Go Fuck Yourself Mr. Cheney.

Cheney quip adds fuel to

Katrina politics
RAW STORY


On Saturday, Vice President Dick Cheney became the latest high profile official to offer a soundbite about Hurricane Katrina, saying all evacuees he's met have been 'thankful,' adding to a spate of comments raising eyebrows regarding the Katrina disaster, RAW STORY has found.

According to Reuters, Cheney's words were in response to reporters' questions about what evacuees had had to say to the Vice President as he toured the Austin convention centre in the wake of the demotion of FEMA director Michael D. Brown, who initially had been in charge of the federal relief efforts:

"Not one of them mentioned any of it.

They're all very thankful where they find

themselves right now."

Straight off the bat, on September 1st, Department of Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff attempted to preemptively defend the Administration by blaming the victims:

"The critical thing was to get people out of [New Orleans] before the disaster. Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."

The next day, in a similiar vein, FEMA Director Brown told CNN:

"... I think the death toll may go into the thousands. And unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the evacuation warnings. And I don't make judgments about why people choose not to evacuate. But you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there."


On September 5th, former First Lady Barbara Bush unwisely cracked about the Astrodome's Hurricane Katrina evacuees:

"What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

On Friday Raw Story reported that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was overheard by Houston Chronicle's Purva Patel as he talked to three boys living on cots in the Astrodome:

"The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

Saturday's Washington Post carried an article entitled "Some GOP Legislators Hit Jarring Notes in Addressing Katrina" which contained yet another installment in the "insensitive" series:

"The latest elected official to step into the swamp was Rep. Richard H. Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that he was overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

In return, on Thursday, Vice President Cheney was greeted by a doctor who had lost his home in Mississippi, who declared: 'Go fuck yourself.'

--I Stand With Mississippi Doctors. What He Said!!!!--

Diplomats stage walk out as UK and US are accused of terrorism

JASBANT SINGH
IN KUALA LUMPUR

BRITISH and European diplomats walked out of a human rights conference in Malaysia yesterday, after the country's former prime minister claimed that the United States and the UK were "terrorist" states and that air force pilots whose bombs killed Iraqi civilians were murderers.

The diplomats, including Bruce Cleghorn, Britain's High Commissioner, left in protest at Mahathir Mohamad's broadside during a speech at the conference in Kuala Lumpur.


Mr Mahathir, who ruled predominantly Muslim Malaysia for 22 years before retiring in 2003, also defended his human rights record in government.

He was often criticised for detaining suspects without trial under a security law and for the imprisonment of the former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

Mr Mahathir decried the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians as a result of the US-led military invasion and occupation of the country.

He compared US and British actions in Iraq to rocket attacks by Israel on Palestinians, and referred to those countries as "these terrorist nations".

"The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy in their state-of-the-art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim," Mr Mahathir said of the Iraq invasion.

"And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate 'mission accomplished'. Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?"

He also questioned why there was no tally of Iraqi deaths while every US soldier's killing is documented. "These are soldiers who must expect to be killed," Mr Mahathir said.

"But the Iraqis who die because of the US action or the civil war in Iraq that the US has precipitated are innocent civilians who under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein would be alive."

Mr Mahathir, who when in power was a US ally in the fight against terrorism, although he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, noted that the reason for invading Iraq was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

"As we all know it was a lie," he said. "Worse still, the powers which are supposed to save the Iraqi people have broken international laws on human rights by detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere," he said, referring to the US prison camps.

Mr Cleghorn and several unidentified European officials attending the conference walked out midway through Mr Mahathir's speech.

Later, Mr Cleghorn said he had attended the conference out of respect for Mr Mahathir as a former prime minister.

"Unfortunately, I found myself listening to abuse and misrepresentation about my country. I therefore left," Mr Cleghorn said.

Hamdan Adnan, a senior official with the state-backed National Human Rights Commission, described the diplomats' action as "very distasteful". He continued: "If they claim to subscribe to the democratic process, why can't they listen?"

The US Embassy had decided earlier not to send representatives to the event.

The US accused Mr Mahathir of human rights violations when he sacked Mr Anwar as his deputy in 1998

and sentenced him to 15 years in prison on what many thought were trumped-up charges. He was freed on appeal last year.

Washington largely stopped criticising Malaysia's use of a security law that allows indefinite detention without trial after it was used to lock up dozens of terrorist suspects, some with alleged links to the 11 September terror attacks

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Katrina relief to worsen groaning US deficit

17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Its furious winds and rain are now spent, but Hurricane Katrina will long endure on the US government's balance sheet as economic growth is curbed and vast sums are spent on disaster relief.

The US Congress has approved more than 62 billion dollars to meet the immediate needs of the relief operation after Hurricane Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands of people from New Orleans and other ruined towns.

It is a massive injection of money when compared with the 76 billion dollars agreed by Congress in May for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Katrina spending, which equates to over 600 dollars from every US household, will rise still further.

Evacuees have to find jobs, homes, healthcare, benefits and schools for their children. Many of them, living below the poverty line in New Orleans, already had little.

"This Katrina funding is already at 60 billion. The expectation is that it will go higher," US Treasury Secretary John Snow said Friday.

Senate finance committee chairman Charles Grassley believes that federal spending after Katrina could hit 150 billion dollars. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said a figure of 200 billion dollars was possible.

"Usually the federal government takes a much more limited role in natural disasters," Lehman Brothers economist Ethan Harris said.

"Katrina has had a much bigger impact on the local economy than past hurricanes, but the federal spending response is proportionately even bigger," he said.

The spending so far nearly matches the 70 billion dollars that is the combined gross domestic product of New Orleans, Gulfport-Biloxi, Pascagoula and Mobile, the four worst-hit conurbations.

Economists agree that the massive government intervention will help sustain the economies of Louisiana and neighbouring states in the weeks and months before rebuilding can start in earnest.

But it will not make a pretty picture for a budget situation that already looks ugly.

Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg bid "goodbye to the 2006 deficit projection" of 314 billion dollars, predicting it would shoot to a new record high to beat last year's figure of 412 billion dollars.

"Katrina has now become a great valve for Congress to spend gobs of dough, keep the economy alive and save their re-election prospects in November 2006," he said.

The US administration had been hoping to turn the tide on the deficit, after years of rising shortfalls created by huge war spending coupled with President George W. Bush's multi-billion-dollar tax cuts.

But now, some members of Congress are growing anxious as Katrina spending piles onto the other demands on the government's strained finances.

Mike Pence, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, said it was only right that federal authorities come to the aid of Katrina's victims.

