter charges in the death of Husain "Tony" Caddi, police said.

Berhe recalled the particularly belligerent behavior of a man who ranted about the prices to everyone in the station.

"He walked in the store and said, 'Do you work here?

This is ridiculous,'" Berhe said. "

He was telling each and every customer.

I was like, I don't make the prices.

" Gas prices are about $2.56 in Texas, up from $1.80 at the same time last year.

Bruce Hutton, professor of marketing at the University of Denver, said the high prices could spark even more angst than the frustrating long lines during the 1970s energy crisis because the current situation is far less clear-cut.

The 1970s crisis sparked from obvious oil shortages.

But today, despite growing inventories, numerous factors are combining to drive up prices -- refinery problems, growing demand from China and energy traders worried over capacity tightness.

Hutton, who has done extensive research on consumer decision-making and energy usage information, said there's also a sense of entitlement among consumers today.

"In some respects, that makes it a whole lot more anxious or anxiety-producing," he said. Rae Dougher, manager of energy market issues at the Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, said outbursts directed at employees are common.

"The higher the prices, I think, the more frustrated and angry consumers are becoming," Dougher said.

"I think that they always suffer from consumers' wrath."

She noted that, although gas prices are soaring, gas station owners are often suffering squeezed profits or even losing money -- and they still have to deal with irritated customers who blame them for high costs.

"I think it's hard on a lot of the retail owners and workers to do business," Dougher said. Bobby Poudel, who works at a Dallas Citgo station, said business has been undeniably less pleasant since prices started skyrocketing in June.

"A lot of people show their anger to me," said Poudel, 26.

"Sometimes I've got to say, 'That's not me!'"

Berhe said she's looking forward to lower prices, but in the meantime people at the gas station say they'll just have to put up with some abuse.

"We just need to smile," said clerk Elizabeth Garza.

"If someone tells you something, you have to smile and say, `Have a nice day.'"

Link Here

Iraqi constitution completed without Sunnis

Posted: 01:05 AEST

A final version of Iraq's constitution has been completed and the document will be approved but not by a planned session of Parliament, the Iraqi Government says.

[FULL STORY]

Link Here

As The Iraqi Constitution Fails Again, The Two Realities Are Clear

-

8 Of Iraq Prez. Bodyguards Killed, And That Is The GOOD News.

Link Here
36 Men Found Slain

In Iraq; 8 Of

President's

Bodyguards Killed


BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The bodies of 36 men were discovered Thursday southeast of Baghdad on a road leading to Iran, police said.

The bodies were left on a road leading to Badrah, a town near the Iranian border, police Lt. Abbas al-Shammari said. An official said all but one of the men were wearing traditional Kurdish trousers. All had been shot in the head.

The area southeast of Baghdad has witnessed killings in the past between Shiites and Sunnis. It was not clear if Thursday's deaths were the result of sectarian motives.

To the north, eight of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's bodyguards have been killed in an attack south of Kirkuk on a convoy of cars owned by Talabani.

Police said gunmen attacked a convoy of cars owned by the president, but Talabani wasn't in any of the vehicles. Investigators said 15 bodyguards were wounded. The cars were returning to Baghdad from Kurdistan.

Also Thursday, a radical Shiite cleric is calling for Muslim unity after rivals killed four of his supporters. Muqtada al-Sadr said calm is needed to finish the constitution.

Iraq's leaders are calling for an end to the bloodshed. Rival Shiite groups are clashing for a second day even as negotiators struggle to win Sunni support for a new constitution.

Meanwhile, it looks like another deadline will pass without Iraq's National Assembly voting on a new constitution. A spokesman for parliament said lawmakers would not meet Thursday to decide on the draft. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds disagree on issues, including how to share power without splitting the country.

(Click here for the full story.)

He added, "There are many soldiers in this unit in the same situation and would all be grateful if you could help us get out of this bad situation."

A Madison soldier's family

grieves while seething at

military brass

'One wound after another'
By Steven Elbow
August 24, 2005
Link Here


Every time the wound begins to heal at Ray and Diane Maida's house, something comes along to rub salt into it.


First came news that their son, Mark Maida, a 22-year-old Army sergeant, was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb on May 26. Then, a week after his death, the Army gave only hours' notice that the body would be arriving at Gen. Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, forcing the grieving family into a frantic scramble to retrieve it for a funeral two days later.

Letters and packages to Mark from home arrived for a time almost daily, marked "Return to sender." Then a slow trickle of possessions arrived from Iraq and his unit's base at Fort Irwin, Calif. To top it off, despite repeated efforts, Army officials failed to provide details of Mark's death. More than two months later, the Maidas finally got the details of his death, not from the Army, but from the Washington Post.

"It's just been one wound after another," Diane said. "And just about the time you think you're on the upswing, then you get shut down again with another incident."

For the Maidas, pain from the loss of their son has been compounded by countless snafus. Ray said an Army official even admitted, unofficially, that the Army lacked a proper protocol for dealing with the families of dead soldiers.

It's part and parcel of what Ray sees as a pervading ineptitude in conducting the war and the military's inability to protect its troops.

"They can take a $1 million missile and put it up some Iraqi's ass and they can't tell me what time my son's coming in?" Ray fumed. "This is why my son's dead, this total incompetence."

On Aug. 12, the Maidas finally found the information the Army wouldn't provide. Ray's daughter, Juliann, learned of a Washington Post article that ran two days earlier in which Terry Rodgers, a soldier and good friend of Mark's, recounts his last moments and his last words.

"I went online and began to read it and I had to stop," said Ray, pausing, his eyes welling up. "I just started crying, you know? I guess it changed my picture or the dreams I had. That one I wake up to in the morning, that picture changed."

Reluctant warrior: Mark Maida graduated from Memorial High School in 2001, a few months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

"Mark wasn't about the military, but he was in the military," Ray said. "After 9/11, because he wasn't going to go to college, he thought he'd do his service."

He was also motivated by a sense of duty that echoed back for generations. Both of his grandfathers served in WWII and his father, a retired Madison detective, was a combat veteran in Vietnam. Mark's older brother, Chris, had been in the Marines since 1999.

Shortly before his three-year stint was up on Nov. 1, 2004, Mark applied for an early release from Fort Irwin to attend school - a common request - but Mark's unit mishandled his paperwork until it was too late, Ray said. His unit was deployed to Iraq and, although Mark only had a month to serve out his time, a military "stop-loss" order kept him in uniform until his unit was to return to its home base at Fort Irwin.

"Of course Mark was upset by that," Ray said. "But Mark didn't raise hell. He didn't protest and followed orders."

In Iraq, he became disillusioned.

Mark and his fellow soldiers patrolled trouble spots, often looking for insurgents planting roadside bombs. Although Mark was trained as a gunner on a Bradley fighting vehicle, the soldiers typically traveled in Humvees, which insurgents have been remarkably successful in blowing up.

"He's in Iraq and he's serving and he's getting frustrated, frustrated at the incompetence of leadership," Ray said. "He didn't feel he was accomplishing what America was saying was being accomplished."

But he had a sense of obligation to his fellow soldiers that outweighed his aversion to the military.

At a memorial service in Iraq captured on video, Spc. Shawn Klock, Mark's roommate for two years, said "he didn't like the military, but he did his job to the best of his ability because he loved his friends and family."

Maida could have challenged his deployment, Klock said. Others had. He could have gotten out and followed his dreams of going to college and one day buying a Harley and cruising across the country. In Madison he had a girlfriend, Elizabeth Jacobs, and they planned to get married.

"I asked him one time why he did not fight harder to get his (discharge), and he told me 'I could not live with myself if I knew that one of you guys got hurt and I was not there to help you,'" Klock said. "He chose to take this deployment because of the love he had for his friends."

Stateside, Mark's family and girlfriend contacted U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold after his deployment, asking for a review of the stop-loss order that was keeping Mark in Iraq. Mark didn't want to be involved, but something in Feingold's response to a letter from his girlfriend changed his mind.

Feingold's letter said the senator had concerns about stop-loss. But he indicated that the Army was applying the policy across the board, retaining deployed soldiers who have met their contractual obligations as well as those who were scheduled to retire.

Mark, who had just seen his sergeant major get discharged for retirement, fired off a letter to Feingold dated May 18, eight days before his death.

"I am curious how this can be if 2/11 ACR (Mark's armored cavalry regiment) is still under stop-loss orders," he wrote. "My original (discharge) date was 31 October, 2004 and I'm still here. I feel very unappreciated. What are they trying to say? That the three years I gave my country wasn't enough? I don't care if he did do 20-plus years, he's in the same army I'm in."

He added, "There are many soldiers in this unit in the same situation and would all be grateful if you could help us get out of this bad situation."

Fearing that a letter addressed to a U.S. senator might arouse suspicion, Mark sent the letter to his parents to make sure Feingold got it.

Feingold's office did not return inquiries about whether there was an investigation of Maida's complaint.

Mark's legacy: When speaking of the stop-loss policy, which he considers a back-door draft, and his family's attempts to get Mark home, Ray's voice rises.

"Mark would want to pursue people's knowledge about stop-loss, that there are kids being kept in," he said, "that there's this, what I call involuntary servitude, that we fought the Civil War to stop."

He also said Mark would want people to know about a military that is needlessly placing its soldiers in jeopardy, particularly by putting them in Humvees, the bombing of which are now claiming the bulk of U.S. casualties.

Ray said he is encouraged by Cindy Sheehan, who also lost a son to the war and whose anti-war vigil at President Bush's vacation home in Crawford, Texas is putting pressure on the administration to answer some questions about how the war is being conducted.

"I respect Mrs. Sheehan for wanting to get the message out," Ray said. "It took Mrs. Sheehan driving to Crawford, Texas and sitting at the gate of Bush's vacation home to get the message out, 'Are we telling the truth about the protection of the troops?'"

Ray and Diane said Mark's death has motivated them to speak out about the government's failure to provide adequate equipment for soldiers in Iraq.

"When it comes to equipment, supplies, he would want to let the world know that they weren't adequately equipped," Ray said.

While Mark's death could raise awareness about the incompetence that led to his death, Ray said his legacy is unlikely to include a successful venture in Iraq.

"History will tell us what he did for Iraq and its people," he said. "We don't know right now. Some of us are speculating that we have destroyed Iraq. Some are speculating that we've given them this newfound desire for freedom. I hope his legacy is that spark of freedom. I don't see it, but I hope that's it."

Supporting the troops? If there's one thing that galls the Maidas, it's the endless parade of bumper sticker ribbons.

"Do you know what my government's not doing to support the troops?" Ray said. "I want people to know the lack of respect and the folly of 'We Support Our Troops.'"

Mark's brother, Chris, 24, was a Marine, serving only 10 miles from Mark's unit, although they never saw each other in Iraq. After several of his friends died from being blown up in their Humvees, Chris made it home safely on April 1.

"It's a glamorized pickup truck," he said. "We're riding around in Humvees that obviously aren't strong enough to withstand an IED (improvised explosive device) blast. Myself and all the Marines were pissed we were put in this position."

When he found out that Mark was patrolling in a Humvee, not a Bradley, Chris' first instinct was to try to save his brother.

"Chris, the week before Mark died, he was begging him, begging him not to get into Humvees," Ray said.

Chris later recounted the conversation.

"'Tell them you refuse, you know, it's not worth your life,'" Chris remembered telling Mark over the phone.

Chris said the reason troops in Iraq are patrolling in Humvees instead of fighting vehicles is the cost, which makes many soldiers feel like they are expendable.

"If they feel the troops are worth it, why not spend the money?" he said. "It's human life. You can't put a price on it, so I don't see why they're putting them in this position."

Now Chris has a college degree and works in Milwaukee as a counselor for troubled girls. But he is hounded by his experiences in Iraq - the dead friends, the loss of his little brother and the guilt of having survived.

"I felt like I shouldn't have left if he was over there," he said. "Not only that, you see a lot of innocent civilians die, and that really screws your head up. I've lost a lot in this war, and I've seen a lot of bad things. I don't know if I've seen enough good over there to feel it's justified."

Of Chris, Ray said, "Physically, he's intact. But he lost his buddies and he lost his brother. So I sacrificed two sons to this war. At least the people in charge should let me know what the sacrifice was about, what my son was doing when he was killed."

House of pain: The grief at the Maida's spacious duplex on Madison's far southeast side is palpable. Ray and Diane have three remaining children, Juliann, 32, Aaron, 29, and Chris, which helps. They are extremely tight-knit.

But Mark's death still weighs heavily in the air.

Several boxes were recently delivered to the Maidas - Mark's belongings from Fort Irwin, which the Army had initially told them didn't exist. They remain in the garage, unopened.

"I know what's in them," Ray said. "I helped him pack them."

A picture of Mark in desert camouflage, which was displayed during his unit's memorial for him in Iraq, sits on a counter in the kitchen. Diane's eyes linger on it when she passes.

"Just when you think things are starting to get normal, all of a sudden it's another dip in the roller-coaster ride," she said. "That's made the healing process more difficult for us - those repeated wounds. Like his belongings coming back from Iraq one week, then the next week another set of belongings coming back, then there's this article in the Washington Post that we didn't know was coming out."

The last wound, they maintain, could have been averted if someone from the Army - someone who knew Mark and could tell them what happened - had called.

"Mrs. Sheehan wants to talk to the president a second time," Ray said. "I just want to talk to a lowly officer in a company level command or a battalion level command."

While seeing the story of his son's death in print was a shock, Ray and Diane are beginning to see it as a blessing.

"We finally said, well, it does reinforce the fact that he wasn't still alive in that helicopter suffering on the way to Baghdad with Terry Rodgers," Ray said. "And so, you know, it helps."

E-mail: selbow@madison.com

I am still getting two different stories

Lots are saying the Iraqi Constitution has missed its third deadline, some saying agreement reached...

Still have no clue which is correct.

Does it really matter either way at this point?

What We Are Dealing With In South America

Venezuela:

revolutionaries and a

country on the edge

Venezuelans were hardly surprised by an American preacher's call to kill their President. After all, the US funded a coup attempt against him

By Johann Hari
Published: 25 August 2005
Link Here

Venezuela is living in the shadow of the other 11 September. In 1972, on a day synonymous with death, Salvador Allende - the democratically elected left-wing President of Chile - was bombed and blasted from power. The CIA and the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had decided the "irresponsibility" of the Chilean people at the ballot box needed to be "rectified" - so they installed a fascist general, Augusto Pinochet. He "disappeared" at least 3,000 people and tortured 27,000 more as he clung to power right up to 1990.

Since the Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez, their own left-wing democrat, in a 1998 landslide, they have been waiting for their 11 September. That's why it did not surprise anyone here this week when Pat Robertson - one of America's leading evangelicals and a friend of George Bush - openly called for a US-backed murder of their President.

In the four corners of the Plaza Bolivar - Caracas's Trafalgar Square - there are groups of citizens who work in shifts, waiting, permanently waiting, to mobilise for when an attack on Chavez happens. They are known as the "hot corners", and everybody in the city knows to head there if there is an attack on Venezuela's elected leader.

Laydez Primera, 34, has been doing an eight-hour shift. He explains: " Los esqualidos [the squalid ones, as the opposition is often called] and Bush have tried everything to get rid of Chavez. They know we have elected him in totally open elections, but they don't care. They have tried forcing a recall referendum in the middle of Chavez's term, but the President won by 60 per cent. They have tried saying the elections were rigged, but the opposition asked Jimmy Carter to come and watch the elections, and he said they were totally free. He didn't say that about the election of Bush in Florida! And they even tried staging a coup. We will never, never forget that."

