Anti-Bush protests in Rome after Pope meeting

Violent anti-Bush riots in Rome

Anti-riot police officers stand guard during a demonstration against the visit by U.S. President George W. Bush in Rome June 9, 2007. Bush met Pope Benedict on Saturday and told the pontiff he believed the G8 summit in Germany had been a success. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)

Police fire tear gas as protesters throw bottles, shatter bank window.

Olbermann cheers 'historical restoration' of habeas corpus

David Edwards and Muriel KanePublished: Friday June 8, 2007

Keith Olbermann reported Thursday on the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, calling it "a historical restoration project, the reconstruction of one of the cornerstones of American democracy."

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The Gaffe is Bush Himself, always has been, always will be

'Yes sir,' Bush says to His Holiness in Vatican gaffe

Gunmen Raid Home, Slay Family And Abduct Children Of Iraqi Police Chief

Wave Of Young Suicides Leave Indian Reservations Looking For Answers

Indian Reservation Reeling in Wave of Youth Suicides and Attempts

Suicide has become the second-leading cause of death for Indian youths.

Mom Who Served Alcohol At Son's Party Headed To Jail

US-Run Jail In Southern Iraq Rocked By Rocket Attack

AP SINAN SALAHEDDIN June 9, 2007 09:40 AM
An apparent rocket attack Saturday at a U.S.-run detention facility in southernIraq killed at least six detainees and wounded 50, the military said. No American casualties were reported.
The attack was launched against the internment facility at Camp Bucca, the military said in a brief statement. Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the center appeared to have been hit by rockets.
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Cindy Sheehan Sells Texas Property To Radio Host

Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan's war protest site, Camp Casey, is shown, Friday, June 1, 2007, in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan will sell her 5-acre war protest site near President Bush's Crawford ranch for $87,000 to California radio talk show host Bree Walker who will preserve it as a peace memorial, her spokeswoman said Friday June 8, 2007. She bought the property last year for $52,500. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

AP ANGELA K. BROWN June 9, 2007 03:17 PM
Cindy Sheehan will sell her war protest site near President Bush's ranch to a California radio talk show host, who will preserve it as a peace memorial, her spokeswoman said.
Sheehan, who announced on Memorial Day that she was stepping down as the face of the anti-war movement, will sell the 5-acre site in Crawford for $87,000 to Bree Walker, Sheehan spokeswoman Tiffany Burns said.

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British Government's Massive Payments To "Bandar Bush" Prompts Inquiry

The Guardian David Leigh and Rob Evans June 9, 2007 01:27 PM
The government was last night fighting to contain the fallout over £1bn in payments to a Saudi prince as the attorney general came under renewed pressure to explain how much he knew about the affair.
While in public the government was issuing partial denials about its role in the controversy, in private there were desperate efforts to secure a new BAE £20bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Dean: Dem In The White House Would End Iraq War

AP NATASHA T. METZLER June 9, 2007 01:19 PM
The high hurdles faced by congressional Democrats in their efforts to end the Iraq war make electing a Democratic president in 2008 the best way to finish the conflict, Democratic party chairman Howard Dean said Saturday.
He noted his party has made little progress toward ending the war, the cause, he said, that returned them to power.
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Kennedy Made Last Attempts To Save Immigration Bill

Go to the full Senate Vote

The New York Times Carl Hulse, Robert Pear,and Jeff Zeleny June 9, 2007 11:05 AM
It was the moment of truth for legislation that would make the most profound changes in immigration policy in more than 20 years.
Desperate to salvage a measure in which he and others had invested months, Senator Edward M. Kennedy headed to the secluded Capitol suite of Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, to make one last personal plea.
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Bono And Geldof: G8 "Creeps" Betrayed Africa

The Telegraph David Blair June 9, 2007 01:59 PM
The G8 summit ended yesterday with world leaders pledging to spend £30 billion on fighting Aids, malaria and tuberculosis and stressing their determination to help Africa.

Bob Geldof; the G8 summit ended with world leaders pledging to spend £30 billion on Africa, but anti-poverty campaigners denounced this as a 'betrayal'

Geldof: £30bn pledge is a 'total farce'
But anti-poverty campaigners denounced this as a "betrayal" and said the headline figure was "misleading".

