STAY THE COURSE AMERICA, WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU, THE WORLD IS COUNTING ON YOU TO VOTE FOR PEACE

In November surprise, top cheerleaders of Iraq war abandon Bush

WASHINGTON (AFP) - And now they have had a change of heart. Only three days before a crucial congressional election in which Republicans are poised to suffer heavy losses, top US neoconservatives, who had cheered the US invasion of Iraq, admitted that the operation may not have been that necessary, after all.

In separate interviews with Vanity Fair magazine, former top Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, White House speechwriter David Frum and Reagan administration arms control negotiator Kenneth Adelman continued to insist that toppling the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein was a noble thing to have done.

But they argued that the execution of the plan by President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, was nothing short of "incompetent."

Perle, who once chaired the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and in that capacity argued that Iraq was "a very good candidate" for democracy, said bluntly that if he could turn back the clock, he would not recommend invading Iraq now.

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Accuser recounts trysts with 'Art'

Rick Myers Art happens to be Pastor Ted's middle name!!!
Ironically...I'm just sayin'...

The alleged phone calls always came from a public phone. Area code 719. Hundred-dollar bills allegedly arrived in an envelope with a single name, "Art," where the return address should be.

Michael Jones claims the calls and the money were for drug-fueled gay sexual encounters with Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard.

Jones said his sexual relationship with Haggard began three years ago after he received a phone call in response to an ad he had listed on rentboy.com, a gay escort Web site.

"He called me, saying he was visiting from Kansas City," Jones said. "We hooked up at my place. We always met at my place. He went by the name 'Art.'

Jones said he was paid $200 for the sex sessions, which usually lasted about an hour. He said Haggard did not ask him to perform any unusual sex acts or role play.

"It was pretty much vanilla sex," Jones said.

LinkHere

LA Times: Perle says he should not have backed Iraq war

By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2006

WASHINGTON — Richard N. Perle, the former Pentagon advisor regarded as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq war, now believes he should not have backed the U.S.-led invasion, and he holds President Bush responsible for failing to make timely decisions to stem the rising violence, according to excerpts from a magazine interview.

Perle — a leading neoconservative who chaired the Pentagon's defense advisory board for the first three years of the Bush administration — is quoted in January's Vanity Fair as saying the U.S. might have been able to strip Saddam Hussein of his ability to build unconventional weapons "by means other than a direct military intervention."

"I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said 'Should we go into Iraq?' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists,' " Perle said, according to interview excerpts released Friday by the magazine.

Perle's about-face is the latest in a series of war recriminations by neoconservatives, many of whom blame Iraq's spiraling violence on the administration's management of the postwar stabilization effort.

link Here

I could say 'Yes, but not my son or daughter, What about their sons and daughters? Hmmmmm

Army general issues appeal to keep military ranks filled


By Ron Martz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/04/06

Americans need to get serious about the war against international terrorism and start encouraging more young men and women to join the military, a top Army general said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the First Army based at Fort Gillem in Forest Park, said in a speech at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur that many people in the United States tend to let the events of their everyday lives overshadow the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We need to remind people we are at war," Honoré said. (SNIP)

But because of the nature of the enemy, he added, it is important for Americans to understand what is at stake for the nation and to make concerted efforts to keep the ranks filled.

"We can't have a part of America say, 'Yes, but not my son or daughter.'"

LinkHere

Test Spits Out Wrong Results At Board Of Elections (OH)

And so it begins........

POSTED: 1:17 pm EST November 3, 2006
UPDATED: 1:33 pm EST November 3, 2006

CLEVELAND -- A problem has been discovered with the optical scanner in connection with one race at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Friday afternoon.

During a test using an optical scanner, officials discovered that the machine was providing incorrect election results for the race for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

BOE officials said this is just one race out of hundreds in which a problem has been found.

Be sure to watch Live on Five and NewsChannel5 at 6 for more on this developing story.

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1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq

Remember? Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size ...


Army chief says 200,000 troops needed to keep the peace

1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERWASHINGTON

-- The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.

In its "Desert Crossing" games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.

The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library."

The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."

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Why Iraq Was a Mistake

A military insider sounds off against the war and the "zealots" who pushed it

American sailor murdered in Halifax, Nova Scotia

A US sailor was murdered, and another injured when a gang of at least 20 attacked the sailors while in the port of Halifax this morning.

LinkHere

Pastor at Haggard's church: 'We stand with him'

Remind you of the Catholic Church Hmmmmmmm.
All you mothers and fathers out there will you stand with him do you believe in him, does this Pastor speak for you all, will you be complicit in not keeping your children safe tonight. You Decide, did he or didn't he have sex, With a Gay Prosititute, Remind you of Michael Jackson Hmmmmmm, he was found guilty by the American Public, Your children are your responsibility, to keep safe,






COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- As evangelical Christians absorbed the news of the Rev. Ted Haggard's admission he bought methamphetamine -- but did not take the drug -- his church reeled with shock and heartache.Haggard has led the 14,000-member New Life Church for 21 years."The response in our church is sadness and surprise," said the Rev. Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at New Life.But, Brendle added, "We believe in him and we stand with him."

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Breaking News!!!!!!! Haggard resigns from Colorado church
Board finds evangelical leader guilty of ‘sexually immoral conduct’

Evangelical Rev. Quits Amid Drugs, Gay Sex Scandal (Sex Confirmed!)

Haggard boasted close White House ties

China to double its aid to Africa

China has pledged to double its aid to Africa and provide $5bn in loans and credits over the next three years.

Chinese President Hu Jintao made the announcement as he opened a summit in Beijing attended by nearly 50 African heads of state and ministers.

The summit is focusing on business with more than 2,000 deals under discussion.

African leaders welcome their booming trade links with China, but critics accuse Beijing of dealing with repressive regimes.

Beijing says it is just doing business and has no political agenda.

'Historic'

"Our meeting today will go down in history," Mr Hu told the China-Africa summit. >>>cont

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12,000 Turks March Against Radical Islam

Just say thank you to Georgie, for the increase in Radical Islam, after all Iraq was a secular nation, until Georgie decided to lie to world, and to invade and occupy Iraq, now they have an Islamic Nation and lots of Radicals. THANK YOU GEORGIE

Nov 4, 8:48 AM (ET)
By SELCAN HACAOGLU

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Thousands of nationalist Turks marched in the capital Saturday, vowing to defend the secular regime against radical Islamic influences and urging the government not to make too many concessions in order to gain European Union membership.

