WP: GOP Upbeat on Terror-Trial Bill: Dems won't block and be blamed

GOP Upbeat on Terror-Trial Bill
House Leaders Satisfied With Bush-Senate Compromise
By Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 23, 2006; Page A06

House GOP leaders signaled yesterday that they are satisfied with the main elements of a bill on military trials negotiated Thursday by dissident Republican senators and White House officials, and they predicted that Congress will pass the measure before adjourning next week....

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The House response all but settles an intraparty squabble and puts congressional Democrats in a difficult spot six weeks before elections in which they hope to wrest many House and Senate seats from the GOP. Some of the Democrats' liberal constituents dislike the bill, viewing it as a green light for President Bush to resume a CIA policy of interrogating foreign terrorism suspects with harsh techniques that some critics consider torture. But to oppose the compromise, which Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has embraced, would subject them to charges of being soft on terrorism, several analysts said.

Many Democrats would undoubtedly like to change the bill, "but probably those in competitive races will just have to stay behind McCain," said political scientist Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. A House Democratic leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss political strategy, said: "We had really hoped the White House had caved, but it's looking more and more like the senators caved."...(T)op Democrats in both houses indicated that they will not stand in the bill's path and risk being blamed for its demise....

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Republicans, meanwhile, signaled plans to trumpet their newfound unity and attack Democrats even if only a handful oppose the bill. The office of House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) released a statement saying that "while Democrats talk out of both sides of their mouth, Republicans are working together . . . to provide predictability and clear guidance to both our military and civilian personnel so they may continue to keep Americans safe."...(Democrats not attacking the bill) is not sitting well with liberal activists, whose energy will be important to Democrats on Election Day. Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, called the legislation a "get out of jail free" card for the administration's "top torture officials." She said it would render the Geneva Conventions' protections "irrelevant and unenforceable."

Democratic political strategists at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research encouraged Democrats to challenge Republicans on national security issues. Jeremy Rosner, senior vice president, said polling suggests that Bush's focus on security matters in the past weeks may have helped his personal approval ratings, but it has harmed Republican lawmakers by elevating anxieties over Iraq....

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Nine severed police heads found in Saddam's hometown

TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) - Nine severed heads of policemen were found in the central Iraqi city of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

Two boxes containing the heads were tossed out of a speeding car in the centre of Tikrit, the capital of Salaheddin province, a police officer said Saturday. Decapitation is a signature of extremist Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda.

The discovery comes as the overwhelmingly Sunni province marked the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time of prayer and introspection across the region and increased violence in Iraq.

On Thursday, some 500 people demonstrated in downtown Tikrit calling for the release of Saddam, the ousted president currently being tried on charges of genocide for killing 182,000 Kurds in 1987-1988.

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Al-Qaeda Linked Group Posts Video Of U.S. Soldiers

An al-Qaeda-Linked Group Posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council—an umbrella organization of insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq—posted another video in June showing the soldiers’ mutilated bodies, and claiming it killed them. It was not clear whether the video posted Saturday was a continuation of that footage, or why it was released.

The video showed masked men dragging the corpses, first by hand, then behind a truck, beheading one of them and then setting them on fire.

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Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal (smuggle guns from Iraq for drugs)

Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal

BRITISH soldiers have been caught smuggling stolen guns out of Iraq and allegedly exchanging them for cocaine and cash on the black market.

Security officials confirmed this weekend that soldiers from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment are at the centre of a criminal inquiry by the Royal Military Police (RMP) into a “guns for cocaine” network.

Their alleged involvement with organised crime is a fresh blow to the British Army after a week in which a corporal from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment admitted he had committed a war crime against an Iraqi civilian.

Although drug use is increasing in the armed forces, this is the first time military police have evidence that stolen weapons are being sold to pay for them.

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BREAKING: US detains Venezuela [Foreign] minister

US detains Venezuela minister
From correspondents in Caracas
September 24, 2006

VENEZUELA said overnight its foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, was detained at a New York airport and stripped of his travel documents and airplane ticket.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Maduro was detained for allegedly taking part in a failed coup attempt in Venezuela on February 4, 1992, that Mr Chavez had led against then-president Carlos Andres Perez.

But Mr Chavez said Mr Maduro was not involved in the coup.

"Apparently he is on a list for February 4," Mr Chavez said on Venezuelan television. "But he was not in the rebellion."

Mr Maduro, who attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, said in a telephone interview with Venezuelan television that "the situation got worse" when he identified himself as Venezuela's chief diplomat.

"I told the on-duty officials that I was the foreign minister, and the situation got worse because they started insulting, yelling and brought a police officer ... and they started threatening us," Mr Maduro said.

"Now I have no documents and cannot travel," he said.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel linked the detention with Mr Chavez's controversial speech at the General Assembly Wednesday in which he called US President George W. Bush the "devil."

"It is an attack against the foreign minister, unheard of, unspeakable in terms of the treatment that people with positions like Minister Maduro deserve," Mr Rangel said.

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Musharraf's Comments Rattle Pakistanis

A report that the United States purportedly threatened military action against Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks drew a sharp response and some protest in Pakistan Friday.

A spokesman for Pakistan's largest hard-line Islamic group predicted the issue would further enrage ordinary Pakistanis, who have long believed that they were forced "at gunpoint" into supporting the war on terror.

"The temperature and anger will rise among Pakistanis because they will see that the Americans do not want dialogue or communication, but are instead exploiting a situation and compelling (Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez) Musharraf to support them," said Ameer ul-Azeem, of the opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, also called MMA.