"But as we tend to the wounded, as we begin to rebuild, let us also do what every other American family would do in like circumstances and expects this Congress to do: let's figure out how we are going to pay for it," he said.

"Congress must ensure that a catastrophe of nature does not become a catastrophe of debt for our children and grandchildren."

Fiscal sticklers among both Republicans and Democrats were already aghast at what they say is federal spending run wild, after Bush last month signed a bill that plans more than 286 billion dollars in expenditure on transport projects.

In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal said it feared that Congress members would impede a post-hurricane recovery "by exploiting Katrina to spend like they're back on Bourbon Street" in New Orleans.

"Which leads us to ask: Where is President Bush?" said the newspaper. In the US system, "only a president can stop a runaway Congress".

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Cheney Visits Hurricane Evacuee Sites

By LIZ AUSTIN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago



AUSTIN, Texas - Vice President Dick Cheney toured Hurricane Katrina shelter operations in Texas' capital Saturday, praising the state's efforts to assist evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

While he was at the Austin Convention Center shelter, about two dozen protesters gathered outside chanting, "Cheney, Cheney, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

Cheney also visited the Texas State Operations Center, where state officials did the planning for receiving more than 240,000 people in Texas after flood waters rose in New Orleans.

At the convention center, where 1,500 evacuees remained, Cheney met briefly with 23-year-old Telisha Diaz, who told him she spent four days at the New Orleans convention center before being brought to Austin a week ago.

"It's overwhelming that the state of Texas is giving so much, just giving us everything — jobs, food," Diaz told the vice president, who was surrounded by local officials and congressmen.

Cheney said Diaz's sentiments of gratitude were echoed by all of the evacuees he had spoken with in the two weeks since the hurricane pummeled Gulf Coast communities in Louisiana and Mississippi. He applauded Texas' response to the disaster.

"I was impressed with the caliber of the effort that was mounted here, and it's a good place to come learn some valuable lessons," Cheney said.

He brushed off media questions about the federal government's slow response to hurricane victims in the hours and days after the storm and the removal of Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown from his command post in Louisiana amid the criticism and questions about his qualifications.

Cheney said he supported Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's decision regarding Brown and would not comment on any other possible leadership changes.

While Cheney was in Austin, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt visited a shelter in Dallas. He said his department has established special "evacuee" status for affected individuals to expedite their access to benefits.

The process will allow states to enroll evacuees without requiring documents such as tax returns or proof of residency for programs such as Medicaid, child care support, foster care assistance and substance abuse treatment.

In Houston, officials said the number of evacuees at the Astrodome, Reliant Center and the George R. Brown convention center went down overnight by about 1,300 to a total of 7,327 as evacuees continued to find other places to live. Officials at shelters in Houston and Dallas said they still hope to have everyone in temporary or permanent housing by Sept. 17.

The NFL team the Houston Texans plays its first home game at Reliant Stadium on Sept. 18, but Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said that was not a factor in trying to get all of the evacuees moved.

"This is a shelter, not a home, and it will not become a refugee center," Eckels said.

___

Link Here

FEMA arrives empty-handed

Rebecca Neal The Daily Advertiser/ The Indianapolis Star

Lafayette's first FEMA office opened Friday, but the center had no money or vouchers to give to hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who came searching for help.

"We're not giving anything," manager Kenneth Swain told the crowd. "We don't have anything yet to give."

The Federal Emergency Management Association's Disaster Response Center is located at Restoration Life Church, 111 Liberty Ave., across from Randol's restaurant on Kaliste Saloom Road. It is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, indefinitely.

FEMA has been noticeably absent from Lafayette since the hurricane struck, and people descended on the church looking for answers.

Tonette Oatif, 29, of New Orleans East brought a $2,000 hotel bill. The American Red Cross told her that FEMA would pay for it. Broke and living in a Lafayette church shelter, she was angry to learn she might have to wait days or weeks to be reimbursed.

"They told me to wait a couple more days? I'm tired of waiting. We've waited about two weeks already just for FEMA to show up," she said.

Swain said the center had one line Friday for people to fill out paper applications. Without working computers, he said there was nothing he could do to check on the status of applications already filed. Those who have filed applications should visit the center in a few days to check.

More than 350 people had taken numbers to fill out an application at the center at 1 p.m. Friday.

While people were crowding the FEMA center, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, and Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter toured the Cajundome. Boustany said he was disappointed that FEMA was just now arriving.

"The communication lines are still not what we want," he said. "We're still not satisfied with the response."

Vitter said he and other Louisiana politicians were trying to bring more aid to the state. He said he met with Vice President Dick Cheney during his tour of Louisiana and told him help was urgently needed.

"We've waited too long without answers," he said.

The key now is working to hold agencies accountable for providing help, Boustany said.

"We think it's been heard and now we'll wait," he said.

However, that wasn't enough for many seeking help at the Cajundome, who crowded around Boustany and Vitter as they finished a news conference. Many shouted questions, while others demanded action.

Byron Gougisha, 51, asked them when he would receive federal aid. The Gretna resident is living in a motel, but is almost out of money.

"Where's everyone supposed to live?" he asked. "I'm very, very destitute at this time."

Many of the evacuees were angry that they couldn't get through when they called FEMA's toll-free number. Cynthia Amie, 41, of St. Bernard Parish, said she doesn't understand why states such as Texas and Alabama have received so much aid while Louisiana has gone without.

"We're being ignored," she said. "We're like the forgotten ones."

The Red Cross was also anxious for FEMA to arrive. Spokesman Bruce Bouldin said communication between federal agencies and volunteer groups has been extremely poor.

"We're frustrated because we don't have any answers to give people," he said.

He said the Cajundome housed about 1,400 people Thursday night, but he expected the number to decrease dramatically when FEMA begins distributing checks.

In the meantime, many searching for assistance at the Cajundome and the new FEMA office are left waiting for paperwork to be processed. Tami Barclay, 43, of Chalmette is staying with her husband's parents and about 18 other evacuees in a house in Ville Platte.

She said she can't wait for FEMA aid and insurance money, and wished the people in charge could see her living conditions.

"I'm homeless and no one understands," she said.


Originally published September 10, 2005

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German Plane With Katrina Aid Turned Back

By CLAUDIA KEMMER, Associated Press Writer
Sat Sep 10,11:18 AM ET

BERLIN - A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday.

The plane was turned away Thursday because it did not have the required authorization, a German government spokesman said.

The spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, declined to comment on a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel that U.S. authorities refused the delivery on the grounds that the NATO military rations could carry mad cow disease.

The spokesman said U.S. authorities had since given approval for future aid flights, but it was unclear whether the German military would try again to deliver the rations.