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US Troops Team Up With Their Former Attackers

Washington Post Joshua Partlow June 9, 2007 12:34 PM
The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah. On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29,...
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Immigration Failure Starts Bush's Lame Duck Presidency

As Senate Deal Sinks, So Does Bush’s Power

AP JIM RUTENBERG June 9, 2007 08:12 AM
The breakthrough on the "grand bargain" on immigration a few weeks ago had brought new life to a White House under siege, putting a long-sought goal suddenly within reach. After many grim months, there was almost giddiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But that early euphoria only made the grand bargain's grand collapse on Thursday night all the more of a blow, pointing up a stubbornly unshakable dynamic for President Bush in the final 19 months of his term: With low approval...

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'Dirty' Harry set on quitting army

PRINCE Harry has told friends he "couldn't face the humiliation" of being withdrawn from frontline service again and will quit the army over his Iraq deployment debacle

Marine Was Ordered to Erase Photos of Haditha Victims

Iraq Rejects Turkish Call to Curb Kurdish Rebels
Big Turkey Incursion Into Iraq Would Be US Nightmare
Estimated 250,000 Turkish Troops Massed Along Iraq Border

Bush Backs Off Iraq Progress Report

Pentagon's 'Surge' Turns Into Escalation

War Czar Nominee Says Iraq Unprepared to Make Reforms
Bush's Pick for 'War Czar' Says Withdrawal 'Ought to Be Considered'

40 Years Ago Today: 34 American Sailors Killed, 171 Wounded in Sustained Attack During 1967 Israel-Arab War
Six days of war, 40 years of secrecy

Human rights groups name 39 CIA "disappeared" detainees

Mary Shaw, the Smirking Chimp

Amnesty International and five other human rights groups have just released a report that names 39 individuals who "are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown." The report also names some relatives of suspects, including children as young as seven, "who were themselves detained in secret prisons." Below is the text of a press release issued today by Amnesty International, followed by a link to the actual report online...

continua / continued

Groups Sue US Over Fate of 39 'Disappeared'

by Jim Lobe
Three human rights groups sued the US government Thursday to force it to disclose what it knows about the fate of more than three dozen detainees in the "global war on terror" who are believed to have been held by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in secret prisons at some point over the past five years and who remain unaccounted for.
The three New York-based groups – Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Human Rights Clinic of New York University School of Law – filed their suit under the Freedom of Information Act, alleging that the government is withholding documents that can shed light on what happened to the 39 "disappeared" detainees and where they might be found.
"What we're asking is where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared'?" said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch, which, while not a plaintiff in the case, contributed to a report, also released Thursday, that forms the basis of the lawsuit.
"It is already a serious abuse to hold them in secret CIA prisons. Now we fear they may have been transferred to countries where they face further secret detention and abuse," she added.
The 21-page report, to which two other groups – London-based Cageprisoners and Reprieve – also contributed, details the names and other information about 39 people who "disappeared" after their apprehension. Most were detained in Pakistan between 2001 and 2005.
The report, entitled "Off the Record", also records the detention of the wives or young children – in one case, as young as six months old – of several of the detainees. The six groups said it was the most comprehensive listing of detainees who have disappeared that has been compiled since the launch of the war on terror in late 2001.
"The duty of governments to protect people from acts of terrorism is not in question," said Amnesty's senior research director, Claudio Cordone, in London. "But seizing men, women and even children, and placing people in secret locations deprived of the most basic safeguards for any detainees most definitely is. The US administration must end this illegal and morally repugnant practice once and for all." >>>cont

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White House's legal team expands

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House has expanded its legal team to handle the fights it is having with the new Democratic Congress...
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US immigrationdrive 'crippled'

Sen. leader pulls bill after tepid vote; White House urges to keep bill alive.

Gitmo detainees' dilemma deepens

Prisoners in legal limbo after rulings; new calls to tear down notorious camp.

Now we are in a "GENERATIONAL WAR' did'nt ya know

New Joint Chiefs Nominee: We Are In "A Generational War"

No Confidence Vote Monday

Senate set to take politically charged vote on Gonzales

Speaking of getting busted

Saudi Price Bandar "Bush" is caught taking up to 2 Billion in kickbacks

from a British defense contractor.

VIDEO: NBC's Andrea Mitchell on Bandar's Billions

(he owns the most expensive home in the US) and how he got the bin Laden's out of the US after 9/11.
FLASHBACK: 2001 on PBS’ Frontline -

Bandar on corruption: "So what?"