Some 500 MMA supporters protesting in Islamabad on Friday against the pope's recent remarks on Islam also condemned Musharraf for not standing up to the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Musharraf has sold his conscience, he has laid down under (President) Bush, he has stabbed Afghanistan in the back," said Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, a senior MMA leader.

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War Signals? (Ships ordered to Iran)

article posted September 21, 2006 (web only)- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

War Signals?

Dave Lindorff

As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.

As Time writes in its cover story, "What Would War Look Like?," evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed--but until now largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received recent orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.

The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress.

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A “scorching internal review”of the Bush administration’s $1 billion/year readi...

A “scorching internal review”of the Bush administration’s $1 billion/year reading program “says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.” The report says the program — described as the “jewel of No Child Left Behind” — is “beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement” and “suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.”

UPDATE: Rep. George Miller (D-CA), ranking member on the education committee, is outraged:

“Corrupt cronies at the Department of Education wasted taxpayer dollars on an inferior reading curriculum for kids that was developed by a company headed by a Bush friend and campaign contributor,” said Miller. “Instead of putting children first, they chose to put their cronies first. Enough is enough. President Bush and Secretary Spellings must take responsibility and do a wholesale housecleaning at the Education Department.” “Everyone at the Department of Education who was involved in perpetrating this fraud on school districts should be fired — not suspended, not reassigned, not admonished, but fired.”
http://thinkprogress.org/

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Robert Parry | Bush's "Dirty War" Amnesty Law

"The United States is following the lead of 'dirty war' nations, such as Argentina and Chile, in enacting what amounts to an amnesty law protecting US government operatives, apparently up to and including President George W. Bush, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes," according to Robert Parry.

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Army Corps Faked Budget Entries

The Army Corps of Engineers improperly created fake entries in government ledgers to maintain control over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the reconstruction of Iraq, according to a federal audit released Friday. "They took this money and parked it to use later," said one senior US official who requested anonymity. "It's improper. It's wrong. This is not the way you do government business."

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US billionaires' club revealed

Yeah Welcome to Georgies tax cuts to the richest 1%, for the last 6 years, and to bad for the middle class who have kept the Country running, see what happen in two years when he is out of power and another party has to deal with his theft and corruption.
A NINE-figure fortune won't get you much mention these days. For the first time, every one of the Forbes 400 richest Americans has at least $US1 billion.

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NY Times: Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat...

The New York Times MARK MAZZETTI September 23, 2006 at 05:51 PM
READ MORE: Iraq

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

READ WHOLE STORY

Iraq is Bush’s Reflection Pond

Mike Whitney

Martial law is not liberation. Baghdad has been in a state of virtual lockdown since thousands of American Occupation Forces (AOF) were deployed to the city in a futile attempt to establish security. In the last two months, the number of dead appearing at the Baghdad morgue has skyrocketed; nearly 6,600 Iraqis brutally tortured and killed in July and August alone. In terms of population, this is the equivalent of 79,200 American casualties. Simply put, it is a massacre. Still, the AOF continues to execute its bloody mission with impunity regardless of the horrific cost. Occupation is not freedom; it is servitude enforced at gunpoint. By every objective standard, life was better under Saddam Hussein. The people had reliable sources of electricity, clean water, food and medical supplies. Employment was high, crime was low, schools were open, markets were bustling and the socialist regime provided education and health services to the destitute...

continua / continued

EXPRESSING GRATITUDE TO ISRAEL FOR KILLING 5 PALESTINIANS TODAY ALONE!

Palestinian Pundit

EXPRESSING GRATITUDE TO ISRAEL FOR KILLING 5 PALESTINIANS TODAY ALONE! Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) embraces Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman (R) after they attended a U.N. Security Council meeting September 21, 2006. (REUTERS)...

continua / continued

America Has Just Lost Two More Wars

John Chuckman

...It was an early sign of the coming defeat when body counts began to dominate American news. It is easy to kill large numbers of people, especially when you have complete air superiority and high-tech weapons, but constant killing may mean little progress against a serious opponent. Often, as in the Blitz, bombing people is completely counter-productive. In recent weeks, body counts re-appeared in Afghanistan, much the same way opium poppies re-appeared after America's claim to victory over the Taleban (who had suppressed opium). The bodies are supposed to be Taleban, but who can tell whether a dead villager is Taleban? (...) Except in the bizarre mind of George Bush, the Taleban is not a terrorist organization,. So when one of them is killed, does it really represent a victory? Or is it viewed by many in Afghanistan as murder by unwelcome foreigners? Clearly, this is the view of many because the Taleban is becoming stronger, surprisingly so according to expert observers...

continua / continued

800,000 Iraqi Children Not Attending School

Karen Button

Schools in Iraq will soon resume, but thousands of worried families will be keeping their children at home for fears of kidnapping or worse. Girls are at particular risk. A joint Ministry of Interior (MoE) and UNICEF study found that of those who do not attend school, 74 percent are female children. A recent report by the UK-based organisation Save the Children, entitled "Rewrite the Future: Education for children in conflict-affected countries," documents the effects of armed conflict on primary education in 30 countries. Some 115 million primary-aged children do not attend school for various reasons, the report says, yet by far the biggest contributor is conflict, which deprives one in three, or 43 million, from attending. In Iraq that translates to 818,000 primary-aged children, or 22.2 percent of Iraq’s student population, who are not attending school...

continua / continued

Compact with Evil: The McCain "Compromise" on Bush's Torture Program

Chris Floyd

...What we have seen today is no "grand compromise," no "great debate," no "act of principle" and certainly no "preservation" of the Geneva Conventions. What we have seen instead is a small group of rich, cynical, power-hungry old bastards belch forth lies in the service of torture and tyranny. And if you're not angry about that, if you're not "shrill" about that, then by God you are one piss-poor American citizen. You shame every man and woman who have fought and died and marched and worked and dreamed for our freedoms...

continua / continued

Video: Fox News hypes 'heated' Clinton interview...