Since Hurricane Katrina struck the United States, many international donors have complained of frustration that bureaucratic entanglements have hindered shipments to the United States.

A U.S. Embassy official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, blamed the German flight's rejection on temporary technical and logistical problems that have accompanied recovery operations in the devastated region.

German military planes have flown several loads of rations to the Gulf Coast. Berlin is also sending teams equipped with high-capacity pumps to help clear floodwaters.

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Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.

At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.

Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office. Meanwhile, the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement.

A "summary of changes" included in the draft identifies differences from the 1995 doctrine, and says the new document "revises the discussion of nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations."

The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations.

Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."

That and other provisions in the document appear to refer to nuclear initiatives proposed by the administration that Congress has thus far declined to fully support.

Last year, for example, Congress refused to fund research toward development of nuclear weapons that could destroy biological or chemical weapons materials without dispersing them into the atmosphere.

The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons."

But Congress last year halted funding of a study to determine the viability of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator warhead (RNEP) -- commonly called the bunker buster -- that the Pentagon has said is needed to attack hardened, deeply buried weapons sites.

The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite the end of the Cold War, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear weapons use." It says that there are "about thirty nations with WMD programs" along with "nonstate actors [terrorists] either independently or as sponsored by an adversarial state."

To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."

To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."

The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership must "believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past has "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has been a leading opponent of the bunker-buster program, said yesterday the draft was "apparently a follow-through on their nuclear posture review and they seem to bypass the idea that Congress had doubts about the program." She added that members "certainly don't want the administration to move forward with a [nuclear] preemption policy" without hearings, closed door if necessary.

A spokesman for Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday the panel has not yet received a copy of the draft.

Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on short notice including new missions."

Kristensen, who has specialized for more than a decade in nuclear weapons research, said a final version of the doctrine was due in August but has not yet appeared.

"This doctrine does not deliver on the Bush administration pledge of a reduced role for nuclear weapons," Kristensen said. "It provides justification for contentious concepts not proven and implies the need for RNEP."

One reason for the delay may be concern about raising publicly the possibility of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, or concern that it might interfere with attempts to persuade Congress to finance the bunker buster and other specialized nuclear weapons.

In April, Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Armed Services panel and asked for the bunker buster study to be funded. He said the money was for research and not to begin production on any particular warhead. "The only thing we have is very large, very dirty, big nuclear weapons," Rumsfeld said. "It seems to me studying it [the RNEP] makes all the sense in the world."

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Texas lawyer fired for talking about Rove

Sep 10, 2005, 16:25 GMT

AUSTIN, TX, United States (UPI) -- An attorney at the Texas Secretary of State`s office has been fired for talking to a reporter about President Bush`s adviser Karl Rove.

The Washington Post reports that Elizabeth Reyes confirmed Friday she has been fired for answering questions in a Post story that ran Sept. 3.

Reyes was fired Tuesday but Scott Haywood, a spokesman for Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams, wouldn`t comment besides saying that Reyes 'was not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency.'

The story was about tax deductions on two rental cottages that Rove and his wife own in Kerr County, Tex.

Although the Roves were eligible for a tax break in 2001 when they bought the Texas property, a 2002 change to the tax law made them ineligible. They received the break inadvertently, the Post said.

The Post reporter telephoning state officials to ask about the tax break was transferred to Reyes because the department`s press officer was on vacation.

Reyes then answered questions about the tax law and the Roves` property.

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Art For Boys

-

Troops seize British-owned cattle ranch in Venezuela

Jo Tuckman
Saturday September 10, 2005
The Guardian

Venezuelan troops have reportedly seized a huge British-owned cattle ranch as part of an agrarian reform programme targeting large estates that the government says it wants to redistribute to the poor.

Agroflora, a local affiliate of Vestey Group owned by meatpacking tycoon Lord Vestey, said in a statement on Thursday that a convoy of troops and cooperative farmers had arrived at the ranch, which is located in the south-western state of Apure.

However, official confirmation of the events could not immediately be obtained.
The land redistribution plans are rooted in a new constitution, which was passed soon after President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, and which defines large estates as being "contrary to the social interest".

A land reform law was approved in 2001. This authorised expropriation in cases where historical ownership cannot be proved to go back far enough, or when estate owners allow land to lie idle.

Two months ago, the national lands institute, a government agency, ruled that the 66,700-acre ranch owned by the Vestey Group in Apure failed on both these considerations.

In its statement, quoted by the Associated Press, the company said the property provided pasture for 8,500 cattle, although some of the land was not usable during the rainy season because of flooding.

The company has 12 ranches in Venezuela and claims to provide 4% of all the beef consumed in the country.

The Apure ranch is one of two properties owned by the group which has been in the eye of the land reform storm for the past year.

The other property is another cattle ranch located in the central state of Cojedes. In March, the national land institute ruled that this estate was unlawfully held and underused.

At the time, the company blamed the land's under-productivity on the invasion of about 1,000 squatters encouraged by President Chávez's promises to help the many poor in the oil-rich country.

The president claims that a high proportion of the largest estates in Venezuela were illegally obtained through corruption, before he took office, and that redistribution will help alleviate poverty and improve productivity.

The fear of widespread expropriations helped to unify the anti-Chávez opposition that tried to oust him, first with a coup in 2002 and then with a two-month strike. The president bounced back by winning a referendum on his rule a year ago.

Since that time, the land reform process has accelerated with investigations beginning into dozens of large estates across the country.

Link Here

Brown sent candid e-mail to family

***

On whose watch 3000 of Americas sons and daughter lost!!!!!!!!Georgies watch










On whose watch, the death of Americas Sons and Daughters!!!!!!!! Georgies watch

On whose watch was Hurrican Katrina so much devastation and death!!!!!!!! Georgies watch


You wanker the only people that do not thinks for themselves, are fox junkies and right wing crazies without a brain in their head, what does Bush have to do kill them before they start to think for themselves. Hmmmmmm interesting thought he probably has done that to a lot in the South this week, and definitely has in Iraq over the past 4 years.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER -- Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown sent a candid e-mail to family and friends this week as he was becoming the center of criticism of the handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

"I don't mind the negative press (well, actually, I do, but I try to ignore it) but it is really wearing out the family," Brown wrote. "No wonder people don't go into public service. This country is devouring itself, the 24-hour news cycle is numbing our ability to think for ourselves," the Rocky Mountain News reported Saturday.

Brown was relieved of his command of the onsite relief efforts Friday amid increasing criticism over the sluggishness of the agency's response and questions over his background.

"It's horrible," said Mary Ann Karns, an Oklahoma lawyer who once worked with Brown in the Edmond, Okla., city government and got the e-mail addressed. "He does not deserve this as a human being."