The coup, the coup. Everybody here has their stories about the 2002 coup d'état, and the strange 47-hour Presidency of Pedro Carmona Estanga, the head of Venezuela's equivalent of the Confederation of British Industry. (Pat Robertson's call caused a cascade of memories to burst across the streets of Caracas.) That April, Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power in a decapitation of democracy orchestrated by the media, a few generals and the wealthy. Carmona dissolved the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the elected National Assembly and assumed control of the country. This was immediately welcomed by the Bush administration.

Washington was eager to ensure the largest pot of oil outside the Middle East - providing 10 per cent of US domestic imports - was placed back under the control of US corporations, rather than a left-winger with his own ideas about oil revenue. It later emerged the US had been funding the coup leaders. Only the story didn't end there. Venezuela refused to be Chile. Judith Patino, a 57-year-old grandmother and street-seller who lives in one of the shanty-towns in the west of Caracas, explains: "We would not let our democracy be destroyed. We refused. Everybody from this barrio [district], everybody from all the barrios, went on to the streets of Caracas. We were afraid, we thought there would be massacres, but we had chosen our President and we were governing our own country and we would not surrender."

More than a million people took to the streets, surrounding the Miraflores Palace - the President's residence - and calling for Chavez to return. Los Esqualidos scurried away; Chavez returned to the Miraflores by helicopter, and Caracas erupted into what one young woman told me was "the biggest, maddest party Venezuela has ever seen". Yet, three years on, the country is still split. There is the rich 20 per cent, who for more than a century received all the oil profits - until Chavez came to power and began to distribute them more widely. They welcomed the coup and rejoiced at Robertson's comments. And, glaring at them across a chasm of incomprehension, there is the poor 80 per cent, who defended Chavez.

A taxi ride across Caracas shows how small the physical divide is between these Two Venezuelas, the conflicting mental universes that share a country. Santa Fe, in the east of the city, could be a slice of Beverley Hills. Palatial, gated communities stretch along the hillsides, interrupted only by private golf courses and turrets for security guards. I am surprised to spot one of the battered, chugging public buses, which always seem to be held together by Sellotape and goodwill. "For their servants," the taxi driver explains. The bus carries them 15 minutes away to the barrio shanty-towns that could be a slice of Africa.

Many are squatter barrios, thrown together in the rush migration to the cities over the past 50 years. Houses made of tin and cardboard scar the hillsides, with life somehow flourishing in the crevices. Is this steel shack really a hairdresser's salon? Is that tottering mass of concrete really a clothes shop? It is easy to see why the people of the barrios support Chavez so passionately: I visited dozens of the "missions" built by Chavez that provide health and education for the poor, in some places for the first time. The Miracle Mission, for example, provides cataract operations, restoring the sight of poor people who have been blind for decades. They would have never seen again under the opposition's vision of slashed public spending and oil revenues directed once again to the rich. If democracy was destroyed, these missions - the lifelines for the barrios - would soon disappear.

It is harder to see why the opposition loathe Chavez with such snarling ferocity that they want a foreign power to intervene. Opposition spokespeople from Primera Justicia, one of the main anti-Chavez parties, offer me polite but vague formulations - soft sentences that do not seem to explain the intensity of their hatred. I decide instead to meet ordinary anti-Chavistas, so I head for Las Mercedes where Caracas's air-conditioned restaurants are. I soon find Mario and Ellie Novo Chavez (Armani suit, Donna Karan dress). I ask Mario if is related to the President. "Please! We are about to eat, don't make us vomit!" Ellie laughs. She explains that Chavez is "a fucking communist", a man who looks to "Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein" for inspiration. Mario is about to change his surname, because he thinks it is bad for his business as an IT technician to be associated even nominally with "that psycho" . He says: "There are really only two classes in this country - the educated, and the stupid. The poor are poor because they are incredibly ignorant. But Chavez tells them it is because we are taking the oil money. It's ridiculous! He is giving the poor money for nothing." Yet there is an irony here: while lambasting the poor as ignorant, it turns out the couple are entirely ignorant of life in their own country. They have never been to a barrio, and they say I am "insane" to visit one.
"They don't have roads in the barrios! You won't be able to get there," Mario says, bizarrely. "You will be kidnapped and killed!" Ellie adds. I remembered what one maid in Barquisimeto, in the south of the country, told me: "We know how they live because we are in their houses every day, cleaning their homes and raising their children. But the rich have no idea, no idea at all, how we live." But Ellie interrupts my thought, declaring: "Please - let's not talk about Chavez any more! He is in every conversation in Venezuela, and I am sick of it!"

How much of the division in Venezuela is based on race? Although there are exceptions, the wealthy elite tends to be white, and the skin tone gets darker the farther you go into the barrios. In the newspapers - which are all anti-Chavez - the depictions of the President in cartoons look like Ku Klux Klan propaganda, wildly exaggerating the thick curliness of his hair and the indigenous slant to his features. "Oh, there was no problem with racism before Chavez," Ellie tells me. "You know, it used to be a sign of affection to call somebody el negro. If you had a slow member of your family, that's what you would say. But now, since Chavez, people have begun to think it is racist!"

Across the opposition heartlands, people talk like this - and worse. The wealthy seem to have whipped themselves into a hysteria, convinced that their maids, their police and their president are going to turn on them and lynch them in their homes. The media carefully reinforces this impression, creating a fantasyland for the top 20 per cent to scream in. Yet if you ask them for facts - actual examples of persecution or dictatorial behaviour - they either offer demonstrably false urban myths, or declare: "It will happen soon!" It is true that the medical missions are staffed by Cuban doctors, who Chavez has exchanged with Castro in return for access to Venezuela's oil.

The opposition has seized on this as "evidence" that Chavez wants to make Venezuela into a Castroite dictatorship. But his supporters insist he is taking the good parts of the Cuban model - generous health and education services - while eschewing the pernicious parts, like the liquidation of free speech, elections and the freedom of the poor to make and sell goods.

But you would not know - from what the opposition says in every Venezuelan newspaper, or from the propaganda of Pat Robertson - that Venezuelan elections are open and fair, that Chavez has been approved in polls or referenda no less than seven times, and there is more substantial free speech than in Britain. In Venezuela, people can (and, every night, do) call on television for the President to be killed. Indeed, Chavez has been so reluctant to commit a crackdown that the leaders of the coup are still free and unpunished. Venezuelans are still nervously waiting for them to return, in the form of another coup - or a CIA bullet.

At 2am on one of Caracas's party-heavy mornings, I head again for Plaza Bolivar's hot corners, below the parrots that sit in the trees. I ask Zaid Cortez, 27, what will happen if Chavez is assassinated. "Venezuela will never go back to being governed by Los esqualidos. We won't go back to being a country where the petrol money is used for a minority and not for the barrios. So what will happen if Chavez is killed? Civil war. We are ready."

OwOwOwOwwww. I LOVE this guy!!!!

Vets and the Coward
By DOUG THOMPSON
Aug 24, 2005, 02:10
Link Here

The man who dishonored American veterans by hiding out from the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard added insult to injury this week by shamelessly invoking memories of those who died in war as a pathetic excuse to continue his illegal and failed war in Iraq.

Bush’s lame attempt so disgusted veterans attending the VFW annual convention in Salt Lake City that many of them wore “B.S. Protector” ear muffs during his speech to the group on Monday.

Memo to the dimwit now living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: When the vets who actually fought for their country stop buying your bullshit you’re in a lot of trouble.

Truth is, veterans, especially those who served in Vietnam, have long distrusted Dubya. They know he hid out from war, using his daddy’s connections to get bumped to the head of the line to get in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid serving in Southeast Asia. They’ve seen the enlistment documents where he opted out of overseas service, an extra step to make sure he stayed stateside during the war.

Real veterans can smell a coward and Bush stinks like a dead, rotting carcass – yellow through-and-through, a cardboard cowboy who can sign an executive order sending American men and women to their deaths in Iraq but one who didn’t have the courage to stand up and fight for his country when he had a chance.

Many vets joined in the patriotic fervor that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and supported our military actions in Afghanistan to try and bring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to justice. Some backed the invasion of Iraq, choosing to believe Bush’s “justifications” for the war, justifications that turned out to be manufactured evidence and outright lies.

Now more and more vets see Bush for what he is – a lying, sniveling coward who does not deserve to be called Commander in Chief. They see a man who sent Americans to die in a war based on false pretenses and now has the gall to try and invoke the memories of real heroes to try and rationalize his illegality, immorality and cowardice.

They don’t buy it. Why should they? They served their country in war. He didn’t. He hid out like a spoiled little rich kid, afraid to stand up and face the enemy. Ironically, and sadly, the coward who used the National Guard to avoid service in conflict is now the President who sends Reserve and Guard Units to fight and die in his own dirty little war.

Veterans know Bush sold out this nation, its honor and its dignity by invading a country that posed no immediate threat to this nation and waging a war that didn’t need to be fought. They know the blood of more than 1,800 Americans forever stains the hands of a coward named Bush and every fool who supports him and his war.

They also see Bush as the President who cut their benefits, reduced their cost of living allowances and sent troops into battle without proper equipment, armor or safeguards.

Veterans who served their country have no use for someone who did not.

They have no use for George W. Bush.

===owowowow===That is so darn freakin good for me!!!!!!!!!

===owowowow===That is so darn freaking good for me to girlfriend, some one who says it just as it should be said!!!!

Anti-Sheehan group comes to San Diego

By Alex RothUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 25, 2005

An anti-Cindy Sheehan caravan motored into San Diego yesterday on its way to Crawford, Texas, stopping long enough for supporters of the war in Iraq to rally at a local radio station and square off in a shout-fest with war protesters.

The car caravan, sponsored by a pro-Iraq war group called Move America Forward and headed by a woman whose son is a Marine, began its road trip in Northern California earlier this week and has stops planned in several cities before arriving in Crawford on Saturday.

The trip was organized in response to the vigil by Sheehan, a Northern California woman whose son was killed in Iraq and who, as an act of protest, began camping out in front of President Bush's Crawford vacation ranch earlier this month.

Yesterday's rally was held at the Serra Mesa headquarters of Newsradio KOGO, where conservative radio talk-show host Roger Hedgecock was broadcasting live from an outdoor booth.

The anti-Sheehan protesters waved American flags and sang patriotic songs. Some spoke on the air with Hedgecock, accusing Sheehan of endangering U.S. troops by giving moral support to the enemy.

At times, Hedgecock and his guests had to raise their voices to be heard above the pro-Sheehan protesters, who gathered at the opposite end of a small plot of grass where Hedgecock's booth was set up.

The affair grew heated at times, with both sides chanting and counter-chanting as Hedgecock conducted interviews.

The anti-Sheehan group, which numbered about 45, shouted, "Cindy Sheehan supports Michael Moore!" and "Remember 9/11!"

"There is a similarity between the war in Iraq and Vietnam, and it's in the way that protesters want America to lose!" Howard Kaloogian, chairman of the Bay Area-based Move America Forward, yelled to the crowd. Kaloogian, a former state assemblyman from Carlsbad, has indicated that he plans to seek the 50th District seat now held by Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

On the other side of the lawn, about 30 war protesters shouted, "Tell the truth!" and "Bush lies!" They held signs that read, "America Stands With Cindy," "Bush Betrayed Us" and "Regime Change Starts at Home," among other things.

Hedgecock didn't invite any of Sheehan's supporters to appear on his show.

The caravan – dubbed the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy!" tour – was organized by Deborah Johns, who lives outside Sacramento and whose son has served two tours in Iraq. The group of 30 or so people – Johns said the size varies from city to city – began the road trip Monday in San Francisco and has stopped in Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Johns told Hedgecock that she has received countless calls from parents whose children are in Iraq and who are outraged by Sheehan's protest. She said many families of fallen troops object to crosses being erected at Sheehan's Crawford encampment in memory of their sons and daughters.

Those families "don't want their sons and daughters associated with this," Johns said.

As she spoke, some Sheehan supporters heckled her, shouting, "Cindy speaks for me!"

"Free speech is a one-way street with them," Johns said later.

Hedgecock, Johns, Kaloogian and several other anti-Sheehan protesters accused the media of emphasizing negative news about the war and ignoring positive developments.

Some of Sheehan's supporters, including Martha Sullivan, who came to yesterday's event from Poway, thinks Sheehan is speaking for a majority of Americans at this point.

"She's asking questions that many other Americans are asking as well," said Sullivan, 47, who wore a T-shirt advertising a Web site called ImpeachBush.org. "What noble cause are thousands of Americans dying for, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?"

Sheehan left Texas last week to tend to her mother, who was hospitalized in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke, but is scheduled to return to Crawford this week to resume her vigil.

Link Here

Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides

By DOUG THOMPSON
Aug 25, 2005, 06:19
Link Here

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty.

“Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.”

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

Bush’s behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,” is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.

To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. “To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear,” he says.

Dr. Frank, in his book, speculates that Bush, an alcoholic who brags that he gave up booze without help from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, may be drinking again.

“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank says. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”

Last year, Capitol Hill Blue learned the White House physician prescribed anti-depressant drugs for the President to control what aides called “violent mood swings.” As Dr. Frank also notes: “In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that ‘the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.’”

Dr. Frank explains Bush’s behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial:

“The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking,” he says. “The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat.”

--SOOOOOO...

THAT IS WHY the VFW 'declared war on anti-war protestors'.

What Ever.

I say, declare war on YOURSELF dumbasses if it will help find bin laden any quicker. Yeah DUHHHHH--

Bush has U.S. waist deep in the Big Desert

By Allan M. Winkler

In 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, folk singer Pete Seeger wrote a song that captured the frustration at a war that wouldn't end.

"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy'' was the story of a World War II platoon ordered by a captain to ford a river. Although officers and men both told the captain that the river was too deep, he led them on, deeper and deeper, until he finally drowned.

And then the last verse tied the song to Vietnam.

After singing that he wasn't going to preach any moral, Seeger concluded, with the same refrain he had used in other verses:

"But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on
We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.''

The war in Vietnam is long gone. But the song, so controversial at the time, when people hesitated to tell President Lyndon B. Johnson that he was wrong, resonates today.

Basically, President George Bush has lost the support of the American people for his ill-conceived war in Iraq. As the American death toll has soared over 1,800, including too many people from this area, as suicide bombers strike with impunity, and as a civil war in Iraq seems imminent, polls indicate a dramatic decline in both Bush's personal approval rating and in the broader approval for the war.

The resistance has been highlighted by the vigil of Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas, who lost a son in Iraq. Her quest to speak personally with the president, and to voice her opposition to the conflict, has attracted interest around the country, and has been a public relations disaster for the administration.

It's unclear why Bush is so reluctant to meet her. I know presidents are busy, and have extraordinary demands on their time. But this unwillingness seems to be something more. Indeed, it is rooted in the way Bush has treated any opposition to the course he has set for himself.

Early in Bush's presidency, author Gail Sheehy observed that "the blind drive to win is a hallmark of the Bush family clan.'' The president, she declared, "has to win, he absolutely has to win and if he thinks he's going to lose, he will change the rules or extend the play. Or if it really is bad, he'll take his bat and ball and go home.''

Bush is intent on winning his way, whatever the cost.

