Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator    

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Bolton admits Lebanon Truce block - I'm damn proud of him.

BBC News

A former top American diplomat says the US deliberately resisted calls for a immediate ceasefire during the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military capability. Mr Bolton said an early ceasefire would have been "dangerous and misguided". He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working. The former envoy, who stepped down in December 2006, was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary, The Summer War in Lebanon, to be broadcast in April...

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Silence is Golden

McClatchy Baghdad Bureau

You never really appreciate something until you lose it. I never really paid any attention to the bliss of silence, until I lost it. It’s not that I don’t care for the loss of electricity; It’s not that I don’t care for the loss of security; It’s not that I don’t care for the loss family get-togethers, or any of the ordinary things you would take for granted living in the Baghdad of my memories, like taking a walk. No, all these things I do miss; but silence, I miss most of all. Every politician drives around in a security convoy, with sirens screaming and weapons gleaming, and there are very many politicians in Iraq today, take my word for it. Every police car patrols with its siren sounding. Army and MNF Forces usually use sirens.It has become common for young men to use sirens and sport weapons, simply as a means to open a route through traffic congestion at check points; no one dares stop or question them for fear of their belonging to "such" or "such" group. The loss of state-supplied electricity has made private generators a necessity. Every 50-100 homes are supplied with power from a generator, situated "around the corner" or "down the road" from where you live. The noise generated by these machines has contaminated our very lives. (Not to mention the smoke and fumes that are killing us)...

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DEMOCRATS VOTE TO CONTINUE THE SLAUGHTER IN IRAQ FOR 17 MORE MONTHS

Les Blough, Axis of Logic Editor

The Boston Globe article (below) reports that yesterday, Democrat-led House of Representatives voted to continue the war in Iraq for another 17 months. In the last 17 months, 1265 US and British soldiers were killed in Iraq - about 4 a day. At least 23,113 Iraqis were killed in the last 15 months - probably many more. At the Encampment to Stop the War in Washington DC last week organized by Troops Out Now Coalition, we were first in line to attend the Democrats' first hearing for funding the war. Our "representatives" refused to allow us to attend the public hearing. So we confronted the Democrats outside the hearing room door in the hallway of the Rayburn Building. They arrested 9 of us for doing no more than speaking out against the war, exercising our first amendment right in a public building. ..

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General says U.S. Army has lost 130 helicopters in Afghanistan and Iraq

The U.S. Army has lost 130 helicopters in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third to shoot-downs, its aviation director said. He complained that industry is not replacing them fast enough. "While the military may be on a war footing, our nation’s industry is not on a war footing," said Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt. He said it takes 24 months to get replacement aircraft built and delivered and that replacements for the early losses are just now arriving...

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Iran raises the hostage stakes

THE 15 British sailors and Royal Marines captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a waterway separating Iran and Iraq were yesterday trapped in an outbreak of aggressive political brinkmanship that may mark a bleak turning point in the West’s relations with Tehran.

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Iran raises the hostage stakes

THE 15 British sailors and Royal Marines captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a waterway separating Iran and Iraq were yesterday trapped in an outbreak of aggressive political brinkmanship that may mark a bleak turning point in the West’s relations with Tehran.

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BREAKING FL-13: NEW UNDISCLOSED LETTER OF AGREEMENT FROM ES+S TO STATE UNEARTHED!

BREAKING FL-13: NEW UNDISCLOSED LETTER OF AGREEMENT FROM ES&S TO STATE UNEARTHED!

Terms of 'Independent' State Run Audit, Source Code Review Dictated by Voting Machine Company to Florida State Election Director Prior to Tests of Failed Touch-Screen Voting Systems from Contested Jennings/Buchanan Election!

The private voting machine company which manufactured the touch-screen hardware and software used during Sarasota, Florida's contested District 13 Congressional election between Christine Jennings (D) and Vern Buchanan (R) sent a letter in December of 2006 to David Drury, the chief of the state's Bureau of Voting Systems Certification, dictating the terms of the state-run audit convened to investigate the causes for massive undervote rate which seems to have tipped the election.

The extraordinary 3-page letter (posted in full at the end of this article) from Electronic Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), Vice President, Steven Pearson, is described as an "agreement" and instructs Drury on what may and may not be disclosed in the state's final audit report regarding the investigation.

The letter includes a long, bullet-pointed and very narrow litany of specific dictates concerning what may and may not be done and/or discussed by the state-convened panel of investigators in their final report...

FULL REPORT, COMPLETE LETTER &
NEW QUESTIONS NOW RAISED IN ITS WAKE:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4321

VIDEO | Veterans Speak Out in Historic March to the Pentagon

On March 17, 2007, anti-war activists from around the country gathered near the Vietnam Memorial and marched to the Pentagon. This event, led by veterans and military families, evoked another anti-war demonstration that followed the same route almost 40 years ago when America was divided by Vietnam, and which many observers saw as a turning point in the movement against the war. Truthout's Geoffrey Millard covers this march and talks to veterans.

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DOD Rules Forbid Bush Using Troops as Props

"The DOD regulations make clear that the White House cannot use uniformed military, active duty or veterans, as props in political events. But that's what Bush did today when he used current or former troops in uniform as window dressing for his political press conference attacking the Democrats as un-American," says John Aravosis.