Really.

More on this filthy freak,

his ties to Bush I & II and how they have all preyed on the American and Saudi people over the years.

Blair says Saudi arms probe would have "wrecked" tiesSource: DPA
London - British Prime Minister Tony Blair Thursday defended his decision to halt a fraud inquiry into a major Saudi Arabian arms deal because it would have led to the 'complete wreckage' of vital British national interests. Blair's comments at a press briefing during the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, followed revelations in the British media Thursday that a Saudi Arabian prince received huge payments from a British arms company in connection with an arms deal worth more than 40 billion pounds (76 billion dollars).
Blair repeated Thursday that, had the fraud investigation continued, Saudi Arabia would possibly have ended all co-operation on intelligence and security matters.
'This investigation, if it had gone ahead, would have involved the most serious allegations and investigations being made of the Saudi royal family,' Blair said in Germany.
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At least 14 killed at home of Iraqi police official

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Screaming Hilton Ordered Back To Jail

LOS ANGELES — Paris Hilton was sent screaming and crying back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that she must serve out her sentence behind bars rather than in the comfort of her Hollywood Hills home.
"It's not right!" shouted Hilton, who violated her probation in a reckless driving case. "Mom!" she cried out to her mother.
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Source: CNN
A judge orders Paris Hilton back to jail, CNN confirms. She was taken from court screaming, The Associated Press reports.
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Swiss senator has proof of CIA secret prisons in Poland and Romania.

WMR reported on these prisons last year.

Putin wants U.S. missile system moved to Azerbaijan.

Neo-cons want missiles in Eastern Europe to threaten Moscow, which they count as an enemy since Putin cracked down on Russian billionaire mobsters who now carry Israeli and British passports.

WMR

Paris Hilton may be returned to prison.

Let's see, Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators engage in human rights violations and war crimes and they are running around free. A ditsy heiress is convicted of reckless driving and its important for her to be in a prison. Al Sharpton -- top media whore thinks so -- but he and other corporate cable news paid talking heads never talk about sticking Bush and Cheney in jail for their much more important crimes.

WMR

Blair defends decision to end bribery probe of Bandar Bush.

He's satisfying his soon-to-be new paymasters at the Carlyle Group.

WMR

Bush cancels morning G8 meeting because of "stomach ailment."

"Stomach ailment" = hangover.

WMR

Some democracy, America

The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

Anwaar Hussain

President Bush is in Europe flaunting, in a hard sell pitch, his brand of democracy to the world at large and to Russia in particular. He is known to have said: "We believe that the voice of the people ought to be determining policy, because we believe in democracy." That, ladies and gentlemen, is as fallacious a statement as any that the President of United States has been giving since he took over the reins of his great country. Fallacious too because the American President is selling a product that America does not have...

continua / continued

Hilton Ordered Back To Court

MSNBC: Joint Chiefs Chair Peter Pace Replaced

Think Progress June 8, 2007 12:44 PM
Joint Chiefs Chairman Pace replaced.
MSNBC reports, "Pentagon sources are telling NBC's Jim Miklaszewski that Defense Secretary Gates has replaced Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Adm. Mike Mullen. He is currently the Navy's chief naval officer."

UPDATE: Loren Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute think tank, wrote in February: “there is speculation that the widely-liked Mullen is actually being groomed to replace Gen. Peter Pace when he departs as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the fall. Pace’s early departure is said to be related more to the triggering of certain retirement benefits than his close association with the discredited former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.”

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GOP Senators Now Say They Want Iraq Troop Reduction

LA Times June 8, 2007 09:16 AM
In another sign that congressional Republicans are losing patience with the White House war strategy, two GOP senators Thursday got behind new legislation designed to encourage the Bush administration to reduce U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Gordon Smith of Oregon are cosponsoring a nonbinding resolution by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) that urges decentralizing the Iraqi government and creating semiautonomous regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Biden has been championing the plan for more...
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Oil strikers surrounded by Iraqi troops, PM issued arrest warrants for the union leaders