Bush's stubbornness reminds me of President Herbert Hoover's response to the Bonus Army in 1932. Veterans of the World War I had been given a bonus by Congress in 1924, but it was not payable until 1945. When the Great Depression struck, the veterans went to Washington to lobby for immediate payment, to help them survive hard times.

In the hot summer months, Hoover never left the White House to meet with the former soldiers. Indeed, he finally called out the Army, led by Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, to drive them away. Two of the peaceful demonstrators were killed, and Hoover lost any hope he had of reelection.

Cindy Sheehan doesn't have an army yet. In fact, she has temporarily abandoned her vigil to go help her mother recover from a stroke. But her quest has caught the attention of the nation and may well be the catalyst for a more focused effort to demand American extrication from the war.

The Middle East remains a powder keg. Iraq remains a complex amalgam of different constituencies that have never gotten along particularly well. It is not enough to voice the platitudes of democracy, or even to draft a constitution, and then to assume that the people will live happily ever after.

But Bush refuses to listen to those who are asking for an exit strategy, or counseling an end to American involvement. Not only does he refuse to talk to Cindy Sheehan, but he has avoided serious conversation with members of Congress, Republican and Democratic, who want us to get out.

As Pete Seeger sang in 1967: "We're waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on.''

Link Here

"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" - In 1967, folk singer Pete Seeger (blacklisted from TV for some 20 years) was scheduled to play the song "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on the controversial variety program THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW/CBS/1967-69. However, CBS refused to air the song which to ld the story of about a WWII soldier killed because of a stupid order from his commanding officer. Afraid to insult the political powers, CBS refused to allow the song (he did, however, perform the song on a later episode). The country at the time was itself "deep" in the Vietnam War. In October 1968 CBS executives began to prescreen all of Smothers Brothers their programs. After several tumultuous seasons, the program was canceled (the Smothers Brothers called it being "Fired") and left the air in June of 1969. The CBS network justified their cancellation by referring to network policy that "Prohibits appeals for active support of any cause" (even if it was "peace").

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said,
"Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on!
I forded this river'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground.
"We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said,
"Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,
"The Captain said to him."
All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on.
"We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said,
"Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on.
"And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep!
Soon even a Tall man'll be over his head,
We'reWaist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

BLOOD MONEY

Secret compo paid to Iraqis
By Mark DunnAugust 26, 2005

THE Australian Defence Force has made secret payments to families of Iraqis killed by Australian troops.The ADF has worked with US and British armed forces to establish compensation rates to be paid to civilian victims in the war zone, believed to include those caught in crossfire or mistakenly shot at checkpoints.

The amount paid and number of payments are being kept secret because the ADF claims the information could compromise Commonwealth finances and international relations.

But because the ADF has worked with the US military on setting compensation rates, it is believed the payments range from $1500 to $15,000, packages previously confirmed by American officials.

From a cultural perspective, financial compensation is highly important to the Iraqi sense of justice. Where payments are not made for losses, Iraqis traditionally demand an eye for an eye.

But based on the US compensation system, the ADF would refuse to pay money where they argue soldiers believed they were attacking an enemy, even though the target may turn out to be a civilian bystander or "collateral" victim.

The ADF is believed to pay an applicant or their family only if negligence is found.

Property damage and traffic accidents may also be covered.

US officials last year said they paid out on 1168 compensation claims totalling $345,779, mostly for property damage.
Australian troops have opened fire on Iraqis in 14 incidents since peacekeeping and rebuilding operations began in July 2003, but the ADF has previously said it found soldiers' actions complied with the rules of engagement.

After almost seven months of ADF deliberations, a Freedom of Information request by the Herald Sun seeking details of the compensation program was this week denied by Rear Admiral Rowan Moffitt.

"Disclosure of the amounts of compensation paid to Iraqi civilians would have a substantial adverse effect on the financial interests of the Commonwealth," Rear Admiral Moffitt said.

Link Here

Afternoon Art

-

Scorpions and Wolves

--If you have been watching this site VERY closely, you know that these body dumps are part of a larger, very SPECIFIC, picture. Hint: El Salvadore.--

Iraq police find 36

dumped bodies

The bodies of 36 men have been found dumped in a shallow river near the Iraqi town of Kut, police say.

The men - aged between 25 and 35 - were found at Areda, some 50km (31 miles) west of Kut, a spokesman told the BBC.

They were partially clothed, had been handcuffed and all had been shot in the head in an execution style.

Violence has increased in Iraq amid growing uncertainty over the future of a new constitution. It is not clear whether a new deadline will be met.

Recent killings

Each of the 36 Iraqis had a 9mm bullet in the head, the Iraqi police spokesman said.

The state of the bodies indicated to the local police that they had been killed four or five days ago.

Six of them had metal handcuffs on and the other 30 plastic handcuffs.

Killings have become common in Iraq, fuelling tension between Sunni and Shias, correspondents say.

Early this month, at least 19 bodies were discovered near a school in south-western Baghdad.

Some of the dead had been blindfolded and shot, while others were beheaded, according to reports. All were men.

Within the space of three days on May, Iraqi police found the bodies of more than 50 people who appeared to have been killed in an execution style at different locations around Baghdad.

--Six in regular cuffs, 30 in flexi cuffs, different locations,...WHY WHY WHY do we KEEP hearing the same things, over and over again.???

I am sure the 19 were victims of the Resistance. No reports of flexi cuffs AND beheading. All in one location.

But the others....Same as before. Even without knowing if any of them had drill holes bore into them.

Guess the scorpions and wolves of the Iraqi dessert will keep their secrets a little while longer....

They can not hide it forever.--

Note; The picture posted with this is from one of the PREVIOUS body dumps. Please note the flexi cuffs his brother is trying in horror to pull from his dead wrists. He was last seen alive along with the other dead men when they were pulled from their homes in a mid-night sweep by ELITE IRAQI SOLDIERS.

Soldiers backed, protected, trained, and controlled by the U.S. Government.

El Salvadore Anyone...???

U.S. defense firms feast on Bush’s “War on Terror”

Analysts say that a significant part of the American’s national

life is determined by the financial interests of the "mighty 10";

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon ...


Link Here

Chávez taunts US with oil offer

Venezuelan president hits back at assassination remarks with offer of cheap
petroleum for poor Americans

Duncan Campbell
Thursday August 25, 2005The Guardian

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hit back vigorously at calls by an ally of President George Bush for his assassination by offering cheap petrol to the poor of the US at a time of soaring fuel prices.

In a typically robust response to remarks by the US televangelist Pat Robertson, Mr Chávez compared his detractors to the "rather mad dogs with rabies" from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and unveiled his plans to use Venezuela's energy reserves as a political tool.

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," he said.

Mr Robertson's remarks have threatened to inflame tension between the US and one of its main oil suppliers.

Yesterday the religious broadcaster apologised for his remarks.

"Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologise for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the US is out to kill him," he said.

In a TV broadcast on Monday, he said: "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

Yesterday Mr Robertson initially said his comments had been misinterpreted, but went on to add that kidnapping Mr Chávez might be a better idea.

"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things, including kidnapping."

The Bush administration tried to distance itself from Mr Robertson's views without upsetting the large Christian fundamentalist wing which the veteran evangelist represents.

A State Department spokesman said assassination was not part of government policy. "He's a private citizen," Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said of Mr Robertson. "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."

But Mr Robertson's remarks are seen as an embarrassment at a time when the US is calling for a united front against terror.

Democrats have challenged the Bush administration to be more outspoken in its response to Mr Robertson's remarks on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Venezuela's ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, said: "Mr Robertson has been one of this president's staunchest allies. His statement demands the strongest condemnation by the White House."

The Venezuelan government is asking for assurances from the US government that Mr Chávez will be adequately protected when he visits New York for a special session of the UN next month.

Venezuela's vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, said the possibility of legal action against Mr Robertson for incitement to murder should also be considered.

Venezuela, the world's fifth largest crude exporter, supplies 1.3m barrels of oil a day to the US. It remains unclear how poor Americans might benefit from the cheap petrol offer, but Mr Chávez has set up arrangements with other countries for swapping services in exchange for oil. Cuban doctors are working in the poorer areas of Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil going to Cuba.

Jamaica yesterday became the first Caribbean country to reach an agreement with Venezuela for oil at below-market terms. The Petrocaribe initiative is a plan to offer oil at flexible rates to 13 Caribbean countries. Jamaica will pay $40 a barrel, against a market rate of more than $60.

Mr Chávez said oil importers such as the US could expect no respite from the oil market, predicting the price of a barrel would reach $100 by 2012.

Link Here

Sheehan song tops web country charts

Link Here

Dozens of Bodies Found South of Baghdad

The Associated Press Published:
Aug 25, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The bodies of 36 men were discovered Thursday southeast of Baghdad on a road leading to Iran, police said.

The bodies were naked and left on a road leading to Badrah, a town near the Iranian border, police Lt. Abbas al-Shammari said.

The area southeast of Baghdad has witnessed killings in the past between Shiites and Sunnis. It was not clear if Thursday's deaths were the result of sectarian motives.

Link Here

Finnish TV drops U.S. televangelist's show after call to assassinate Chavez

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - The only Christian TV channel in Finland said Thursday it will stop airing shows by American televangelist Pat Robertson because of his call to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Full Story

Disputed 9-11 Pentagon Flag Destroyed

Disputed 9-11 Pentagon Flag Destroyed
By Associated PressAugust 25, 2005, 9:21 AM EDT

LOUDOUN, Va. -- An American flag that purportedly flew over the Pentagon Sept. 11 was burned by a man who said he wanted to end questions of authenticity over the banner he bought for $25,000. John A. Andrews II successfully bid for the flag on eBay and planned to fly it over the new Newton-Lee Elementary School in Ashburn, named for two passengers on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon

But amid continuing questions, Andrews burned the nylon flag Wednesday.

"Since the purchase of this flag, the controversy over its legitimacy has continued," said Andrews, Loudoun's school board chairman. "For the victims' families and the community as a whole, it's a small price to pay to put the issue to rest."

With the help of two Boy Scouts and the Loudoun County Boy Scout commissioner, Andrews and others held the flag as the stars were cut from the stripes and the banner was dissected into four pieces. The sections were then tossed into a fire in a metal drum filled with oak logs.

The disposal followed one of several methods outlined in Scout protocol.

In March, David Nicholson offered the flag, he said, to help secure his family's future. He has kidney cancer.

Nicholson, who had owned an auction house in rural Orange, said he got the flag in 2002 from a friend who worked construction and said the flag was flying atop one of his company's cranes at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001

. An initial eBay auction drew a successful bid of $371,300, but the bidder would not honor the sale because of questions about its authenticity raised by Facchina Construction Co., which denied having a flag flying from a crane during the attack.

Contacted Thursday, Nicholson said of the flag burning, "I don't agree with it, but it's a free country.

"I would have liked to have this flag back but I'm fighting this cancer."

Nicholson, who said his cancer has progressed to Stage 4, said an Oct. 27 court date has been scheduled in his lawsuit against Facchina Construction. He is seeking the difference between the initial bid for the flag and the $25,000 bid by Andrews.

Link Here

What Are They Hiding...?

Why Roberts’ Affirmative

Action File Is Missing
Link Here

Whatever happened to the Supreme Court nominee John Roberts’ file on affirmative action, it can be definitively stated that this is all President Bush’s fault. Sound a little extreme? Not really.

Back in 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act out of fear that “President Richard Nixon would never allow public access to his papers.” The Act states that “a former president’s papers belong to the American people” and it is the duty of the National Archives to make the papers available to the public. The law also allowed “former presidents to prevent access to some records for up to 12 years.”

In his last two days in office, Reagan issued an executive order requiring “that both the current and former president be given 30 days’ notice before the release of any presidential papers. During that time, the current or former administration could demand further delays to check for any documents that might fall under executive privilege.” Reagan claimed the full 12 years before his papers were to be released.

In 2001, the deadline on the Reagan papers was up. The Archivist gave notice to the White House as well as the Office of President Reagan. According to the Stanford Law Review, the papers were ready and President Reagan’s representative gave the okay for release, stating “that Reagan’s Administration did not desire to claim privilege on any of the withheld records, and that it had no problem with all of them being released to the public.”

But the papers weren’t released. President Bush wouldn’t allow it.

The “[Bush] White House asked for three extensions to review these papers. According to John Carlin, the National Archivist, none of the…documents in question were ever examined by White House officials.” [Stanford Law Review, 11/1/02] That’s because Bush administration officials weren’t reviewing the papers, they were reviewing the law itself.

The White House filed for extension after extension until President Bush issued his own executive order, giving “the White House or former presidents veto powers on the release” of presidential papers.

It is that November 1st, 2001 Executive Order the White House has been using to justify “vetting thousands of pages of Roberts’ papers archived at the Reagan Library before deciding which ones it will provide the Senate in anticipation of Roberts’ confirmation hearings.”

In other words, the affirmative action file on Roberts would have been in the public domain – rather than lost somewhere in Neverland – as far back as 2001…if it weren’t for President Bush.

---Hmmmmm---

Iraq tunes in as a star is born

***












By Oliver Poole
BaghdadAugust 25, 2005


WHERE politicians and a draft constitution have failed, a television show has succeeded. Iraqis are united in their enthusiasm for a local version of Australian Idol.

Iraq Star has become a television phenomenon since it began six weeks ago, and more than 2000 hopefuls have risked the country's dangerous roads to audition for a chance at a career in pop music.

In a studio in a corner of Baghdad's Babylon Hotel this week, a teenage girl attempted a Lebanese song popular among young Iraqis, only to be mercilessly ridiculed for her inability to dance.

Then, in a musical critique rarely heard on the Australian version of the show, a singer was upbraided for making a grammatical mistake in her metaphorical tale about a humming bird. " 'Slaughtered bird' is masculine," the judge complained. "But you kept saying it is feminine."

The show is watched by about half of Iraq's TV viewing audience when broadcast at 9 o'clock every night.

Producer Wadia Nader admitted surprise at its success. "We have people coming from across the provinces to audition who say that everyone they know is watching it and talking about those who appear," he said.

Nader believes Iraq Star offers much-needed respite from the strains of daily life in the struggling nation racked by power cuts, water shortages and constant threat of death.

As in Australia, contestants take turns to audition before three judges. The most successful are invited back for the final rounds, in which the public will vote by telephone.

The show even has its own Kyle Sandilands, the feared shock jock whose caustic put-downs have reduced many Australian contestants to tears.

However, security fears mean there is no studio audience and the final will be held in Lebanon to avoid being targeted by bombers.

A 12-year-old boy from Mosul named Bilal is being tipped as a winner.

At the audition, he performed his own song that told of the destruction

of Iraq and the suffering of the children.

Halfway through he started to cry, and by the time he had finished all

three judges were weeping. Even the panel's Mr Nasty was sobbing

loudly.

Link Here

And Just To Pile On, Ken Lay Gets Bad News

Aug. 24, 2005, 12:06AM
Judge rejects

request by Lay

Sources sought about information given grand jury
By JOHN C. ROPER
Link Here


A judge has denied a request by former Enron Chairman Ken Lay for prosecutors to reveal the sources of certain information provided to the grand jury during an investigation related to the case.

At issue are unindicted co-conspirators. Under rules followed by the Justice Department, those names are withheld from indictments so as not to compromise ongoing investigations.

In the case against Lay and former executives Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey, the government has said there are 114 unindicted co-conspirators.