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Hillary finishes 5th in Democrat 'pulse poll':

Senator behind Kucinich in survey by Howard Dean's grassroots group

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Immigrant children removed from shelter amid sex abuse claims:

Dozens of child immigrants have been moved out of a U.S. shelter amid allegations that a staff member sexually abused the youngsters.

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Guest workers fired after protesting 'slave' conditions :

Hundreds of guest workers from India are protesting conditions in a Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard that immigrant rights activists compare to slavery.

Sweden joins other European nations in show of support for Palestinian coalition :

Sweden joined several other European countries in a show of support for the new Hamas-Fatah coalition, dispatching its foreign minister for talks Saturday with his Palestinian counterpart despite Israel's call for a diplomatic boycott.

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Rape fears lead women soldiers to suicide, death:

U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women's latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.

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9/11 The Falling Man

Full length video

Not yet released in the U.S. Click to view

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Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia

By Chris Floyd

It's clear that no nation on earth will be allowed to organize its own society as it wishes, or work out its own internal conflicts, if the American elite decides they have some financial or strategic interest in the matter.

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The Crushing Fear That Stalks America

By Robert Fisk

America is not at war. There are no electricity cuts on Valdosta's warm green campus, with its Spanish style department blocks and its narrow, beautiful church. There is no food rationing. There are no air-raid shelters or bombs or "jihadists" stalking these God-fearing folk. It is the US military that is at war, engaged in an Iraqi conflict that is doing damage of a far more subtle kind to America's social fabric.

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Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America

By Scott Ritter

While American strategists may speak of the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, this is misrecognition of what is really happening.

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Support the Troops By Sending Them to War!

How can the Democratic leadership say that with a straight face?

By Kevin Zeese

Do we support the troops when we send them to die and kill? Do we support the troops when we send them into a quagmire without adequate armor?

O'Reilly - America's Lord Haw Haw

Video

Sunsara Taylor on Iraq War - worldcantwait - He badgered her and pulled "the Hannity", repeating the same questions and comments over and over in faux disbelief but she kept up with him, ignoring his inane distractions and making her points, repeatedly

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BREAKING NEWS

-- Japan issues tsunami warning after magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes off country's coast, news services report.

US flags $38m bunker bomb

US Air Force will spend $38 million on one of the heaviest bunker bombs ever built, the size of a small elephant and brawny enough to muscle into a mountain.

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NYPD Infiltrated, Spied On Protesters Worldwide For A Year Prior To '04 GOP Convention

Unfrikingbelievable
New York Times March 24, 2007 08:31 PM

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

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Over 60 Killed In Latest Wave Of Iraq Violence

Reuters March 24, 2007 02:42 PM

In the worst attack, a man driving a truck packed with explosives blew it up outside a police station in the volatile Dora district in southern Baghdad, killing 20. The blast sent a large column of smoke into the air and rattled windows miles away in the city center.

Police officials said the dead included 14 policemen and 3 detainees as well as 3 others working in the building. Twenty-six people were wounded. The blast caused major damage to the station, burying many victims in the rubble.

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New Revelations Erode Gonzales Support

New York Times March 24, 2007 04:31 PM

Mr. Gonzales has said he did not take part in any discussions of the dismissal effort, and left the planning and execution of the removals up to D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff.

But e-mail messages and other documents released by the Justice Department in recent days suggest that Mr. Gonzales was told of the dismissal plan on at least two occasions, in 2005 when the plan was first devised and again in late 2006 shortly before the firings were carried out.

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US Marines Ordered Out Over Afghan Massacre


POSTED: 7:51 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2007
Story Highlights
• Marine unit ordered out of Afghanistan early after U.S. probe begun
• Some Marines are accused of killing and shooting civilians after suicide blast
• Spokesman for Marine unit says members are in the process of leaving country
• Explosives-rigged minivan crashed into a convoy of Marines in March 4 incident

Relatives suspect state in death of journalist in Mexico (American)

AP New York
Relatives suspect state in death of journalist in Mexico
By MORGAN LEE
Associated Press Writer

March 23, 2007, 9:21 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY -- The brother of a journalist slain in Oaxaca said Friday that he believes state officials were likely involved in the death and asked federal investigators here to take over the case.

In a news conference wrapping up the family's weeklong visit to Mexico City and Oaxaca, where Bradley Roland Will was killed on Oct. 27, Craig Will said federal officials have agreed to look over the evidence after the family raised concerns about the state prosecutors' handling of the investigation.

But the federal Attorney General's Office hasn't yet officially taken over the inquiry.

Craig Will, 38, said new witnesses gave testimony to federal officials, recounting how Will was shot to death while filming amid violent protests against the state government in Oaxaca, 220 miles southeast of Mexico City.

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'Washington Post' Publishes Rare Op-Ed by 'Anonymous' On FBI Abuse

'Wash Post' Publishes Rare Op-Ed by 'Anonymous' On FBI Abuse
By E&P Staff
Published: March 23, 2007

NEW YORK "It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces," the newspaper declares on page A17 of today's edition. "In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter.

"The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents."

What follows, in the paper -- and in its opening passages below -- is the submission by "John Doe." The entire piece is available at www.washingtonpost.com .

*

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled....

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U.S. blasts Argentina for Chávez rally

Posted on Sat, Mar. 24, 2007

At a trade meeting, a top State Department official scolded Argentina for hosting the Venezuelan president's anti-Bush rally.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON -- In a rare public rebuke, a top U.S. official has complained about Buenos Aires' decision to let Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez use a stadium to attack President Bush as the U.S. president visited nearby Uruguay.