Ahhhhhhhhh your ratings that low ?
Forget it FUAX NEW is dead in this household, there will be plenty of places to see him putting you bastards in your place on the net without watching your propaganda station. At least you only screwed women Bill, and most every other president of the USA sure as hell committed that crime while they where in the White House, this Admistration likes the men, and they friking get away with it unquestioned by the Propaganda Faux New Co.

Remember all those long nightly visits to the White House, have you forgotten yet.

Remember 9/11 Katrina Afganistan and the illegal war and occupation of Iraq all happened on Georgies watch, 2000 - 2006 and the buck stops there.

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Judge Dismisses Halliburton Suit

Washington Post Griff Witte September 23, 2006 at 02:32 PM
READ MORE: Halliburton

A federal judge in Texas yesterday threw out a lawsuit against Halliburton Co. that had been brought by survivors and the families of those killed when a fuel convoy was assaulted by insurgents outside Baghdad in April 2004.

The suit had claimed Halliburton bore responsibility because the company knew the proposed route was the scene of a pitched battle but decided to send the drivers anyway. U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller ruled that the Army had played a key role in sending the convoy and that it was not his place to second-guess that decision.

READ WHOLE STORY
Appealing for Justice in KBR/Halliburton Case

READ MORE: Iraq, Halliburton, Entertainment The Federal District Court in Houston, Judge Gray Miller presiding dismissed the Good Friday Massacre case today saying that KBR/Halliburton's actions are not reviewable by the Courts as a "political question." This decision is devastating to not only my clients but for all civilian employees.

The case concerns an incident, detailed in Robert Greenwald's new documentary Iraq for Sale, in which a convoy was sent into a known battle zone by KBR/Halliburton. Last Monday my client Ed Sanchez, one of the surviving truck drivers in the convoy, and I testified about the case before the Democratic Policy Committee.

I remember Senator Dorgan's well- intentioned comment that "...we are not here to try a case." As it stands now, the Courts will not review Halliburton/ KBR's conduct, the Congress can't, and nobody (I mean no government authority) will see the evidence or evaluate how seven CIVILIANS were killed. The men who were killed that day are not even a 'statistic' because they are not part of the 'official death count.' As it stands now this ruling means the truth about how and why civilians were sent into a massive kill zone that Halliburton/ KBR knew was present will never come out.

Seriously, where do United States citizens turn to be heard? I thought we were fighting this war, and all wars, to preserve the rights of citizens, including the right to trial by jury within our judicial system. This, in my view, is a sad day not only for the families and men I represent but for our future. We strongly disagree with the decision and intend to appeal.

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GOP Detainee Bill: Revisions Create Loopholes For Rape, Sexual Assault

Georgie, maybe this childs rape was not defined as Napoli said "A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life." They dont even have to be terror suspects, Abeer was not pregnant, she and most of her family are dead, we cant ask them, Has she been forgotten Do we allow these Bastards to squarm out of their hanus crimes with a loophole in legislature.

The New York Times September 23, 2006 at 09:25 AM
READ MORE: George W. Bush

In recent decades, women's advocates and human rights activists have made huge progress on the issues of rape and sexual assault -- in the United States and globally. Both crimes are now more powerfully defined in state and federal laws. In international law, where rape and sexual assault have long been classified as torture and war crimes, the world has begun to accept the importance of enforcement. In 1998, a tribunal convicted a paramilitary chief for watching one of his men rape a woman in Serbia. A year ago, the world rose up in outrage when United Nations peacekeepers raped women in Congo.

You'd think this was a settled issue. But it's been opened up again in the bill on jailing, interrogating and trying terror suspects that President Bush is trying to ram through Congress in a pre-election rush. Both the White House and Senate versions contain provisions on rape and sexual assault that turn back the clock alarmingly. They are among the many flaws that must be fixed before Congress can responsibly pass this legislation.

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Baghdad Bombing Kills 35 On Eve Of Ramadan...

Associated Press September 23, 2006 at 09:25 AM

A bomb blew up a kerosene tanker and killed at least 35 people Saturday in a Shiite slum in Baghdad, while authorities announced the capture of a leader of the group believed to be behind the 2004 attack on a U.S. military mess hall.

An American contractor working for the State Department was killed Friday in a rocket attack in the southern city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said.

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New Al Qaeda Leader Appears In Video...

Associated Press September 23, 2006 at 08:32 AM
READ MORE: Iraq

A statement posted on the Internet along with a video of what appears to be a Turkish hostage being shot to death claims the masked man who fired the gun is leader of al-Qaida inIraq.

It would be the first public appearance of Abu Ayyoub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, since he succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was slain in a U.S. airstrike on June 7.

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No Confirmation On Bin Laden Death Rumor

Saudi Source: “He Got A Water-Related Sickness, And It Could Be Terminal”…

Chirac Refuses To Comment On Leaked Report Suggesting Bin Laden Death...
Associated Press September 23, 2006 at 08:32 AM

President Jacques Chirac said Saturday that information contained in a leaked intelligence document raising the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan last month is "in no way whatsoever confirmed."

Chirac said he was "a bit surprised" at the leak and has asked Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to probe how a document from a French foreign intelligence service was published in the French press.

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AP Propaganda About Iraq

Dahr Jamail explains: "According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, an insurgent is 'a person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government: [a] rebel.'