Lay's defense attorneys had requested the Enron Task Force disclose who among the co-conspirators said what during the grand jury investigation into Enron's collapse.

His attorneys argue that tying a name to an allegation will help them defend the charges.

While some of these co-conspirators are expected to be named as witnesses by the government, defense attorneys argued they should have access to them — as well as those who will not testify — now.

U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake on Tuesday denied the request to reveal information related to the co-conspirators. He provided no explanation.

Both prosecuting and defense attorneys declined comment.

Defense attorneys in this case have also maintained having such a long list of co-conspirators provides a tactical advantage to the government. They say that if someone is on the list, that person will be less likely to cooperate with Lay, Skilling or Causey out of fear that the government will treat him or her more harshly.

john.roper@chron.com

--Ohhhh Ahhhhh Why does 'Kenny Boy' cause georgie to have such a kneejerk reaction...???--

Six shot dead in Iraqi cafe

Posted: 19:22 AEST

Six Iraqi civilians have been killed and 15 others have been wounded, when gunmen burst into a popular cafe in a town north of Baghdad.
[FULL STORY]

Who Would Jesus Assassinate?

Hugo Chavez and the Men Who Claim to Speak for Jesus?

By Ron Jacobs

08/24/05 "Counterpunch" -- -- You know, when I was growing up as a Catholic, I was given many differing views of Jesus Christ. Virtually all of them were speculative, of course, and as I grew older, I became aware that most of them were based on the teacher's particular political and cultural persuasion. The Pallotinian nuns that taught me in the first and second grades were always telling us horror stories about the communists in the Soviet Union and China and had us pray for the souls of their children every morning.

The Jesuits I knew in high school provided me and my fellow catechism students with a different view of Jesus. Indeed, for most of these men Jesus was a revolutionary. How much of his revolution was spiritual and how much was social depended on their level of social and political involvement. Being a very political person, I saw Jesus as a revolutionary communist with a small "c." Of course, there were a number of men with Roman collars at the time who were taking this perception and turning it into the basis for a social movement in many parts of the world, especially in Latin America. Many of them were Jesuits.

It is this tradition that Hugo Chavez of Venezuela recalls in his speeches and social programs. It is also this tradition, known today as liberation theology that the late pope John Paul II attacked within months of his appointment in 1978. John Paul II's opposition to this perception of Jesus and his works were also part of the reason for the demotion of the Jesuit order as the pope's protectors and the ascension of the right wing Catholic organization Opus Dei into that role. The new pope is even less sympathetic to this train of thought. The underlying reason for this vehement opposition to liberation theology among the Catholic hierarchy stems from its alliances with nonreligious leftists and its attacks on the Church's role as part of the oppressive structure in the world of the peasantry. Nowhere is this role greater than it is in Latin America.

Ever since Chavez began his popular upheaval in Venezuela he has been under attack by the Catholic hierarchy in that country. In fact, members of Opus Dei were involved in the failed coup of 2000 and have been instrumental in the CIA-funded opposition movement since the coup, just as they were intimately involved in the murderous CIA-sponsored coup in September 1973 in Chile. Last month, Bishop Baltazar Porras, president of the Venezuelan bishops' conference, said proponents of radical liberation theology are using it to weaken and divide the Church. "This is part of a plan to debilitate the Church," Porras told The Associated Press in an interview last week. He cited a recent forum in which the Church was accused of turning her back on the poor, where Chavez garners most of his political support. "This is a new program led by a group of theologians like the ones in the times of the Sandinista rule in Nicaragua with the same arguments," said Porras. "The argument is fundamentally anti-Catholic, anti-hierarchy." (Catholic World New, 8/15/2005) It is quite interesting to note Porras equating being anti-hierarchy with being anti-Catholic. I wonder how the Jesus who threw the moneychangers out of the temple and challenged the Scribes and the Pharisees would feel about that equation.

Now, in addition to having the Catholic hierarchy opposed to him, Mr. Chavez has incurred the wrath of some in the evangelical community. Given the generally political conservatism of much of this community, this is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is the vehemence of this wrath. Pat Robertson, former US presidential candidate and head of the multimillion-dollar Christian Broadcast Network, called for Chavez's assassination in a broadcast Monday night. Calling assassination " a whole lot cheaper than starting a war" Robertson went on to say that if Chavez were killed by US covert operatives he didn't "think any oil shipments will stop."

Of course, for those who keep their religion close to their heart or use it only when necessary to cynically convince the public of the rightness of their actions, the comments regarding oil must strike a chord. After all, that's the underlying reason for Washington's (and the old guard in Venezuela) opposition to Chavez in the first place. Not only does he using Venezuelan oil revenues to help the perennially poor in Venezuela, he is also selling it to Cuba at cut rates and making deals with China, much to the chagrin of Washington. Chavez and his supporters understand this. In addition, they also understand the Jesus who inspired Father Gutierrez and his liberation theology. That was the Jesus who said: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

Unfortunately, if Mr. Robertson and many others in Washington, Caracas and the Vatican have their way, Hugo Chavez may get his chance to enter that kingdom well before they do. Although I still like to think that if there is a heaven, Mr. Robertson and his ilk will be denied admission.

Link Here

Street Battles Besiege Baghdad as Constitution Is Debated

New Iraq clashes as radical cleric calls for peace
Fighting has threatened Iraq with another crisis amid haggling over charter

As Iraqi officials inched toward an agreement on a new constitution, dozens of heavily armed insurgents attacked Baghdad police checkpoints Wednesday with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. It was some of the heaviest street fighting in the capital in months.

Link Here

Chavez Calls Robertson Threat "Terrorism"

Venezuela Vice President Slams Robertson

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 24, 2005
Filed at 4:48 a.m. ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela condemned American religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for suggesting President Hugo Chavez should be killed, saying he committed a crime that is punishable in the United States.
Officials in Washington distanced themselves from Robertson, saying his statements did not reflect the position of the U.S. government.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Venezuela was considering legal action against Robertson for saying U.S. agents should ''take out'' Chavez, an outspoken critic of President Bush and close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
''There is a legal measure in the United States that condemns and punishes statements of this nature,'' Rangel said, referring to laws dealing with television broadcasts.

He said the U.S. response to Robertson's suggestion on Monday that the U.S. assassinate Chavez would be a test of its anti-terrorist policy.

''What is the U.S. government going to do regarding this criminal statement? The ball is in the U.S. court,'' Rangel said.

''It's a huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those,'' he added.

Robertson said Chavez should be assassinated to stop Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, from becoming a ''launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism.''

The statements made by the conservative commentator could exacerbate already tense relations between Caracas and Washington.

When reporters in Cuba asked Chavez about Robertson's comments, he said he would prefer to ''talk about life.''
''What they say doesn't matter to me a bit,'' said Chavez.

Castro, who was stood next to Chavez stroking his beard, referred to Robertson's statements saying he thought ''only God can punish crimes of such magnitude.''

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said he knew of no consideration ever being given to the idea of assassinating Chavez. ''Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law,'' he said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks ''inappropriate.''

''This is not the policy of the United States government. We do not share his views,'' McCormack said.
Political assassination was made off-limits by former President Ford in an executive order in the mid-1970s.

On Monday, Robertson said on the Christian Broadcast Network's ''The 700 Club'': ''We have the ability to take him (Chavez) out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.''

''We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,'' he continued. ''It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.''

Robertson, a founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a supporter of Bush, has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device.

Chavez has irritated U.S. officials with his fiery rhetoric against American ''imperialism'' and his increasingly close ties to U.S. enemies such as Cuba and Iran. He says he is leading Venezuela toward socialism.

Chavez has accused Washington of backing a short-lived 2002 coup against him, a charge U.S. officials have denied. The former paratrooper is up for re-election next year, and polls suggest he is the favorite.

Link Here
------

Gary Hart | Who Will Say 'No More?'

By Gary Hart
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A15

"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.

Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."

Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."

At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.

But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.


Who now has the courage to say this?


Link Here

Anti-War Center in Crawford Aided by Link to Grieving Mother

CRAWFORD, Texas - With only $3 in the bank, things looked pretty grim for the Crawford Peace House two weeks ago.

The telephone had been cut off a month ago for nonpayment. The co-founders had used some of their own money to pay the mortgage and electric bill for the four-room bungalow, which opened a month after the war with Iraq began in March 2003.

Then came Cindy Sheehan. The grieving California mother's quest to talk to President Bush about the war that claimed her 24-year-old son's life inspired thousands of war opponents. More than $150,000 in donations have poured into the Crawford Peace House since Ms. Sheehan arrived Aug. 6 and started a makeshift campsite along the road leading to Mr. Bush's ranch, vowing to stay until he talks to her. Because the rural campsite is small, most of the hundreds of visitors spend much of their time at the Peace House, which became Ms. Sheehan's headquarters.

"This has gone absolutely way beyond our imagination or expectations ever," said Hadi Jawad, one of the co-founders.
Mr. Jawad and John Wolf, affiliated with the Dallas Peace Center, wanted a place for activists to gather in Mr. Bush's adopted hometown even before the war began. After finding the two-bedroom, one-bathroom white-clapboard house just across the railroad tracks from downtown Crawford, they bought it for about $65,000. They made the down payment with proceeds from selling anti-war buttons for $1 apiece at peace rallies.

Many of the town's 700 residents view the Peace House as a nuisance, and the overwhelmingly Republican area believes the house hurts the town's image.

Mr. Jawad met Ms. Sheehan this month after she spoke at the Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas. When he learned of her plans to travel to Crawford the next day, he gave her a key to the Peace House.

Ms. Sheehan has said she was so touched by his pledge to support her cause, despite the all-but-empty bank account, that she wrote a $250 check so the telephone could be turned back on.

Now the Peace House can pay its bills on time for a while, as well as expand and improve Ms. Sheehan's camp. The house has spent thousands on food for the hundreds of visitors and $20,000 to rent a tent that can shade 1,000 people. The tent used for concerts is on a private 1-acre lot owned by a landowner who also opposes the war, about a mile from the original campsite.

Mr. Jawad said he expects donations to continue even though Ms. Sheehan left Thursday to be with her ailing mother in California. She is expected to return to Texas this week.

Link Here

CIA Sends Finished 9 / 11 Report to Panels

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 24, 2005
Filed at 12:08 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA Director Porter Goss personally delivered to

Congress the findings of the agency's inspector general report on the

attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opening a debate about how much of the

highly classified and critical document should be made public.

The report, which congressional officials had yet to review Tuesday evening, is a hard-hitting chronicle of actions taken by individuals and the CIA bureaucracy before the attacks nearly four years ago.

The findings are expected to highlight failures of specific individuals, according to present and former government officials speaking on condition of anonymity. Goss had told Congress earlier that people scrutinized in the report had been given an opportunity to review it and respond.

The investigation by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson has caused further angst at an agency that has been repeatedly and harshly criticized for intelligence failures before the 9/11 attacks.

The CIA declined to comment on the report's substance, as did the newly created office of the national intelligence director, which oversees all 15 U.S. spy agencies.

The long-anticipated report spanning hundreds of pages was commissioned in December 2002 by a House and Senate panel investigating the 9/11 attacks.

The joint congressional panel didn't assign personal culpability in its findings but asked inspectors general at the CIA and other national security agencies to look into whether anyone in government should be held accountable.

Lawmakers are particularly interested in how the inspector general divides blame between career intelligence officials and the senior appointees who oversaw them, said congressional aides, who spoke on also condition of anonymity because the report is classified.

The report was delivered to Goss in July. California Rep. Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, had questioned for weeks why it hadn't been delivered to Congress. She said the delay fed ''the suspicion that maybe people are covering it up.''

On Tuesday, Goss himself delivered the report to Congress.

Harman said in an interview Monday evening that the report should be made public so ''its thoroughness and accuracy can then be debated.''

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's senior Democrat, also wants to make public as much of the report as possible, said his spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi.

A declassified public version, however, could be months, years or even decades away, as has happened with other intelligence reports. For instance, the CIA's report on the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba was not released publicly until 1998.


Link Here

-- Crude oil prices hit $68 a barrel in Asian trading, a new record, wire services report

Art For Sleep Deprived Contemplation...

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I have decided this MUST represent hell.

I don't think goats and bats are allowed in heaven.

Why are all the female figures fine as frog hair and the males are all either fat, old, or literal skeletons..?

Yup, that HAS to be hell.

Abu Ghraib General Says Rummy Authorized Torture And Sanchez Watched

Abu Ghraib General

Lambastes Bush

Administration
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t Report

Wednesday 24 August 2005

I had been hesitant to speak out before because this Administration is so vindictive. But now I will ... Anybody who confronts this Administration or Rumsfeld or the Pentagon with a true assessment, they find themselves either out of a job, out of their positions, fired, relieved or chastised. Their career comes to an end.
-- Janis Karpinski, interview with Marjorie Cohn, August 3, 2005

Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when the now famous torture photographs were taken in fall of 2003. She was reprimanded and demoted to Colonel for her failure to properly supervise the prison guards. Karpinski is the highest ranking officer to be sanctioned for the mistreatment of prisoners. On August 3, 2005, I interviewed Janis Karpinski. In the most comprehensive public statement she has made to date, Karpinski deconstructs the entire United States military operation in Iraq with some astonishing revelations.

When Karpinski got to Abu Ghraib, "there was a completely different story than what we were being told in the United States. It was out of control. There weren't enough soldiers. Nobody had the right equipment. They were driving around in unarmored vehicles, some of them without doors ... So, knowing that they were ill-equipped and ill-prepared, they pushed them out anyway, because those two three-stars wanted their fifteen minutes of fame, I suppose."

Karpinski said that General Shinseki briefed Rumsfeld that "he can't win this war, if they insist on invading Iraq, he can't win this war with less than 300,000 soldiers." Rumsfeld reportedly ordered Shinseki to go back and find a way to do this with 125,000 to 130,000, but Shinseki came back and said they couldn't do the job with that number. "What did Rumsfeld do?" Karpinski asked rhetorically. "If you can't agree with me, I'm going to find somebody who can. He made Shinseki a lame duck, for all practical purposes, and brought in Schoomaker. And Schoomaker got it. He said, 'Oh yes sir, we can do this with 125,000.'"

Karpinski says she did not know about the torture occurring in Cellblocks 1-A and 1-B at Abu Ghraib because it took place at night. She didn't live at Abu Ghraib, and nobody was permitted to travel at night due to the dangerous road conditions. The first she heard about the torture was on January 12, 2004. She was never allowed to speak to the people who had worked on the night shift. She "was told by Colonel Warren, the JAG officer for General Sanchez, that they weren't assigned to me, that they were not under my control, and I really had no right to see them."

When Karpinski inquired, "What's this about photographs?" the sergeant replied, "Ma'am, we've heard something about photographs, but I have no idea. Nobody has any details, and Ma'am, if anybody knows, nobody is talking." When Karpinski asked to see the log books, the sergeant told her that the Criminal Investigation Division had taken everything except for something on a pole outside the little office they were using.

"It was a memorandum signed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, authorizing a short list, maybe 6 or 8 techniques: use of dogs; stress positions; loud music; deprivation of food; keeping the lights on, those kinds of things," Karpinski said. "And then a handwritten message over to the side that appeared to be the same handwriting as the signature, and that signature was Secretary Rumsfeld's. And it said, 'Make sure this happens' with two exclamation points. And that was the only thing they had. Everything else had been confiscated."