Oil strikers surrounded by Iraqi troops, PM issued arrest warrants for the union leaders
On the third day of an oil strike in southern Iraq, the Iraqi military has surrounded oil workers and the prime minister has issued arrest warrants for the union leaders, sparking an outcry from supporters and international unions. "This will not stop us because we are defending people's rights," said Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of IFOU. As of Wednesday morning, when United Press International spoke to Awad via mobile phone in Basra at the site of one of the strikes, no arrests had been made, "but regardless, the arrest warrant is still active." He said the "Iraqi Security Forces," who were present at the strike scenes, told him of the warrants and said they would be making any arrests...
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Farmers Take Heat, but Big Agriculture Reaps Farm Bill Benefits

Tallying up the farm bill, which Congress will likely vote on this fall, yields losers and winners. The losers: farmers, farm laborers, food processing workers, rural communities, the environment, poor country peasants, many developing country agricultural industries, and urban laborers in both developed and developing countries facing wage competition from rural migrants and US taxpayers. The winner: corporate agribusiness.
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Senator Charges Improper Political Interference in Justice Department

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy angrily threatened Tuesday to issue subpoenas "if the White House continues to stonewall" his panel's investigation into fired US attorneys, saying he was "deeply troubled" by what he called White House efforts to "manipulate the (Justice) Department into its own political arm."

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Action Alert

Sign our petition to protest the stoning of Du'a Khalil Aswad

June 7, 2007

Can you imagine being afraid to leave your home because of the very real threat of attack--whether by bomb or bullet or stone? This is a fear, a threat, Iraqi women have to live with every single day.
In April 2006, CODEPINK released Iraqi Women Under Siege, a detailed report on the status of Iraqi women. In it, we describe the serious deterioration of women's rights since the U.S. invasion. We explore how the high level of violence in Iraq has constrained women's lives and limited their options, leaving them and their families to grapple with the traumatic impact of war both physically and psychologically.
We also produced a video based on our sponsorship of a tour of Iraqi women to the United States, Women Say NO to War: Iraqi and American Women Speak Out. You can order it here.
Unfortunately, since we produced these materials, the situation of Iraqi women has gotten dramatically worse. A recent Reuters article documents how sectarian violence is forcing Iraqi women from their jobs and into arranged marriages. We receive heartbreaking letters from our friends in Iraq on a regular basis. Here is an excerpt from one we received a week ago:
Our country before the war in 2003 was beautiful, clean, shiny, full of historic monuments and huge universities. The streets were full of people working, visiting friends and families, drinking tea until very late at night.
Our country was full of colors. Today the only colors are red and dark, red by the blood and dark by the smoke of bombs and cars burning.
We are ready to clean our country, we are ready to rebuild our country with our hands, we are ready to forget that our petrol and our history were stolen. All we ask for is security. Is it so much to ask for?
Unfortunately, security is almost impossible to come by for Iraqi women. In the Kurdish north, the part of the country insulated from most of the violence, the situation of women has reached new lows. Du'a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old from the town of Bashiqa, in Iraqi Kurdistan, was stoned to death on April 7, 2007. She came from a family of Yazidi faith, and was snatched from her home by Yazidi men who had discovered that she was in love with a Muslim Arab man and had visited him. In front of hundreds of people, including local police, they dragged her to the center of town and stoned her to death. Townspeople watched and even filmed this barbaric act. You can see a portion of the tape here (viewer discretion is STRONGLY advised). The killers, obviously well known in the community, are still free.
We have created a petition which demands that the Iraqi Government and Kurdistan Regional Government condemn this brutal act and bring the killers to justice and that they outlaw honor killings, as well as all violence and oppression of women. You can sign it here.
We will deliver this petition to the Iraqi Embassy and Kurdish Representatives in Washington, DC. Together we can raise our voices to help our sisters in Iraq.
For further information about the status of Iraqi women, and to learn how women in Iraq are organizing to fight for their own rights, please visit the website of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq.
With outrage and compassion,Dana, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Jodie, Karin, Libby, Medea, Nancy, Patricia, Rae and Samantha

Woman Arrested for Making Faces at Dog

Exclusive: Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation

By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland
The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.
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If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran

Paul Craig Roberts
The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option.