This of course begs the existence of a legitimately elected government that the 'insurgent' rises in revolt against, which in Iraq we do not have. How is it possible to have a legitimate government in a country that was first illegally invaded and today is illegally occupied?"

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Joe Stalin is Alive and Living on Pennslyvania Avenue

By Danny Schechter

Just as the Neo-Nazis are back as newly elected respectable members of governments in Eastern Germany, abandoning the skinhead look for suits and ties and softer rhetoric, our Neo Cons have moved from left to hard right wrapped in burkas made of the American flag.

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UN: Nearly 6,600 civilians killed in Iraq in two months:

In July at least 3,590 people were killed and in August 3,009 died in bloody attacks on civilians, according to the UN human rights report.

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Is This What Motivates U.S. Foreign Policy?

The Doomsday Code

The people with powerful political friends in the White House, who are trying to bring about the end of the world. Julia Bard reports.

Channel 4 (UK) Video Documentary

The leaders of the End Time movement are rich, well-connected and very powerful. Though the USA constitution enshrines the separation of church and state End Timers are frequent visitors to the White House.

Click to view - Real Video and Windows Media.

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Bush's 'Dirty War' Amnesty Law

The United States is following a troubling path marked by previous "dirty war" governments -- granting amnesty to human rights violators, in this case apparently up to and including President George W. Bush. Yet the debate about the compromise legislation on the treatment of "war on terror" detainees has virtually ignored Bush's demand for amnesty, which has been slipped into the bill without using the word "amnesty" or even explaining what Bush has done that needs protection from future prosecution.

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CIA Abductors of al-Masri Identified

The US intelligence agents involved in wrongly kidnapping a German citizen of Arab descent could soon face warrants for their arrest. Clues to their identity have turned up from Spanish authorities and German TV journalists.

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The Power of Public Opinion

Patrick McElwee writes: "In the past few weeks, we've been reminded that public opinion can constrain the actions of government officials who seek to bring us into conflict with other nations. The Bush administration's attempt to pressure Congress into granting it immunity to abuse and torture detainees - not only in the future but also for acts committed over the last five years - has been slowed and may be halted."

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A Bad Bargain

The New York Times editors write: "Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession."

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The Other 98 Percent of Iraq

This morning's Column One feature in the Los Angeles Times is a terrific first-person account of life in Baghdad. It is written by an unnamed Iraqi reporter for the paper, and reading almost any random paragraph shows why he had to go unbylined.

I see my neighbors less and less. When I go out, I say hello and that's it. I fear someone will ask questions about my job working for Americans, which could put me in danger. Even if he had no ill will toward me, he might talk and reveal an identifying detail. We're afraid of an enemy among us. Someone we don't know. It's a cancer.

It's a revealing look at the unspoken, and unreported, reality behind the news we do get from Iraq. Dexter Filkins, who has done terrific reporting for the New York Times from Iraq, recently said that 98 percent of Iraq, including most of Baghdad, is now off-limits to Western journalists, a startling figure that begs the question of why reports from Iraq don't include such a disclaimer

Filkin's talk at Manhattan offices of the Committee to Protect Journalists offered a revealing look behind the scenes of Iraq reporting. Editor & Publisher noted that the Times, employs "45 full-time Kalashnikov-toting security guards to patrol its two blast-wall-enclosed houses—and oversee belt-fed machine-guns on the roofs of the buildings."

American journalists, [Filkins] said, spend their days piecing together scraps of information from the Iraqi reporters to construct a picture, albeit incomplete, of what life is like these days in the war-torn country. But he says that the work is slow and difficult, and it is hard in such an atmosphere for reporters to nail down specifics. "Five people doing a run-of-the-mill story takes forever," he said.

Filkins' reading of the situation overall raises the question of where to Bush administration is getting its optimistic assessments of progress in Iraq:

Most troubling was Filkins' assessment that the U.S. military may not know much more than the Times does about what life is like on the ground in Iraq. Soldiers barely leave their bases and they don't interact very much with average Iraqis, he said, so it is hard to say who, if anyone, has an accurate picture of the current situation.

Posted by Alastair Paulin on 09/20/06 at 10:25 AM

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-- Iraqi police say a car bomb at a gas station has killed 28 people in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City district

I am to angry for words to even think about these criminals, Georgie and the poodles so called liberation of Iraq, and the death of so many innocents.
A car bomb explodes at a busy gas station, killing 28 and wounding 26 more in Baghdad's Sadr City district, Iraqi emergency police say. Meanwhile, a leader of the Ansar al-Sunna terrorist network has been arrested by Iraqi forces in Muqdadiya, an Interior Ministry spokesman says.

FULL STORY

Four dozen bodies found in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Four dozen bodies, including those of four women, were found throughout the Iraqi capital during the past 24 hours, police said Friday.

Ten were discovered Friday, including those of the women, and all had been shot to death and showed signs of torture, authorities said.

Separately, gunmen set fire Friday to two deserted homes in northern Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Hurriye, Iraqi emergency police said.

Gunmen fired on firefighters when they arrived on the scene. One police officer was wounded.
Watch Iraqi residents describe how fearful their lives have become -- 2:31>>>>cont

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River still has not posted, it is nearly 2 months on the 5 Oct

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

PEACE AND SAFETY BE WITH YOU RIVER, WHERE EVER YOU ARE IN THESE TIMES OF CRISIS

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez resembled a dictator who lacked class during his "rant" at the UN

Why, because he is not up the ass of the legless thugs in the White House, who lied the countries of the coallition into a criminal war and occupation against a Soveriegn Nation. Are you friking giving 100 million gallons of oil to the needy in America that Georgie has forgotten. A******

Lets not forget Georgies Blood for oil, are you counting the deaths of innocent Iraqi and Americans alike, Hell No I bet your not

Downer hits out at Chavez 'rant'

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer has hit out at Venezuela's President over his "Bush is the devil" speech, saying Hugo Chavez is like a "dictator who lacks class".