Karpinski tried to get information, but "nobody knew anything, nobody - at least, that's what they were claiming. The Company Commander, Captain Reese, was tearful in my office and repeatedly told me he knew nothing about it, knew nothing about it," Karpinski said. But in a later plea bargain he entered into after the Taguba Report came out, "Captain Reese said that not only did he know about it, but he was told not to report it to his chain of command, and he was told that by Colonel Pappas. And he claimed that he saw General Sanchez out there on several occasions witnessing the torture of some of the security detainees."

The first time Karpinski got any clarification about the photographs was January 23, 2004. The criminal investigator, Colonel Marcelo, came into Karpinski's office and showed her the pictures. "When I saw the pictures I was floored," Karpinski said. "Really, the world was spinning out of control when I saw those pictures, because it was so far beyond and outside of what I imagined. I thought that maybe some soldiers had taken some pictures of prisoners behind barbed wire or in their cell or something like that. I couldn't imagine anything like what I saw in those photographs."

Marcelo told her, "Ma'am, I'm supposed to tell you after you see the photographs that General Sanchez wants to see you in his office." So Karpinski went over to see Sanchez. She said that "before I even saw the photographs, I was preparing words to say in a press conference - to be up front, to be honest about this, that an investigation is ongoing and there are some allegations of detainee abuse."

But Sanchez told Karpinski, "'No, absolutely not. You are not to discuss this with anyone.' And I should have known then," she said, "and I know that Sanchez was hopeful for a four-star promotion even then, in January of 2004. And I thought it had probably most to do with the election coming up in November 2004, and that this could really move the Administration out of the White House if it was exploited. So naively, I just thought, you know, they're going to let this investigation go and they're going to handle it the way it should be handled."

Karpinski said, however, "The truth has been uncovered, but it's been suffocated and it has not been released with the results of the investigation." She added, "McClellan and Rumsfeld can get up on their high horse and say that there've been no fewer than 15 investigations that were conducted. But every one of those investigations is under the control of the Secretary of Defense. And every one of those investigations is run and led by a person who can lose their job under Rumsfeld's fist."

"We're never going to know the truth until they do an independent commission or look into this independently," Karpinski maintains. "This is about instructions delivered with full authority and knowledge of the Secretary of Defense and probably Cheney. I don't know if the President was involved or not. I don't care. All I know is, those instructions were communicated from the Secretary of Defense's office, from the Pentagon, through Cambone, through Miller, to Abu Ghraib."

Karpinski describes what happened when General Geoffrey Miller arrived at Abu Ghraib: "The most pronounced difference was when Miller came to visit. He came right after Rumsfeld's visit ... And he said that he was going to use a template from Guantánamo Bay to 'Gitm-oize' the operations out at Abu Ghraib."

"These torture techniques were being implemented and used down at Guantánamo Bay and, of course, now we have lots of statements that say they were used in Afghanistan as well," Karpinski said. Although Miller has sworn he was just an "advisor," Miller told Karpinski he wanted Abu Ghraib. Karpinski replied, "Abu Ghraib is not mine to give to you. It belongs to Ambassador Bremer. It is going to be turned over to the Iraqis." Miller replied, "No it is not. I want that facility and Rick Sanchez said I can have any facility I want." Karpinski said, "Miller obviously had the full authority of somebody, you know, likely Cambone or Rumsfeld in Washington, DC."

Miller's representative, General Fast, turned the prison over to the Military Intelligence brigade for complete command and control, Karpinski said. "There was no coordination with me or Colonel Pappas. There was no discussion about chain of command."

Abu Ghraib housed primarily Iraqi criminals. Although many of the "security detainees" were kept at Abu Ghraib, most of the interrogations took place at a higher-value detention facility in Baghdad, according to Karpinski.

The Army discriminates against the reservists in general, and female officers in particular, Karpinski said. "It's really a good old boys' network," she said. "Come hell or high water, they're going to maintain the status quo." While she was made the scapegoat for the torture at Abu Ghraib, Karpinski said, no one above her in the chain of command has been reprimanded.

Karpinski reveals that there was "no sustainment plan" because "there were a lot of contractors - US contractors exclusively - who realized they could make a lot of money in Iraq." At the Coalition Provisional Authority, Karpinski "saw corruption like I've never seen before - millions of dollars just being pocketed by contractors. Everything was on a cash basis at that time," she said. "You take a request down - literally, you take a request to the Finance Office. If the Pay Officer recognized your face and you were asking for $450,000 to pay a contractor for work, they would pay you in cash: $450,000. Out of control."

Speaking about the war, Karpinski said, "Iraq was a huge country, and when you have people largely saying now, 'He may have been a dictator, but we were better under Saddam,' this Administration needs to take notice. And at some point you have to say, 'Stop the train, because it's completely derailed. How do we fix it?' But in an effort to do that, you have to admit that you made a few mistakes, and this Administration is not willing to admit any mistakes whatsoever."

Janis Karpinski is no longer in the military. She is writing a book that will be published by Miramax in November. In April, she received a form letter from the Chief of the Army Reserves, "warning me - warning me - about speaking about Abu Ghraib, and that everything was still under investigation." She then got "a letter saying that he understands that I'm writing a book and I should submit the transcript for review."

"And my lawyer responded simply by telling him that I was a private citizen and I don't fall under the same requirements, which he had to acknowledge, because that's true. I'm not ignorant, and I'm not going to reveal any classified information in anything I write," Karpinski said, "but I don't need to, because the truth is the truth, and it doesn't have to be classified. It is definitely staggering, but the truth is the truth."

Interview Transcript Follows Link Here

Fasten Your Seatbelts, The Collision Is Inevitable

Dow Drops 85 As Oil

Reaches Record High

By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ,
Link Here
Wed Aug 24, 7:08 PM ET

Stocks sank amid increasing pessimism on Wall Street Wednesday, shedding early gains after oil prices reached another record high and a mix of data provided conflicting views on the economy.

The surge in crude prices wiped out the advance that followed the Energy Department's latest inventory report, which showed a strong buildup of heating oil and distillate stocks. Concerns about a drawdown in crude oil and a tropical storm threatening oil facilities pushed crude futures to a new record. A barrel of light crude surged $1.61 to settle at $67.32 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the previous record settlement of $66.86 per barrel on Aug. 12.

The market's earlier momentum grew out of the Commerce Department's latest report on new home sales, which rose to an annualized 1.41 million units, better than the 1.328 million home sales expected. But the government also reported a sharp decline in orders for big-ticket manufactured goods — leading investors to wonder whether an economic slowdown was imminent.

"In all you're seeing sort of a mixed reaction out there," said Brian Williamson, an equity trader at The Boston Company Asset Management. "The oil data was good because of the distillates, but you're still seeing oil prices higher because of demand. And we're seeing a lot of volatility across the board."

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 84.71, or 0.81 percent, to 10,434.87.

Broader stock indicators also lost ground. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 8.00, or 0.66 percent, to 1,209.59 — falling back into negative territory for the year. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 8.34, or 0.39 percent, to 2,128.91.

Volume was light, which is typical for late August, but that only magnified stocks' volatility and possibly exaggerated Wall Street's reaction to oil prices and the economic news.

Bonds traded in a narrow range throughout the day, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note steady falling to 4.17 percent from 4.18 percent late Tuesday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Investors started the session with the Commerce Department's report that durable goods — items designed to last at least three years — fell 4.9 percent in July, a sharp drop from the 1.9 percent climb in June and far steeper than the 1.5 percent drop economists had expected.

However, the home sales report helped home builder stocks rebound from the previous session's losses. Toll Brothers Inc. gained $2.07 to $50, KB Home jumped $1.24 to $72.20 and Lennar Corp. rose $1.17 to $60.10. Yet even the housing report carried a caveat — while sales are up, the average price of a new home fell.

"Although there was some encouragement by new homes sales rising, prices declined. That suggests we are possibly getting a decline in prices, and that's not good for consumer spending," said Hugh Johnson, chairman and chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors, noting that many consumers had refinanced their homes in order to continue spending at current levels. "Combined with the pinch from oil prices, this is not good for the market."

While worries about high oil and gasoline prices have already prompted warnings from much of the retail sector, high-end luxury retailers have yet to be affected. Coach Inc. climbed $1.35 to $33.99 after the handbag and leather-goods maker said its first-quarter profits would exceed Wall Street's forecasts.

Poultry producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp. reaffirmed its earnings outlook after rival Sanderson Farms Inc. posted a 29 percent drop in profits on Tuesday. Pilgrim's Pride rose 11 cents to $31.21 while Sanderson Farms gained 63 cents to $36.40 after falling 7.6 percent Tuesday.

Google Inc. added $2.99 to $282.57 after the Internet search company said it would create an instant messaging and voice chat program to rival popular chat programs from Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, Yahoo! Inc (Nasdaq:YHOO - news). and Microsoft Corp.

The United Auto Workers may offer consessions that would help General Motors Corp. in its cost-cutting efforts, according to The Wall Street Journal. GM rose 75 cents to $34.27 on the news.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 6 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 2.01 billion shares, compared to 1.72 billion on Tuesday.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.46, or 0.07 percent, to 655.01.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.24 percent. In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 closed down 0.47 percent, France's CAC-40 fell 0.27 percent for the session, Germany's DAX index lost 0.04 percent.

WOW... NY Times SANDBAGS Bush

President Bush's

Loss of Faith
The New York Times Editorial
Go to Original
Wednesday 24 August 2005

It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.

"We owe them something," Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.

Most Americans believed that their country had invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but we know now that those weapons did not exist. If we had all known then what we know now, the invasion would have been stopped by a popular outcry, no matter what other motives the president and his advisers may have had.

It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.

When Mr. Bush articulated his "comprehensive strategy" for responding to the threat of terrorism, he listed three aims: "protecting this homeland, taking the fight to the enemy and advancing freedom." The invasion of Iraq flunks the first two tests. But it did free the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and may still provide an opportunity to inspire the rest of the Arab world with an example of democracy and religious toleration.

Right now, however, the Iraqi Assembly is dickering over a constitution draft that would not accomplish any of the American goals. It would fail to protect the rights of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority and the rights of women, and it would enshrine Islam as a main source of law. It could well lead to a fracturing of Iraq into an all but independent, and oil-rich, Kurdish homeland in the north and an oil-rich Shiite theocracy in the south, while the oil-poor center was left to the disaffected Sunnis, the terrorists and the American troops. It's an outcome that would make the violent religious extremists very happy.

Preventing that kind of tragic last chapter is the only rational argument for continuing the American presence in Iraq. The president's strange declaration yesterday that the draft constitution would protect the rights of women and minorities, and his continuing attempts to clog the debate with misleading explanations, suggest his own lack of commitment to the only rationale for keeping American troops in Iraq - or, perhaps, his lack of faith in the likely outcome.


--Ohhhh OUUUCHHH. HeHeHe...--

Late Night Art Kick

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Now that is really creepy.

Grooming politicians for Christ: Evangelical programs on Capitol Hill seek to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God

By Stephanie Simon, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bowed his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prayed that they might find wisdom in the Bible — and govern by its word.

"Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," said Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill."

"Amen," the students murmured. Then they picked up their pens expectantly.

Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

That puts them at the vanguard of a bold effort by evangelical conservatives to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God.



"We help them understand God's purpose for society," said Bouma, who coordinates the program, known as the Statesmanship Institute, for the Rev. D. James Kennedy.

At least 3.5 million Americans tune in to Kennedy's sermons, broadcast from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Since 1995, the unabashedly political televangelist has also reached out to the Beltway elite with his Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington.

The center sponsors Bible studies, prayer meetings and free "Politics and Principle" lunches for members of Congress and their staffs, often drawing crowds in the hundreds.

The Statesmanship Institute, founded two years ago, offers more in-depth training for $345.

It's one of half a dozen evangelical leadership programs making steady inroads into Washington.

The most prominent is Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., an hour's drive from the capital. The college was founded five years ago with the goal of turning out "Christian men and women who will lead our nation with timeless biblical values." Nearly every graduate works in government or with a conservative advocacy group.

The Witherspoon Fellowship has had similar success, placing its graduates in the White House, Congress, the State Department and legislatures nationwide. The fellowship brings 42 college students to Washington each year to study theology and politics — and to work at the conservative Family Research Council, which lobbies on such social issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Such programs share a commitment to developing leaders who read the Bible as a blueprint.

As Kennedy put it: "If we leave it to man to decide what's good and evil, there will be chaos."

"I'm sure there are people who won't appreciate the fact that this class goes on here in the Capitol," Myal Greene said one recent evening.

He glanced around the stately dining room, reserved for the institute by a member of Congress. (House regulations allow private groups to hold events in the Capitol as long as they are noncommercial, nonpolitical and do not discriminate based on race, creed, color or national origin.)

To Greene, there could hardly be a more appropriate location. He considers his private faith and his public duty inseparable.

Greene, the deputy press secretary for a Republican congressman from Florida, signed up for the Statesmanship Institute in part because he felt his Christian ethics were under constant assault — from lobbyists offering him free steak dinners, from friends urging him to network over beers.

The seminars proved a revelation. In one, Greene learned that ministers ran many of America's earliest schools. He hadn't thought much about education policy before that class. Now he plans to fight for history lessons on the Founding Fathers' faith, science lessons drawn from the Book of Genesis and public school prayer.

"It's one thing to have a [biblically inspired] position on one or two issues," said Greene, 26, who was wearing a wristband printed with the slogan "Jesus Is My Homie." "This class has you look deeper. It gives you an intellectual consistency."

On this night, the topic was bioethics. As the students unwrapped deli sandwiches and brownies, prominent bioethicist Nigel M. deS. Cameron praised them for thinking about the "great questions of the day" through the prism of faith.

Too often, he added — to a few startled looks — "Christians are not noted for using their brains."

In an hourlong lecture, Cameron argued that Christians must move beyond denouncing abortion to see the "moral outrage" in other common practices, such as paying Ivy League students to donate eggs in the quest for a perfect baby.

"Taking human life made in God's image may not be as bad, from God's point of view, as making human life in your own image," said Cameron, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. "Our humanity, warts and all, is what we have been given to steward. It's not to be manipulated."

When Cameron called for questions, one student tentatively raised his hand to ask about embryonic stem cell research — specifically, the use of "spare" embryos, frozen in fertility clinics. "Under current practice, they're going to be discarded" unless they're used for research, he said. "What do we say about that, as Christians?"

Cameron did not hold back.

"They're going to die anyway, right?" he said, indignant. "We don't apply the same principle to death row inmates. They're going to die anyway, so why can't we get some use out of them? We'd be able to do some fascinating experiments.

"The principle of manipulating human life to get experimental benefit," Cameron said, "that is a very, very serious line to cross."

The philosophy animating Cameron's lecture — that federal law should be based on biblical precepts — troubles the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This nation was founded specifically to avoid the government making religious and theological decisions," Lynn said. "We are not to turn the Holy Scriptures of any group into public policy."

Kennedy counters that evangelicals have every right to put up candidates who vote what they believe to be God's will — and let voters judge them.

To which Lynn responds, with exasperation: "He says that because he knows in a majority Christian country, the Christian view is going to be expressed by more voters. They have no problem imposing their biblical worldview on every American."

Evangelical conservatives acknowledge that's their goal.

And they now have a systematic plan for achieving it.