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Last Plamegate Worry for Bush/Cheney

So far, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have navigated their way past the biggest dangers from the Plamegate scandal. They succeeded at confusing the issue about a possible criminal offense in leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer to help discredit her husband. They also have left former White House aide I. Lewis Libby holding the bag on the cover-up. Their last worry is the possibility that Libby will be sent to prison in July and start talking, instead of counting on a timely pardon from a thankful President. June 6, 2007

June 7, 2007 -- Like a cancer, private mercenary firm spreads influence in local communities

(in: GENERAL ARCHIVES June 2007) Jun 7, 2007
Blackwater USA uses guile and stealth to establish regional operating bases in "Smalltown America"

1976 Air France hijacking to Uganda staged by Israel as a "false flag" operation.

Binyamin Netyanyahu's brother, Yoni, and a British grandmother, Dora Bloch, died in the operation.

Lynne Cheney on list to replace Craig Thomas as Senator from Wyoming.

A pardon for Scooter Libby, a Senate seat for Lynne Cheney. What's next? A Supreme Court seat for Tom DeLay?

The JFK Pipeline "Plot": Another "Chilling" Example of Political and Media Hyperbole

Arianna Huffington, 06.06.2007
The JFK pipeline plot appears to be the work of yet another gang that couldn't jihad straight. And people wonder why the public has become cynical about how the war on terror is being used for political purposes.
Read Post

JFK pipeline terror plot a Republican "setup."

Another psyop like the Haitians in Miami charged with being an Al Qaeda cell and the Puerto Rican "dirty bomber."

Senate Committee Votes To Restore Habeas Corpus

The Nation Ari Melber June 7, 2007 01:22 PM
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.
Habeas corpus was revoked by last year's Military Commissions Act, which has been assailed as unconstitutional and un-American by leaders across the political spectrum. Today's habeas bill was backed by the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Chairman, Patrick Leahy, and its Republican Ranking Member, Arlen Specter. "The drive to restore this fundamental right...

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Judge Freezes More Than $400,000 Of Indicted Congressman's Assets

AP June 7, 2007 03:54 PM
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal judge Thursday froze the assets of Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La., who was indicted this week on charges of soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Among the 16 criminal counts Jefferson is facing is a criminal forfeiture count, and prosecutors have already said they will seek to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars from Jefferson that they believe he obtained illicitly by peddling his influence to help broker business deals in...
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Restoring America's Standing in the World and Security Begins with Restoring Constitution, Habeas Corpus

Chris Dodd, 06.07.2007
In removing habeas corpus protections, the Military Commissions Act affirmed vengeance as a tool in fighting terrorism -- discarding sixty years of precedent and respect for the rule of law.
Read Post

U.S. Embassy builder investigated, Truth or Fiction, You Decide

Source: UPI
WASHINGTON, June 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department is investigation allegations a Kuwaiti company deceived and mistreated foreign workers building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Investigations by the U.S. military and the U.S. State Department inspector general found no evidence that First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co. had tricked its employees into working in Iraq or were keeping them there against their will by locking up their passports, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Two Americans who had worked at the site told federal prosecutors that the workers from Pakistan and Africa had been mistreated, sources told the Journal.
First Kuwaiti, which is barred from hiring Iraqi workers on the $592 million project, issued a statement denying the allegations.
"We are not aware of any (Department of Justice) investigation involving First Kuwaiti. The (Department of State) has already fully investigated these ludicrous allegations and has found them to be without merit. First Kuwaiti is proud of its accomplishments and of its efforts to build the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on time, within budget, and in compliance with the law," the company said in a statement to the newspaper.
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A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy

Pentagon Finds Worker Abuse and Trafficking in Iraq, but Penalizes No One On April 4, 2006, the Pentagon issued a new contracting directive following a secret investigation that officially confirms what many South Asian laborers have been complaining about ever since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton /KBR in Iraq, were found to be using deceptive, bait-and-switch hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. Contractors were also accused of providing substandard, crowded sleeping quarters, serving poor food, and circumventing Iraqi immigration procedures. While the Pentagon declines to specifically name those contractors found to be doing business in this way, it also acknowledged in an April 19 memorandum that it was a widespread practice among contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to take away workers passports. Holding onto employee passports -- a direct violation of US labor trafficking laws -- helped stop workers from leaving war-torn Iraq or taking better jobs with other contractors. Contractors engaging in the practice, states the memo, must immediately "cease and deist." "All passports will be returned to employees by 1 May 06. This requirement will be flowed down to each of your subcontractors performing work in this theater." The Pentagon has yet to announce of any penalty for those found to be in violation of US labor trafficking laws or contract requirements. LinkHere