VIDEO | Camp Democracy Delivers War Crimes Indictment

In December of 2005 and January of 2006, a war crimes tribunal in New York City heard testimony from dozens of witnesses. Jurors included 29-year military veteran Ann Wright and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. They announced their verdict in a press conference on Wednesday, September 13, at Camp Democracy. They then hand-delivered the verdicts to the White House and the Justice Department.

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Chavez to Double Energy Subsidies to Needy in US

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood at the altar of a Harlem church and offered 100 million gallons of subsidized heating oil to needy Americans. The move more than doubles the 40 million gallons of heating oil Chavez donated to eight northeastern states last year.

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Franz , where are you when we need you?

From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB

Let's put it this way: The world in which we're living with its scramble for big oil, its rising sense of nationalism in a globalized world, its tendencies to economic imperialism, its capacity for global terrorism as well as Neanderthal militarism and its rising sense of anti-Americanism is at a very sensitive period in human history.

In fact, in a setting like that, we may well be precariously poised on the brink of a new Franz Ferdinand moment.

In that case, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist seeking independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire unleashed a catastrophic series of events. As a result, the world found itself plunged into a period of wars that lasted for more than 40 years and killed more than 70 million people. It wasn't so much what the assassination of an obscure Austrian Duke did to the world as it was what it catapulted so many others into doing in response.

It might be important for us to remember in our own time how it is that seemingly benign situations, given the right environment, can become potentially lethal.

In our own times, for instance, fundamentalism everywhere, including here, is more than enough to kindle a global fire.

And now an unexpected spark has come from the strangest place of all: the Vatican.

This week the pastoral, the political and the professorial dimensions of the present papacy of Benedict XVI found themselves on a fast-track to collision with forces far beyond the arena in which he spoke.

The world has been debating for over a week now whether Pope Benedict XVI simply forgot that he was a universal pastor and international politician as well as past professor or simply didn't care to attend to all three roles at one time. Whatever the case, in one university speech all three facets of this current papacy came into play.

In this speech, universal pastoral sensitivity, as well as the political responsibilities that come with the papacy, seem to many to have been abandoned. In their place, his long-time identity as professor -- meaning someone who has the luxury, indeed, the responsibility to pursue abstract ideas free of the social consequences of their implications -- had free rein.

But it wasn't the subject matter of the lecture that was the problem. The question of the nature of God is, in fact, an ancient one.

Christians, Benedict XVI reminded us - using the words of John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, the Logos" -- hold that God, by nature, cannot do the unreasonable. On the other hand, those in Islam (as well as some Christian theologians like Duns Scotus and Benedict) argue that God transcends all human categories. God, that is, can do a thing whether it looks reasonable to human beings or not.

Benedict, of course, argued for the traditional Christian view. Otherwise, he pointed out, violence in behalf of faith -- "jihad" -- could be practiced in the name of God. That, he went on, is simply a rational impossibility for the God of peace and love.

But then, for no clear reason, Benedict quoted from a 14th century conversation between the Christian Emperor Paleologus and a Persian scholar . In the conversation, Paleologus contends that the Prophet Mohammed brought forth "only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Then and there, the academic subject becomes a pastoral one, a political one, a social one, a current one.

Then and there the speech raises two major problems for the Islamic world -- and so for us

The first problem is that Muslim scholars maintain that the word "jihad" most commonly means that the Muslim must make an "effort" -- must struggle -- to live life in accordance with the teachings of Mohammed. It is incumbent on all Muslims at all times -- just as "avoiding the occasions of sin" is part of Christian discipline, as well. "Holy war," as jihad, is at most a secondary meaning of the word that has become common to radical Islamic fundamentalist groups, but not to the Islamic community in general.

The second problem is that Muslims see the words of Paleologus, and so of Benedict XVI, as a direct insult to the Prophet Mohammed. It is, purely and simply, blasphemy to accuse the prophet of being either inhumane or evil.

The outcry against the pope and the speech was swift in coming. Some called the references to a 600-year-old theological debate in an otherwise benign speech "tragic;" some called it "unfortunate;" a few called it brave -- and, if not politically smart, definitely necessary. But by the time the news cycles had made their way around the globe for a day or two, no one was calling it insignificant.

Whether or not it was right or wrong for the pope to say what he did, one thing is now clear, certainly to the world, hopefully to the pope: what popes say, however much they mean it to be an academic conversation starter, transcend the academic.

But it must be clear to the rest of us, as well, how easy it is to light a tinder box when we fail to acknowledge what we ourselves have committed against others in the name of religion.

It is Christians who call God "rational" who, in that God's name, have done a history-full of irrational things to other religions and to Christians themselves. In times past, Christians drove Jews and Muslims out of Europe. We slaughtered Jews in pogroms and Muslims in the Crusades.

In the New World, Christians converted Indians at the end of a sword and persecuted gays and kept slaves and suppressed women. We watched white Christians burn crosses in the front yards of black Christians -- and then burned those black Christians themselves

We have all sinned in the name of religion.

If we want as Christians to begin a dialogue on the role of violence in religion, we need to cite some of our own sins as well as theirs.

And frankly, I'd leave both Mohammed and Jesus out of it as we do.

We had all better learn to talk so Christian a language that there is no doubt about its meaning.