While Bush pointedly ignored the leftist Chávez on his weeklong tour of Latin America, Nicholas Burns, the State Department's undersecretary of political affairs, unleashed some candid criticism of Argentina Thursday.
(snip)

Speaking at the Council of the Americas, a group that promotes more trade and contacts with Latin America, Burns scolded Buenos Aires in his opening remarks while looking at Argentine Ambassador José Octavio Bordón, who was seated on the front row.
(snip)

Argentina's foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, in Ecuador on official travel, called Burns' statements ``surprising and unacceptable.''

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Senate Passes Budget Plan, Extending Bush Tax Breaks

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A08

The Senate yesterday approved a $2.9 trillion budget blueprint that calls for raising the federal cigarette tax to pay for a massive expansion of the nation's health insurance program for children. It also authorizes big boosts in spending next year for public education and veterans' services.

The Democratic spending plan would extend some of President Bush's signature tax breaks for middle-class families past their 2010 expiration date, a modification pushed by moderate Democrats. It also promises to erase the federal deficit within five years, though Democratic leaders acknowledge that difficult decisions about tax policy still stand in the way of that goal.

"I don't assert that this is a perfect budget. If I had a totally free hand, I am certain it would be different," said the plan's chief author, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) "But at the end of the day . . . it is our obligation and our responsibility to put a budget in place to begin the difficult task of balancing the books while meeting the priority needs of our nation."

The two Maine Republicans, Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, broke ranks to join Democrats and independent Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) in supporting the plan, which passed 52 to 47. A similar spending proposal is to be debated in the House next week.

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At a hearing Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee effectively rejected an offer from the White House by authorizing subpoenas for Karl Rove and others.

Only five of almost 500 attorneys have been fired midterm in the last 25 years. Can we stop saying what Bush did is just what every president does?

Joan Walsh

Conservatives quit board over DeLay appointment

By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — As Tom DeLay pursues a return to the public stage, he's meeting resistance from an unexpected source: conservatives who say that he betrayed the movement as a congressional leader.

Four board members of the American Conservative Union, one of the oldest and best established voices of the conservative movement, resigned recently when DeLay was brought onto the board.
,
,
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Keene said DeLay had proposed an effort under which he'd raise $1 million for a grassroots lobbying effort, which DeLay would then run. But that idea was shelved when Keene and DeLay failed to agree on some of the details of how it would operate, Keene said.

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US, UK fail to find Iran smoking gun

Ian Black, Middle East editorSaturday March 24, 2007The Guardian

Although British and US military and diplomats often complain of Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq, there is no "smoking gun" to prove it, a senior British officer in Basra admitted yesterday.

Lt Col Justin Maciejewski said he could not prove Iranian interference in the southern Iraqi city, where UK troops come under regular mortar and rocket attack. But community leaders had told him Iranian agents were paying Iraqis $500 a month (£254) to carry out attacks.

"All the information we are getting from the locals ... is that the vast majority of the violence against us is inspired from outside of Iraq and the people here very much believe that that is Iran," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "There is nothing I have seen that would disprove what they are telling me."

He said the "modern and quite sophisticated weaponry" could not be old munitions left over from the Iran-Iraq war. Both the US and Britain have accused Iran of supplying armour-piercing explosive devices detonated by infra-red triggers, but they have been unable to prove it.

Iraqi militia chiefs admit that hundreds of their fighters have crossed the poorly-guarded border into Iran for training by the Al-Qods [Jerusalem] Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that is believed to have trained guerrillas in Lebanon, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The US Central Command claims there are 150 Iranian agents in Iraq, though this is impossible to confirm. "There are very few Iranian nationals in Iraq, or at least very few carrying Iranian documents," one diplomat said. "But they have so much influence on the ground, they are able to operate effectively at arm's length."

An Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, claims Tehran pays 31,690 Iraqis under Al Qods command. Most are affiliated with the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was based in Iran until the overthrow of Saddam. The Badr Brigade has been accused of operating death squads targeting Sunni Muslims. The NCRI even named the commanders of Iranian units in Iraq and procedures for delivering arms and cash across the border. The Headquarters for the Reconstruction of Iraqi Holy Sitescorrect was a regular channel.

But Iran's involvement in Iraq is not all about mischief-making. Economic ties are close, and cash from Iran pours into the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Iran sent a minister to join the US and Syria in recent talks on security in Baghdad. Indeed, experts argue, Iran has a strong interest in stability. "But they can't resist the temptation to make things difficult for the Brits," said the diplomat.

"I don't doubt that the Iranians do have very great influence in Iraq, but they are not manipulating everything behind the scenes," argued Toby Dodge of Queen Mary College, London. "They can keep the pot boiling, and raise or lower the temperature, but they don't create things. "

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed accusations that Tehran is arming insurgents were an attempt to find a scapegoat for US "defeats and failures".

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Top Justice spokesperson's advice to White House: US Attorney firings won't be 'national story'

Ron BrynaertPublished: Saturday March 24, 2007

Nearly three weeks before seven US attorneys were asked to submit their resignations, the top spokesperson for the Department of Justice expressed little concern and told a senior White House official that the firings probably wouldn't even become a "national story."