Early evangelical leaders were determined social activists, championing causes such as the abolition of slavery and the prohibition of alcohol. But in the 1920s, a theological dispute split the movement. The more liberal ministers pushed for continued engagement in politics — and went on to take leading roles in the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests.

The conservative faction called for withdrawing from politics and focusing instead on building up the church.

"Getting into politics didn't fix anything. It just diverted them from saving souls," said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

With the legalization of abortion in 1973, some fundamentalists began to argue that they had an obligation to try to arrest society's moral decay.

"We realized we [were] having our little holy huddles but not having any influence in Washington," said George Roller, a former public school teacher who now directs Kennedy's Center for Christian Statesmanship.

Ministers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson jumped headlong into politics. They succeeded in helping to elect conservatives, starting with President Reagan. "But things haven't changed very much," said Robert D. Stacey, chairman of the government department at Patrick Henry College.

"Our candidates tick off the right policy positions, but it turns out, once they're in office, they're willing to compromise an awful lot — not just to bend but to break," he said. "Now, religious conservatives are saying they want the real thing."

To develop such steadfast politicians, evangelicals are building on decades of work by nonprofit groups such as the Leadership Institute and Young America's Foundation, which train conservatives in grass-roots activism, effective campaigning, even how to launch a right-wing magazine.

The new evangelical initiatives reach out to the same up-and-coming leaders, but put them through courses that sound a lot like a seminary.

"If you're clinging to conservatism just because you like conservatism, you don't put yourself on the line for your beliefs," Stacey said. "Your positions need to come from something deeper and more meaningful."

That message resonates with Jessica Echard, 23, who completed the Statesmanship Institute last year.

Growing up in rural West Virginia, Echard believed passionately in her church's teachings against abortion, but thought little about such issues as economic policy or foreign trade.

The institute gave her a framework for evaluating those topics.

Now the director of the Eagle Forum, a conservative lobbying group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, Echard says Jesus would approve of a call for lower taxes: "God calls on us to be stewards of our [own] money."

She dips into the Bible to explain her opposition to most global treaties, reasoning that Americans have a holy obligation to protect their God-given freedom by avoiding foreign entanglements.

"The Scripture talks of taking every thought and making it captive to Christ, and that's what the Statesmanship Institute helps us do," Echard said.

Like other evangelical training programs, the institute avoids endorsing any party or position. Lecturers this year include a Democratic congressman and a Republican who says the Lord inspired him to buck President Bush by demanding a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.

Homework includes readings from the Bible — but also from Nietzsche, Engels, Machiavelli and Henry Kissinger.

"We don't tell our students what to think," Roller said.

Yet professors also make clear that "there absolutely is an objective truth," in the words of Paul J. Bonicelli, academic dean at Patrick Henry College.

Hannah Woody, for instance, came away from the institute's seminars confident that abolishing the Department of Education is not just a Republican goal, but also a Christian imperative.

The Bible gives parents — not some distant bureaucracy — the primary responsibility for raising children, said Woody, 26, who hopes to one day run for governor in her home state of North Carolina. (For now, she's working as a legislative assistant for a Republican congressman from Kansas.)

Kennedy offers a similar take on education policy in the gilt-edged, leather-bound Bible his staff delivers to each new member of Congress. In an introductory essay, Kennedy quotes Scripture to explain God's views on taxes, capital punishment, gay rights and a dozen other issues. Most of the policy prescriptions he finds in the Bible dovetail neatly with the Republican agenda.

That focus on legislative victory disturbs some evangelical leaders, who would prefer to work on spreading Christian values throughout society.

"Too many programs start with the idea that if we [enact] right-wing, conservative policies, we'll change America and God will be pleased," said Ryan Messmore, who runs a leadership academy aimed at helping young Christians share their faith through the arts, the media and other professions.

But to Rep. Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican, it's clear the institute is "doing the Lord's work."

The nation needs more politicians who take their cues from God, not Gallup, or "our morality will crumble," he warned. "We won't recognize America."

Roller shares that fear. So he ended the recent class on bioethics with a plea: "Heavenly Father, we pray you will help us to know how we should respond to these issues."

The students answered as one: "Amen."

Art For Everyone

-

"If there is any truth to these charges, the lid will blow off Washington — and the Bush administration will be history."

Aug. 20, 2005, 7:23PM
ROVE BEHAVIOR

By THOMAS PAUKEN
Link Here

KARL Rove's favorite president is Richard Nixon. What a twist of fate it would be if Rove were driven from power as Nixon was over what both men would consider trivial matters — the leaking of a CIA employee's name to reporters by Rove in 2004, and the Watergate break-in of the Democratic headquarters at the instigation of Nixon campaign officials in 1972.

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Just as it was not the Watergate break-in per se (but the subsequent cover-up) that brought Nixon down, so it may be that what Rove said and did after the fact will prove his undoing.

At the center of the controversy is an obscure and very restrictive 1982 federal statute designed to protect American spies. The legislation is known as the "Philip Agee" law and was put in place to discourage people such as Agee (a disaffected leftist who had been in the CIA) from "outing" covert CIA operatives stationed abroad. Valerie Plame appears to have fallen under this category of protected names since she had worked undercover for the agency in her overseas posts.

The obstacle to getting a conviction against Rove for leaking her identity to reporters is that he would have had to have known that she was an undercover operative and also known that it was against the law to reveal her identity.

It is doubtful that Rove had such knowledge. This is not (as it was with Agee) a situation where you have a disgruntled activist exposing our spies in order to disrupt CIA covert operations and put the life of an agent at risk.

This was simply Karl Rove doing what he does best — employing a scorched-earth policy against anyone whom he views as an enemy of the Bush administration.

And Valerie Plame happened to be "fair game," in Rove's words, because she is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, a man who had challenged the intelligence findings that the Bush administration had used to justify its pre-emptive war against Iraq.

Besides, Rove had gotten away with orchestrating smears throughout his political career, dating back to his days as a college Republican operative in the Nixon years.

Karl Rove is a master of using the press to do his dirty work for him; he would leak sensitive information to favored reporters on a "not for attribution" basis. When the damaging information appeared in print, Rove would pile on a story that was essentially his creation in the first place. It was a formula that worked for him time and time again.

This time, however, was different. Valerie Plame had been under "deep cover," and the CIA demanded that the Justice Department investigate the leak.

To his credit, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case, and his deputy selected U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald from Chicago to be the special prosecutor. Fitzgerald had previously taken on Islamic terrorists, Mafia chieftains and corrupt politicians with notable success.

How could Rove possibly have guessed that the case would take on such importance that the judge would require key reporters to reveal their sources, thus outing Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Rove?

What Rove also did not realize was that he had put himself in the middle of a foreign-policy fight between neoconservative advocates of the war in Iraq and critics such as Wilson who were accusing the administration of "cooking the books" and "manipulating intelligence."

Rove is such a political lightning rod that most of the focus has been on him. Very little attention has been given to the other name mentioned as a source for stories by syndicated columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper. "Scooter" Libby is Dick Cheney's chief of staff and national-security adviser. While Karl Rove may call the shots when it comes to President Bush's domestic agenda, Cheney is king when it comes to foreign policy. Paul Wolfowitz may have been the architect of the war in Iraq, but Dick Cheney made the call to go forward and persuaded the president to give his approval.

What happens if it turns out that the

Bush administration relied on fabricated

information about "weapons of mass

destruction" (WMDs) to persuade

Congress and the American people that

we had to go to war against Iraq?

Wilson had debunked the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein was attempting to acquire a form of uranium from Niger to make WMDs. Wilson had to be discredited because, if the Niger information were false, it cast doubt upon many of the other intelligence claims made by neocons.

If special prosecutor Fitzgerald is going down this road, certain prominent figures could be indicted for obstruction of justice and/or for lying about classified national-security matters to Congress and the American people. Perhaps that is why leading neoconservative spokesman Bill Kristol said that Fitzgerald "is the problem for the White House; we have no idea what he knows ... "

The worst possible scenario for the administration would be if it turns out that the Niger documents in question (which all now agree were forged) were fabricated by individuals who may have had a motive for getting us into the war. Shadowy figures previously linked to the Iran-Contra scandal have been mentioned as possible originators of the forged documents.

If there is any truth to these charges, the lid will blow off Washington — and the Bush administration will be history.

Richard Nixon must have spent much of his life after the presidency wondering what went wrong — why such an insignificant matter in the grand scheme of things ended his career. I suspect he never fully appreciated how the cultivation of an environment in which the ends justifies the means infected those associated with his administration.

In my judgment, George W. Bush's White House has much more in common with the Nixon administration than with his father's. The same mind-set of the ends justifying the means is at work here, and it may have caught up with Rove and others in the Plame Affair.

The usual sycophants are beating the drums in defense of Karl Rove, trying to make the case that conservatives have a stake in keeping Rove in power. But the party line may not save Rove's job this time. In his eagerness to hunt down a perceived enemy, Karl Rove stumbled into a national-security briar patch that may bring the entire neocon cabal down with him.

Oh. Crap.

Chinese sites used to

target Pentagon, other

U.S. gov't sites
RAW STORY

Internet sites in China are being used heavily to target computer networks in the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies, successfully breaching hundreds of unclassified networks, according to several U.S. officials, the Washington Post will report on Thursday page ones, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts follow.

#
Classified systems have not been compromised, the officials added. But U.S. authorities remain concerned because, as one official said, even seemingly innocuous information, when pulled together from various sources, can yield useful intelligence to an adversary.

"The scope of this thing is surprisingly big," said one of four government officials who spoke separately about the incidents, which stretch back as far as two or three years and have been code-named Titan Rain by U.S. investigators. All officials insisted on anonymity, given the sensitivity of the matter.

Whether the attacks constitute a coordinated Chinese government campaign to penetrate U.S. networks and spy on government databanks has divided U.S. analysts. Some in the Pentagon are said to be convinced of official Chinese involvement; others see the electronic probing as the work of other hackers simply using Chinese networks to disguise the origins of the attacks.

"It's not just the Defense Department but a wide variety of networks that have been hit," including the Departments of State, Energy and Homeland Security as well as defense contractors, the official said. "This is an ongoing, organized attempt to siphon off information from our unclassified systems."

BUSH REGIME ROTTEN TO THE CORE

By Bill Gallagher
Link Here

DETROIT -- A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping across the nation. Finally, reality and truth are trumping President George W. Bush's lies. Even the perpetual propaganda machine of the corporate media can no longer manufacture consent for Bush's monstrously bad policies and decisions.

A storm of anti-war protests and sentiment is sweeping While most Americans work and struggle with lower wages, a sputtering economy and rising gas prices, Bush still basks in the Texas sun in his long summer of content. He prefers isolation and deliberate disconnection from the grim evidence of his wholesale failures.

Cindy Sheehan has left the vigil outside Bush's ranch to care for her ailing mother. But others are in her place, reminding the world that Bush will never admit his responsibility for the war in Iraq, its failure and the death of Sheehan's son Casey and more than 1,800 other Americans.

The Busheviks consider Sheehan's witness to the tragedy of the senseless war as an irritant, a PR problem that will fade in time. They've used the usual suspects of right-wing indecency -- Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity -- to do their dirty work. Those who question the war must be silenced at best, or at least discredited and vilified.

The war in Iraq is unwinnable and futile. We can never undo Bush's madness in starting the war and his sheer incompetence in not planning for its aftermath. Nor can we stop the insurgency, the spawning of more terrorists and the instability U.S. military presence has created simply by "staying the course." No matter how and when we exit Iraq, more chaos and bloodshed will follow. The country will fragment and Bush's insane experiment in nation-building will prove a catastrophic failure.

The reasonable move now is to cut our losses, save lives and get the hell out of Iraq in a hurry. Polls show nearly 60 percent of the American people now oppose the war and 63 percent want the troops home by next year.

Bush and his war council will never admit error or acknowledge miscalculations. They will continue to send Americans and Iraqis to their deaths as they desperately try to cobble together a political cover plan they'll camouflage as a successful military mission.

Since no one named Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld or Rove will die in Iraq, they figure they can continue the carnage until about this time next summer, when they'll shift the focus to Iran just in time for the mid-term elections.

Bogged down in Iraq? Just create a new war with a new enemy and our "war president" will use the occasion to keep the GOP in control of both houses of Congress.

Iran, a charter member of the "axis of evil," is perfect for the enemy role. Iran is seeking to develop nuclear materials for power plants, which could conceivably be used for weapons. The Europeans are working diligently to forge a diplomatic solution and get Iran to accept international inspections.

But Bush deplores diplomacy, preferring bullying rhetoric and the threat of force. He horrified the Europeans in his recent remarks about Iran, declaring "all options are on the table" and saying that "we've used force in the recent past to secure our country." Bush's reckless rhetoric damages any hope that moderate Iranians will have any influence at all.

But Karl Rove wants a new war to bolster Republican fortunes. The president's "brain" would like to concentrate on the next election, but Rove's spending much of his time trying to avoid federal prison.

If there is any justice left in our nation, Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, will soon be indicted on felony charges for their roles in leaking the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

These scum should be charged with treason, but my best guess is that they will face counts of obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents. The trial will expose the pervasive corruption and ruthlessness of the Bush-Cheney gang, and spur talk of impeachment.

Sworn testimony will show the Busheviks would do anything to protect the lies that led to the war in Iraq. We can only hope the grand jury will look deeply at the motives for outing Valerie Plame and the central roles Bush and Cheney played in the scheme. They should be named as unindicted co-conspirators.

Two prominent figures in the scandal merit far more public attention than they have received so far. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former attorney general John Ashcroft played critical roles in the despicable plot, and the grand jury ought to be reviewing all their actions.

Ashcroft took a deep personal interest in the investigation of Rove, his friend and one-time campaign consultant when he was a senator from Missouri.

Murray Waas in the Village Voice details how Ashcroft at first refused to recuse himself from the case involving a friend, a clear conflict of interest, and how troubling that was to professionals in the Justice Department. Then Ashcroft ordered the FBI to brief him on an interview the agents had with Rove.

Waas reports investigators told Ashcroft they believed Rove "withheld important information from them during that FBI interview." That's dynamite stuff. A former senior Justice Department official told Waas, "It would have been a nightmare scenario if Ashcroft let something slip to an aide or someone else they had in common with Rove ... and then word got back to Rove or the White House what investigators were saying about him."

Ashcroft waited five months before he finally recused himself from the Rove investigation and the White House has never explained what led to his abrupt departure.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, has long argued there has been the "appearance of impropriety" in Ashcroft's handling of the investigation. Conyers wants a Justice Department investigation.

"The new information that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General," Conyers urged.

While Ashcroft may have been involved in the cover-up, Condoleezza Rice's fingerprints are all over the plot to out Valerie Plame to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who exposed the hoax that Saddam Hussein was purchasing enriched uranium from Niger.

Roger Morris, a former National Security Council senior staff member, has done a masterful job of exposing Rice's treachery in a report in "Counterpunch" magazine. Morris argues Rice's "pivotal role" in the scandal has been "missed entirely or deliberately" as the media frenzy focuses on Rove and Libby.

Morris provides an intricate timeline, detailing the events and showing Rice's involvement.

"Rice, by both commission and omission, was integral in perpetrating the original fraud of Niger and then inevitably in the vengeful betrayal of Plame's identity. None of that spilling of secrets for crass political retribution could have gone on without her knowledge and approval, and thus complicity," Morris writes.