From where I stand, a teacher friend of mine has it right. She taught her public communication students the basics of communication when she told them, "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

And that goes for all of us, pope and people alike. Otherwise, Franz Ferdiand may rise from his grave only to find us no wiser now than we were in his time. And maybe on the brink of 40 more years of war, as well.

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UN Concerned Over Indiscriminate Killing in Iraq

The UN says indiscriminate killing of civilians by death squads, insurgents and militias in Iraq has reached unprecedented levels. In July and August, over 6,600 civilians were killed, and torture is widespread.









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Surviving Bush's Beneficence

Surviving Bush's Beneficence

Leslie Thatcher writes: "Ann Jones spent three years paying attention in Afghanistan, and while her fine book was not the result she originally intended, it strips the rest of us bare of any excuses for not taking responsibility for what our country has done to Afghanistan, as it reveals the chasm between what the Bush administration promised and continues to describe as delivered and the reality on the Afghan ground."

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MESSAGE FROM RANDI

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Did the U.S. choose the correct puppet?:

Doubts Rise on Iraqi Premier’s Strength :

Senior Iraqi and American officials are beginning to question whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has the political muscle and decisiveness to hold Iraq together as it hovers on the edge of a full civil war.

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Iraq: At least 61 Killed As Bloody U.S Occupation Grinds On:

A total of 35 bodies were found in the last 24 hours in Baghdad, police said.

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Four US soldiers die across occupied Iraq:

Another four US soldiers have died in series of incidents across Iraq, the US military reported on Tuesday

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U.S. general says attacks against American troops have increased :

The attacks against U.S. troops were mostly carried out by suicide car bombers or roadside bombs. He added that the number of killings by death squads also had increased in the past week.

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The Surprising End of the New American Century

By Mike Whitney

Iran has no choice but to take Bush’s saber rattling seriously and prepare for war. The administration’s stated goal of "regime change" poses a credible "existential threat" to current Iranian government and they must plan accordingly.

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Audit Of Bush's "Reading First" Program Finds Corruption, Mismanagement...

OF THIS WHITE HOUSE
Associated Press September 22, 2006 at 05:44 PM
READ MORE: George W. Bush

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

The government audit is unsparing in its review of how Reading First, a billion-dollar program each year, that it says has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.

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Pakistani President On Alleged US Bomb Threat: Buy My New Book...

Now Why the Hell would we want to read your friking book, you're just a dictator like Sadam, Georgies new friend for the time being, while he can use your ass. We will read about it soon enough once one person reads the trash. To Bad you dont have the floor of the UN to sell you book, You're not Chaves after all.
Fri Sep 22, 5:26 PM ET
READ MORE: George W. Bush

Pakistan's leader cited a book deal during an appearance with President George W. Bush on Friday to avoid talking about a purported U.S. threat to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the September 11 attacks.

With his memoir due out on Monday, President Pervez Musharraf managed to plug his book while smoothing diplomatic waters after talks with Bush on their partnership in the war on terrorism and efforts to combat a Taliban resurgence.

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FOX TRIES TO SMEAR BILL CLINTON...CLINTON BLASTS FOX...

Hell Yeah the Assholes, Good for you Bill you shot the Bastards down good. should have been down long ago, the scum bags.

FULL TRANSCRIPT: Clinton Takes On Fox News

Today, President Bill Clinton taped an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, which is scheduled to be aired Sunday. He was told the interview would focus on his nonpartisan efforts to raise over $7 billion to combat the world’s biggest problems.

Early in the interview, Wallace attempted to smear Clinton with the same kind of misinformation contained in ABC’s Path to 9/11. Clinton was having none of it.

ThinkProgress has obtained a transcript of the interview. Here are some highlights –
Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said “I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops.” Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.

CLINTON: OK..

WALLACE: …may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20/20.

CLINTON: No let’s talk about…

WALLACE: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

Clinton takes on Fox News bias:

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right…

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t…I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…

WALLACE: We asked…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth.

WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…

WALLACE: [laughs]

CLINTON: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

Clinton on his priorities and the Bush administration priorities:

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever…

WALLACE: [Laughs]

CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

Read the full transcript (rough) HERE.

Bill Maher: “Until We Win WWIII And Crush The Evildoers…Lawmakers Should Not Be Busting Willie Nelson”…

READ MORE: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Other

Until we win World War III and crush the evildoers in what our president calls a "struggle for civilization" - all law enforcement people have to work on THAT, and not on busting Willie Nelson. This week, Willie Nelson, whom Donald Rumsfeld calls the "number two man in al-Qaeda" - was the victim of a pointless search that revealed he had with him a mere pound and a half of marijuana and a fifth of a pound of psychedelic mushrooms - or as Willie calls it, breakfast.

That's right, cops in Louisiana pulled over his tour bus and searched it based on probable cause, the probable cause being it contained Willie Nelson. The Fuzz then hassled Willie, demanded he cut his hair and shot Peter Fonda off his motorcycle. I mean, Louisiana, come on, your state was under water a year ago - if the man wants some of it for his bong, let him. Yes, he had mushrooms - he's a hundred year old hippie, they were growing in his hair.

Are we trying to send a message to other aging celebrities who might be thinking about recreational drug use? Watch out, Wilfred Brimley. Alberto Gonzales wants to know what you're sprinkling on your Quaker Oats.

Let us not forget the president's words - all twelve of them. "This country," he said, "is in a fight against a lethal enemy - spinach." Which, by the way, Willie also used to smoke, but he gave it up around the time Bush got off the coke.