Some 12,000 people from more than 100 pro-secular associations waved Turkish flags as they marched to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. "Turkey is secular and it will remain secular," they chanted during a march broadcast live on some TV channels.

Ret. Gen. Sener Eruygur, president of the Ataturk Thought Association and former commander of Turkey's paramilitary forces, warned against alleged plans by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islamic-rooted government to run for president - a symbol of secularism in Turkey.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer will retire in May, and the parliament - dominated by Erdogan's legislators - will choose the new president.

Eruygur also urged protesters to rally against EU demands to grant greater cultural rights to Kurds and other religious and ethnic minorities.

Turkey is fighting a separatist Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, in a war that has killed more than 37,000 people since 1984, and many Turks regard granting more rights to Kurds a concession to the rebels.

The U.S. and EU consider the organization a terrorist group.

The European Commission is expected to issue a highly critical report next week accusing Turkey of dragging its heels on political reforms and demanding significant improvements in 2007 if Ankara wants to stay on track to join the bloc.

The draft report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says Turkey is failing to meet minimum human rights standards, and cites problems in freedom of expression, women's and trade union rights, and civilian control over the military.

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ARE YOU GOING TO STAY THE COURSE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS, OR ARE YOU GOING TO WALK AWAY, ARE YOU GOING TO BE SURE YOUR VOTES WHERE COUNTED.

Anxious GOP Focuses on Not Losing Senate

Republicans entered the campaign's final weekend desperately trying to keep control of the Senate, with three or four tossup races likely to determine whether the GOP can cling to power there even as it sees its hold on the House eroding.

The Red-State Revue, Starring G.W. Bush

With pollsters and pundits declaring his Republican Party all but out of power in the House and in danger of losing the Senate in Tuesday's elections, President Bush has embarked on a final 10-state blitz to save his congressional majorities -- and essentially the remainder of his presidency.

GOP's Woes Imperil Even the Centrists

Moderate Republicans such as Rep. Charles Bass (N.H.) are already an endangered species in Congress. The gathering political storm could push them much closer to extinction.

FOCUS | As Vote Nears, Parties Prepare for Legal Fights

Ohhhhhh please, they where supposed to have all the laywers in place in the 2004 Presidential Election, you remember the election Kerry Won, give me a break.

Several days from what Republican and Democratic campaign strategists expect to be a close election, the legal machinery of a messy fight is shifting into high gear as both parties begin sending their largest concentrations of lawyers to states with the tightest races like Maryland, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.

LinkHere

Number of dead in Gaza reaching historic levels

Out of sight out of mind Hmmmmmm?


Number of dead in Gaza near 'historic'

540 Palestinians dead over the past 14 months; 7 more dead after Saturday attack.

Rockets for sale on our streets

AS many as 20 rocket launchers have been smuggled into Australia from the Middle East and are on sale for as much as $50,000 each in Sydney's underworld

LinkHere

Investigators Say Appropriations Panel Lost Appetite for Oversight

By Steven T. Dennis, CQ Staff
Last month’s mass firing of House Appropriations Committee investigators followed years of declining appetite for tough oversight and partisan squabbles that the investigators say often stalled their work.

Several members of the team, some of whom spoke on the condition that they not be identified by name, defend their record against committee spokesman John Scofield’s charge that recent work was not good. They suggest instead that majority Republicans had no appetite for oversight of the Bush administration.

The investigators said they identified billions of dollars in potential savings every year, particularly in the Defense budget, and that they heard no complaints until Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., dismissed 60 contractors on Oct. 16.

Joseph Stehr, a retired FBI agent who had been a member of the team off and on since 1985, said he remains stunned by Lewis’ action. “It reeks, it really does,” he said. “It just amazes me that after 60 some years, that just with the swipe of a pencil the thing could all go away.”

Stehr said the team gave the committee a unique window into Defense programs. “Who is going to look into all of this? GAO? I don’t think so. They’re slow-pitch Wiffle ball, where we throw 90 miles an hour.”

Scofield said the dismissals were part of a review of the team, and that the investigators might be rehired.

But Stehr, who worked on a now-stalled study of Katrina relief spending as well as on Pentagon budget scrubs, said many of the former investigators are so disillusioned that they would not return if the committee decides to reconstitute its investigative team in the 110th Congress. >>>cont

LinkHere

ABC News: Military Recruiters Told Students Iraq War “Ended A Long Time Ago”...

ABC News November 4, 2006 02:05 PM

An ABC News undercover investigation showed Army recruiters telling students that the war in Iraq was over, in an effort to get them to enlist.

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
"Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" one student asks a recruiter.

"No, we're bringing people back," he replies.

"We're not at war. War ended a long time ago," another recruiter says.

READ FULL STORY

Frist Finally Loses It: Building Home In Nashville To Look Like White House…

The New York Times Theo Emery November 4, 2006 11:42 AM

In the wealthy Whitland neighborhood here, political signs dot the manicured lawns, but neighbors typically maintain a polite distance, keeping their affairs private behind towering magnolia trees, hedgerows and stone walls.

The Georgian Revival-style house in the Whitland neighborhood, nearby residents agree, has taken on a distinct White House look.

Still, residents and passing motorists cannot help but peer behind the high green fence that screens renovations under way at 703 Bowling Avenue.

READ FULL STORY

John McCain: The Straight Talk Express Moves Behind Closed Doors

Apparently, McCain's straight talk is now for GOP donors only. READ MORE

I'm a Viet Nam vet who as a crewmember on the USS Enterprise during the war followed McCain's imprisonment closely. His father was the CINC of the Pacific. When he got into politics I supported him as he ran for the house and then the senate. He's had an aura around him for me for a long time.Even when he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar during the Keating Five scandal, I thought I saw sincere remorse and candor.When he ran for President in 2000, I supported him and I had his back while Bush and Co. smeared and slandered his wife, his family, and himself. I thought he handled his loss with dignity and grace.In the last three years I've watched him turn into a slimy piece of shit and George Bush's pet poodle before my eyes, suggesting that maybe that was always the true McCain. Whatever the case, this is one Navy vet who'll never vote for that hypocritical son of a bitch. Right On

By: nyawker on November 02, 2006 at 01:27pm

Baghdad To Have “Open-Ended” Curfew In Anticipation Of Saddam Verdict...