"Little of it could have happened without her participation, if not as a leaker herself, at least with her direction and with her scripting," Morris writes.

Rice's glib one-liner, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," scared the hell out of people and became a major propaganda lie in the march to war. Joe Wilson's expose exposed Rice as a liar.

When the time came to attempt to discredit Wilson for speaking the truth, Rice was ready. "And when that moment comes, she has the unique authority, and is in a position, to do the deed. Motive, means, opportunity -- in the classic terms of prosecution, Rice had them all," Morris writes.

Rice's lies were vital in taking our nation to war, resulting in the death of Casey Sheehan and, tragically, countless more to come. A recent "Time" magazine article is entitled "Can Condi Rice Save Iraq?" The quick answer is no, but you wouldn't know that reading the nauseating, puff-piece profile of the secretary of state. We learn about her exercise schedule, hairdos named for her, her refusal to e-mail because it's impersonal, and what a wonderful intellect and perfectionists she is.

We're informed that Rice's most appealing qualities are "her optimism and belief in the power of America ideals." Not a word about the Plame affair and Rice's role.

Rice held an interview last week for reporters and an editor of The New York Times. Again, no mention of her collusion in peddling Plame's identity.

Will Rice continue to dodge scrutiny?

Rice is a professional sycophant and her public service has been disastrous, but she's usually given a free pass or promotion, no matter how badly she screws up. Roger Morris explains why.

"Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National Security Adviser -- the sheer incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or misunderstood -- should have been enough to have her run from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic political cowardice of both Democrats and the media," according to Morris.

With a record of failure, incompetence and treachery, what are Condi Rice's future prospects? Why, of course, the Republicans want her to become president.

"I'm with her. I believe we were lied to. (My son) did what he was supposed to. Bush didn't."

August 24th, 2005 7:22 pm
Tennessee National

Guard soldiers killed

in Iraq

Link Here

SWEETWATER (AP) — Two Tennessee National Guard soldiers were killed Monday in Iraq, their family members said Tuesday.

Spc. Joseph "Joey" Hunt, 27, of Sweetwater, and Sgt. Victoir P. Lieurance, 34, of Seymour, were members of the 278th Regimental Combat Team. Two other members of the unit on the same combat patrol were injured Monday afternoon southwest of Samarra when an improvised explosive device exploded near their vehicle, ejecting at least one soldier.

The Hunt family issued a statement saying they did not know many details of the incident and asked to be allowed to grieve in private.

"Joey was a true East Tennessean who was proud of his family, hometown, state, and country. He enjoyed being involved in the many outdoors activities available in Sweetwater, and he always did so with a beaming smile on his face," the family said.

Hunt visited with his family while on leave in June.

"During that time he shared many stories and photos during his service there. He summed up his feeling during his break that it wasn't easy being there, but that he and his fellow soldiers were proud of their service to their country," his relatives said.

Hunt had two sons — 5-year-old Caleb and 3-year-old Josh.

"They don't have any idea what's going on," Hunt's aunt, Pat Thomas, told WATE-TV. "They went to be with their grandmother, Joey's mom, and she was just holding both of them in her arms. And they kept saying, 'Why are you crying, Mamaw? Why are you sad?'"

Lieurance leaves behind his wife, Penny, and four children, two sons and daughters.

Both his parents said their son's death makes their once-wavering opinions about the war in Iraq much more clear.

Andre Lieurance referred to Cindy Sheehan, the California mother of a slain soldier, who recently camped out in front of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in opposition to the war.

"She didn't speak for me. Now she does," the father told The Knoxville News Sentinel on Tuesday. "I'm with her. I believe we were lied to. (My son) did what he was supposed to. Bush didn't."

"It's a bad war; it's a stupid war," said his mother, Karen Lieurance. "I questioned it from Day One. I think it's a lot easier to support the president when you don't have a family member over there."

Three other members of the Knoxville-based 278th were killed last week, bringing to nine the number in the unit who have died while serving in Iraq. About 4,000 members of the 278th deployed last November.

Life As Art

-

Bush Denies He’s On Vacation

Link Here

President Bush has faced intense criticism for his insensitivity in taking a leisurely, 5-week vacation while the country is locked in an increasingly violent war in Iraq. His initial response was to defensively defend his right to relax, stating indignantly, “I’ve got a life to live.”

That didn’t go over so well with the American public, so the White House spin machine game up with a new line: Despite what it looks like, President Bush isn’t actually on vacation.

According to the San Bernardino Sun, White House spokesperson David Almacy “said the reason that Bush is in Crawford, Texas, is due to the renovation of the West Wing of the White House.” Almacy stated:

"He’s operating on a full schedule; he’s just doing it from the ranch instead of from the White House. The only week he had officially off was this last week."

Keep in mind, President Bush has spent the entire month of August at his ranch every year of his presidency. It’s time this White House stopped renovating the truth.


--Unbelievable--

Holy Crap !! Just Read It !!

Memo for the President
By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Link Here

Wednesday 24 August 2005

Memorandum for: The President

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Subject: Recommendation: Try a Circle of "Wise Women"

By way of re-introduction, we begin with a brief reminder of the analyses we provided you before the attack on Iraq. On the afternoon of February 5, 2003, following Colin Powell's speech before the UN Security Council that morning, we sent you our critique of his attempt to make the case for war. (You may recall that we gave him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq and a "C-" for providing context and perspective.) Unlike Powell, we made no claim that our analysis was "irrefutable/undeniable." We did point out, though, that what he said fell far short of justification for war. We closed with these words: "We are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

To jog your memory further, the thrust of our next two pre-war memoranda can be gleaned from their titles: "Cooking Intelligence for War" (March 12) and "Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" (March 18). When the war started, we reasoned at first that you might had been oblivious to our cautions. However, last spring's disclosures in the "Downing Street Memo" containing the official minutes of Tony Blair's briefing on July 23, 2002 - and the particularly the bald acknowledgement that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war on Iraq - show that the White House was well aware of how the intelligence was being cooked. We write you now in the hope that the sour results of the recipe - the current bedlam in Iraq - will incline you to seek and ponder wider opinion this time around.

A Still Narrower Circle

With the departure of Colin Powell, your circle of advisers has shrunk rather than widened. The amateur architects of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seem still to have your ear. At a similar stage of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson woke up to the fact that he had been poorly served by his principal advisers and quickly appointed an informal group of "wise men" to provide fresh insight and advice. It turned out to be one of the smartest things Johnson did. He was brought to realize that the US could not prevail in Vietnam; that he was finished politically; and that the US needed to move to negotiations with the Vietnamese "insurgents."

It is clear to those of us who witnessed at first hand the gross miscalculations on Vietnam that a similar juncture has now been reached on Iraq. We are astonished at the advice you have been getting - the vice president's recent assurance that the Iraqi resistance is "in its last throes," for example. (Shades of his assurances that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators" in Iraq.) And Secretary Rumsfeld's unreassuring reminders that "some things are unknowable" and the familiar bromide that "time will tell" are wearing thin. By now it is probably becoming clear to you that you need outside counsel.

The good news is that some help is on its way. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has taken the initiative to schedule a hearing on September 15, where knowledgeable specialists on various aspects of the situation in Iraq will present their views. Unfortunately, it appears that this opportunity to learn will fall short of the extremely informative bipartisan hearings led by Sen. William Fullbright on Vietnam. The refusal thus far of the House Republican leadership to make a suitable conference room available suggests that the Woolsey hearing, like the one led by Congressman John Conyers on June 16, will lack the kind of bipartisan support so necessary if one is to deal sensibly with the Iraq problem.

Meanwhile, we respectfully suggest that you could profit from the insights of the informal group of "wise women" right there in Crawford. You could hardly do better than to ride your bike down to Camp Casey. There you will find Gold Star mothers, Iraq (and Vietnam) war veterans, and others eager to share reality-based perspectives of the kind you are unlikely to hear from your small circle of yes-men and the yes-woman in Washington, none of whom have had direct experience of war. As you know, Cindy Sheehan has been waiting to get on your calendar. She is now back in Crawford and has resumed her Lazarus-at-the-Gate vigil in front of your ranch. We strongly suggest that you take time out from your vacation to meet with her and the other Gold Star mothers when you get back to Crawford later this week. This would be a useful way for you to acquire insight into the many shades of gray between the blacks and whites of Iraq, and to become more sensitized to the indignities that so often confound and infuriate the mothers, fathers, wives, and other relatives of soldiers killed and wounded there.

Names and Faces

Here are the names, ages, and hometowns of the eight soldiers, including Casey Sheehan, killed in the ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004:

Specialist Robert R. Arsiaga, 25, San Antonio, Texas
Specialist Ahmed A. Cason, 24, McCalla, Alabama
Sergeant Yihjyh L. Chen, 31, Saipan, Marianas
Specialist Israel Garza, 25, Lubbock, Texas
Specialist Stephen D. Hiller, 25, Opelika, Alabama
Corporal Forest J. Jostes, 22, Albion, Illinois
Sergeant Michael W. Mitchell, 25, Porterville, California
Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, 24, Vacaville, California

Mike Mitchell's father, Bill, has been camped out for two weeks with Cindy Sheehan and others a short bike ride from your place. They have a lot of questions - big and small. You are aware of the big ones: In what sense were the deaths of Casey, Mike Mitchell and the others "worth it?" In what sense is the continued occupation of Iraq a "noble cause?" No doubt you have been given talking points on those. But the time has passed for sound bites and rhetoric. We are suggesting something much more real - and private.

Questions

There are less ambitious - one might call them more tactical - questions that are also accompanied by a lot of pain and frustration. Those eight fine soldiers were killed by forces loyal to the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric with a militant following, particularly in Baghdad's impoverished suburbs. The ambush was part of a violent uprising resulting from US Ambassador Paul Bremer's decision to close down Al Hawza, al-Sadr's newspaper, on March 28, 2004.

And not only that. A senior aide of al-Sadr was arrested by US forces on April 3. The following day al-Sadr ordered his followers to "terrorize" occupation forces and this sparked the deadly street battles, including the ambush. Also on April 4, Bremer branded al-Sadr an "outlaw" and coalition spokesman Dan Senior said coalition forces planned to arrest him as well. In sum, before one can begin to understand the grief of Cindy, Bill, and the relatives of the other six soldiers killed, you need to know - as they do - what else was going on April 4, 2004.

You may wish to come prepared to answer specific questions like the following:

1. Closing down newspapers and arresting key opposition figures seem a strange way to foster democracy. Please explain. And how could Ambassador Bremer possibly have thought that al-Sadr would simply acquiesce?

2. Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have landed on his feet. At this point, he and other Shiite clerics appear on the verge of imposing an Islamic state with Shariah law and a very close relationship with Iran. With this kind of prospect, can you feel the frustration of Gold Star mothers when the extremist ultimately responsible for their sons' deaths assumes a leadership role in the new Iraq? Can you understand their strong wish to prevent the sacrifice of still more of our children for such dubious purpose?

Perhaps you will have good answers to these and other such questions. Good answers or no, we believe a quiet, respectful session with the wise women and perhaps others at your doorstep would give you valuable new insights into the ironic conundrums and human dimensions of the war in Iraq.

A member of our Steering Committee, Ann Wright, has been on site at Camp Casey from the outset and would be happy to facilitate such a session. A veteran Army colonel (and also a senior Foreign Service officer until she resigned in protest over the attack on Iraq), Ann has been keeping Camps Casey I and II running in a good-neighborly, orderly way. She is well known to your Secret Service agents, who can lead you to her. We strongly urge you not to miss this opportunity.

/s/
Gene Betit, Arlington, Virginia
Sibel Edmonds, Alexandria, Virginia
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, Maryland
David MacMichael, Linden, Virginia
Ray McGovern, Arlington, Virginia
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, Minnesota
Ann Wright, Honolulu, Hawaii

Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

And What In The Fuck IS THIS..??

August 24th, 2005 5:44 pm
American Legion

Declares War on

Protestors -- Media

Next?

By E&P Staff / Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK - The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, constitutional protections be damned.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.

The delegates vowed to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

Cadmus added: "It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction.”

Without mentioning any current protestor, such as Cindy Sheehan, by name, Cadmus recalled: "For many of us, the visions of Jane Fonda glibly spouting anti-American messages with the North Vietnamese and protestors denouncing our own forces four decades ago is forever etched in our memories. We must never let that happen again….

"We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm's way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies. "

Resolution 3, which was passed unanimously by 4,000 delegates to the annual event, states: "The American Legion fully supports the president of the United States, the United States Congress and the men, women and leadership of our armed forces as they are engaged in the global war on terrorism and the troops who are engaged in protecting our values and way of life."

Cadmus explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies…

"Let's not repeat the mistakes of our past. I urge all Americans to rally around our armed forces and remember our fellow Americans who were viciously murdered on Sept. 11, 2001."


--OHHHH..Ok if September 11th is your justification why in the hell isnt BIN LADENS head on a platter YET...?

THE MISTAKES OF OUR PAST WAS THE MISTAKES OF LYING PRESIDENTS...Fool.

You WANT to protect our values and way of life INVADE GODDAMNED SAUDI ARABIA!!!!!!!!

RIP THEM FROM THIER TOWERS!!!

Wahabbiisim ANYONE!!!????

That is RIGHT,.. you CAN'T invade the ones who ACTUALLY attacked us, because they have BOUGHT OFF YOUR PRESIDENT...

Not MY PRESIDENT. He was NEVER LEGALLY elected.

NOT IN MY NAME.

Fuck this bullshit. If your for bush your for the FAMILY that set him up in his FIRST bussiness..

WHOS YOUR DADDY BUSHEVIKS....?

BIN LADENS.

You say kill them there before they strike here .. THEY ALREADY STRUCK HERE ASSHOLES WITH NO REPERCUSSIONS OR CONSEQUENCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ON HIS WATCH.

WHAT YA GONNA DO ABOUT IT.....??????

Nuthin.

OBVIOUSLY.........---

Art For Everyone

-

Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration

By Marjorie Cohn t r u t h o u t Report
Wednesday 24 August 2005

I had been hesitant to speak out before because this Administration is so vindictive. But now I will ... Anybody who confronts this Administration or Rumsfeld or the Pentagon with a true assessment, they find themselves either out of a job, out of their positions, fired, relieved or chastised. Their career comes to an end. -- Janis Karpinski, interview with Marjorie Cohn, August 3, 2005

Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq when the now famous torture photographs were taken in fall of 2003. She was reprimanded and demoted to Colonel for her failure to properly supervise the prison guards. Karpinski is the highest ranking officer to be sanctioned for the mistreatment of prisoners. On August 3, 2005, I interviewed Janis Karpinski. In the most comprehensive public statement she has made to date, Karpinski deconstructs the entire United States military operation in Iraq with some astonishing revelations.

When Karpinski got to Abu Ghraib, "there was a completely different story than what we were being told in the United States. It was out of control. There weren't enough soldiers. Nobody had the right equipment. They were driving around in unarmored vehicles, some of them without doors ... So, knowing that they were ill-equipped and ill-prepared, they pushed them out anyway, because those two three-stars wanted their fifteen minutes of fame, I suppose."