Phil Donahue Making Anti-War Feature

Source: IMDBFormer talk-show host Phil Donahue is using his own financial resources to produce a feature-length documentary, Body of War, about Tomas Young, who enlisted in the Army the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was wounded in Baghdad shortly thereafter, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. In an interview appearing in Meadow's Country Capitalist, Donohue indicated that he hopes that the film will have a theatrical release. "I've never done this before," he added. "Will it be good enough for the 'plexes and is that the best way to go? I don't now." Donohue said that he plans to give all profits to the film to Young. "This film tells the story about whom we have put in harm's way. The next time someone wants to land on an aircraft carrier, I want him to meet Tomas Young -- the real patriot. ... If anyone deserves to be heard, it's Tomas Young -- he has paid the price and we have a responsibility to listen to him."
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Battling on 2 fronts, mother charged as AWOL

Source: Boston GlobeIn a rare legal clash pitting a mother against the US military, Specialist Lisa Hayes of the New Hampshire National Guard surrendered yesterday to Army authorities after being charged as a deserter for refusing to fight in Iraq until a custody case involving her 7-year-old daughter was resolved.The dispute, among the first of its kind in New England, underscores the tremendous strain the Iraq war has placed on the Guard and the nation's all-volunteer military, whose members often leave behind needy families and tumultuous personal lives as their combat tours are repeatedly extended.In February, Hayes received emergency leave from her second deployment to Iraq after an alleged domestic violence incident at her former husband's house, where her daughter, Brystal Knight, was staying. As the resulting custody case moved slowly through the courts, the military ordered her back to Iraq.Hayes didn't go."I'm really sad that the military is doing this to me -- and not only me, but my daughter," she said in a telephone interview from Fort Dix, N.J., where she turned herself in yesterday, daughter in tow. "I do deserve to be treated humanely, and that has not happened."

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TELL THE US MILITARY AND GEORGIE, DICK AND CO THEY SUCK BIG TIME, THE LOSERS

SURVEY: Do you think Lisa Hayes should be punished for this?

Iraqi Labor Leaders in DC Protesting Oil Law, US Troops

Published: June 6, 2007 at 6:04 PM
WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- Iraqi labor leaders are in Washington lobbying against Iraq's proposed oil law and for a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The oil law "is an economic occupation of Iraq," Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, the president of Iraq's Electric Utility Workers' Union, told supporters -- including presidential contender Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio -- on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Hussein, the first woman to head a major union in Iraq, and other Iraqi labor leaders kicked-off a visit to 12 cities nationwide, sponsored by U.S. anti-war and labor groups.
Speaking through an interpreter, she said if the Iraqi Parliament agreed to the law as Washington is pressing it to, it "would start a new series of tragedies ... because the law allows more than 70 percent of the profits (to be) under the control" of foreign companies.
"This is a project for the privatization of the Iraqi economy," she said.
Also with her on the visit is Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
The visit, only the second by Iraqi labor leaders since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, is sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War, the American Friends Service Committee and United for Peace and Justice.
--
Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

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US Congresswoman Slams Iraqi Govt Threats to Striking Oil Workers

Woolsey blasts threats to Iraq oil workers

WASHINGTON, June 6 Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said Iraqi threats to its striking oil workers are undemocratic during a briefing with a visiting Iraqi unionist.

"If they are working for a true democracy, working rights have to be front and center," Woolsey said during the briefing with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union. Woolsey was responding to questions about the ongoing strike in Basra, in southern Iraq, where workers began striking Monday over frustrations that demands for better working conditions and inclusion in the negotiations over the draft oil law have not been met.

Earlier Wednesday, Iraqi troops surrounded the workers, who stopped oil and oil products flow inside Iraq and were starting to affect exports, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued arrest warrants for leaders, though none was arrested.

Though details aren't known, there is word from U.S. labor leaders that the workers agreed to a five-day pause in the strike as negotiations restarted.

It's "just the opposite of what we are supposed to be there for," Woolsey said in response to questions on the proper U.S. response as occupying power. "Our current administration doesn't support the workers rights we have in this country," said Woolsey, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and Labor ' s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. Hussein, the electric workers' leader, said her union isn't under the same federation of unions that struck, but expressed solidarity with them.