CNN November 4, 2006 10:19 AM

A stiff curfew will be imposed in Baghdad and two Iraqi provinces on Sunday ahead of the verdict and sentencing in the trial of Saddam Hussein.

A complete movement ban -- both people and vehicles -- will be imposed in the capital and in Salaheddin and Diyala provinces starting at 6 a.m. Sunday until further notice, the Iraqi prime minister's office told CNN.

READ FULL STORY

Republicans Resigned to Idea of Big Losses

The New York Times ADAM NAGOURNEY and ROBIN TONER November 4, 2006 12:07 PM

It's the worst political environment for Republican candidates since Watergate," said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster working in many of the top races this year.

Joe Gaylord, who was the political lieutenant to Newt Gingrich when Mr. Gingrich led the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, said that based on polling he had seen in recent weeks, he expected his party to lose from 25 seats to 30 seats Tuesday. That general assessment was repeatedly echoed in interviews by Republicans close to the White House and the Republican National Committee.

Read the entire article here.

4 Military Papers To Call For Rumsfeld's Resignation On Monday...

Editor & Publisher November 4, 2006 09:20 AM

An editorial set to appear on Monday -- election eve -- in four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years.

READ FULL STORY

CHENEY: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE PUBLIC THINKS...

ABC News Ed O'Keefe November 3, 2006 10:46 PM

Four days before the election, as Republican candidates are battling to save their seats in Congress amidst a backlash over the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News the administration is going "full speed ahead" with its policy.

"We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George Stephanopoulos in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on "This Week."

READ FULL STORY

Fool Me Thrice, an apology - Confessions of a Twice Bush Voter

Richard Hindshttp://www.virtualcitizens.com/

There’s an old saying in Tennessee, I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on … shame on you. … Fool me, cain’t get fooled again.’

You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world. For the sake of liberty and justice for all, the United Nations Security Council must act, must act in way to hold this regime to account, must not be fooled, must be relevant to keep the peace.”

G. W. Bush, 17 September 2002

write near the conclusion of one United States' bloodiest months in Iraq since 2003, with at least 101 Armed Service men and women killed in the utterly destroyed, once sovereign nation of Iraq.

(Editor’s note: Only the most myopic and bigoted Americans would consider the bloodiest month in Iraq to be measured solely by reported numbers of American war criminals killed. In this instance, I consider the omission of slaughtered Iraqis intrinsic to the message of the author who is trying to explain to other Americans – especially the jingoists – that Mr. Hinds now sees the vile nature of the Bush regime).

Bluntly, this is an open letter of apology to the citizens of the Rio Grande Valley, of Texas, of this nation, and all inhabitants of this world with whom I share.

For the record, if my actions, in any way, have assisted or brought forth the tragedy that has befallen this nation, and by default, the rest of the world, I am very sorry, completely, utterly sorry. What did I do that has burdened me so? I voted for George W. Bush. Twice. And I am beside myself.

I do not take to self-flagellation often, yet I feel I have no choice. What else can I do but apologize? When something is as totally and completely off the mark as this administration has been, all I can do is admit that I was wrong for ever supporting Bush, and try to atone.

I supported the war initially. However, if I had any inkling it would be handled so poorly, I would have not. Like many Americans, I was duped. My patriotism was used for the good of a few, to the detriment of the many. The Emperor-in-Chief has no clothes. When I accepted the banner of Republican party, I believed it stood for what I believed in--family values; a strong, versatile military; smaller government; fiscal responsibility. I was wrong. Now, I am awake--39 years late, but nevertheless, awake I am. And this, my penance, though weak and feeble, is all I can do.

G. W. Bush has been a catastrophe for this nation. His record is replete with malfeasance big and small. From Katrina, insulting "no-bid" contracts to Halliburton, No-Child-Left-Behind, domestic spying, warrantless wiretaps, rendition, torture, and goodbye to Habeas Corpus through the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to massive cuts in State and Federal mental heath care, cuts for veterans and tax cuts for importers of Chinese ceiling fans and the Petroleum giants, it has been once continuous nightmare of cronyism and fiscal irresponsibility. But what troubles me most is his thoughtless, wild-hair adventurism, and its toll on our society.

His misguided "War on Terror" has decimated our military. They're over-stretched, overwrought, worn-out and essentially rendered impotent, unable to deploy to meet a real emergency – though their bombs kill with collateral ease. His administration--not our military, but the civilian leadership--Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al., at best, has been inept, incompetent and arrogant throughout the entire Iraqi affair.

(Editor’s note: Their incompetence has brought record profits to their friends at Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, KBR, Fluor, Exxon-Mobil, and others. In the biz we call that “mission accomplished.” How did Brownie put it, “can I go home now?”)

Since 2001, Bush and his goons have destroyed America’s reputation in the world, alienating those who would have supported us. On September 11, 2001, people the world over, even places that "hate" us, were saying, "We are all Americans today." We hear that no more. We can't set the world on fire and garner sympathy or save ourselves from the enemy.

Shortly after the fall of the USSR, we were the lone nuclear/military super-power, what pro-war Chicken Hawk Niall Ferguson calls the world's first "Hyper-Power." Today, the Bush regime can convince no nation, much less North Korea or Iran, to follow our neo-con/neo-liberal leadership.

More troubling it that I must decry Bush as a traitor. What else can we conclude? He used the cover of a war on terror to fight for big oil profits through the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Team Cheney is all about wealth, about Empire – have you read the PNAC report? Understand clearly, the U.S. military has permanent bases in Iraq, or rather, permanent access to the bases built and paid for by American taxpayer money. The troops are never leaving – until they invade Iran. Bush admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and no connection to al Qaeda. Only the most brazen Emperor could take such steps, and we let him.

Not only is the world NOT safer post invasion and occupation of Iraq, but Bush is creating more terrorists whom our children might fight. That is terrifying. Further, the federal treasury borrows $2 billion per day. Why? Subsidies for the rich and profit-making corporations topped off with record tax cuts for these businesses and that less than 1% of the richest Americans, of course. The other piece of the red ink pie is the war of course, which just happens to be an economic boon to the well-connected at Blackwater, Halliburton, and others who provide security. This NOT what I voted for [sic].