The email conversations were revealed in an additional batch of 283 pages of documents turned over by the Bush Administration late Friday night to Congressional members investigating the rapidly developing scandal which some have dubbed "Attorneygate." One Justice official has already resigned, and many Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- have been calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down or be fired by President Bush, as well. >>>cont

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University Of Florida Faculty Vote To Nix Honor For Jeb Bush

Associated Press March 24, 2007 09:22 AM

The Senate voted 38-28 Thursday against giving the honorary degree to Bush, who left office in January.

"Jeb Bush has been a great friend of the University of Florida," Machen said Friday, adding that the Senate's action is "unheard of."

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Iran Claims UK Troops "Admit" Trespassing; UK Says Troops Were Taken From Iraqi Waters


CNN March 24, 2007 09:51 AM

Iran says the 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Persian Gulf have admitted to trespassing into Iranian territory, the semi-official FARS News Agency reported Saturday.

But the British Ministry of Defence would not confirm the report.

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Murtha On Bush: "He's Going To Have To Deal With Us"

Gonzales: I "Was Not Involved In Any Discussions" Of Firings..Gonzales: I "Was Not Involved In Any Discussions" Of Firings....

New Docs Show AG Discussed And Approved Plan

Reid: Gonzales Will Be Gone In A Month, "One Way Or Another"... Bush Re-affirms Support For Embattled AG... A Five-Step Plan To Oust US Attorneys... Aide To Testify

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.

"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers -- where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew," Gonzales said last week. "But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

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Former NORAD Military Officer Comes out for 9/11 Truth


Patriots Question 9/11 has a brand new entry on a former air defense expert and expert on jet turbines. His statements about the lack of interception of the hijacked jets is important. His bio for the 2006 primary for Oregon's 2nd District congressional race is here (page 12)

I take no position on what crashed at the Pentagon, and it is possible that Captain Davis has simply not seen all of the relevant photographs.

Capt. Daniel Davis, U.S. Army – Former U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director. Decorated with the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal for bravery under fire and the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Viet Nam. Also served in the Army Air Defense Command as Nike Missile Battery Control Officer for the Chicago-Milwaukee Defense Area. Founder and former CEO of Turbine Technology Services Corp., a turbine (jet engine) services and maintenance company (15 years). Former Senior Manager at General Electric Turbine (jet) Engine Division (15 years). Private pilot.

* Statement to this website 3/23/07:

"As a former General Electric Turbine engineering specialist and manager and then CEO of a turbine engineering company, I can guarantee that none of the high tech, high temperature alloy engines on any of the four planes that crashed on 9/11 would be completely destroyed, burned, shattered or melted in any crash or fire. Wrecked, yes, but not destroyed. Where are all of those engines, particularly at the Pentagon? If jet powered aircraft crashed on 9/11, those engines, plus wings and tail assembly, would be there.

Additionally, in my experience as an officer in NORAD as a Tactical Director for the Chicago-Milwaukee Air Defense and as a current private pilot, there is no way that an aircraft on instrument flight plans (all commercial flights are IFR) would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control. No way! With very bad luck, perhaps one could slip by, but no there's no way all four of them could!

Finally, going over the hill and highway and crashing into the Pentagon right at the wall/ground interface is nearly impossible for even a small slow single engine airplane and no way for a 757. Maybe the best pilot in the world could accomplish that but not these unskilled "terrorists".

Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a "Conspiracy Theory" does not change the truth. It seems, "Something is rotten in the State.""

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Exclusive: Embassies in Teheran prepare escape plans:

According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007.

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Iran Summons UK Envoy :

Iran summoned the British charge d'affaires to Tehran on Friday to protest over what it said was the illegal entry of British naval personnel into Iranian waters, state television reported.

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Dick Cheney...An Iranian Mole?

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NYTimes, via Smoke and Mirrors

If an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years. But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole? Consider that the Bush administration’s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran’s bitter foe to the east. Then the administration toppled Iran’s even worse enemy to the west, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq (...) The U.S. dismantled Iraq’s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. If Iran’s ayatollahs had written the script, they couldn’t have done better — so maybe they did write the script ... We fought Iraq, and Iran won...

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British Leave, Battle Erupts Over Basra

Sam Dagher, The Christian Science Monitor

Turmoil like that in the southern port city could erupt elsewhere in Iraq as outside forces depart, say analysts. Just two days after British troops pulled out of downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and center of the country's oil-rich south, fighting erupted between rival Shiite groups in street battles Thursday. An eyewitness reported that masked gunmen swept through the center of the city carrying AK-47s and rocket launchers as members of Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Fadhila Party, which controls the province, apparently fought over a government building just vacated by British troops. The turmoil in the capital of the southern province, home to a key port and most of the country's oil wealth, signals the beginning of the kind of battles that could erupt in Iraq as outside forces depart, say analysts...

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Nothing but Fascists


Ali Al-Sarraf, Middle East Online

The war on Iraq was not carried out on the basis of mere strategic interests. No strategies or interests could explain the level of death and destruction that Iraq had undergone ever since the Gulf War in 1991. If one were to assume that the US led invasion in 2003 is a continuation of that war, then Iraq could be said to have suffered more horrors than any country had, including the countries that were involved the WWII. We are talking about at least two and a half million Iraqi civilians who had met their fate, where 750,000 of them were killed during the last four years. That figure represents 10% of Iraq’s population. In addition, you have over three and a half million Iraqis displaced (two million of them fled outside the country while the other 1.5 million lost their homes and became displaced inside their own country). That is 14% of the population. Even when the Nazis brought destruction to Europe during WWII, no country alone suffered such human losses (...) Causing such genocide cannot be attributed to perusing interests only. The mass killings in Iraq, like the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, had been met with great indifference from citizens from around the globe (and not just their involved governments). Inaccurate media coverage has helped creating a sense of hatred in some societies against 'the other’. The Nazis had their own ideology of superiority when they were committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, but the people of Iraq are facing destruction in the name of 'democracy’...