Everybody's got something. But if there's one drug above all we should be cracking down on, it's oil. Oil is the addiction poisoning our lungs, and our political system, and our foreign policy. Willie Nelson, high though he might have been, was on a bus that didn't pollute anything, because it runs on bio-diesel. But bio-diesel threatens the profits of Big Oil, which means the only way we're ever going to legalize pot in this country is to convince Bush and Cheney it's a petroleum product. And it may be, all my bongs have a carburetor.

Hemp is another product that threatens oil and timber profits, because it has so many uses, like rope and bio-fuel and textiles. The Declaration of Independence is written on it. President Bush could use it to make another "Mission Accomplished" banner. If he could only accomplish a mission.

But that's hard when you lose focus. Let's focus on defending America, and leave the singers and the medical marijuana patients alone. Because, believe me, when you bite into one of their special baked goods, in about 20 minutes you'll be saying, "You're doing a heckuva job, brownie."

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

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Karl Rove On Ken Mehlman: "He's Anal-Retentive, Man!"

Editor and Publisher September 22, 2006 at 04:58 PM
READ MORE: New York Times, Karl Rove

In the upcoming issue of The New York Times Magazine this Sunday, political reporter Adam Nagourney profiles Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee. It kicks off under the headline "Lost Horizons" with the deck, "When Ken Mehlman took over the Republican Party, his goal was to secure a G.O.P. majority for decades to come. Now he's just trying to survive November.""

An advance copy of the issue sent to E&P contained a rather amusing typo in a description of Mehlman's upbringing, in which he is described as "the son of a certified public account."

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War's Death Toll Now Equal To 9/11's...

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure.

The latest milestone for a country at war comes without commemoration. It also may well come without the precision of knowing who is the 2,973rd man or woman of arms to die in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, or just when it happens. The terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Not for the first time, war that was started to answer death has resulted in at least as much death for the country that was first attacked, quite apart from the higher numbers of enemy and civilians killed.

Historians note that this grim accounting is not how the success or failure of warfare is measured, and that the reasons for conflict are broader than what served as the spark.

The body count from World War II was far higher for Allied troops than for the crushed Axis. Americans lost more men in each of a succession of Pacific battles than the 2,390 people who died at Pearl Harbor in the attack that made the U.S. declare war on Japan. The U.S. lost 405,399 in the theaters of World War II.

Despite a death toll that pales next to that of the great wars, one casualty milestone after another has been observed and reflected upon this time, especially in Iraq.

There was the benchmark of seeing more U.S. troops die in the occupation than in the swift and successful invasion. And the benchmarks of 1,000 dead, 2,000, 2,500.

Now this.

"There's never a good war but if the war's going well and the overall mission remains powerful, these numbers are not what people are focusing on," said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Boston University. "If this becomes the subject, then something's gone wrong."

Beyond the tribulations of the moment and the now-rampant doubts about the justification and course of the Iraq war, Zelizer said Americans have lost firsthand knowledge of the costs of war that existed keenly up to the 1960s, when people remembered two world wars and Korea, and faced Vietnam.

"A kind of numbness comes from that," he said. "We're not that country anymore — more bothered, more nervous. This isn't a country that's used to ground wars anymore."

Almost 10 times more Americans have died in Iraq than in Afghanistan, where U.S. casualties have been remarkably light by any historical standard, although climbing in recent months in the face of a resurgent Taliban.

As of Friday, the U.S. death toll stood at 2,693 in the Iraq war and 278 in and around Afghanistan, for a total of 2,971, two short of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Pentagon reports 56 military deaths and one civilian Defense Department death in other parts of the world from Operation Enduring Freedom, the anti-terrorism war distinct from Iraq.

Altogether, 3,028 have died abroad since Sept. 11, 2001.

The civilian toll in Iraq hit record highs in the summer, with 6,599 violent deaths reported in July and August alone, the United Nations said this week.

The latest U.S. deaths identified by the armed forces:

_Army 2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez, 23, Fort Washington, Md., who died Sept. 12 in Kifl, Iraq, from an explosive device detonated near her vehicle. A former high school sprinter who sang in her West Point gospel choir, she was assigned to the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

_Marine Sgt. Christopher M. Zimmerman, 28, Stephenville, Texas, killed Wednesday in Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A new study on the war dead and where they come from suggests that the notion of "rich man's war, poor man's fight" has become a little truer over time.

Among the Americans killed in the Iraq war, 34 percent have come from communities reporting the lowest levels of family income. Half come from middle income communities and only 17 percent from the highest income level.

That's a change from World War II, when all income groups were represented about equally. In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the poor have made up a progressively larger share of casualties, by this analysis.

Eye-for-an-eye vengeance was not the sole motivator for what happened after the 2001 attacks any more than Pearl Harbor alone was responsible for all that followed. But Pearl Harbor caught the U.S. in the middle of mobilization, debate, rising tensions with looming enemies and a European war already in progress. Historians doubt anyone paid much attention to sad milestones once America threw itself into the fight.

In contrast, the United States had no imminent war intentions against anyone on Sept. 10, 2001. One bloody day later, it did.

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Perhaps Ms. Pelosi is a bit confused by the term "thug."

Sep. 21, 2006 -- House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi called Hugo Chavez a "thug" for the Venezuelan President's "diablo" remarks about George W. Bush. Pelosi was speaking at a Washington news conference today when she denounced Chavez as a thug and said he demeaned himself and Venezuela. Pelosi seems to forget that it is a thug who tried to oust Chavez in a bloody 2002 coup, a thug who has invaded and killed tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, a thug who gave Israel the green light to pulverize Lebanon and kill over a thousand civilians, and a thug who wants to torture prisoners in U.S. custody. And while Pelosi was calling Chavez a thug, he was busy negotiating the sale of cheap heating oil to the people of Harlem. When was the last time Ms. Pelosi did anything to provide cheap commodities to the poor?