I know that many self-named Republicans follow the Rovian party line, like I did, and will do so regardless. But if you are not appalled by this administration, you have not been paying attention. It has become increasingly clear to me that Republican elites (like the Democrats when their in power) work solely for big corporations, big oil, big Pharma, and the super rich. Bush fancies himself an oil man, and oil profits were the highest ever. Do you think that a coincidence?

This country is not a democracy. It is an oligarchy, ruled by the super-wealthy, to the benefit the super wealthy. It is stunning to realize how many Congressmen are millionaires. Millionaires do not represent me. They point at me, with my modest home and my two- year old shoes and laugh. I will not sell my soul. My party abandoned me. They are a cabal of hate-baiting "neo-cons."

Do you know what a Neo-Conservative is? It is unlikely that they want what you espouse. Bush has done more damage to this country than anyone in the last 200 years. He is vacuous, inarticulate beyond understanding, a military deserter and little more than a robot. He has spouted the same mantras for five years though conditions change every-single-day. I wish I could find a bumper sticker that said "Blame me---I voted for him---Twice." For now, I will have to make do with Warmonger.

Bush has been an embarrassment and a disappointment to me. I believed in him once, and wanted him to do well, but now it is difficult to contain my disdain. These are scary times. And I don't know what to suggest, other than to say, whatever you do, just don't vote Republican.

If you have any inclination that you might vote Republican, please, stay home. This party, for whatever good it once stood for, has been hijacked. And while I am disgusted with many Democrats too, the Republican rule must end.

Wake me when it is 2008. We'll try this all again.

Richard Hinds, a life long resident of Mercedes, Texas, served in the U.S. Army and holds a master’s degree in psychology. That he could be fooled so easily should tell you something about the state of higher education in the United States.

Richard Hinds

Kangaroo Says,

People have asked me why the site you are not American, I Have never understood how a Nation, the Leading Nation of the Free World, could be taken in so totally, by an Inept, Corrupt, Illiterate, Psychotic, Little Man, a man without morals, and that he could ever be allowed to steal one election for President, let alone two in six years, and that a Nation would just sit back and allows it to happen. Unfriking believable.

This is my diary of the last six years living under the rule and foreign policy, of a rogue nation, a nation my countries Prime Minister committed our citizens to become complicit in the same crimes and occupation, against the innocent people of Iraq and Afganistan. I want my children and grand children to understand the crimes our Countries have commited on people who where not able to defend themselves against the mightiest army the world has ever know, that army with its WMDs, that where given into the hands of an Evil Administration.

Are you listening Georgie? illiterate that you are, can you hear and understand

See Georgie its not your freedom they hate.

Why I hate America ?

I would be dishonest if I said I didn’t hate the American government. I
do hate it, so really, so deeply and, yes, so rightly.

America is the tormentor of my people. It is to me, as a Palestinian,
what Nazi Germany was to the Jews. America is the powerful devil
that spreads oppression and death in my neighborhood. How can I not hate this “great Satan,” the evil empire? Does anyone expect people to love their tormentors and child-killers? America has been, and continues to be, the sponsor, enabler, protector, and justifier of my people’s misery for the last sixty years.

[More:]
America is the author of 60 years of suffering, death, bereavement,
occupation, oppression, homelessness, and victimization.

America is the usurper of my people’s right to human rights, democracy, civil liberties, development, and dignified life.

America is the abettor and financier of Israeli occupation, apartheid,
repression, terror, and land theft.

America is the protector, maintainer, sustainer and guarantor of
despotism, dictatorship, dynastic fiefdoms, and brutal autocracies,
theocracies, oligarchies, and monarchies in the Muslim world.

America is the evil power that denies my people freedom from a Nazi-like forieng occupation that murders our children and steals our land.

America is the tyrant, global dictatorship that robs hundreds of
millions of Arabs and Muslims of their right to freely elect their
governments and rulers because corporate America dreads the outcome of democracy in the Muslim world.

America treats me and my people as “children of a lesser God.”

In fact, in the final analysis, America offers me one of two choices:
Either I submissively accept perpetual enslavement and oppression or
become an Osama bin Laden. Honestly, there is not a third choice, if
there is one let us see it.

I’m not exaggerating at all. Everybody knows that America ’s policies

and behaviors in the Muslim world encourages extremism and scuttles moderation.

In fact, I dare say that the first inevitably leads to the second in a
straightforward cause-effect relationship.

So, please America , don’t make me an Osama bin Laden.

I don’t want to be one. I hate to kill innocent people, for, in our
religion, killing an innocent human-being is tantamount to killing the entire human race.

I know that “hate” is wrong. I actually really strive not to allow my hate of the American government and its murderous policies be transformed from the static form to the dynamic form.

However, others, who may even hate America more than I do, will not be able to exercise as much self-control, as much suppression of their
grievances, and as much “wisdom.”

But Static hate is ultimately a frozen
rage, awaiting the moment of explosion.
It is alredy exploding in America ’s face.

I know hate can be blind and deadly. But, I also know that oppression,
as the Holy Qura’n clearly states, is worse than murder.

Hence, I try, even strive, to make my hate of America , as rational as
possible, as constructive as possible, even as human as possible. This
is not because America deserves to be treated humanely.

The exterminators of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians deserves no respect.

They are despicable mass murders of Hitler’s ilk.

My and my people’s goal is to be free, free from Israel ’s US-sponsored and US-funded oppression and occupation.

I want to be free from Jewish occupation and Jewish apartheid and Jewish racism.

I want to be free from a life of roadblocks, checkpoints, detention
camps, closed-military zones, “targeted killing,” land-confiscation,
home-demolition, and, yes, daily massacres.

I also want to be free from hate, even hate for America . But I know too
well that I can’t be free from the effect until I am free from the
cause, and the cause is America ’s greed, rapacity and hegemony.

All we want is to be left alone and allowed to live a normal life and
exercise our God-given rights and freedoms. like other human beings. Is this asking for too much?

Please, America , don’t make me an Osama bin Laden.

-----------------------------*****--------------------------------

I wrote this article nearly five years ago, a few weeks after the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington . Many people thought then the article was too emotional. However, America ’s behavior in the Muslim world since then, seems to have vindicated every word and every bit of anger in the article.