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FEC Democrats Say Bush Violated Limits

By Matthew MoskWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, March 23, 2007; A15

The three Democrats on the Federal Election Commission revealed yesterday that they strongly believe President Bush exceeded legal spending limits during the 2004 presidential contest and that his campaign owes the government $40 million.

Their concerns spilled out during a vote to approve an audit of the Bush campaign's finances, which is conducted to make sure the campaign adhered to spending rules after accepting $74.6 million in public money for the 2004 general election.

Republican commissioners defended the way the Bush campaign billed the cost of more than $80 million in television ads, which were the source of the dispute.

The commission by statute comprises three Democrats and three Republicans. Commissioner Michael E. Toner, a Republican, resigned March 14, but the vote was taken before his departure. Because of the deadlock, the objections were recorded in a footnote to the audit but will not result in any sanctions or repayment.

"We had a disagreement on this audit, and it was a doozy," said one of the Democrats, Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub.

The dispute centered on the use of what the commissioners called "hybrid" ads, which were intended to promote both the president and Republican members of Congress. The Bush campaign argued that it should not bear the full cost of these ads, so it split the tab with the Republican Party.

As a result, only half of the cost would count toward spending limits imposed on the campaign when it agreed to take public funds. Weintraub said the spending limit is an essential part of the agreement candidates make to accept public financing. "Bush-Cheney 2004 took the $74 million, and then they broke the bargain," she said.

Commissioner Hans A. von Spakovsky, a Republican, strongly disagreed. "There was no broken bargain," he said. "There was no violation of the law."

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CBS: Four Generals, Five Others To Be Blamed For Tillman's Death

CBS March 23, 2007 07:57 PM

CBS News has learned that an investigation by the Pentagon inspector-general into the "friendly fire" death of San Jose's own football-star-turned-soldier, Pat Tillman, will blame nine officers, including four generals, for failing to follow regulations and using poor judgement in a series of missteps that kept the truth of how he died from his family for more than a month.

The official version was that the former NFL player had died in a firefight with the enemy and it was only after a national televised memorial service was held that Tillman's wife and parents were told he had been mistakenly shot by one of his own men.

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9/11 Debris That May Have Contained Human Remains Used To Fill Potholes

Reuters March 23, 2007 08:17 PM
Debris that may have contained bits of bone from victims of the World Trade Center attacks was used to fill potholes and pave city roads, according to court papers filed on Friday.

The charge was made in an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court in an ongoing case filed in 2005 by family members of those killed in the attacks against the city. They say the city did not do enough to search for remains, denying victims a proper burial.

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"The Beginning Of The End Of This War"


Docs Show Gonzales Lied About Attorney Firings

Associated Press March 23, 2007 09:25 PM

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.
"I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers -- where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew," Gonzales said last week. "But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

READ FULL STORY

Friday, March 23, 2007


Taliban militants ambushed a convoy transporting logistics for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday, killing 15 pro-government tribal militias and two truck drivers, a local commander said.


A distraught Afghan father buried his 12-year-old son Friday after the boy was shot in the head by NATO troops in the latest in a series of civilian deaths involving international forces.

Marines accused of shooting and killing civilians after a suicide bombing in occupied Afghanistan are under U.S. investigation, and their entire unit has been ordered to leave the country early, officials said Friday.

Punishing A People For Enduring A Dictator

An interview with Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief Hans Von Sponeck

Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the UN sanctions regime. He is also a former Assistant Secretary General of the UN.

Audio and transcript

The Sheikh and The Torture Senator

By US Army Reserve Colonel (Retired) Ann Wright

“Americans don't mind torture, they really don’t.” Then he smiled broadly, almost gleefully, and said that the US had used certain interrogation techniques on “Shaikh Mohammed, one of the "high value" targets,” techniques that "you really don't want to know about, but they got really good results."

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"This Is Just The Beginning Of The Beginning Of The End Of This War"

Associated Press March 23, 2007 06:34 PM

The House voted Friday for the first time to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year and pushing the new Democratic-led Congress ever closer to a showdown with President Bush.

The 218-212 vote, mostly along party lines, was a hard-fought victory for Democrats, who faced divisions within their own ranks on the rancorous issue. Passage marked their most brazen challenge yet to Bush on a war that has killed more than 3,200 troops and lost favor with the American public.

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US Urged to Abandon Trials by Military Tribunals

Amnesty International urged the US on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals, and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials. The human rights group said the trials do not meet international standards of fairness and should be moved to the US federal courts.

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Anger at US "Rendition" of Refugees Who Fled Somalia

At least 150 people arrested in Kenya after fleeing violence in Somalia have been secretly flown to Somalia and Ethiopia where they are being held incommunicado in underground prisons. "This is extraordinary rendition," said Maini Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission. "Britain and America are involved in interrogating suspects."

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GAO Faults US Military Over Munitions in Iraq

The US military's faulty war plans and insufficient troops in Iraq left thousands - possibly millions - of tons of conventional munitions unsecured or in the hands of insurgent groups after the 2003 invasion, allowing widespread looting of weapons and explosives used to make roadside bombs that cause the bulk of US casualties, according to a government report released yesterday.