To all the new people... Re-posted w/update

Welcome To

Rebelle Nation....

We are very glad to have you here, and apreciate your time.

We usually have a large focus on Iraq,Katrina has kinda eclisped that for now but we are still trying to keep current.

Since we are news junkies who cannot help ourselves, normally, this scroll rolls too fast for any focused conversation on the comments section.

HOWEVER, we do leave them open for two reasons. We encourage your opinion. AND we also encourage you to leave any news related articles you feel needs to be saved and added on.

WE ALSO DO NOT CARE IF YOU

LEAVE YOUR OWN SITES LINKS.

Again, we encourage it.

Rossi, aka Kangaroo and I are always looking for as much info as possible.

If you JUST NEED to find us for a conversation please go to my original work archive blog here

www.christyscranium.blogspot.com

..it moves much much slower.

OR FOR LIVE CHAT ....

Please see some of our best friends at the top link on our link list on the sidebar .Thier blog is here

http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog

All you need is your name and your there.

We love yall from the heart of Louisiana all the way around the bend to Brisbane. Let us know what rattles your cage...

Party On !!!!

P.S. To the people who have offered hurricane help or even simply sent prayers, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you are looking for a way to find out what IS going on in New Orleans, or how you can help....

I would like to ask you do a simple act.

Look up a recent phone directory for the greater New Orleans area homes. Pick a persons name and try to call them. Pray they answer and if they do, tell them who you are, where you are from, and ask them if they are OK.

Ask them DIRECTLY if they need help. TALK to them.

Do not let them feel alone, or forgotten.

UPDATE...

Here are Phone Directory Links . Thank to Sparrow and DW.

http://www.realpageslive.com/html/Main.asp

http://www.theultimates.com/white/

XOXOXOXO

U.S. Military Tube-Feeds 13 Gitmo Strikers

Friday September 9, 2005 11:46 PM


By ALEXANDRA OLSON

Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The U.S. military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said Friday.

Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantanamo have not eaten for a month, said Guantanamo detention mission spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens. The others have refused at least nine consecutive meals, he said.

Fifteen have been hospitalized and 13 of those were being fed through tubes, Behrens said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. Medics are monitoring all 89 and checking their vital signs daily, he added.

Previously, the military has said that 76 inmates were participating in the hunger strike.

British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, who represents one of the hunger strikers - Briton Omar Deghayes, 36 - warned Friday that some of the inmates were willing to starve themselves to death.

``People are desperate. They have been there three years. They were promised that the Geneva Conventions would be respected and various changes would happen and, unfortunately, the (U.S.) government reneged on that,'' Stafford-Smith said.

``Sadly, it is very hard to see how a very obstinate military and a very desperate group of prisoners are ever going to come to an agreement.''

Guantanamo prison spokesman Maj. Jeff Weir said the military would not allow the detainees' conditions to become life-threatening.

``Basically, if you stop eating and wait several weeks or months, it is a slow form of suicide,'' Weir told British Broadcasting Corp. radio and television. ``No detention facility in the world will deliberately let their people commit suicide, so we can't let that happen.''

Weir said he did not know the reason behind the hunger strike.

``As far as their reasons for hunger striking it seems to be a myriad of different reasons that they all have, the largest one seems to be like they want to protest their continued (detention),'' he said. ``Their future is uncertain from a legal point view so they are trying to find out exactly what their future entails.''

The prison at Guantanamo opened in January 2002 and now holds around 520 prisoners from 40 countries; more than 230 others have been released or transferred to the custody of their home governments. Many were captured during the U.S. war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks

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UN summit falling into chaos

Ohhhhhhhh Can you believe the stupidity,
of these morons



UK foreign secretary pleads

with Rice to rein in John


Bolton as negotiations falter

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Newsweek Monday: Bush 38%

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U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches

CNN filed suit for right to cover search for bodies of Katrina victims

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

Joint Task Force Katrina "has no plans to bar, impede or prevent news media from their news gathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts," said Col. Christian E. deGraff, representing the task force.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a "zero access" policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, "we don't think that's proper" to let members of the media view the bodies.

The judge was to consider granting a permanent injunction Saturday when the government announced its decision not to enforce the "zero access" policy.

In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to "prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover" the hurricane victim recovery process.

"As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf," Walton wrote, "CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns."

CNN filed suit against Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, arguing that the officials who announced the decision were acting on FEMA's behalf.

"For an agency to unilaterally ban all coverage of a major component of its governmental function, that is, recovery of the deceased victims of the tragedy, is unprecedented," CNN argued in its legal brief. "Instead, the agency has made a subjective, content-based determination that publicizing the operation would be 'without dignity.'"

CNN's brief argued, "It is not the place of government to replace its own internal judgment for that of a free and independent media."

Because of controversy about how FEMA and other agencies handled the disaster response, CNN lawyers argued, "it is even more vitally important for the public, Congress and the administration to have an independent view of the conduct of this important phase of the operation."

Link Here

More Bush Stupidity

World summit on

UN's future heads

for chaos

UK leads last minute effort to rein in US objections

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Saturday September 10, 2005
The Guardian


The British government is mounting a huge diplomatic effort this weekend to prevent the biggest-ever summit of world leaders, designed to tackle poverty and overhaul the United Nations, ending in chaos.
The Guardian has learned that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has made a personal plea to his American counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, for the US to withdraw opposition to plans for wholesale reform of the UN. He has asked Ms Rice to rein in John Bolton, the US ambassador to the world body.


Mr Bolton has thrown the reform negotiations into disarray by demanding a catalogue of late changes to a 40-page draft document which is due to go before the summit in New York on Wednesday.
Mr Bolton, one of the US administration hawks, became ambassador last month only after a long confrontation with the US senate, mainly caused by his ideological dislike of the UN.

The foreign secretary is planning to make calls to fellow ministers around the world over the weekend.

Mr Straw spoke to Ms Rice in a three-way conference call last Tuesday organised by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, to try to break the deadlock.

Mr Annan has been weakened by the criticisms voiced this week by an inquiry into the UN's running of the Iraq oil-for-food programme and needs a successful summit to avoid renewed calls for his resignation.

The British government, in a rare divergence from the US, is fully behind Mr Annan's reforms and fears the summit will fail to build on the agreements on aid reached at the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

Aid agencies and other international groups monitoring the talks expressed fears yesterday that ambitious goals on aid, protection of civilians and curbs on the arms trade will be lost.

Nicola Reindrop, head of the New York office of Oxfam International, said: "Negotiations are on the verge of collapse."