Perhaps Ms. Pelosi is a bit confused by the term "thug." Her father, Thomas D'Alessandro, broadcast wartime radio messages to Italy exhorting Italians to rise up against Benito Mussolini. An ally in the program to get Italians to revolt was none other than Mafia don Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who, after the war, was paroled from a federal prison and deported to Italy where he continued to run the Mafia in exile. D'Alessandro was elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1947 -- a time when Luciano's mob had a virtual free reign in the port of Baltimore. It would appear that Ms. Pelosi has forgotten that her mobbed up dear old dad dealt with thugs on a routine basis. Perhaps she should remember that the next time she has an urge to call a democratically-elected real populist leader (Pelosi does not know the meaning of the term "populist") a "thug."

Visit Krissy Keefer's web site, the Green candidate for the House to replace Nancy Pelosi from the California 8th Congressional District. Keefer is endorsed by WMR.

Wayne Madsen Report

Admiral Canaris "fulfilled a patriotic duty" to depose a maniacal despot leading his nation into disaster.

Sep. 22/23, 2006 -- With the current debate on the war crimes of top officials of the Bush administration it is noteworthy to look back at the final coded comments of German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris before his execution for helping a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Canaris, Commander of the German Military Defense Command during World War II, was executed in Flossenbuerg Concentration Camp in April 1945 after an unsuccessful military coup against Hitler. The DPA German Press Agency reported that, according to Canaris biographer Karl Heinz Abshagen, Canaris tapped a final message on the wall to a Danish inmate in the neighboring cell: "You as an officer will understand, that I was only fulfilling my patriotic duty when I tried to step up against the criminal senselessness of Hitler, leading Germany into disaster."
Admiral Canaris "fulfilled a patriotic duty" to depose a maniacal despot leading his nation into disaster.

WayneMadsenReport

Radio Ad Asks Houstonians To Arm Themselves Against Evacuees

HOUSTON -- A radio commercial for a local gun shop advises Houstonians to arm themselves against "Katricians," adding to the growing tension between Houstonians and the Katrina evacuees who have been blamed for a rising crime rate.

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'Rendition' does not involve torture, says Rice

'Rendition' does not involve torture, says Rice
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 06 December 2005

Attempting to stem fierce European criticism of US treatment of suspected terrorists, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, admitted that Washington had carried out "renditions" of suspects - but never in violation of other country's sovereignty, and never where it was believed that the individual might be tortured.

Speaking yesterday in the US before leaving for a week-long trip to Europe, Ms Rice presented the Bush administration's clearest statement yet on an issue that has generated fresh uproar after claims the CIA operated secret prisons in eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Article Length: 596 words (approx.)

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Caving In

Senate Repugs, for all their tough talk, decide not to endorse torture, but won’t prevent it either.

Bush’s pet spook Michael “4th Amendment” Hayden is thrilled. And Chimpy is already wiggling out of one of his biggest “compromises”.

Note that this is not a done deal…what they did yesterday was simply end the “public” feud so they do the rest behind the scenes.

Speaking of torture, in Iraq it looks like it’s worse now than it ever was under Saddam. Gee…let’s see if Bush feels he still has the moral authority to speak out about it. Grrrr!

The CIA’s top guy on political Islam retired after 15 years in June and is now speaking out on Iraq’s civil war and how we are making it worse, our pissed away good will, and why we need to talk to Iran. A few choice excerpts

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Strained Army May Be Forced To Use More Natl. Guard Troops For Overseas Missions...

NY Times THOM SHANKER, MICHAEL R. GORDON September 22, 2006 at 10:33 AM
READ MORE: Afghanistan, Iraq

Strains on the Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become so severe that Army officials say they may be forced to make greater use of the National Guard to provide enough troops for overseas deployments.

Senior Army officers have discussed that analysis -- and described the possible need to use more members of the National Guard -- with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's senior adviser on personnel, David S. C. Chu, according to Pentagon officials.

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Govt Threatening To Punish Church For Anti-War Speech...

Associated Press GILLIAN FLACCUS September 22, 2006 at 01:08 PM
READ MORE:

A liberal church that has been threatened with the loss of its tax-exempt status over an anti-war sermon delivered just days before the 2004 presidential election said Thursday it will fight an IRS order to turn over documents on the matter.

"We're going to put it in their court and in a court of law so that we can get an adjudication to some very fundamental issue here that we see as an intolerable infringement of rights," Bob Long, senior warden of All Saints Church, told The Associated Press.

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Bush 'Taken Aback' by Musharraf Comment

This Armatage is one hell of a sleeze, has his hand in anything dirty that Georgie needs done, Plames Outing the list goes on and on. By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff WriterFriday,
September 22, 2006; 12:24 PM

President Bush said today he was surprised by reports that a former top State Department official threatened heavy U.S. bombing of Pakistan if it did not cooperate with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Pakistan's visiting president declined to comment on the purported threat, citing a book deal.

In a White House news briefing after a meeting in the Oval Office, Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf were asked about a threat that Musharraf has attributed to Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. In an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" scheduled for broadcast Sunday, Musharraf said his intelligence chief had informed him that Armitage warned, "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age." Musharraf said the purported threat was insulting and "a very rude remark," according to excerpts released by CBS.>>>cont

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US denies threatto attack Pakistan

Republicans Reach Deal on Detainee Bill

No Legislative oversight, no Judicial Oversight

By KATE ZERNIKE

Under the deal, President Bush dropped his demand that Congress redefine the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

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