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Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

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Bush Pushed Attorneys With Histories Of Voter Suppression

McClatchy March 23, 2007 05:56 PM

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division when it was rolling back long-standing voting rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

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Gonzales' Fmr Chief Of Staff To Testify On Attorney Firings

AP March 23, 2007 04:58 PM

The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agreed Friday to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Kyle Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago amid the furor over the dismissals, will appear next Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, his attorney said. His appearance will mark the first congressional testimony by a Justice Department aide since the release of thousands of documents that show the firings were orchestrated, in part, by the White House.

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Ex-Guantanamo Detainees Joining Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld

Two former Guantanamo Bay detainees are suing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials, accusing them of mistreating and imprisoning them for years despite knowing they weren't enemy combatants.

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Reid Wonders If Abramoff US Attorney Is a "Bushie"

"Today we hear the US attorney in Florida is going to try and reduce Abramoff's sentence," Reid proclaimed, referring to the disgraced former lobbyist sentenced to six years in federal prison, who has also pleaded guilty to three other charges. The Democratic majority leader rhetorically asked reporters gathered in his Capitol Hill office: "Is he a Bushie?"

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BEWARE; USA & ALLIES STOKING SHIA-SUNNI DIVIDE

K Gajendra Singh

...'After centuries of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive, violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never broached. Doors never entered. "Sunnis and Shiites in many professions now interact almost exclusively with colleagues of the same sect. Sunnis say they are afraid to visit hospitals because Shiites loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr run the Health Ministry, while Shiite laborers who used to climb into the back of pickup trucks for work across the Tigris River in Sunni western Baghdad now take jobs only near home. Baghdad is increasingly looking like Sarajevo in the 1990s", said Damien Cave in International Herald Tribune in early March. Real violence and fear has led to internal migrations .Displaced Sunnis push out Shias, who in turn push out the Sunnis in their areas. While three million have been internally displaced ,almost 2 million have left Iraq to live in Syria, Jordan and elsewhere, USA the creator of the biggest refugee crisis in the middle East since the creation of Israel , has accepted few. The displacement is carried out by attacking a mosque or a grenade is thrown at a house, men kidnapped and killed, a few houses burnt - the message is clear - get out. Then there are instances of rapes of women of one community by another .It is the same pattern of killings and migration as after India's partition in 1947 or break up of Yugoslavia in early 1990s. The Kangroo Court trial of President Saddam Hussein and other Baathist leaders against international law and outcry from the world and his lynching under US occupation and watch clearly are intended to inflame Shia-Sunni hatred and conflagration...

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One-third of Palestinians ‘food insecure’

MWC NEWS

One-third of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are food insecure, according to a report by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). About 34 percent of Palestinians cannot afford a balanced meal and another 12 percent are at risk of reaching this state, the organisations found in a Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment published this month. Most affected is the Gaza Strip, where 51 percent of the population suffers from food insecurity. "The poorest families are now living a meagre existence totally reliant on assistance, with no electricity or heating and eating food prepared with water from bad sources," according to a statement by Arnold Vercken, the WFP country director for the occupied Palestinian territories...

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America's original sin

Hana Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty, Al-Ahram Weekly

A DISASTROUS DAY REMEMBERED: smoke billows as a missile hits the Iraqi Planning Ministry in Baghdad; an Iraqi surrenders to the British in Basra; parts of a beheaded sculpture lies among rubble after a mob of looters ransacked Iraq's largest archaeological museum in Baghdad The illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq is not only the biggest crime of recent history, it is the original sin of the 21st century, a depravity. In its war on Iraq, the United States has sought to destroy Iraq as both a state and a nation. It decimated an entire class -- the progressive middle class of Iraq that had proven its capacity to manage Iraqi resources independently and to the benefit of all; it killed nearly a million while sending millions more into exile; it orchestrated death squads and looting and invented new horrors in torture and rape; in the name of bringing democracy, it brought material destruction on a mass scale to a people, aiming also to erase their identity, memory, culture, social fabric, institutions and forms of administration, commerce, and everyday life; it even attacked Iraq's unborn generations with the 4.7 billion-year death of depleted uranium...

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DEATHS IN IRAQ HAVE REACHED 1 MILLION Grim claim on fourth anniversary of conflict

Alan Jones, THE Daily Record

THE number of deaths in Iraq since the start of the conflict could be as high as one million, it was claimed yesterday. On the fourth anniversary of the invasion by Allied troops, an Australian scientist insisted the true death toll dwarfed previous estimates. Dr Gideon Polya said: "Using the most comprehensive and authoritative literature and UN demographic data yields an estimate of one million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq." His figure is far higher than the biggest previous estimate of 655,000...

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Blues for Allah: More Blood in the Wake of the "War on Terror"

Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque

Has anyone noticed that yet another "regime change" accomplished with U.S. military assistance is now collapsing into savage – and entirely predictable – internecine conflict? (...) And thus Somalia, a much-ravaged country that had at last won some measure of stability under its homegrown "Islamic Court" system has been plunged into murder and ruin again. (And to anticipate the tired and tiresome troll objections at this point: No, I wouldn't want to live under Somalia's Islamic Court system, any more than I would want to live under the rule of the hardline religious parties that Bush has installed in power through mass murder in Iraq. Or under the brutal religious tyranny of Bush's family friends and business partners, the Saudis. Hell, I might not even want to live in a dry county. But my lifestyle preferences don't give me the right to invade other countries (or counties!) and slaughter their people and arrange their way of life for them...