A representative of another group, at a lunch with Mr Annan on Thursday, described the negotiations as "imploding".

Ambassadors at the 191-member UN remained divided last night, three days after the deadline for completion of the draft document had passed. Talks will continue over the weekend. Monday has been set as the new deadline.

The summit, to which 175 world leaders have accepted invitations and which has been in the planning for more than a year, is billed as making the UN fit for the 21st century.

The three-day summit begins on Wednesday, with each leader allocated five minutes at the podium, a minimum of 14 hours of speeches. But the real diplomacy will take place behind the scenes.

The summit document is due to be unveiled next Friday. Proposals include:

· meeting the millennium development goals that would halve poverty by 2015 and make sure everyone has access to primary education;

· setting up a peace-building commission to help with post-conflict reconstruction;

· creating a human rights council;

· introducing a responsibility to protect citizens from genocide, much tougher than existing international obligations;

· imposing curbs on the arms trade;

· reforming the UN bureaucracy, particularly after the oil-for-food scandal;

· defining "terrorism".

But there are still more than 200 points of disagreement in the document.

Although the US has emerged as the leading opponent of the reform package, objections have also been lodged by some governments from the Non-Aligned Movement, which represents much of the developing world.

Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban parliament, whose hopes of attending the summit along with President Fidel Castro were dashed when he was denied a visa by the US, said in Havana the summit "has been totally devalued, its original purpose kidnapped".

Although there has been little movement over the last few days, the mood in New York among diplomats was marginally more optimistic yesterday.

Mr Bolton has so far made only one significant concession, dropping his demand for the term "millennium development goals" to be deleted.

But Mr Bolton said the US will not renew a promise to pay 0.7% of gross domestic product towards aid, regarded as necessary for meeting the millennium development goals.

Controls on arms is likely to be dropped. But agreement is almost certain on creation of the human rights council. A deal could be reached on the peace-building commission, in spite of disagreements over who should run it.

There is a divide over the definition of terrorism, with pro-Palestinian states objecting that the proposed terminology be amended to exclude Palestinian fighters.

The most significant reform, expansion of the 15-member security council to about 25 members, has been shelved until at least December.

The Number One Question You Should Be Asking Yourself Quietly

If the busheviks and halliburtons ARE SERIOUS about Venezeula...

They would HAVE to have the Port of Orleans to stage any southern invasion from.

A MASSIVE military build up in a disaster area,.... it's actually almost clever.

The only question left is this...

HAS Vincente Foxx REALLY sold his soul to the devil in DC...?

FIVE DAYS...no water..5 days..is DELIBERATE.

LOOK DEEPER.

Don't you DARE look away.

DON"T EVEN BLINK.

Guantanamo prisoners sue the U.S.

9/10/2005 10:00:00 AM GMT

Eight former Russian Guantanamo prisoners plan to sue the U.S. for holding them illegally, according to Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Airat Vakhitov, the most active of the group, has been in close contact with Russian rights groups and activists. Vakhitov now is writing a book about Guantanamo, he told the radio station, adding that the current life of the former detainees is very difficult.

Two of the freed Russian prisoners have been under examination facing charges of "terrorism", and one is dying of injuries he sustained in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

In the lawsuit he filed, Vakhitov complained that he was subjected to torture while awaiting the trial.

The U.S. arrested eight Russians in its “counter-terrorist” operation in Afghanistan and kept them at the Guantanamo base in Cuba. In 2004, the eight Russians were extradited home.

Hunger strike continues

Eight former Russian Guantanamo prisoners plan to sue the U.S. for holding them illegally, according to Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Airat Vakhitov, the most active of the group, has been in close contact with Russian rights groups and activists. Vakhitov now is writing a book about Guantanamo, he told the radio station, adding that the current life of the former detainees is very difficult.

Two of the freed Russian prisoners have been under examination facing charges of "terrorism", and one is dying of injuries he sustained in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

In the lawsuit he filed, Vakhitov complained that he was subjected to torture while awaiting the trial.

The U.S. arrested eight Russians in its “counter-terrorist” operation in Afghanistan and kept them at the Guantanamo base in Cuba. In 2004, the eight Russians were extradited home.

Hunger strike continues

hunger strike by some 210 detainees held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, has entered a second month, according to the U.S. military.

It is feared that some of the detainees may die as a result of the strike.

Lawyers for the prisoners said that 210 prisoners were still taking part in the strike that began on 8 August, but a prison spokesman put the figure at 87. The spokesman added that at least ten prisoners were being fed through nose tubes.

Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross are set to visit the U.S.-run prison, to check on the inmates’ health condition.

The detainees are planning to continue the strike until they get a fair hearing and humane treatment, said one of the inmates lawyer.

Last June, Guantanamo detainees went on a hunger strike and the prisoners' lawyers said it was so severe that 50 men had to be intravenously fed.

"Much more severe"

But the U.S. military officials refused to reveal the exact number of inmates who had refused food for a whole month.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said the strike had become "much more severe".

The detainees began striking in 2002 because of their "uncertain future", Gutierrez told the BBC.

"Now they are striking because of their indefinite detention without any fair process, and because of the inhumane treatment they're experiencing on the base," he added.

Abubaker Deghayes, brother of a British detainee reportedly on hunger strike called on the UK government to intervene.

Deghayes said his 36-year-old brother Omar had not eaten for nearly five weeks.

"I'm really worried. Something really needs to be done. We can't just allow people to be oppressed and tortured," he said

“Torture shackles”

Human rights activists dressed in Guantanamo-style orange boiler suits gathered last week in protest at Birmingham handcuff and baton manufacturer Hiatt & Company for continuing to export to the U.S. handcuffs and other products used to hold prisoners at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo.

The protesters included former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, who said that cuffs used to restrain him carried its name and the words "Made in England".

A letter in a national newspaper, signed by Birmingham MPs Clare Short, Lynne Jones, Mr Begg, Mr Stafford-Smith and the brother of hunger-striker Omar Deghayes, called on the company to "commit to voluntarily and permanently ban all further exports to the U.S. military and hence to Guantanamo Bay".

"I have no evidence to suggest they are currently exporting banned products but certainly they have in the past. I think it's worrying that these items are still exportable ... it is something they should be ashamed of," Ms Jones, MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, said.

"When I was in Guantanamo Bay, one of the things I pointed out to my lawyer was how it was ironic that these shackles were made in England, just like me and him. It was very bizarre. Those shackles would often cut into my arms and legs and make me bleed. It was those very same shackles I saw being used by American soldiers in Bagram airbase to hang a prisoner from the ceiling. It said 'Made in England' on there too. If these cuffs are used to shackle people up to the tops of ceilings or cages and then [those people are] beaten, it calls into question what those shackles are actually being used for."