Karpinski said that General Shinseki briefed Rumsfeld that "he can't win this war, if they insist on invading Iraq, he can't win this war with less than 300,000 soldiers." Rumsfeld reportedly ordered Shinseki to go back and find a way to do this with 125,000 to 130,000, but Shinseki came back and said they couldn't do the job with that number. "What did Rumsfeld do?" Karpinski asked rhetorically. "If you can't agree with me, I'm going to find somebody who can. He made Shinseki a lame duck, for all practical purposes, and brought in Schoomaker. And Schoomaker got it. He said, 'Oh yes sir, we can do this with 125,000.'"

Karpinski says she did not know about the torture occurring in Cellblocks 1-A and 1-B at Abu Ghraib because it took place at night. She didn't live at Abu Ghraib, and nobody was permitted to travel at night due to the dangerous road conditions. The first she heard about the torture was on January 12, 2004. She was never allowed to speak to the people who had worked on the night shift. She "was told by Colonel Warren, the JAG officer for General Sanchez, that they weren't assigned to me, that they were not under my control, and I really had no right to see them."

When Karpinski inquired, "What's this about photographs?" the sergeant replied, "Ma'am, we've heard something about photographs, but I have no idea. Nobody has any details, and Ma'am, if anybody knows, nobody is talking." When Karpinski asked to see the log books, the sergeant told her that the Criminal Investigation Division had taken everything except for something on a pole outside the little office they were using.

"It was a memorandum signed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, authorizing a short list, maybe 6 or 8 techniques: use of dogs; stress positions; loud music; deprivation of food; keeping the lights on, those kinds of things," Karpinski said. "And then a handwritten message over to the side that appeared to be the same handwriting as the signature, and that signature was Secretary Rumsfeld's. And it said, 'Make sure this happens' with two exclamation points. And that was the only thing they had. Everything else had been confiscated."

Karpinski tried to get information, but "nobody knew anything, nobody - at least, that's what they were claiming. The Company Commander, Captain Reese, was tearful in my office and repeatedly told me he knew nothing about it, knew nothing about it," Karpinski said. But in a later plea bargain he entered into after the Taguba Report came out, "Captain Reese said that not only did he know about it, but he was told not to report it to his chain of command, and he was told that by Colonel Pappas. And he claimed that he saw General Sanchez out there on several occasions witnessing the torture of some of the security detainees."

The first time Karpinski got any clarification about the photographs was January 23, 2004. The criminal investigator, Colonel Marcelo, came into Karpinski's office and showed her the pictures. "When I saw the pictures I was floored," Karpinski said. "Really, the world was spinning out of control when I saw those pictures, because it was so far beyond and outside of what I imagined. I thought that maybe some soldiers had taken some pictures of prisoners behind barbed wire or in their cell or something like that. I couldn't imagine anything like what I saw in those photographs."

Marcelo told her, "Ma'am, I'm supposed to tell you after you see the photographs that General Sanchez wants to see you in his office." So Karpinski went over to see Sanchez. She said that "before I even saw the photographs, I was preparing words to say in a press conference - to be up front, to be honest about this, that an investigation is ongoing and there are some allegations of detainee abuse."

But Sanchez told Karpinski, "'No, absolutely not. You are not to discuss this with anyone.' And I should have known then," she said, "and I know that Sanchez was hopeful for a four-star promotion even then, in January of 2004. And I thought it had probably most to do with the election coming up in November 2004, and that this could really move the Administration out of the White House if it was exploited. So naively, I just thought, you know, they're going to let this investigation go and they're going to handle it the way it should be handled."

Karpinski said, however, "The truth has been uncovered, but it's been suffocated and it has not been released with the results of the investigation." She added, "McClellan and Rumsfeld can get up on their high horse and say that there've been no fewer than 15 investigations that were conducted. But every one of those investigations is under the control of the Secretary of Defense. And every one of those investigations is run and led by a person who can lose their job under Rumsfeld's fist."

"We're never going to know the truth until they do an independent commission or look into this independently," Karpinski maintains. "This is about instructions delivered with full authority and knowledge of the Secretary of Defense and probably Cheney. I don't know if the President was involved or not. I don't care. All I know is, those instructions were communicated from the Secretary of Defense's office, from the Pentagon, through Cambone, through Miller, to Abu Ghraib."

Karpinski describes what happened when General Geoffrey Miller arrived at Abu Ghraib: "The most pronounced difference was when Miller came to visit. He came right after Rumsfeld's visit ... And he said that he was going to use a template from Guantánamo Bay to 'Gitm-oize' the operations out at Abu Ghraib."

"These torture techniques were being implemented and used down at Guantánamo Bay and, of course, now we have lots of statements that say they were used in Afghanistan as well," Karpinski said. Although Miller has sworn he was just an "advisor," Miller told Karpinski he wanted Abu Ghraib. Karpinski replied, "Abu Ghraib is not mine to give to you. It belongs to Ambassador Bremer. It is going to be turned over to the Iraqis." Miller replied, "No it is not. I want that facility and Rick Sanchez said I can have any facility I want." Karpinski said, "Miller obviously had the full authority of somebody, you know, likely Cambone or Rumsfeld in Washington, DC."

Miller's representative, General Fast, turned the prison over to the Military Intelligence brigade for complete command and control, Karpinski said. "There was no coordination with me or Colonel Pappas. There was no discussion about chain of command."

Abu Ghraib housed primarily Iraqi criminals. Although many of the "security detainees" were kept at Abu Ghraib, most of the interrogations took place at a higher-value detention facility in Baghdad, according to Karpinski.

The Army discriminates against the reservists in general, and female officers in particular, Karpinski said. "It's really a good old boys' network," she said. "Come hell or high water, they're going to maintain the status quo." While she was made the scapegoat for the torture at Abu Ghraib, Karpinski said, no one above her in the chain of command has been reprimanded.

Karpinski reveals that there was "no sustainment plan" because "there were a lot of contractors - US contractors exclusively - who realized they could make a lot of money in Iraq." At the Coalition Provisional Authority, Karpinski "saw corruption like I've never seen before - millions of dollars just being pocketed by contractors. Everything was on a cash basis at that time," she said. "You take a request down - literally, you take a request to the Finance Office. If the Pay Officer recognized your face and you were asking for $450,000 to pay a contractor for work, they would pay you in cash: $450,000. Out of control."

Speaking about the war, Karpinski said, "Iraq was a huge country, and when you have people largely saying now, 'He may have been a dictator, but we were better under Saddam,' this Administration needs to take notice. And at some point you have to say, 'Stop the train, because it's completely derailed. How do we fix it?' But in an effort to do that, you have to admit that you made a few mistakes, and this Administration is not willing to admit any mistakes whatsoever."

Janis Karpinski is no longer in the military. She is writing a book that will be published by Miramax in November. In April, she received a form letter from the Chief of the Army Reserves, "warning me - warning me - about speaking about Abu Ghraib, and that everything was still under investigation." She then got "a letter saying that he understands that I'm writing a book and I should submit the transcript for review."

"And my lawyer responded simply by telling him that I was a private citizen and I don't fall under the same requirements, which he had to acknowledge, because that's true. I'm not ignorant, and I'm not going to reveal any classified information in anything I write," Karpinski said, "but I don't need to, because the truth is the truth, and it doesn't have to be classified. It is definitely staggering, but the truth is the truth."

Link Here

Piling on the Defenders of U.S. Policy in Iraq

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A03

You knew it was a bad day for the White House when even Fox News was piling on President Bush's counselor, Dan Bartlett.

E.D. Hill, one of the "Fox & Friends" morning show anchors, said she thought the Iraq war "was a justified one" but now worries "that there's not a plan to actually win that ground war."

"Well, E.D., I can assure you that's not the case," Bartlett assured her. Allowing that it's been a "bumpy process" with "difficult days," he asserted: "We have the right strategy to prevail."

Hill was not reassured by this assurance. "I guess I'm not convinced," she replied.

Nor, it seems, is most of the country. A nationwide poll released Monday by American Research Group showed Bush's approval rating at 36 percent -- a new low that, if accurate, would put him in the unhappy company of his father just before his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter before his loss to Ronald Reagan. Antiwar demonstrators dog Bush at his ranch and at every stop on the road, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) has said we "should start figuring out how we get out of" Iraq. Constitutional negotiators are bickering, and some talk of civil war.

Under that dark cloud, the White House yesterday morning rushed to distribute umbrellas. Bartlett signed up for six morning television interviews, on the three networks and the three cable news channels. The White House announced that Bush, vacationing in Idaho, would come out to face the cameras. The Pentagon said Donald Rumsfeld would hold a news conference. The State Department scheduled an "open press" event for Condoleezza Rice but, perhaps sensing overkill, later said there would be "no Q&A."


There was no mistaking administration talking points. Bartlett said 11 times that the president and the nation appreciate the "sacrifice" of the troops in Iraq, while seven times he spoke of "progress" and the need to be "patient" and "prudent." Pulling out the troops, he said, "would be a disastrous mistake for national security here in America."

But Bartlett spent his tour of the airwaves almost entirely on the defensive.

CBS's Harry Smith: "You have almost two-thirds of the American people thinking the war in Iraq is going badly."

NBC's Matt Lauer: "The Iraqis have once again failed to meet a deadline for a final draft of the constitution."

CNN's Miles O'Brien: "Doesn't look like much progress has been made there."

And everybody wanted to know about Hagel, and everybody got the same answer. "He's a decorated Vietnam War veteran," Bartlett said. "But we couldn't disagree more with his assessment."

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Link Here

Like Rats From A Burning Ship

Republican Congressman Breaks Ranks, Joins Demand for Documents on Downing Street Memos
By David Swanson
Link Here
8-24-05, 10:58 am

Congressman Jim Leach (R, Iowa) has informed Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D, California) that he will co-sponsor her Resolution of Inquiry into Bush Administration communications with the U.K. about Iraq at the time of the Downing Street Memos. Leach is the first Republican member of Congress to publicly support a demand for an inquiry into the Bush Administration's pre-war claims. The 131 congress members who have signed Congressman John Conyers' letter to the President about the Downing Street Memo are all Democrats. The 11 Senators who have asked the Senate Intelligence Committee to do the investigation it committed to in February 2004 but never did are all Democrats.

The Resolution, H. Res. 375, is a privileged resolution which must be brought to a vote in the House International Relations Committee by September 16th, or Lee is permitted to demand a vote of the full House. Fifty-two Democrats, including Lee, have co-sponsored the Resolution. Leach is the first Republican to join them, and he is a member of the International Relations Committee..

The International Relations Committee has 27 Republican members and 23 Democratic members. Thus far 10 of the Democrats have co-sponsored the Resolution. If the other 13 vote for it as well, then along with Leach, one more Republican vote will be needed for a tie, or two more for passage.

Leach has questioned Bush's war policies for years and was one of five Republicans in May to vote for Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's amendment requiring an exit strategy. Another of those five, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, also serves on the International Relations Committee.

"Congressman Leach has broken the silence of the Republican Party on the Downing Street Minutes," said John Bonifaz, Co-Founder of the After Downing Street Coalition. "His willingness to co-sponsor Congresswoman Barbara Lee's Resolution of Inquiry is bound to make the White House nervous. It is not possible for the President to paint this demand for documents as coming solely from his opponents. This is a demand for the truth. Did the president deliberately deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq? We as a people -- from Crawford to Des Moines to Washington, DC, regardless of our political persuasion, deserve to know the answer to that basic question."

"Congress returns to Washington from its summer break on September 6," said David Swanson, Co-Founder of the After Downing Street Coalition. "The first 10 days will test the Democrats' ability to stand together and challenge the Bush Administration, as well as Republicans' willingness to break ranks on an issue where public opinion has diverged widely from White House policy."

The text of the Resolution, H. Res. 375, a list of current co-sponsors, and what you can do to help: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/902

From AfterDowningStreet.org

Listing of Vermonters killed in Iraq War

By The Associated Press
August 23, 2005

Sixteen American servicemen with ties to Vermont have died in Iraq since the war began. A 17th Vermonter died of natural causes in Kuwait while training to go to Iraq:

Army Chief Warrant Officer Erik A. Halvorsen, 40, of Bennington died April 2, 2003 when the helicopter he was in crashed near Karbala;

-- Marine Cpl. Mark Evnin, 21, South Burlington, died April 3, 2003 after a fire fight near Kut;

-- Army Sgt. Justin Garvey, 23, who graduated from Proctor High School, was killed July 20, 2003, when the convoy he was in was attacked near Tal Afar;

-- Army Pvt. Kyle Gilbert, 20, of Brattleboro was killed Aug. 6, 2003 in fighting in Baghdad;

-- Army Capt. Pierre Piche, 29, of Starksboro, died Nov. 15, 2003 when the helicopter he was in went down in Mosul;

-- Spc. Solomon C. Bangayan, 24, of Jay, died Jan. 15, 2004 after his convoy was ambushed in Baghdad;

-- Sgt. William Normandy, 42, of East Barre, died March 15 of natural causes while training in the Kuwait desert;

-- Spc. Christopher D. Gelineau, 23, who graduated from Mount Abraham Union High School in Bristol, died April 20 after the convoy he was in was ambushed in Mosul;

-- Spc. Alan Bean Jr., 22, of Bridport died May 25 during a mortar attack about 25 miles south of Baghdad;

-- Sgt. Kevin Sheehan, 36, of Milton died May 25 in the same attack that killed Alan Bean Jr.

-- Sgt. Jamie Gray, 29, of East Montpelier died June 7 when a bomb exploded south of Baghdad;

-- Marine Lt. Col. David Greene, 39, of Shelburne died July 29 when the helicopter he was piloting was hit by ground fire in Anbar Province;

-- Staff Sgt. Michael Voss, 35, of Carthage, N.C., was killed Oct. 8 when a roadside bomb exploded in a convoy he was leading back to base near Kirkuk. He was a native of Enosburg;

-- Lance Cpl. Jeffery S. Holmes, 20, of Hartford, was killed on Thanksgiving Day while conducting house-clearing operations in Fallujah;

-- Sgt. Jesse Strong, 24, of Albany, was one of four Marines killed Jan. 26 during an ambush in Iraq's Anbar Province.

-- Sgt. 1st Class Michael Benson, a Minnesota native, who married a woman from Colchester, was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq Aug. 2. He later died in a military hospital in Washington. He was buried in Belvidere.

-- Sgt. 1st Class Chris S. Chapin, 39, of Proctor, was killed by small arms fire while performing a civil affairs mission near Ramadi, Iraq.

Link Here

Rummy The Liar

LESS THAN 5 IRAQI UNITS

CAN FIGHT INSURGENTS

ALONE

Link Here

BAGHDAD [MENL] -- The United States has determined that fewer than five Iraqi military battalions were capable of fighting Sunni insurgents alone.

U.S. officials said the battalions came from special forces units in the Iraq Army. They said the units were deemed Level 1, or capable of completely independent combat operations.

U.S. coalition commander Gen. George Casey said "less than a handful" of Iraqi battalions were at Readiness Level 1, or totally independent of coalition forces. In an interview to the U.S. Army publication "The Advisor," Casey outlined for the first time the readiness level of Iraqi troops.

"You don't build an army overnight," Casey said. "They're not going to be independent for a while. But we purposely set it up that way so we could get them into the lead in operating independently sooner, so they will learn faster."

Oh, God. Bring Them Home!

-

Bring Home Our Soldiers.

They have a president to question.

AND a Secretary of Defense, as well.

Big Muddy, Indeed

Who Will Say 'No

More?'
By Gary Hart
The Washington Post
Go to Original
Wednesday 24 August 2005

"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.

Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."

Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."

At stake is not just the leade