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The rape of Iraq's oil

Michael Meacher, The Guardian

The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy. The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits...

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Shssh! Don't Tell Americans How We Treat "Enemy Combatants"

Jacob G. Hornberger, MWC NEWS

The case of accused terrorist Jose Padilla is moving toward a jury trial on April 16 in U.S. District Court in Miami. It is still unclear whether the presiding judge in the case, Marcia Cooke, will order an evidentiary hearing on Padilla's motion to dismiss the charges based on the government's outrageous pre-trial conduct while Padilla was in military custody as an "enemy combatant" in the "war on terror." (Under post-9/11 jurisprudence, the government has the option of treating accused terrorists either as "enemy combatants" or as federal-court defendants.) The government is doing everything it can to prevent the American people from learning what the U.S. military did to Padilla during his three years of pre-trial confinement. In fact, U.S. officials are doing the same thing with respect to "enemy combatants" that the CIA has been holding for years in its secret overseas prisons...

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GI Special 5C19: Betrayed

Thomas F. Barton

Almost lost in the discussions of the squalid and red-tape bound situations at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center is this item from the Washington Post "...The committee also released an internal Army memorandum reportedly written in September in which the Walter Reed garrison commander, Col. Peter Garibaldi, warned Weightman that "patient care services are at risk of mission failure" because of staff shortages brought on by the privatization of the hospital’s support workforce." And, when one starts turning over rocks what should come into view but an A-76 military contract with IAP Worldwide Service, (IAP) which took a $120 million contract to run portions of the WRAMC services for facilities management. Immediately after the awarding of the contract the facilities management staff was reduced to 50 privately employed workers...

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INTERVIEW-Iraqi rebels reject anti-Qaeda pact-tribal leader

Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters

Most insurgent groups and their tribal supporters in Iraq's restive Anbar province have refused to join a U.S.-backed alliance to fight al Qaeda which is viewed as a ploy to weaken the rebels, a tribal leader said on Friday. Sheikh Majeed al-Gaood, a leader of the powerful Dulaimi tribe, said the latest American strategy in Anbar, the deadliest part of Iraq for U.S. forces, was to sow divisions among rebels waging a four-year-old insurgency. "By pitting groups fighting the occupation against each other they think they can finally control Anbar, but it is still in open revolt against the Americans and their agents. Its people know the occupation targets everyone," Gaood told Reuters after arriving from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar (...) "The resistance has one programme: expelling the Americans and fighting the militias and Iran's agents," Gaood said...

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Over 6000 Days of Solitude...

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

A few days ago, I learned that Kamel, 56 years old, has been detained by the Americans. They stormed his house at dawn, took him out in his pyjamas and since that day we have not heard from him or his whereabouts. I have been unable to sleep. I twist and turn in my bed, counting the minutes... I keep wondering what "they" are doing to him... Are they torturing him? He is sick, are they giving him any medication? Are they brutally interrogating him? Does he sleep standing up amidst hundreds of others? Are they giving him water? Do they feed him? Did they kill him? Is he dead? Where on earth is he? What has he done? Did he perhaps glimpse Omar in the crowd of the 100'000 prisoners? And so it goes in my head, on and on...running in circles (...) So I started multiplying 365 by 4 . Hey that was easy - 1461. I needed something more to trigger me into dozing off... So I went for 13 multiplied by 365. That was more difficult - 4745.Now I added up the two figures in my mind - 6206. Six thousand two hundred and six days... That is over 6'000 days since the barbaric embargo and the occupation... Over 6'000 days of savagery, brutality, violence, destruction, rape, torture, imprisonments, starvation, neglect, abandonment...Over 6'000 days of living in the obscurity, to the blind eyes and deaf ears of the rest of the world... Over 6'000 days of being left on the margins of the international community, marginalized into shadows, into ghosts with no names, into a subhuman category, into a void of total despair, left to fend for ourselves...

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Reversal of fortunes for GOP

President Bush's dream of leaving a Republican majority as his political legacy is slipping from his grasp.

A new poll released Thursday confirms that the country's political landscape has turned sharply against Bush's party and toward the Democrats on such bellwether issues as the use of military force, religion, affirmative action and homosexuality.

"It's going in the other direction," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, which released the survey. "The Republicans have really suffered a number of setbacks. It's not going toward a Democratic majority. But there's no more progress toward a Republican majority."

"But Democrats shouldn't start popping the champagne yet," said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota.

"This group that leans Democratic is still very much up for grabs, depending on candidates and events."

A durable political majority -- like the one Republicans had for decades after the Civil War or that Franklin D. Roosevelt built for the Democrats in the 1930s and 1940s -- might be a quaint notion in an era in which a third of voters refuse to align with either party for more than one election.

Today, 50 percent of Americans call themselves Democrats or lean that way, and 35 percent call themselves Republicans or lean that way.

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Fewer Pledge Allegiance to the GOP

Public allegiance to the Republican Party has plunged during George W. Bush's presidency, as attitudes have edged away from some of the conservative values that fueled GOP political victories, a major survey has found.
Iran holding 15 British sailors

Britain's Ministry of Defence is demanding the immediate safe release of at least 15 navy personnel which have been captured and held by Iranian forces after they boarded a merchant vessel in the Gulf.