Guantanamo prison has long been the centre of international concern and controversy.

Link Here

Genocide in New Orleans?

9/10/2005 7:10:00 PM GMT
By: Jane Stillwater

As a Blue-State Democrat, I've watched Bush Republicans take money away from Californians who voted against them and give it to red states who supported them. According to www.newrules.org, 12 blue states receive less than a dollar from the federal government for each dollar they pay in taxes. However, 25 red states receive more than a dollar for every dollar they pay out.

Unfortunately, New Orleans was in the same boat as California -- a place with a Blue voting record that is now suffering from benign neglect.

But at what point does this benign neglect turn into deliberate Criminal Negligence?

A friend of mine forwarded a very disturbing e-mail to me. It is the story of deliberate neglect in New Orleans -- neglect bordering on the criminal. The word "Eugenics" comes to mind. Or those old 1930s experiments on Negro syphilis patients -- African-American men who were allowed to die of this horrible yet curable disease so that government officials could "study" them.

Is what happened in New Orleans the wave of the future in America as well as in such far-away places as Darfur and Iraq -- where genocide is not only feasible but is actually happening? This "administration" is very good at doing nothing when ACTION could save thousands of lives.

And now in Darfur, the Congress, White House and Pentagon continue to do nothing, essentially allowing thousands to die -- without having to seem to be responsible for these slow and agonizing deaths. And if the Bush Republicans can turn a blind eye to the plight of the women and children in Darfur and the African-Americans in New Orleans, might the rest of us the Americans be next?

Here is the e-mail from John:

"I can understand the chaos that happened after the tsunami, because they had no warning, but here there was plenty of warning. In the three days before the hurricane hit, we knew it was coming and everyone could have been evacuated.

"We have Amtrak here that could have carried everybody out of town. There were enough school buses that could have evacuated 20,000 people easily, but they just let them be flooded. My son watched 40 buses go underwater-- they just wouldn't move them, afraid they'd be stolen.

"People who could afford to leave were so afraid someone would steal what they own that they just let it all be flooded. They could have let a family without a vehicle borrow their extra car, but instead they left it behind to be destroyed.

"People whose homes and families were not destroyed went into the city right away with boats to bring the survivors out, but law enforcement told them they weren't needed. They are willing and able to rescue thousands, but they're not allowed to.

Every day countless volunteers are trying to help, but they're turned back. Almost all the rescue that's been done has been done by volunteers anyway.

"My son and his family -- his wife and kids, ages 1, 5 and 8 -- were flooded out of their home when the levee broke. They had to swim out until they found an abandoned building with two rooms above water level.

"There were 21 people in those two rooms for a day and a half. A guy in a boat who just said "I'm going to help regardless" rescued them and took them to Highway I-10 and dropped them there.

"They sat on the freeway for about three hours, because someone said they'd be rescued and taken to the Superdome. Finally they just started walking, had to walk six and a half miles.

"People from Placquemine Parish were rescued on a ferry and dropped off on a dock near here. All day they were sitting on the dock in the hot sun with no food, no water. Many were in a daze; they've lost everything.

"They were all sitting there surrounded by armed guards. We asked the guards could we bring them water and food. My mother and all the other church ladies were cooking for them, and we have plenty of good water.

"But the guards said, "No. If you don't have enough water and food for everybody, you can't give anything." Finally the people were hauled off on school buses from other parishes.

"The people who could help are being shipped out. People who want to stay, who have the skills to save lives and rebuild are being forced to go to Houston.

"It's not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.

"There's military right here in New Orleans, but for three days they weren't even mobilized. You'd think this was a Third World country.

"I'm in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, the only part that isn't flooded. The water is good. Our parks and schools could easily hold 40,000 people, and they're not using any of it."

Every day countless volunteers are trying to help, but they're turned back. Almost all the rescue that's been done has been done by volunteers anyway.

"My son and his family -- his wife and kids, ages 1, 5 and 8 -- were flooded out of their home when the levee broke. They had to swim out until they found an abandoned building with two rooms above water level.

"There were 21 people in those two rooms for a day and a half. A guy in a boat who just said "I'm going to help regardless" rescued them and took them to Highway I-10 and dropped them there.

"They sat on the freeway for about three hours, because someone said they'd be rescued and taken to the Superdome. Finally they just started walking, had to walk six and a half miles.

"People from Placquemine Parish were rescued on a ferry and dropped off on a dock near here. All day they were sitting on the dock in the hot sun with no food, no water. Many were in a daze; they've lost everything.

"They were all sitting there surrounded by armed guards. We asked the guards could we bring them water and food. My mother and all the other church ladies were cooking for them, and we have plenty of good water.

"But the guards said, "No. If you don't have enough water and food for everybody, you can't give anything." Finally the people were hauled off on school buses from other parishes.

"The people who could help are being shipped out. People who want to stay, who have the skills to save lives and rebuild are being forced to go to Houston.

"It's not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.

"There's military right here in New Orleans, but for three days they weren't even mobilized. You'd think this was a Third World country.

"I'm in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, the only part that isn't flooded. The water is good. Our parks and schools could easily hold 40,000 people, and they're not using any of it."

Link Here

To All The New People

Welcome To

Rebelle Nation....

We are very glad to have you here, and apreciate your time.

We usually have a large focus on Iraq,Katrina has kinda eclisped that for now but we are still trying to keep current.

Since we are news junkies who cannot help ourselves, normally, this scroll rolls too fast for any focused conversation on the comments section.

HOWEVER, we do leave them open for two reasons. We encourage your opinion. AND we also encourage you to leave any news related articles you feel needs to be saved and added on.

WE ALSO DO NOT CARE IF YOU

LEAVE YOUR OWN SITES LINKS.

Again, we encourage it.

Rossi, aka Kangaroo and I are always looking for as much info as possible.

If you JUST NEED to find us for a conversation please go to my original work archive blog here

www.christyscranium.blogspot.com

..it moves much much slower.

OR FOR LIVE CHAT ....

Please see some of our best friends at the top link on our link list on the sidebar .Thier blog is here

http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog

All you need is your name and your there.

We love yall from the heart of Louisiana all the way around the bend to Brisbane. Let us know what rattles your cage...

Party On !!!!

P.S. To the people who have offered hurricane help or even simply sent prayers, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you are looking for a way to find out what IS going on in New Orleans, or how you can help....

I would like to ask you do a simple act.

Look up a recent phone directory for the greater New Orleans area homes. Pick a persons name and try to call them. Pray they answer and if they do, tell them who you are, where you are from, and ask them if they are OK.