"We consider the oil law is a bad law and it needs significant changes," she said. The law, which is stuck in negotiations between Kurds and the central government, but backed by the U.S. government, is feared by the unions and others as giving too much access to and, possibly, control over Iraq ' s oil, the world ' s third-largest reserves. Hussein began a U.S. tour Tuesday, sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War, to talk about the law and other issues Iraqis face. Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions, will join her Thursday.Ben Lando, UPI Energy Correspondent

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Family of deceased Iraqi detainee to sue UK defense ministry

Gabriel Haboubi at 3:04 PM ET
[JURIST] The family of Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Musa [Herald report], who died while in British military custody in 2003, plans to sue the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) [official website], according to a family lawyer Wednesday. Solicitor Martyn Day [firm profile] told Reuters that the move was necessary following the dismissal [JURIST report] earlier this year against the seven soldiers [BBC trial timeline] believed to be responsible for his death. Only one of the seven, Corporal David Payne, was convicted on a charge related to Musa's death after pleading guilty [JURIST report] to a charge of inhumane treatment. Payne was sentenced to one year in jail [JURIST archive] and became the first convicted UK war criminal from the Iraqi conflict. The MOD told Reuters that it had already accepted responsibility for Musa's death and paid an interim compensation payment to Musa's father.
Musa died in 2003 after suffering 93 injuries, including a broken nose and broken ribs, during 36 hours of detention. Because the surviving detainees were hooded, they could not confirm the identities of the soldiers who caused Musa's death. Reuters has more.

Georgie and the Republican Party, The Family Values Party, the party of God and Morals, or the party of Thugs and Decievers. You Decide?

4.2 Million Iraqis Are Now Displaced

3501 and counting, 23 US deaths first 6 days of June

US Toll Tops 3,500 in Iraq

Another US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the military said Thursday, pushing the four-year death toll for American forces there to 3,501, including 23 deaths in the first six days of June.

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JUSTICE FOR THE RICH AMERICAN STYLE

Unspecified Medical Problem Gets Hilton Out Of Jail Early

fair and just"

Home free ... party girl Paris Hilton says she's learnt a lot from her three-day stay in jail, as the LA Police criminal department vows to investigate whether her early release was "fair and just" / AP

The baptism of a president

From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB

Posted on Jun 7, 2007 08:15am CST.

Frankly, I thought the questions not only completely missed the mark, they trivialized the very subject they purported to talk about.
"How do you pray?" they asked Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards on national TV. "What's the biggest sin you've ever committed?" the interviewer wanted to know. "Do you believe in evolution?" she asked, "And if so are the churches that believe in it wrong?" she prodded. "What got you through marital infidelity?" she went on. "Is this a Christian nation?" she asked while millions of people listened for right answers with bated breath.