Tony Snow To Undergo Surgery For Abdomen Growth

Highest Ranking Bush Official Pleads Guilty To Abramoff Involvement

Highest Ranking Bush Official Pleads Guilty To Abramoff Involvement
AP JOHN HEILPRIN March 23, 2007 12:27 PM

Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty Friday to obstruction of justice in a Senate committee's investigation, becoming the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.

The former No. 2 official in the Interior Department admitted in federal court that he lied to the Senate about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at the agency on behalf of Abramoff's Indian tribal clients.

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Dems Pass Bill To Bring Troops Home In 2008


AP March 23, 2007 11:04 AM

A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home fromIraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.

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Former Rove aide 'aggressively sought' US Attorney post

RAW STORYPublished: Friday March 23, 2007

The "unusual appointment" of a former Rove aide to a US Attorney post that he "aggressively sought" has become one of the central issues in the current controversy, an article in Friday's Washington Post reports.

"Two months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice Department to take his place," Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein write.

The article continues, "Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, e-mails reveal. New documents also show that Justice and White House officials were preparing for President Bush's approval of the appointment as early as last summer, five months before Griffin took the job."

"The unusual appointment of Griffin, now serving as the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, has been one of the central issues in the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, which led to this week's constitutional showdown between Congress and the White House over the testimony of some of Bush's closest advisers," the Post reports.

Radar Online took note of another Griffin email which showed him "aggressively" hustling for Cummins' job.

"One of the most controversial judicial appointments was that of J. Timothy Griffin, whose strongest qualifications for being named the U.S. attorney for Arkansas were that he worked as Karl Rove's assistant in 2005 and did opposition research for the Republicans during the 2000 campaign," the website noted. "In an e-mail to Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, Griffin passes along a few references that don't pop up on his resumé."

"I am good friends with both chiefs of staff to [Arkansas Senators] Pryor and Lincoln. Pryor's chief of staff is a good friend and Lincoln's was my high school girlfriend," Griffin wrote. "Should I say anything to them? I would hate for my senators to be told without my peeps knowing?

Radar Online mocked, "The former girlfriend reference—always a solid way into a job as U.S. attorney!"

Excerpts from Post article:

Gonzales, Cheney Blocked Call For Guantanamo Closing

The New York Times THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER March 23, 2007 12:16 AM

In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

Mr. Gates's appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush's publicly stated desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible and because Guantánamo's continued existence hampered the broader war effort, administration officials said.

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Congressional Dems Ready To Set Withdrawal Timetable

Associated Press David Espo March 22, 2007 10:06 PM

Democratic aides expressed growing confidence of success when the vote is called, and four of the bill's most consistent critics said they had told Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) they would help pass it, even though they intend to personally vote against it.

"While I cannot betray my conscience, I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war," said one of the four, Rep. Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record) of California.

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Revised Army Data Significantly Increases Reported Desertions

The New York Times PAUL von ZIELBAUER March 22, 2007 11:09 PM

A total of 3,196 active-duty soldiers deserted the Army last year, or 853 more than previously reported, according to revised figures from the Army.

The new calculations by the Army significantly alter the annual desertion totals since the 2000 fiscal year. In 2005, for example, the Army now says that 2,543 soldiers deserted, not the 2,011 it had reported. For some earlier years, the desertion numbers were revised downward.

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Former CIA official supports Professor's claim that official 9/11 Islamist conspiracy theory are lies:

Although the 9/11 truth movement was long ignored by the U.S. government and the mainstream media, recent polls have shown that (as Time magazine has acknowledged) the rejection of the official theory has become "a mainstream political phenomenon

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Amnesty urges governments not to cooperate with US military trials:


The human rights group Amnesty International has called on foreign governments not to cooperate with United States military trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

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Musharraf faces `revolution':

Crowd calls president `Bush's dog' as opposition builds after judge's ouster

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After eight years of military rule it appears that the Pakistani people have had enough.
Officials: 135 Killed In Pakistan Clash:

4 Day Battle Between Local Militias, Foreign Fighters On Afghan Border Spreading

Iraq as a weapons lab:

For the neocons of this administration, as a friend said to me recently, Iraq was to be a laboratory that would reveal the face of imperial America.

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Remembering Rufina Amaya:

The New York Times Magazine in a 2005 article (May 01) revealed that the Iraqi counterinsurgency was being advised by an American who led the Special Forces in El Salvador in the 1980s.

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ABC (Under)counting Iraqi Dead:

Top ABC anchors are minimizing the death toll.

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WHY THEY HATE US!!!!! ABSOLUTELY DEPLORABLE

Can you imagine that America, a family of 4 murdered, and one of those responsible gets 27 months, that is 6 to 7 month per person.
How would and American Family feel with that kind of Justice System Hmmmmmmmmm?

US soldier sentenced over Iraq rape :

A military court has sentenced a US soldier to 27 months in prison as an accessory to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Iraq and the killing of her family.

FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says

By R. Jeffrey Smith

The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.

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White Hot Rage


I have long suspected that Blackwater Security and L. Paul Bremer (what's his nickname? Scooter? Pookie?) were responsible for the insurgency in Iraq and subsequently the death of my son, Casey. I am reading Jeremy Scahill's new book: Blackwater and it is doing nothing to decrease my suspicions, only confirm them.

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