Ask them DIRECTLY if they need help. TALK to them.

Do not let them feel alone, or forgotten.

Dig A Hole

Bush pleads for

'spirit of 9/11'

President George W Bush has urged national unity following the Hurricane Katrina disaster and invoked the US response to the 9/11 attacks.

"America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it," he said in a national radio broadcast.

He promised that the Gulf Coast would be rebuilt "more vibrant" than before.

But his comments, which came the day before the fourth anniversary of the 11 September attacks, have prompted further criticism from the Democrats.

'Another disaster'

In his weekly radio address, Mr Bush reminded the American public of the national unity after 9/11 attacks, four years ago on Sunday.

"Today, America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life. This time the devastation resulted not from the malice of evil men, but from the fury of water and wind," he said.

"Four years later, Americans remember the fears and uncertainty and confusion of that terrible morning.

"But above all, we remember the resolve of our nation to defend our freedom, rebuild a wounded city, and care for our neighbours in need."

The Democrats responded with further criticism of the federal response to the hurricane.

Senator Edward Kennedy said: "Four years after 9/11, as the administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina makes clear, we're obviously not adequately prepared to deal with another devastating attack."


The White House has removed US emergencies chief Michael Brown from his role managing the relief effort and recalled him to Washington.


Democrat senators have called for Mr Brown to be sacked for his response to the hurricane.

His role has been handed to Coastguard Vice-Admiral Thad W Allen, who has been overseeing relief and rescue efforts in New Orleans.

Mr Brown has been criticised over the slow pace of the rescue effort, amid allegations he does not have the experience to lead Fema.

Recovering bodies

New Orleans officials say the operation to save people stranded by the floods has now ended and efforts will instead turn to recovering bodies.

Police and soldiers will take on the grisly task of retrieving corpses, many of them tied to lampposts or left in houses marked with paint at the height of the floodwaters.

Col Terry Ebbert, homeland security chief for New Orleans, said early results suggested the death toll might not be as high as feared.

"Numbers so far are relatively minor as compared to the dire predictions of 10,000."

Clean-up effort

But the BBC's Daniela Relph says bodies can still be seen strewn in flood waters, along the roads and in houses.


Recovery of remains will take priority over the forced removal of those New Orleans residents who still refuse orders to leave, officials added.

In the city itself, as the flood waters slowly recede, the streets are being swept, power lines repaired and supplies brought in.

Although renewed pumping from New Orleans has reduced water levels considerably, the army estimates it could take weeks to complete.

Meanwhile, Mr Bush is to begin a third visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, with stops in both Mississippi and Louisiana, a spokesman said.

Vice President Dick Cheney is to visit evacuees in Texas, ahead of President Bush's third trip to the region.

The BBC's Washington correspondent, Justin Webb, says questions over Mr Brown's eligibility for his post have intensified political pressure on the White House.

Political figures in both the Republican and Democratic parties have accused authorities of responding slowly.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4233266.stm


---Yeah thats it..KEEP bringing up 9/11. We will ALL get back to that VERY shortly. And the WHY of it....---

BRIT TRIBUTE FOR 9/11

10 September 2005

SILENCE will fall on New York City tomorrow as millions commemorate the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

British police will join mourners near the World Trade Centre site, forming an honour guard for the families of those killed in the suicide hijackings.

The ceremony at Ground Zero will begin just before 8.46am local time - when the first of the twin towers was hit - and bells across the city will toll.

Siblings of the 2792 killed will read through the victims' names.

The sombre ceremony will pause four times - marking when each plane hit the towers and when each fell.

The 67 Britons killed will then be remembered at a service at the nearby Old Slip Park, where a British choir and Welsh soprano Rachel Schutz will sing a tribute

Link Here

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **

Dahr Jamail - Dateline: Baghdad

All journalists have perspectives that color and shape their
reporting. Many factors influence not just what questions get asked
but what issues get reported on in the first place. It takes much
more work to remain objective when some of the people journalists
cover are similar to them in terms of class and culture while others
are very different. For embedded reporters in a war zone, there are
further complications. They travel, eat, sleep and are protected by
the soldiers they are with. There is literally no distance between
the journalists and the troops thus their vision can easily be
blurred. This has been a particular problem with reporting in Iraq.

Dahr Jamail, an American, saw these problems of perspective clouding
the reporting about the war in the U.S. media. He decided to do
something about it. He went to Iraq where he reports outside the
bubble of American control. His articles appear in The Guardian and
The Nation. He also posts his dispatches on his own widely read
website, dahrjamailiraq.com.

This interview with David Barsamian will be broadcast on Alternative Radio. You may listen to it on your local station, or stream it from the internet from that station at the time of broadcast.
Date & Time: Tuesday, Sept 13, 1400-1459ET

9/11 four years after

***
Are you going to tell me these Wankers are going to protect you now from a terrorist attack or another national disastor pleaseeeeeee. Never forget 9/11












From correspondents in Washington
September 11, 2005


AMERICANS will mark the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks nagged by new burning questions about their readiness to confront a major disaster after the debacle of Hurricane Katrina.

Scenes of anarchy and neglect in the flooded southern city of New Orleans, where survivors spent hellish days waiting for troops and relief supplies, have revived a sense of vulnerability not felt here since 9-11.
Both critics and supporters of President George W. Bush are wondering what happened to the billions of dollars spent on civil defence since Al Qaeda flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

"If our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning?" asked Republican Senator Susan Collins.

Four years after the assaults that left nearly 3,000 people dead and the world's superpower reeling, September 11 remains the defining moment for the United States in the new millennium.

It triggered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saddled US politicians with new criteria of toughness and fostered a "with-me-or-against-me" mentality that reshaped the diplomatic landscape and strained alliances worldwide.

The city of New York will observe the now-familiar rituals the minute of silence at 8:46 am, when the first plane struck the trade centre's North Tower, the solemn reading of the names of the dead.

The only new wrinkle will be a Pentagon-sponsored "Freedom Walk" in Washington to honour US troops in Iraq in what critics called a blatant piece of political propaganda by the Bush administration.

But the country commemorating September 11 this year will not be the same.

Its celebrated war on terror is officially billed as more of an ideological struggle with Islamic extremists; its drive for security now cloaked as part of a global campaign for democracy.

Thirty months of war in Iraq have left it eager to withdraw troops, not send them into battle. Diplomacy has become the byword of a government scrambling to mend fences and cover itself with multilateral consensus.

It's no accident that Karen Hughes, a close Bush confidante now charged with burnishing Washington's image abroad, is seeking to use the anniversary to also memorialise terrorist attacks elsewhere across the globe.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed that Hughes was seeking ideas from US embassies abroad. "What this is meant to show is that we are all in this fight against terrorism together," McCormack said.