It was not a local faith sharing group we were watching. It was part of the televised process of electing a president in the United States of America.
So where were the rest of the questions? Like: Do you sleep at night knowing that the longer you do nothing about ending the war in Iraq that more people will die? Or, does it bother your conscience that the more money we spend on war, the more children in this country will go without food or education or medicine? Or, do you ever pray that we'll start spending money on child care so women won't feel a need to have an abortion? Or, do you ever ask God to forgive you for supporting torture in the name of security?
Religion, indeed, has become the flavor of the day. The religion of Democrats, at least, since Republican candidates were woefully missing from moral scrutiny. To be elected president these days, not only must Democratic candidates be able to promise that their religions guide their personal lives but they must be able to prove that they will work hard to see that their religious beliefs determine how they deal with everybody else's religion, as well.
Analyzing the question of faith in the life of presidential candidates after the televised debate, Ralph Reed, past chair of the Christian Coalition, made the point: quoting scripture is not enough. Democrats, he inferred, aren't really sincere about religion. "Liberal Democrats," he insisted, with their commitment to reversing tax cuts, to universal health care and to "cut-and-run policies in Iraq," cannot be accepted in the polling booth by Evangelical voters for whom "action speaks louder than words."
The idea was that moral actions, not spiritual talk, is what really counts.
The question is: What moral actions?
The behaviors that matter, it seems, have more to do with personal positions on personal moral issues -- homosexuality, stem cell research, same-sex marriage and abortion -- than actions having to do with the moral dimensions of the public behavior of the nation.
And Ralph Reed may well be correct. Polls tell us that the more frequently people go to church, the more conservative they are on social issues. For those people, apparently, private morality outweighs the social responsibilities emphasized in scripture and demonstrated by Jesus over and over again.
Republican candidates generally have run on issues of private morality. On the other hand, Democrats have built their platforms more on social issues.
Frequently, therefore, the religious character of Democratic candidates is suspect while the religious character of Republican candidates seems to go without question.
As a result, the issue of what constitutes the kind of religious commitment that is equal to the political questions of the time becomes paramount.
If the questions we are asking our presidential candidates are any sign of what we think religion is all about, Jesus would not do well in these elections.
The woman taken in adultery -- the woman about to be stoned for sexual behavior forbidden by the law -- Jesus dismisses with a wave of the hand and an exhortation.
But the cripple -- in a world where sickness is seen as punishment for sin -- Jesus cures. The marginalized woman -- in a world where women were invisible and discrimination was rank -- Jesus raises from the dead. The outcast leper -- in a world that shunned the wounded -- Jesus touches. In a world where Sabbath laws superseded individual discomfort, Jesus feeds the disciples by gleaning on the Sabbath.
"The blind see, the deaf hear, the poor have the Good News preached to them," he gives as a sign of the coming of the Kingdom. In a world where such as these are not only social outcasts but considered morally unclean as well, he takes responsibility for the marginalized of the society. No questions asked; no punishments imposed; no exceptions made.
He does not demean them. He does not deny them entry into the social order. He does not criminalize them. He does not call them sinners.
Which gets us to the irony of it all.
What kind of a society does each of these presently contrary moral definitions produce? Which is really the most religious? Whose religious values should really be in question: those who preach the Gospel of power and wealth for the wealthy and powerful or those who proclaim the rights of the poor, both here and everywhere else, in a society where wealth is worshipped?
We're beginning to see it happen.
An otherwise little touted but surprising bit of information gives us a clue to the answer to that question in contemporary USA.
According to the Global Peace Index released by The Economist magazine May 29, the United State is among the least peaceful nations in the world. (See http://www.visionofhumanity.com/)
Of the 121 nations evaluated, the United States ranks 96th, between Yemen and Iran. Iraq the report ranks as the least peaceful of all, right after Russia, Israel and Sudan.
This new Global Peace Index, rather than simply measuring the presence or absence of war as an index of harmony and public security, is based on 24 indicators designed to explore what its creators call "the texture of peace."
The study's domestic indicators include "the level of violent crime, the level of respect of civil rights, the number of homicides per 100,000 people, the level of its military expenditures, its ease of access to small arms, its relations with neighboring countries and the level of distrust among citizens."
Using grand words to glorify war, making war and personal morality the measure of the moral fiber of a nation while ignoring the domestic climate, the human needs and the civil rights of the nation itself does not a moral nation make.
There is, it seems, a question about the quality of religion in this country on both sides of the divide.
Those who would lead us in the future may rightly be asked whether or not religious principles will guide their public behavior. But those who are leading us now have questions to answer, too -- which, if the quality of life in the United States for all its citizens and the character of our behavior toward the rest of the world is any measure -- certainly equals, if not far transcends, our concentration on private behavior as a determinant of our public morality.
From where I stand, the model of Jesus is a clear one: A religious life is defined by more than personal moral choices. It demands actions designed to make the world better for everyone. Those who claim to be Christian might want to remember that when they start choosing presidents on the basis of their "Christian principles."

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Ex-Gonzales no. 2 describes boss's attempted power grab

Michael RostonPublished: Thursday June 7, 2007
The former Deputy Attorney General to John Ashcroft and later Alberto Gonzales described an attempt by the current, embattled Attorney General to centralize power within his office as he began his term at the Justice Department.
James Comey, who served as Deputy Attorney General from 2003 through 2005, described Gonzales' plan to reduce the independence of Comey's office when he became the Attorney General at the beginning of President George W. Bush's second term in office. The plan was presented to him by Kyle Sampson, the ex-Chief of Staff to Gonzales.
"Mr. Sampson explained to me a vision for the operation of the Attorney General’s office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General that would involve operating those respective staffs as essentially one staff," Comey wrote in responses to questions for the record submitted by members of the House Judiciary Committee. The responses were sent to RAW STORY.
Comey went on to explain how Gonzales's plan to merge his office with Comey's would have eliminated a layer of oversight on the Attorney General's decision-making.

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