The recent American-embraced and American-backed Nazi-like Israeli campaign of murder and terror in Lebanon as well as the slow-motion genocide Israel is relentlessly effecting in the Occupied Palestinian territories, especially in the Gaza Strip, are a clarion testimony to America’s diabolical behavior.

In 2001, I warned that American policies and behavior toward the Muslim world, particularly the enduring Palestinian plight, was generating violence, frustration, and indignation throughout the world.

I appealed to America to stop pushing Muslim youngsters to join the ranks of Osama Bin Laden by scandalously embracing Zio-Nazism and its Third Reich-like territorial expansion in the West Bank , the Golan Heights and South Lebanon .

The American administration didn’t listen, called Ariel Sharon, the Israeli certified war criminal a “man of peace,” telling him that settlements built on stolen Arab territory in the West Bank were legal.

Moreover, the Bush Administration, acting under the influence of the Jewish Lobby in Washington, invaded and occupied and destroyed Iraq, resulting in a gigantic catastrophe unseen since the end of the Second World War.

In 2001, America was preoccupied with one man, Osama Bin Laden. Now, five years later, not only Bin Laden is still at large, but thousands upon thousands of Bin Ladens and Zarqawis have appeared thanks to America ’s criminal policies.

In the article I earnestly called on the US to stop embracing corrupt and tyrannical Arab regimes that oppress and humiliate their masses. However, instead of sincerely supporting democracy in the Arab world, the US continued to strengthen these hated regimes.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, America actually has been seeking to strangle and kill the outcome of the only truly democratic elections in the Arab world. Indeed, America, not only imposed a draconian and harsh blockade on the Palestinian people but also conspired with Israel to bar four million helpless men, women and children from accessing food and work, all in order to punish them for electing a government that is unwilling to be at Israel’s beck and call.

Khalid Amayreh

Cuckolded by Bush

By Rob Kall

Part of the trashing of a cuckolded man, part of the shame and embarassment that is part of being cuckolded is the reality that the cuckold chose his mate. He made a decision to commit to someone who ended up cuckolding him. Likewise, the person who voted for George Bush, or for slimeball congressfolk has been cuckolded-- betrayed, embarassed, dishonored, emasculated, taken advantage of, made a fool of....

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Endgame: The Lights Are Going Out All Over Baghdad

Friday, 03 November 2006

While the American election campaign thrashes toward the finish line with the usual spasms of witless diversion and hyper-mendacity – an echo chamber of utter bullshit roaring in a media bubble murderously detached from reality – in the actual world of flesh and blood, the destruction of Iraq engineered by George W. Bush is entering a new phase that could make the previous three years of all-devouring hell look like a sojourn in paradise.

Baghdad is under siege, as Patrick Cockburn reports in the Independent; the city has been encircled by Sunni militias who have cut almost all the roads leading into the capital. Inside the city, "the scale of killing is already as bad as Bosnia at the height of the Balkans conflict," says Cockburn. And it will inevitably, inexorably grow worse, as Shiite militias consolidate their hold within Baghdad while trying to break the blockade from outside. Already, "food shortages are becoming severe" in some parts of the city, he reports, while almost a thousand Iraqis are being slaughtered each week, mostly in Baghdad. Meanwhile, at least 1.5 million internal refugees have fled the ethnic cleansing by both Sunni and Shiite militias, joining the hundreds of thousands who have fled the country altogether. Again, these numbers dwarf those in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars – while the total dead from Bush's war, a very credible estimate of at least 650,000, is approaching the level of the Rwandan genocide.

And as Cockburn notes, the American presence in the city provides the people no security, no stability – only confusion. First, the U.S. pours in fresh troops for a month-long campaign to "reclaim" the city for the Iraqi government – but this only intensifies the killing and sectarian control of Baghdad, and is called off, an openly acknowledged failure. Then the Americans launch a fierce hunt for a kidnapped U.S. soldier in the very heart of the Shiite section, only to abruptly abandon this too after a carefully orchestrated display of pique by Nouri al-Maliki, the powerless prime minister of the supposedly "sovereign" state. The captured American was left behind, at the order of the Pentagon and the White House, while the radical extremists led by cleric Motqada Sadr – the "essential prop" of al-Maliki's Bush-backed government, as Cockburn notes – took to the streets to celebrate this victory over the Americans.

None of this has penetrated the American media bubble: the genocidal killing, the abandonment of a U.S. captive, the sealing off of Baghdad, the imminent loss of even the semblance of "Coalition" control in the country. Although some Democrats have started to make hay with a general critique of the war – criticisms often couched in terms of Bush "not doing it right," as if there was a right way to carry out an unprovoked war of aggression – the full reality of what's happening in Iraq now is universally unacknowledged by the American establishment. Some look to the "Baker Commission" – the usual gaggle of the "great and good," led here by Bush Family fixer James Baker with a remit to produce "new ideas" on the war – for ways to remedy the deteriorating situation. But the Baker panel's conclusion – which it has thoughtfully withheld until after the election, thereby letting hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of American soldiers die for the sake of the Bush Faction's political fortunes – will have already been outstripped by reality before they are even uttered. They will amount to no more than a new shade of lipstick for Bush's pig of a war – a bloodsoaked sow eating her own farrow.

The endgame has begun. And whether the Americans withdraw to a few "superbases" in the desert, or "redeploy" over the border in Kuwait, or have to fight their way out of the Green Zone in a mad dash for the last transports leaving the airport, nothing will stop the bloodbath that Bush and his henchmen have set in motion. They have destroyed the Iraqi state and Iraqi society – along with vast swathes of the Iraqi population – and the consequences of this moral insanity, this willful, deliberate evil, will be terrible to behold. >>>cont

Chris Floyd

Postcards of the Hanging: Race and Sex in Tennessee

Tuesday, 31 October 2006

"The past is never dead; it's not even past." -- William Faulkner

WATERTOWN, Tennessee – The 20th century was well into its seventh decade, but he still came to the back door every time he needed to see "Mister Edsel" about some business or other. No amount of cajoling would induce him to knock on the front door. Finally, one day, in exasperation, my father told him: "Jim, if you don't come around to the front next time, I'm not going to talk to you. This just won't do." Jim shook his head, perplexed; it seemed a concept too radical to grasp or accept: knocking on a white man's front door.

The past lives longer in the South, as Faulkner, that great bard of race and sex, knew well. Habits of subservience from the days of slavery more than a century before were still lingering here and there, as I could see on my own back porch that day, watching Jim and my father. It was like a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird; and indeed, "Mister Edsel" had come to play the role of Atticus Finch in the town: an advocate and mediator for people like Jim – a black man from the country, deprived of education, shunted into stoop labor, living in the margins, forever under arbitrary threat from an uncaring officialdom or from sudden outbursts of the deeply-ingrained racial enmity that lurked beneath the placid surface of the white faces all around him.

It was an unsought role that came to my father simply because he was one of the few white men who treated black people like they were ordinary, fully-fledged human beings, not lepers or clowns or dangerous trash. It was a rare attribute in those days – and it is still much rarer than most would care to admit, even in the "New South," where Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. stands within reach of becoming the first African-American senator from the old Confederacy since Reconstruction (or as some still like to call it, "the Yankee Occupation").

Ford's surprisingly strong campaign has exposed fault lines long buried beneath Tennessee's creeping – or rather, galloping – suburbanization, where old ways, both good and bad, are rapidly being submerged in the undifferentiated glop of modern American franchise culture. But when money and power are on the line, atavism is the order of the day: ancient fears and hatreds re-emerge – or are mightily encouraged to re-emerge, with all the subtle and not-so-subtle arts of high-tech mass persuasion stoking the flames.

For the stakes in the battle for Tennessee's Senate seat – once considered a lock for the Republicans – have suddenly grown exceedingly high. A Ford win could wrest control of the chamber away from the GOP, putting a serious crimp in the party's bacchanal of greed and graft. What's more, it opens up the possibility of investigations, subpoenas – and worse – for an Administration that is not only suppurating with massive corruption, incompetence, extremism and deceit, but has also openly acknowledged several criminal actions, including torture and warrantless surveillance. The Bush Faction simply cannot afford to face accountability for its monumental failures and misdeeds.

And so in late October, with Ford rising rapidly in the polls, even overtaking his opponent – Bob Corker, a typical tycoon-politician with a bland manner masking sharp practice in his murky business dealings – the Bush Party got serious and whipped out a barn-burning theme from days of yore: the "hot black buck with nothing but white women on his mind."

Chris Floyd

The "War for Oil" Comes Home

Tuesday, 31 October 2006
U.S. Drops Bid Over Royalties From Chevron

The "War for Oil" is not just being fought in Iraq, you know. For as the Warmonger-in-Chief never tires of telling us, the "Homeland" itself is a major front in his never-ending war on – not terror, because his policies are fomenting and exacerbating terrorism around the world – but on anything and everything that might impinge in the slightest degree on the profits, power and privilege of the tiny clique of predatory elites that he represents.

The NYT story, an excellent piece of explanatory journalism by Edmund Andrews, lays out the details of the scam – just one of many by which Big Oil uses its hired hands in Washington to cheat the American people out of billions of dollars in fees and royalties from the use of public land for corporate profit. As Andrews makes clear, the entire system is honeycombed with sweetheart clauses and deliberate ambiguities that allow the oil barons to take vast rake-offs – some of which they obligingly return in various forms of baksheesh to their political servants.

We hear a great deal – and rightly so – about the pernicious evil in the Bush Regime's attempt to wrest away the oil wealth of the Iraqi people and hand it to corporate cronies. But of course this was done to the American people long ago, and is still going on today. It's just the way the business works: gouging the rubes and dodging the law (or in most cases these days, simply writing the law yourself and ordering your flunkies in Congress and the White House to enact it). Only last week, ExxonMobil announced quarterly profits of $10.49 billion. That's profit, pure gravy, from a single quarter – and what's more, a quarter when the price of oil actually went down. It was the second highest quarterly profit ever recorded by a company in world history, surpassed only by the $10.71 billion windfall pocketed in late 2005 by, er, ExxonMobil. >>>cont

Chris Floyd

Soldiers of Christ

Posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006. Originally from May 2005. By Jeff Sharlet.

Inside America's most powerful megachurch with Pastor Ted Haggard

They are drawn as if by magnetic forces; they speak of Colorado Springs, home to the greatest concentration of fundamentalist Christian activist groups in American history, both as a last stand and as a kind of utopia in the making. They say it is new and unique and precious, embattled by enemies, and also that it is “traditional,” a blueprint for what everybody wants, and envied by enemies. The city itself is unspectacular, a grid of wide western avenues lined with squat, gray and beige box buildings, only a handful of them taller than a dozen stories. Local cynics point out that if you put Colorado Springs on a truck and carted it to Nebraska, it would make Omaha look lovely. But the architecture is not what draws Christians looking for clean living. The mountains help, but there are other mountain towns. What Colorado Springs offers, ultimately, is a story.

Lori Rose is from Minnesota and heard rumors about this holy city when she lived on an Air Force base near Washington, D.C. Her husband isn't a Christian, refuses Jesus, looks at things he shouldn't; but she has found a church to attend without him and joined a marriage study group there. Ron Poelstra came from Los Angeles. Now he volunteers at his church, selling his pastor's books on “free-market theology” after services. His two teenage boys stand behind him, display models for the benefits of faith. L.A., Ron says, would have eaten them up: the gangs. Adam Taylor, now a pastor, grew up in Westchester County, an heir to the Bergdorf Goodman fortune, the son of artists and writers. In Colorado Springs he learned the Bible the hard way, each word a nail pounded into sin.

The story they found in Colorado is about newness: new houses, new roads, new stores. And about oldness, imagined: what is thought to be the traditional way of life, families as they were before the culture wars, after the World Wars, which is to say, during the brief, Cold War moment when America was a nation of single-breadwinner nuclear families.

Crime, of course, looms over this story. Not the actual facts of it—the burglary rate in and around Colorado Springs exceeds that in New York City and Los Angeles—but the idea of crime: a faith in the absence of it. And of politics, too: Colorado Springs' evangelicals believe they live without it, in a carved-out space for civility and for like-minded dedication to common-sense principles. Even pollution plays a part: Christian conservatives there believe that they breathe cleaner air, live on ground untainted by the satanic fires of nineteenth-century industry—despite the smog that collects against the foothills of the Rockies and the cyanide, from a century of mining, that is leaching into the aquifers and mountain streams.

But those are facts, and Colorado Springs is a city of faith. A shining city at the foot of a hill. No one there believes it is perfect. And no one is so self-centered as to claim the perfection of Colorado Springs as his or her ambition. The shared vision is more modest, and more grandiose. It is a city of people who have fled the cities, people who have fought a spiritual war for the ground they are on, for an interior frontier on which they have built new temples to the Lord. From these temples they will retake their forsaken promised lands, remake them in the likeness of a dream. They call the dream “Christian,” but in its particulars it is “American.” Not literally but as in a story, one populated by cowboys and Indians, monsters and prayer warriors to slay them, and ladies to reward the warriors with chaste kisses. Colorado Springs is a city of moral fabulousness. It is a city of fables.

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Original Post: A crooked alliance in the war on terror?

An FBI report obtained by NBC News suggests that the ruling family of the remote and mountainous Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan oversaw a vast international criminal network that stretched all the way to a series of shell companies in the United States.

Still, it was Kyrgyz then-President Askar Akaev’s alliance with the U.S. government, and his role in the war on terror, that may raise the most disturbing questions. Akaev, who was deposed in a revolution last year, agreed to let the Pentagon open an air base in his country for operations in Afghanistan.

After that agreement, the U.S. military steered more than $100 million in sub-contracts to the Akaev family’s fuel monopoly, according to U.S. contractors who oversaw the payments and transactions. That windfall to the Akaev family businesses equaled about 5 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s annual gross national product, according to the contractors.

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Once-Secure Republicans Spend Thousands To Stem Tide of Democrats

BY DAVID GERLACH - Staff Reporter of the SunReps. Peter King and Vito Fossella, once thought two of the most secure Republicans in the House, are emptying their war chests of hundreds of thousands of dollars to stem the tide of Democratic candidates riding the coattails of Senator Clinton and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer, who are expected to win by a landslide.

Read the whole thing:

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U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons (alternative techniques)

U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons
Court Is Asked to Bar Detainees From Talking About Interrogations

By Carol D. Leonnig and Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 4, 2006; Page A01

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.

"We had no way of knowing who had him or where he was," said Mahmood Khan, brother of Majid Khan, who was held for more than three years in a secret CIA prison. (By Michael Robinson Chavez -- The Washington Post)

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On the Frontlines Against Angry Joe & the Lieberthugz

David Sirota
READ MORE: Iraq, 2006, Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman, George W. Bush

As many regular readers of DailyKos know, I've been working for Ned Lamont for the past few months, and have been here in Connecticut full time for the past few weeks. I'm riding with Ned on our Stand Up for Change bus tour and am filing regular reports from the road over at the bus tour's official site. Following this intro is a dispatch from today. Now, I know some of you are looking at the newspaper polls and feeling down about this race - but let me be very, very clear: you shouldn't. We are feeling really good. That's for two reasons - both of which are rooted not in wishful thinking, but cold, hard fact. First and foremost, the mathematics of these polls are very, very encouraging (more here on that point). Additionally, we've always known that this race is unprecedented and that the primary proved that no pollster has shown any ability to accurately poll this race in any real way.

This race is going to come down to the wire - and we're gaining every single day. That's why Lieberman is making statements saying he knows the race is going to tighten. That's why the Lieberthugz, likely paid for by Joe's illegal slush fund, are out in force - even showing up to protest a candlelight vigil over job losses here in Torrington (apparently, in Lieberman land, it's a capital offense to discuss serious unemployment problems).

And let's be very clear: this race is a race because it's a real grassroots movement - not because it's some Washington creation. That means in the closing days, we need all your hands on deck. You can all make a huge difference - go here to see how you can help. >>>cont

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Bush Will Say Anything

In the final days before the pivotal Nov. 7 elections, George W. Bush is rallying Republicans with stump speeches that are remarkable -- even by today's standards -- in their disdain for facts and logic. Bush's performance has added another question that may be answered in the voting -- have most of the American people lost the ability to differentiate between spin and reality? November 4, 2006

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IAEA: Six Arab Countries Announce Nuclear Intentions...

Welcome to Georgies Foreign Policy Folks, Its a brand new World

They probably got the plans from the GOP Web site do you think?

Bush Admin Posted Nuclear Bomb Building Guide On Internet…

The Times Of London Richard Beeston November 3, 2006 11:25 PM

THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.

The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran's controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world's most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

READ FULL STORY

Conservative CT Clergy Group Endorses Lieberman For Anti-Gay Marriage Views...

Holy Shit, you sure your not making a big mistake there.

New Haven Independent Melissa Bailey November 3, 2006 11:25 PM

A group of New Haven Latino clergy known for virulently opposing gay rights measures threw their support behind U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's reelection campaign Thursday in a speech that focused on family values and faith. The group said the senator's opposition to gay marriage contributed to their endorsing him: "We will not support a candidate that will go against the values of the traditional family as we know it and the Bible teaches us."

Lieberman picked up the endorsement five days before Tuesday's election, when he faces off against Democrat Ned Lamont for his Senate seat.

READ FULL STORY

Cheney: Iraq “May Not Be Popular With The Public, It Doesn't Matter”...

ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Majority Of Americans Say War Not Worth Fighting...

ABC News Ed O'Keefe November 3, 2006 10:46 PM

Four days before the election, as Republican candidates are battling to save their seats in Congress amidst a backlash over the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News the administration is going "full speed ahead" with its policy.

"We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George Stephanopoulos in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on "This Week."

READ FULL STORY

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 42/2006 (19 October - 01 November 2006)

PCHR - Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Threaten to Expand Military Operations in the Gaza Strip * 27 Palestinians, 11 of whom including 2 children and a woman are civilians, were killed by IOF. * 16 of the victims, including 6 members of one same family, were killed by IOF in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. * 104 Palestinians, including 29 children and 4 women, were wounded by IOF. * IOF have continued to launch air strikes on houses and civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip; 4 houses were destroyed and a number of others were severely damaged. * IOF conducted 45 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 8 others into the Gaza Strip. * IOF have initiated a wide scale offensive on Beit Hanoun town. * IOF arrested 93 Palestinian civilians, including 8 children, in the West Bank, and one in the Gaza Strip....

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A volte face for Iraq?

A Big Hmmmmmm, Well I guess we will see sooner than later.

Salah Hemeid

...Indeed, well-informed Iraqi politicians told Al-Ahram Weekly that discussions of a coup have been underway for some time between American and Iraqi officers. One politician stated that several Iraqi leaders, who have been working closely with the Americans even before the 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein, are also involved in the discussions (...) According to a third Iraqi politician, the coup idea has not reached the planning stage and it is still under discussion. He claims, via telephone from Baghdad, that under the proposals, units from the new Iraqi army, with the assistance of US forces, will take control, suspend the constitution, dissolve parliament and form a new government. He further suggests that martial law and a state of emergency will also be declared as the military takes direct control of the Iraqi provinces and local administrations. He also said that certain Arab countries were informed of the plan and were requested to offer their help in convincing the leaders of the former Baath Party regime residing in their countries to support the move and stop the party-led insurgency in Iraq...

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Israeli troops open fire on women outside mosque

Guardian Unlimited

Two Palestinian women were killed and another 10 were reported wounded when Israeli forces today opened fire on a group preparing to act as a human shield for militants in a Gaza mosque. Dozens of women were gathering outside the mosque in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip this morning after an appeal on a local radio station. More than 30 gunmen had taken refuge in the building after the Israeli army began its largest Gaza offensive in months in an attempt to stop militants launching rocket attacks on nearby Jewish settlements over the border...

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Will Moqtada al-Sadr save my Grandma?

Jesus' General

Dear Mr. Sadr, I hope you can help my grandmother with a problem she has. I've already contacted my congressman, Rob Bishop, my two senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett (neither of whom are homosexuals), and Our Leader, George Bush, Emperor of the United States, but they all refused to do anything to help her. So now I'm asking you, the most powerful man in the world--a leader so powerful you can command the United States military to abandon an operation to find a missing American soldier--for your assistance. Can I get you to order President Bush to give my grandmother the prescription drugs she needs to stay alive? You see, she just entered into the Medicare "donut hole," the period of time when the government no longer helps the elderly pay for their medication. She can't afford the drugs she needs unless she stops eating and moves into cardboard box down by the railroad tracks. I know President Bush would provide medication for her if you'd tell him to do it. Heck, if he'll abandon a soldier on your orders, he'll certainly do anything else you ask of him...

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The Truth about Iraq You Won't Get from Bush/Cheney or Our Media

Adam Ash

...Today Iraqis are longing for the days of Saddam, when they had security. And when there was much less snuffing of the neighbors. The country is thoroughly butt-bonked, blood-assed and bum-buggered for the next 20 years. And we did it, not the Iraqis. We destroyed their institutions, and let them vote for a bunch of corrupt pols who play us for suckers and sit high and dry in the safety of the Green Zone and act like they're running the country, a country they're too afraid to travel in, unless surrounded by US Army tanks, jeeps and Humvees. What a mess. It's insoluble. Bush says we're training the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. Such BS. What we're actually doing is training the Shiites in the army to kill the Sunnis, and giving them the arms to do it with. That's what we're doing. We're knee-deep in a civil war, on the side of the Shiites...

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Fighting empire

George W Bush is not a true patriot, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark tells Ian Douglas in New York

Ramsey Clark, 78, former attorney general of the United States under President Lyndon B Johnson, appears indeed a believer in truth and justice when we speak in the East Village apartment days after his latest return from Baghdad and ahead of key US mid-term congressional elections. Mr Clark is a lead defence lawyer in the trials of Saddam Hussein, the first of which is slated to reach a verdict 5 November...

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Iraq cancels leave before Saddam verdict

Iraq a 'work of art in progress' says US general

A WORK OF ART IN PROGRESS AMERICA? Hmmmmm

A United States general in Baghdad called Iraq a "work of art" in progress on Thursday in one of the most extraordinary attempts by the US military leadership to put a positive spin on the worsening violence.

On a day in which 49 people were killed or found dead around the country, Major General William Caldwell, the chief military spokesperson, argued that Iraq was in transition, a process that was "not always a pleasant thing to watch.

"Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire," Caldwell told journalists in Baghdad's fortified green zone.

"The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents that you report daily, but the country that the Iraqis build."

Perceptions of how the war is going have become a central factor in next Tuesday's congressional elections, which could determine President George Bush's freedom of manoeuvre in his last two years in office.

Caldwell was speaking after a series of public disagreements between Washington and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, over proposed benchmarks for his government's performance, and over a recent US raid on a Shia district of Baghdad.

Maliki had also ordered the removal of some US military checkpoints in the capital set up in the hunt for a missing US soldier, who was identified on Thursday as Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, an Iraqi-American working as an interpreter who was seized by gunmen last month while visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad.

Caldwell described friction between the Baghdad government and Washington as "misunderstandings". He said that the death toll in the conflict had dropped by nearly a quarter in the past week, but conceded that October as a whole had been worse than earlier months. The Associated Press counted 1 272 reported Iraqi deaths in that month alone. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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Hannity Says Iraq War has Been "A Massive Success"

What else would you expect from a MORON and BUSH WHORE

Really. He did. In the last segment of the second hour of his radio show today. A caller said that he was upset over the poor performance of Rumsfeld and Cheney. Sean says he takes more calls from liberals than any other rightie. 'Course, he rarely lets them finish more than one sentence before interrupting them with his patented litany of Demcoratic "wrongs." Today he told that caller that the comment about Rumsfeld and Cheney was a put down of the troops. Really, he did. Then he called the Iraq invasion a "massive success."...

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The Truth about Iraq You Won't Get from Bush/Cheney or Our Media

Adam Ash

...Today Iraqis are longing for the days of Saddam, when they had security. And when there was much less snuffing of the neighbors. The country is thoroughly butt-bonked, blood-assed and bum-buggered for the next 20 years. And we did it, not the Iraqis. We destroyed their institutions, and let them vote for a bunch of corrupt pols who play us for suckers and sit high and dry in the safety of the Green Zone and act like they're running the country, a country they're too afraid to travel in, unless surrounded by US Army tanks, jeeps and Humvees. What a mess. It's insoluble. Bush says we're training the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. Such BS. What we're actually doing is training the Shiites in the army to kill the Sunnis, and giving them the arms to do it with. That's what we're doing. We're knee-deep in a civil war, on the side of the Shiites...

continua / continued