Hurricane Katrina, which left thousands feared dead and hundreds of thousands homeless in the country's worst natural disaster, has also spotlighted changes here since the September 11 attacks.

Whereas the Bush administration acted decisively with Al Qaeda, it faltered in its response to Katrina. If 9-11 produced displays of world solidarity, the post-storm relief fiasco prompted expressions of disbelief and even ridicule.

Perhaps more fundamentally, Katrina provided the Republican White House with the first real test of its elaborate civil defence program axed on a massive Department of Homeland Security. By all accounts, it failed miserably.

Experts such as James Carafano of the conservative Heritage Foundation looked at the response to Katrina and shuddered at the thought of a nuclear, chemical or biological attack that would leave tens or hundreds of thousands dead.

"We should learn from this tragedy whether we have the right kinds of resources and programs in place to provide an adequate national response to catastrophic disaster, either natural or manmade," Carafano said.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, under intense fire for the federal response to the hurricane, has acknowledged that the measures adopted after September 11 were yet to be fully implemented.

"I'll tell you something I said a month ago before Katrina happened," Chertoff said. "I said that I thought we need to build a preparedness capacity going forward that we have not yet succeeded in doing.

Link Here

"said the supporter, who spoke only anonymously because he did not want to antagonize Mr. Rove."

--The NY Times Strikes Again!..

Ok well sorta, enough to KINDA help but not enough to say 'Hey, WE PERSONALLY, OUR STAFF, lied you into an immoral and ILLEGAL WAR. Many died needlessly. SO Sorry.'

Wonder if Judy Miller has her long term bitch all picked out..???

That is if we don't HANG her for treason, ofcourse.--



September 10, 2005
Link Here

Casualty of Firestorm:

Outrage, Bush and FEMA Chief
By ELISABETH BUMILLER


WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 - To Democrats, Republicans, local officials and Hurricane Katrina's victims, the question was not why, but what took so long?

Republicans had been pressing the White House for days to fire "Brownie," Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who had stunned many television viewers in admitting that he did not know until 24 hours after the first news reports that there was a swelling crowd of 25,000 people desperate for food and water at the New Orleans convention center.

Mr. Brown, who was removed from his Gulf Coast duties on Friday, though not from his post as FEMA's chief, is the first casualty of the political furor generated by the government's faltering response to the hurricane. With Democrats and Republicans caustically criticizing the performance of his agency, and with the White House under increasing attack for populating FEMA's top ranks with politically connected officials who lack disaster relief experience, Mr. Brown had become a symbol of President Bush's own hesitant response.

The president, long reluctant to fire subordinates, came to a belated recognition that his administration was in trouble for the way it had dealt with the disaster, many of his supporters say. One moment of realization occurred on Thursday of last week when an aide carried a news agency report from New Orleans into the Oval Office for him to see.

The report was about the evacuees at the convention center, some dying and some already dead. Mr. Bush had been briefed that morning by his homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who was getting much of his information from Mr. Brown and was not aware of what was occurring there. The news account was the first that the president and his top advisers had heard not only of the conditions at the convention center but even that there were people there at all.

"He's not a screamer," a senior aide said of the president. But Mr. Bush, angry, directed the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to find out what was going on.

"The frustration throughout the week was getting good, reliable information," said the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House. "Getting truth on the ground in New Orleans was very difficult."

If Mr. Bush was upset with Mr. Brown at that point, he did not show it. When he traveled to the Gulf Coast the next day, he stood with him and, before the cameras, cheerfully said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

But the political pressures on Mr. Bush, and the anxiety at the White House, were only growing. Behind the president's public embrace of Mr. Brown was the realization within the administration that the director's ignorance about the evacuees had further inflamed the rage of the storm's poor, black victims and created an impression of a White House that did not care about their lives.

One prominent African-American supporter of Mr. Bush who is close to Karl Rove, the White House political chief, said the president did not go into the heart of New Orleans and meet with black victims on his first trip there, last Friday, because he knew that White House officials were "scared to death" of the reaction.

"If I'm Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we're living in Rwanda?" said the supporter, who spoke only anonymously because he did not want to antagonize Mr. Rove.

At the same time, news reports quickly appeared about Mr. Brown's qualifications for the job: he was a former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and for 30 years a friend of Joe M. Allbaugh, who managed Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and was the administration's first FEMA director. Mr. Brown's credentials came to roost at the White House, where Mr. Bush faced angry accusations that the director's hiring had amounted to nothing more than cronyism.

Members of Congress quickly weighed in. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who was in New Orleans or Baton Rouge for more than a week after the hurricane swept ashore, said of Mr. Brown last Friday that "I have been telling him from the moment he arrived about the urgency of the situation" and "I just have to tell you that he had a difficult time understanding the enormity of the task before us."

Members of Mr. Bush's party also were angry. Last week House Republicans pressed the White House to fire Mr. Brown. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi pulled the president aside for a private meeting on Monday in Poplarville, Miss., to ask him to intervene personally to untangle FEMA red tape. Mr. Lott, exasperated, told Mr. Bush that he needed to press the agency to send the state 46,000 trailers, promised for days as temporary housing for hurricane victims.

For a time, Mr. Lott did not directly criticize Mr. Brown or the federal response in public. "My mama didn't raise no idiot," he joked on Capitol Hill last week. "I ain't going to bite the hand that's trying to save me."

But on Friday, with Mr. Brown's tenure in the relief role at an end, the senator issued a statement that made clear his views, and those of many others.

"Something needed to happen," Mr. Lott's statement said. "Michael Brown has been acting like a private instead of a general. When you're in the middle of a disaster, you can't stop to check the legal niceties or to review FEMA regulations before deciding to help Mississippians knocked flat on their backs."

Mr. Bush, characteristically, did not officially dismiss Mr. Brown, instead calling him back to Washington to run FEMA while a crisis-tested Coast Guard commander, Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, was given oversight of the relief effort. The take-charge Admiral Allen, who commanded the Coast Guard's response up and down the Atlantic Seaboard after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, immediately appeared on television as the public face of the administration's response.

In Baton Rouge, Mr. Brown appeared briefly at Mr. Chertoff's side before heading back to the capital, where, the secretary said, the director was needed for potential disasters.

"We've got tropical storms and hurricanes brewing in the ocean," Mr. Chertoff said.

RePosted

From The Baltimore Sun

After Katrina Fiasco,

Time for Bush to Go
By Gordon Adams
The Baltimore Sun

Thursday 08 September 2005

The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.



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Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, was senior White House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration.