Earth to Bush: "The Chaos in Iraq You Now Decry was Caused By You!"

Walter C. Uhler
Having watched our pathetic president's July 12th news conference concerning the "Initial Benchmark Assessment Report," I felt the urge to applaud Helen Thomas for verbally assaulting George W. Bush for the war criminal and mass murderer that he is. God bless her for asking: "Mr. President, you started this war, this war of your choosing, and you can end it alone, today, at this point…Don't you accept - don't you understand, we brought the Al Qaida into Iraq?" Bush, of course, lied to Ms. Thomas when he claimed Saddam Hussein "chose the course" compelling Bush's invasion by ignoring the warning from the UN Security Council: "Disclose, disarm or face serious consequences." But, "disclose, disarm" what? As virtually every individual on planet earth now knows, Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction to disarm or disclose. More significantly, had it actually been left to the UN Security Council to enforce its resolution - which is to say, had the Bush administration not violated a legally binding international treaty, the UN Charter -Saddam Hussein probably would be alive today and still ruling Iraq, like it or not....
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U.S. escalates Iraq war, crisis deepens

Richard Becker, Party for Socialism and Liberation

...The latest public opinion polls show support for the war at an all-time low. Seventy-one percent want to get out of Iraq—an all-time high. Seeking to bolster support for continuing and, in fact, escalating the war, Bush turned to his most reliable weapon in his July 12 press conference. In over an hour of answering reporters’ questions, Bush never uttered the words "occupation" or "resistance," but did mention al-Qaida no less than 39 times. By all estimates, al-Qaida constitutes a small fraction of the Iraqi resistance forces. Nor, of course, did Bush ever refer to the inconvenient fact that al-Qaida did not exist in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion and destruction of the country’s existence as an independent state. Iraq’s history since World War I, when it became a colony in the British Empire, has been one of fierce resistance to foreign occupation...

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Surge Mentality: White House in Denial

Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation
Reading the White House's report, released Thursday, on whether President Bush's January 2007 "surge" of 30,000 troops is working, you'd never know that a real-life, flesh-and-blood war is being waged in Iraq, with hundreds of people maimed and killed every day. You'd never know that May 2007 was the most violent month in that violent war in nearly three years, with 6,039 attacks on US and Iraqi government forces, 1,348 IEDs exploded under their vehicles, 286 "complex ambushes" involving roadside bombs and coordinated teams of attackers, 102 car bombs, 126 American soldiers killed and 652 wounded. The report doesn't mention that Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, warned this week that the resistance in Iraq is preparing a Tet-style offensive, like the one launched in January 1968 by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam...
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The Future is a Woman.

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...

July 14, 2007
Don't you ever tire? I mean don't you ever get sick with so much killing? Does your stomach not churn? Do you not get queazy or are you on a permanent Death fix ?
Us, women and I in particular, have had it with your "urges", your killing fields and your killing games.
How many millions of dollars does it take to produce a bomb, a tank, a hand grenade...?
So much interest in terminating Life. Like you have participated in some big way in creating, reproducing Life.
Unless of course, you consider that an average 10 mn top max intercourse followed by a 5 seconds orgasm, as a major contribution to Life.
The rest we need to deal with. Carry an emerging life for 9 months, labour pains, birth pangs...
Maybe you are just an envious, jealous bunch.
Since you cannot give birth, you take Life and give Death instead. And we are always here behind to pick up the pieces and sometimes there are no pieces left because you have included us in your filthy equation.
I am sure you realize that Life is a not a Terminator movie. No, I take that back.
Anyone who produces, watches, and associates real Life to a crappy Terminator movie is demented. Demented people should be in asylums, certainly not roaming the streets and invading countries. And surely not ruling the World.
A good majority of men and the women who imitate them should be locked up. I have decreed so. That would be the only sane thing to do.
All the so called "women" who follow in men's footsteps of destruction, need intensive therapy and done behind iron bars - to reconnect with the essence of Life, the essence of the Feminine.
As for the men, they are to be sent to a huge forced labour, rehabilitation camp. They will be made to cook, clean, bake bread , iron and look after the children. The rest of the time they are to engage in meditating on the essence of the Feminine for at least 12 hours a day.
No, porn and female lingerie are not allowed as meditative props.
A huge barbedwire camp.
No guns, no sports, no hunting, no beer, no TV, no heavy metal rock shit...
Short of that, lobotomy is called for, pronto. Yes a lobotomy. Before they exterminate the rest of us and totally destroy the whole planet.
Just in case you had not noticed, I am sick and tired.
Sick and tired of that stupid lot called "men".
Sick and tired of your ways, your egomanias, your conceit, your narcissism, your power trips, your psychopathic, sadistic tendencies, your death, rape, control, possess - restless "desires", impulses, cravings...
Sick and tired of your myopia, your greed, your unbriddled, uncontrolled, senseless, meaningless "ambitions"...
Sick and tired of the rationalizing robots that you have become or maybe that you have always been.
And do you not dare give me this shit about your being fathers too. This is not my idea of paternity and besides who needs a father like that?
And do not give me this shit about blaming capitalism alone. Even so called non capitalistic societies have managed to screw up as bad.
And I certainly do not wish to hear about your so called religion - whatever it is.
You have even appropriated "God", grew It a beard, and called It a He with a capital H.
Enough! Enough of your destruction. Enough of your violence. Enough of your brutality. Enough of your ignorance. Enough of those empty, ugly shells you call selves.
Come to think of it, your overall "performance" over the last few centuries has been abysmal. And you have made a total mess of this world.
I dot not care how many times you have penetrated outerspace and landed on the moon.
What good does your landing on the moon is, if we can't even walk the streets in safety?
I do not care about your scientific "advancements" either. What good are your scientists, doctors and the rest...when women - women from the damned "South" are progressively more impoverished and sick?
I also do not care for your technological progress, your constructions, your edifices or your phalluses. What good are they, when they are turned up against us ?
And last but definitely not least, I do not care for your "men of God". Your priests, rabbis, sheikhs, mullahs, monks... They took themselves to be God and suddenly we have a million gods preaching.
Enough. You have not managed at all. In fact you have failed and it is high time you abdicate.
And if you insist and persist in grabbing and killing, then be my guest, grab your own life and be done with it, seriously done with it.
Yes this is what you should do and leave the future to us Women.
No, not the Tzibi Livni's , nor the Condi Lice's of this world. Certainly not to the Fancyme Pelosi's, nor the Hilarious Clinton's. Nor the Angela Murky's, nor the Segolene Disloyal's. No, not a western "woman"...Please!
Let her be an African HIV+ Woman (the one you infected because you were drunk and invicible), or a Latina with an iron fist, or any other from the "developing world" (we have been developing for a long, long time no?)
Or better still an Arab Woman - preferably of Sumerian origins with a fire raging in her belly. Yes let her be from Sumeria.
After all, you have killed our men - very dead. And rendered them useless...
A copy of yourselves - Dead and useless.
PS : As for you women, you got it all wrong. The meek shall not inherit the earth.
Painting: Iraqi female artist, Betool Fekaiki.
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Bush justice is a national disgrace

By John S. Koppel
As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time.
The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.
In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJ in particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civil rights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, as well as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal government conduct nor "politics as usual," but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate - which, in fact, I believe it eclipses.
In more than a quarter of a century at the DOJ, I have never before seen such consistent and marked disrespect on the part of the highest ranking government policymakers for both law and ethics. It is especially unheard of for U.S. attorneys to be targeted and removed on the basis of pressure and complaints from political figures dissatisfied with their handling of politically sensitive investigations and their unwillingness to "play ball." Enough information has already been disclosed to support the conclusion that this is exactly what happened here, at least in the case of former U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico (and quite possibly in several others as well). Law enforcement is not supposed to be a political team sport, and prosecutorial independence and integrity are not "performance problems."
In his long-awaited but uninformative testimony concerning the extraordinary firings of U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales did not allay these concerns. Indeed, he faced a no-win situation. If he testified falsely regarding his alleged lack of recollection and lack of involvement, he perjured himself and lied to both Congress and the American people. On the other hand, if he told the truth, he clearly has been derelict in the performance of his duties and is not up to the job. Either way, his fitness to serve is now in doubt.

LinkHere

Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many

Over the two years since Hurricane Katrina hit, the shock of evacuation has hardened into the grim limbo of exile.

Shaila Dewan for The New York Times documents the "grim limbo of exile" that she says many Hurricane Katrina evacuees are experiencing.

Opposition to American Oil Grab Is Unifying Iraqis

"United In Opposition."
Ben Lando for United Press International reports: "US President Bush may be right: Iraq's oil law, although highly controversial, could be a 'benchmark for reconciliation.' When Iraq's council of ministers last week suddenly approved the law, critics of various stripes united in opposition."

Cheney: The Darksider

Hendrik Hertzberg, editor of the New Yorker writes: "A few weeks ago, on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, the vice president issued threats of war with Iran. A 'senior American diplomat' told The Times that Cheney's speech had not been circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered, adding, 'He kind of runs by his own rules.' But, too often, his rules rule. The awful climax of 'Cheney/Bush' may be yet to come."

LinkHere

Part1, Part2, The "Attendant Lord"

Dick Cheney's Psychology Part 1: Almost Pleasantly Adrift

Dick Cheney's Psychology Part 2: The "Attendant Lord"

By John P. Briggs, M.D., and JP Briggs II, Ph.D.

t r u t h o u t Special Report

On Impeachment

Bill Moyers Journal says, "Impeachment ... the word feared and loathed by every sitting president is back. It's in the air and on your computer screen, a growing clamor aimed at both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This week's news only agitated the clamor."
LinkHere

July 14, 2003: A Day of Infamy

Four years ago on a single day, several events coincided that would mark a trail of deceit that the Bush administration and much of the Washington press corps have followed since. On that day, the Plame-gate scandal was born with Robert Novak's infamous column; warnings about politicized intelligence were spurned; and George W. Bush got away with rewriting the history of the Iraq War by stating that Saddam Hussein chose war when he refused to let U.N. inspectors in. July 14, 2007

Misreading Iraq, Again

George W. Bush and his neoconservative allies have misread the reality in Iraq again and again over the past four-plus years. Now, with some signs of cooperation between U.S. commanders and Sunni tribal leaders, Bush and the neocons say they've finally got it right and Congress should back off on withdrawal deadlines. But the new evidence can be read the opposite from the Bush-neocon interpretation. Indeed, their view could give another helping hand to al-Qaeda. July 13, 2007

Iraq soldier hires hitman to shoot him

20-year-old says he would sooner go to prison than back to Iraq.

Revealed in the world's first full interview: The bizarre world of Mrs Bin Laden

by JENNY JOHNSTON - More by this author » Last updated at 21:10pm on 13th July 2007
Heavens, what a mess. The new Mrs Bin Laden is about to board a flight out of the UK, and it's not going according to plan.
First, our telephone interview is abruptly halted when the police "would like a word" with her. "Gotta go, I think I am being questioned," snaps Jane Felix-Browne, and the line goes dead.
Ten minutes later, she is back - minus her passport and boarding pass, apparently - and reading aloud from a card that has been kindly handed to her, presumably by some men with large guns.
"Under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, it is your duty to be truthful... you must provide any documents, passports... blah blah blah... you are not under arrest," she reads.
Woah! Hold on. Is she being detained? On what grounds? Surely even she wouldn't be daft enough to put her married name on her passport?

LinkHere

In Other Words Get Out Of Our Country

Iraqi Leader: We Can Keep Peace Without U.S. Soldiers »

AP BUSHRA JUHI, July 14, 2007 08:30 AM
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.
The embattled prime minister sought to show confidence at a time when pressure in the U.S. Congress is growing for a withdrawal and the Bush administration reported little progress had been made on the most vital of a series of political reforms...

The Prophetic Baghdad Bob

David T. Beito

In the puffed up optimism produced by shock and awe, the figure of “Baghdad Bob” (Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister) was the center of much mirth. His predictions of U.S. defeat, even as American tanks rolled in the background, repeatedly made the rounds on the internet, especially on pro-war blogs. But four years later as Bush’s Iraq policy is in tatters, “Baghdad Bob’s" pronouncements no longer seem so delusional.
Here are a few examples:
“Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!"
"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."
"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
"We have them surrounded in their tanks"
"Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."
Any apparent American gains, he said, were a cunning ploy by the Iraqis to lure the enemy into a trap. "Our armed forces, according to their tactics, are leaving the way open"

LinkHere

Execution Still On For Georgia Man After Seven Prosecution Witnesses Recant

Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist On Bush Admin's "Feel Good" Policy

Houston Chronicle Nick Anderson July 13, 2007 10:52 AM
Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist Nick Anderson portrays the "feel good" policy of the Bush Administration in a new video.

Broke And Going For Broke On Iraq

War Candidate Out Of Money: $23 Million Gone »

CNN July 13, 2007 08:34 AM
CNN has learned the already-dire situation for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign has actually gotten even worse, with two sources close to the candidate saying the campaign only has a paltry $250,000 left.
The sources tell CNN that next week the McCain campaign will reveal it has about $1.75 million in unpaid debts, wiping out the $2 million in cash-on-hand the campaign currently has in the bank.

Senate Democrat Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) broke with his party to restore funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Democrat Nelson Restores Funding for Cheney

"The White House scored a win Thursday on Capitol Hill after moderate Senate Democrat Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) broke with his party to restore funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office. The 15-14 vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee came after the House last month narrowly rejected a companion bid to punish Cheney in a continuing battle over whether he is complying with national security disclosure rules," reports The Associated Press.

Snow Says Iraq Gov't To Take August Off: Too Hot For Gov't, Not For US Soldiers

US Eyes Iraqi Parliamentary Schedule

(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds) Associated Press DEB RIECHMANN July 13, 2007 03:28 PM
The White House on Friday appeared resigned to the fact that the Iraqi parliament is going to take August off, even though it has just eight weeks to show progress on military, political and economic benchmarks prescribed by the United States.
"My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

LinkHere

Pentagon kills Rumsfeld 'propaganda' unit

Michael RostonPublished: Friday July 13, 2007
Current Defense Secretary Robert Gates has scrapped an institution established by his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld to rapidly counter messages in the press that the Pentagon considered negative, according to a report in Friday's Washington Times.
"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has shut down a rapid-response press operation run out of the Pentagon speechwriting shop because it is not suited to his style of press relations," reports Bill Gertz in his weekly 'Inside the Ring' column.

LinkHere

New documentary traces mismanagement, poor decisions in post-invasion Iraq

Nick JulianoPublished: Friday July 13, 2007
Dozens of people are dying daily. Roadside bombs kill American soldiers and Marines. Al Qaeda fighters have infiltrated parts of the country. The Iraqi government is not meeting benchmarks associated with President Bush's recent "surge" in troops.
The war in Iraq clearly is not going well, and calls for US troops to come home are growing ever louder.
A new documentary, to be released later this month, asks a simple question: How did we get to this point?
The film, No End in Sight, an advance copy of which provided to RAW STORY, focuses mostly on the mismanagement by ill-informed US officials overseeing the post-combat occupation, rather than delving too deeply into the misinformation fed to the American people in the run-up to war.
Through interviews with former administration officials, military members, journalists and scholars, No End in Sight returns to the months following the US invasion. It shows how decisions made by Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their acolytes have created the disastrous situation that exists on the ground now.
A clip of the film, which is reproduced below exclusively on RAW STORY, shows just how far off the administration was in its initial estimates on how the war and its aftermath would be handled. Army Col. Paul Hughes recalled former Defense Department spokesman Lawrence DiRita promising to have all but 25,000-30,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2003.
"I heard him say that, in a room full of people," said Hughes, who was director of strategic policy for the US occupation in 2003. "And I turned to my colleagues and I said, 'This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. It's physically impossible.'"
LinkHere

Chinese glaciers melting rapidly

Published: Thursday July 12, 2007
Massive glaciers in northwest China have melted at an alarming rate over the past 40 years, with global warming believed to be the culprit, scientists said in comments published Friday.
China's remote Xinjiang region is home to nearly half of the nation's glaciers that supply the rest of the country and other parts of Asia with water.
However they have shrunk by 20 percent and snow lines there have receded by about 60 metres (200 feet) since 1964, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a report, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Global warming is believed to be to blame, with the internal temperature of the glaciers rising by 10 percent over the past two decades, the academy said.
"Like the hard drive of a computer, glaciers record how the environment has changed. Warm weather has been the major cause of the glaciers' retreat," Xinhua quoted Wang Feiteng, a researcher with the academy, as saying.
In the most alarming example, the largest glacier in Xinjiang, located 3,545 metres above sea level in the Tianshan mountains, split in two in 1993 and has since been melting extremely quickly, according to Wang.
LinkHere

CNN does 'reality check' on White House's Iraq progress report

David Edwards and Muriel KanePublished: Friday July 13, 2007
CNN reported Friday that the House of Representatives has passed a bill calling for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by next April. However, the bill is likely to be blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate and if it survives there will be vetoed by the president.
CNN then turned to a "reality check" from journalist Michael Ware in Baghdad on the White House's Iraq report, released on Thursday, which claims progress on 8 out of 18 benchmarks set by Congress.
"The authors of this report are far more generous than I would ever be," said Ware. "For example, they suggested there's been satisfactory progress in the area of sectarian violence It's quite a stunning claim ... Here in Baghdad, they're finding less bodies on the streets each morning tortured and executed. But we're still talking about five or six hundred each month. ... It almost dishonors the suffering of the Iraqi people to say that."
Ware then pointed out a couple of reasons why sectarian violence might be diminishing even without the efforts of American troops. "About 50,000 Iraqis a month have been fleeing this country or have been displaced," he stated. "So there's simply less targets for the sectarian violence. ... The ethnic cleansing has been successful. ... Finally, we're seeing the American military is now allowing some Sunni neighborhoods to have their own Sunni militias. ... If there's a Sunni militia in your neighborhood, the police death squad can't get to you."
"It's an extraordinarily difficult thing to gauge whether the surge is, in fact, working or not," Ware concluded, pointing out that the surge only affects a small part of Iraq and also that Iraqi insurgents have greatly stepped up their own attacks against American forces since the surge began.
The following video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast on July 13.

Olbermann lays into Chertoff's 'remarkable counter-terrorism stomach'

David Edwards and Josh CatonePublished: Thursday July 12, 2007
"We used to have John Ashscroft's major announcements. We used to have David Paulison's breathless advisories about how to use duct tape against radiation attacks. We used to have Tom Ridge's color-coded threat levels. Now we have Michael Chertoff's gut," began Keith Olbermann in a scathing 'Special Comment' on MSNBC's Countdown.
Olbermann laid out five possible explanations for "Mr. Chertoff's remarkable revelations about his transcendently important, counter-terrorism stomach."
Of his conclusions, "bureaucratic self protection, political manipulation of the worst kind, the dropping of opaque hints, a gaffe backfilled by an instant report, or the complete disintegration of our counter-terrorism effort," Olbermann found the last to be the real "nightmare scenario."
"That we really have been reduced to listening to see if [Chertoff's] gut will growl, that [his] intestines are our best defense," mocked Olbermann. "All hail the prophetic gut!"
Olbermann concludes that Chertoff has "reduced [himself] to status of a hunch-driven clown" and that he should turn over his duties to someone who "represents that brain, and not the gut." The following video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast on July 12.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

TWO LEADING GOP SENATORS UP PRESSURE TO REDUCE FORCES IN IRAQ

Associated Press ANNE FLAHERTY and PAULINE JELINEK July 13, 2007 01:44 PM
Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush by the end of the year to dramatically narrows the mission of U.S. troops.
The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar, the ranking members of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations. It came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops.

White House, Pentagon cite executive privilege to hold up documents on friendly fire victim Tillman

Michael RostonPublished: Friday July 13, 2007
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed on Friday afternoon that the White House and Pentagon were holding up a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation into the friendly fire death of former professional football player and Army Corporal Patrick Tillman.
"[T]he Committee wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding seeking 'all documents received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President' relating to Corporal Tillman's death," noted a press release from the Committee.
But the White House has apparently again invoked its executive privilege to hold up the documents sought by Waxman and Ranking Minority member Tom Davis (R-VA).
"The White House Counsel's office responded that it would not provide the Committee with documents that 'implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests' and produced only two communications with the officials in the Defense Department, one of which was a package of news clippings," the Committe noted. "The response of the Defense Department to the Committee's inquiry was also deficient."
In their letter to Fielding, Waxman and Davis doubted that the two documents were the limits of White House-Pentagon communication over Tillman's death.
"It is difficult to believe that these are the only communications that White House officials had with the Department of Defense between April 22,2004, the day Corporal Tillman died, and May 29, 2004, the day the Bush Administration publicly announced that Corporal Tillman's death was a result of fratricide," they wrote.
They also explained what they believed was at stake in this probe.
"These questions have implications for the credibility of the information coming from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and raise significant policy issues about how to prevent the future dissemination of untrue information," Waxman and Davis wrote to Fielding. "They also have a profound personal impact on the Tillman family. It is for these reasons that the Committee requested documents from the White House."
The Committee said that it expected a response to the Friday letter by July 25. Waxman also scheduled an additional hearing on the announcement of Tillman's death for Aug. 1.
Full information can be found at the Committee's website.

British PM Brown Denies Change In US Relationship After Minister's Speech »

Reuters Sophie Walker July 13, 2007 10:52 AM
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied on Friday a shift in foreign policy away from the United States after one of his ministers told an audience there that a country's strength depended on alliances not military might.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, in a speech in Washington on Thursday, said while Britain stood beside the United States in fighting terrorism, isolationism did not work in an interdependent world.
LinkHere

Iraq war vets reveal 'pattern of brutality'

US troops detail how they would frame dead Iraqi civilians as terrorists.

From his office in clouded cuckoo land: Bush:

BBC NEWS Americas Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks," Mr Bush told reporters as he met members of Congress on energy ...

Insurgents in Iraq same as 9/11 attackers:

President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq "are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11."

Edwards: Bush's Iraq/September 11 remarks 'border on the delisonal' :

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards slammed President Bush's connecting of insurgents in Iraq with the terrorists who attacked the US on Sept. 11, 2001, saying the president's remarks "border on the delusional" and accusing him of ignoring his role in allowing al Qaeda to gain strength in Iraq.

Critics Assert Bush Distorts Al Qaida Links To Iraq

The New York Times MICHAEL R. GORDON and JIM RUTENBERG July 12, 2007 08:59 PMIn rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq," he said, "were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."
It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the...

U.S. Soldier Tell Of Rape and Suicide of 15 Year Old Iraqi Girl

Video - Should only be watched by a mature audience

"Anyone with a rag on his head is fair game."

Abusing Iraqi Civilians

By Bob Herbert
There is no upside to this war. It has been a plague since the beginning. But it's one thing to lose a war. It's much worse for a nation to lose its soul.

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

A Must Read - By Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

Carnage from the Air and the Washington Consensus

Tom Engelhardt
...From time to time, however, another version of what happened when air strikes were called in on the rural areas of Afghanistan, or on heavily populated neighborhoods in Iraq's cities and towns, filtered out. In this story, noncombatants died, often in sizeable numbers. In the last few weeks "incidents" like this have been reported with enough regularity in Afghanistan to become a modest story in their own right. In such news stories, a local caregiver or official or village elder is reached by phone in some distant, reporter-unfriendly spot and recounts a battle in which, by the time the planes arrive, the enemy has fled the scene, or had never been there, or was present but, as is generally the case in guerrilla wars, in close proximity to noncombatants going about their daily lives in their own homes and fields. Such accounts record a grim harvest of dead civilians -- and they almost invariably have a repeated tagline when it comes to those dead: "including women and children." In an increasing number of cases recently, reports on the carnage have taken not over a year, or weeks, or even days to exfiltrate the scene, but have actually beaten the military success story onto the news page...
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Saving Al Qaeda: Collective Punishment and Curious Policy in the "Surge"

Chris Floyd , Atlantic Free Press

The Bush Administration's hideously named military offensive in Iraq's Diyala province ("Arrowhead Ripper" — there's a real hearts-and-minds moniker for you) is having the same effect we've seen in all the other many pushes and surges and crackdowns during the botched conquest: killing innocent people, alienating the locals, strengthening the insurgency — and allowing the ostensible targets of the operation to escape long before the action begins. Arrowhead Ripper has been tearing through Diyala's capital city, Baquba, since June 18, Inter Press Service reports. The announced goal of the operation is to cleanse the area of "al Qaeda terrorists" — the term of art now given to anyone who's not down with the Bushist program...

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IRAQ: 'Arrowhead' Becomes Fountainhead of Anger

Ali al-Fadhily*, IPS

Ongoing U.S. military operations in Diyala province have brought normal life to an end, and fuelled support for the national resistance. Baquba, 50km northeast of Baghdad, and capital city of the volatile Diyala province, has born the brunt of violence during the U.S. military Operation 'Arrowhead Ripper'. Conflicting reports are on offer on the number of houses destroyed and numbers of civilians killed, but everyone agrees that the destruction is vast and the casualties numerous. The operation was launched Jun. 18 "to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," according to Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding officer of the 25th Infantry Division. But most Iraqis IPS interviewed in the area say the operation seeks more to break the national Iraqi resistance and those who support it...

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Bush War Crimes Death Toll Up to One Million

Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When he is removed from office, Bush should stand trial for war crimes, violations of the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions, and our own US criminal Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which makes death from war crimes a capital offense. Despite efforts by Bush to rewrite the laws --but only after having flouted them --the US is bound by treaty to basic international principles, many of which were first championed by the US. Think of it: Bush, as President of the United States, knowingly ordered such violations and as a result some one million civilians are dead...

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What Lies Beneath: Privileged Grotesques, Ordinary Monsters and the Iraqi Deathscape.

Phil Rockstroh

At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted, due to the fact, he didn't deliver the goods. Americans are fine with fueling our republic of road rage using the blood of Iraqis (or any other distant and darker people) as long as "the mission" doesn't drag on too long or reveal too much about ourselves. How did we come to be a nation of vampires who live by sustaining ourselves on the blood of others? Is our mode of collective being so toxic in the United States that a writer must bandy about metaphors culled from Gothic horror fiction to describe it? (...) And what about the everyday monsters, those who feel nothing -- not outrage, not remorse, nor sorrow -- by the conscience-devoid attempt made by our vampiric leaders to sustain "our way of life" on Iraqi blood? Are you not a monster as well when you feel nothing before immense human suffering? If you are impervious to, grown inured of, or have chosen to remain ignorant of the agony of the Iraqi people, then you might as well join the ranks of the undead -- because the distant landscape of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan matches your internal deathscape...

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House Votes To Withdraw Troops By Spring

Pelosi: "We Have Already Waited Too Long"

Interim Assessment of the Highly Successful Destruction of Iraq Due

Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire

Once again, they take us for complete idiots. "A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday," reports NBC News, the corporate media propaganda outlet owned and operated by General Electric, makers of cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, B-52 bombers, AWACS, and the NAVSTAR spy satellite system, the sort of stuff used up in record numbers inside Iraq and Afghanistan, thus ensuring mega-profits for the merchants of death and destruction. In fact, the "U.S.-backed government in Baghdad," that is to say the U.S. puppet government in Baghdad, is doing precisely what it was cobbled together to do under the dog and pony show of purple finger democracy—absolutely nothing short of avoid car bombs and assassination attempts...

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President Bush Loses His War On Terrorism

Bob Cesca, 07.12.2007
There's no other way to spin this news. The president has unequivocally failed at the one thing he's supposed to be good at: fighting those folks -- the terrorists.
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Bush Refuses to Explain Libby Order

Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the Associated Press reports that Bush has refused to explain to Congress why he commuted the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Arianna Huffington: "Bush's Balanced Assessment Of Iraq Is Utterly Unbalanced"

More Time, More Money, More Troops »

Associated Press LOLITA C. BALDOR and ANNE FLAHERTY July 12, 2007 09:15 AM
The Iraqi government has not yet fully met any of 18 goals for political, military and economic reform, the Bush administration said Thursday in an interim report certain to inflame debate in Congress over growing calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal...
At a news conference that coincided with the report's release, President Bush said, "I believe we should succeed in Iraq and I know we must."

Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter talks about

“Waging Peace…The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement”.

PURGE OF THE PROSECUTORS:MIERS A NO SHOW!

A House panel began clearing the way today for contempt proceedings against former White House counsel Harriet Miers after she obeyed President Bush and skipped a hearing on the firings of federal prosecutors. Miers not appearing could subject her to contempt proceedings, including but not limited to INHERENT CONTEMPT authority of the House of Representatives.

WHAT IS INHERENT CONTEMPT?

Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate.

If Congress doesn’t use Inherent Contempt and goes to the Justice Department for subpoena enforcement it would fall to the US Attorney, a BUSH APPOINTEE, who may have to recuse himself for conflict of interest (as we suspected yesterday.) THAT would lead to the appointment of a SPECIAL PROSECUTOR which might be the BEST thing.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding wrote a letter to Miers’ lawyer George Manning that said, “Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president.” Here is the entire letter.

'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'

That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity. The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. "It's not individual atrocity," Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. "It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."
Journalists and human rights groups have published numerous reports drawing attention to the killing of Iraqi civilians by US forces. The Nation's investigation presents for the first time named military witnesses who back those assertions. Some participated themselves.
Through a combination of gung-ho recklessness and criminal behaviour born of panic, a narrative emerges of an army that frequently commits acts of cold-blooded violence. A number of interviewees revealed that the military will attempt to frame innocent bystanders as insurgents, often after panicked American troops have fired into groups of unarmed Iraqis. The veterans said the troops involved would round up any survivors and accuse them of being in the resistance while planting Kalashnikov AK47 rifles beside corpses to make it appear that they had died in combat.
Link Here

Pentagon: US Troops Shot 429 Iraqi Civilians at Checkpoints

Nancy A. Youssef reports US soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year, according to military statistics compiled in Iraq and obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

Bush admits administration leaked CIA name

Bush: "Perhaps" Someone In Admin Leaked Plame Identity

AP Terence Hunt July 12, 2007 11:41 AM
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday acknowledged publicly for the first time that someone in his administration likely leaked the name of a CIA operative, although he also said he hopes the controversy over his decision to spare prison for a former White House aide has "run its course."
"And now we're going to move on," Bush said in a White House news conference.

Bush: Yes, we broke the law. We're moving on. Get over it.

Bush admits administration leaked CIA name

President hopes to move past furor over Libby sentence commutation
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday acknowledged publicly for the first time that someone in his administration likely leaked the name of a CIA operative, although he also said he hopes the controversy over his decision to spare prison for a former White House aide has "run its course."

"And now we're going to move on," Bush said in a White House news conference.
The president had initially said he would fire anyone in his administration found to have publicly disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and a CIA operative. Ten days ago, Bush commuted the 30-month sentence given to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by a federal judge in connection with the case.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, had been convicted of lying and obstruction of justice in the CIA-leak case.

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Cox: Bush was wrong on Libby. Republican (Atty Gen) raps commutation

British Military Denies Releasing Killer Badgers Into Iraqi City

Giant badgers terrorise Iraqi port city

British blamed for Basra badgers

BBC News July 12, 2007 03:16 PM
British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

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The giant man-eating badgers of Basra

Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark

Yes, I know, I know, it's one of those ridiculous stories which capture the attention of journalists in the heat of the summer when everything's going to you know where. But I can't help myself. No, not Paris Hilton. I am enthralled by the story of the giant man-eating badgers of Basra. Despite the rumor mill and the tiresome debunking, I really doubt that the British troops have released these giant man-eating badgers into Basra (...) Oh, and for what it's worth the stories about the giant man-eating badgers of Basra are probably better grounded in reality than the absurdist "progress report" released by the Bush administration today...

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Reuters photographer killed in Iraq

"random American bombardment"

LONDON (Reuters) - An Iraqi photographer and driver working for Reuters in Iraq were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in what police said was American military action and witnesses described as a helicopter attack.
Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in eastern Baghdad, the international news and information company said.
The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports but had no immediate statement.
A preliminary police report obtained by Reuters said Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had been killed by a "random American bombardment" that killed nine other people.
The report was issued by the al-Rashad police station, the closest station to the scene. Reuters obtained a photocopy of the report. It was based upon witness accounts of the incident and signed by a lieutenant-colonel, the head of the station.
Noor-Eldeen had called a Reuters colleague to say he was taking photographs of a damaged building.
Witnesses interviewed by Reuters in the al-Amin al-Thaniyah neighborhood said Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh, who also worked as a cameraman's assistant, were near the building around the time a U.S. helicopter fired on a minivan.
"The aircraft began striking randomly and people were wounded. A Kia (minivan) arrived to take them away. They hit the Kia and killed ... the two journalists," said one witness, Karim Shindakh.
Shindakh and three other witnesses said U.S. soldiers came and took Noor-Eldeen's camera equipment, which has not been recovered.
A witness has returned Noor-Eldeen's press cards to Reuters. Continued...

Nobel winner: 'I could kill George Bush'

Nobel laureate calls for removal of Bush

03:03 PM CDT on Thursday, July 12, 2007
By JAMES HOHMANN / The Dallas Morning News
Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams came from Ireland to Texas to declare that President Bush should be impeached.
In a keynote speech at the International Women's Peace Conference on Wednesday night, Ms. Williams told a crowd of about 1,000 that the Bush administration has been treacherous and wrong and acted unconstitutionally.
"Right now, I could kill George Bush," she said at the Adam's Mark Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas. "No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that."
Also Online
Audio: 'Right now, I could kill George Bush' (Note: The International Women's Peace Conference notes that the opinions stated by Ms. Williams are her own.)
About half the crowd gave her a standing ovation after she called for Mr. Bush's removal from power.
"The Muslim world right now is suffering beyond belief," she said.
"Unless the president of the United States is held responsible for what he's doing and what he has done, there's no one in the Muslim world who will forgive him."
When an audience member told Ms. Williams that Vice President Dick Cheney would become president if George Bush were impeached, she said, "Can't you impeach them both?"
"It's twisted. It's all wrong," she said. "There are so many lies being told. It's hard to be an American and go out into the world right now."
Ms. Williams started her speech by asking every member of the audience to hug everyone around them. Then she cut to what amounted to both a call for peace and a stinging rebuke of the American government.
Conference organizers have said that the conference is nonpartisan and that no one was invited to speak about the war in Iraq. After Ms. Williams finished her speech, conference chairwoman Carol Donovan took the podium to say that Ms. Williams did not speak for the conference – only herself.
"It's important for us to separate the opinion of the person and the position of the conference," Ms. Donovan said.
Two other Nobel Peace Prize winners, American activist Jody Williams and Rigoberta Menchú Tum of Guatemala, will speak this week as part of the conference. Jody Williams, who was in the audience Wednesday, has also indicated she would speak about Mr. Bush.
"We believe very strongly it was important to have the opportunity to hear these three peace prize winners," Ms. Donovan said.
Betty Williams won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for creating a group that helped start peace talks in Northern Ireland.
In 1992, Texas Gov. Ann Richards appointed Betty Williams to the Texas Commission for Children and Youth.
Many in the crowd found out that Lady Bird Johnson had died when Jan Sanders, the wife of U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders and a close friend of the former first lady, gave an impromptu eulogy.
"She was a friend, a doer, an influencer of world events," Ms. Sanders said. "She lived a full life. If she were here, she would say to you, 'Keep on being women doers.' "

Ambassador: Kurd terrorists have U.S. arms

WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- Kurdish terrorists in northern Iraq are using U.S.-made arms and explosives to attack Turkish forces and citizens, the Turkish ambassador said Wednesday.
"From terrorists captured within Turkey we know that certain weapons are of foreign origins. The explosive are sophisticated enough for us to suggest forces in the north are getting them from certain foreign groups," Ambassador Nabi Sensoy told defense reporters in Washington. "We know there have been a number of weapons of American origins. "It doesn't mean the United States has supplied them, not necessarily. ... We know the USA is shipping arms to the northern Iraq administration. It is just possible they are ending up in the hands of terrorist organizations."
LinkHere

Fake Firm Gets Nuclear License in U.S. Gov't Sting

Fake firm gets nuclear license in U.S. govt sting
By JoAnne Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Undercover investigators, working for a fake firm, obtained a license to buy enough radioactive material to build a "dirty bomb," amid little scrutiny from federal regulators, according to a government report obtained on Wednesday.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the license to the dummy company in just 28 days with only a cursory review, the Government Accountability Office said in a report to be released on Thursday.
The GAO, which set up the sting, said the NRC approved the license after a couple of faxes and phones calls and then mailed it to the phony company's headquarters -- a drop box at a United Parcel Service location.
The GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, said its investigators did not take possession of the radiological materials.
LinkHere

FL STATE HOUSE REP. ARRESTED

State House Rep. Arrested
Last Edited: Wednesday, 11 Jul 2007, 5:38 PM EDT
Bob Allen, a Republican, represents District 32 of the State House of Representatives. The district spans parts of Brevard and Orange counties. Allen was first elected to the office in 2000. Titusville police say they have arrested Florida State Rep. Robert "Bob" Allen, of Merritt Island, on second degree misdemeanor charges for solicitation for prostitution.
Allen, 48, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at Veteran's Memorial Park on East Broad St. in Titutsville. The park was under surveillance by a detail of undercover police officers.
Officers say they noticed Allen acting suspicious as he went in and out of the men's restroom 3 times. Minutes later, he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20. Officers realized he was a public figure after the arrest.
LinkHere

Report: Pentagon Armor Contracts Endangered Troops

Inspector general finds Pentagon bypassed firms that might be faster

Pentagon criticized for armor contracts

AP News RICHARD LARDNER and ANNE FLAHERTY July 11, 2007 07:49 PM
The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on time, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general.
The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion awarded since 2000 to Force Protection Inc. and Armor Holdings Inc

CIA Chief Deemed Iraqi Gov't Breakdown "Irreversible" In Nov '06

CIA Said Instability Seemed 'Irreversible'

The Washington Post Bob Woodward July 11, 2007 11:24 PM
Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.
For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.

Largest US Firefighters Union Attacks Giuliani In 13-Minute Video

Firefighters Take On Giuliani

The Caucus Marc Santora July 11, 2007 10:25 PM
In a video that is by turns emotional, scathing and at times factually incomplete, the nation's largest firefighters union is appealing to its members across the country not to support the candidacy of Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The video by the International Association of Fire Fighters, called "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend," strikes directly at the heart of the Giuliani campaign for President: his leadership of New York City after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, in which hundreds of firefighters died....

$282 Million Stolen from Baghdad Bank

Its call liberation, of all the Iraqi Citizens WEALTH AND NATIONAL ASSETS Guards Steal $282 Million From Baghdad Bank »

iraqslogger.com July 11, 2007 09:03 PM
Three bank guards were able to pull of the largest heist in Iraqi history, making off with a stunning $282 million dollars from a private bank in central Baghdad, Aswat al-Iraq reports in Arabic.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Interior Ministry source told Aswat al-Iraq that "three guards working for the Dar al-Salam Bank located on Sa'adoun Street in Central Baghdad were able to attack the bank . . . and stole a sum of up to $282 million dollars,...

US faced with Iraqi Army turncoats

Sam Dagher

Foot soldiers and US commanders say Iraq's security forces include officers working with insurgents.

Libyan court upholds death sentences of 5 Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor for infecting children with HIV, wires report.

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Judge Clears Way for Abu Ghraib Trial

By DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A military judge refused to dismiss charges against the only officer accused of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, rejecting defense arguments that a senior officer had illegally influenced the case.
The decision, issued Tuesday, clears the way for Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan's general court-martial to begin Aug. 20.
Jordan, 51, faces six counts, including cruelty and maltreatment of detainees in 2003 when U.S. guards and interrogators physically abused and sexually humiliated prisoners at the prison near Baghdad. Jordan, who was the director of the prison's interrogation center, isn't accused of personally abusing detainees but of failing to stop lower-ranking soldiers from doing so.
He also is charged with dereliction of duty, failure to obey a lawful general order, willfully disobeying orders, making a false official statement and making a false sworn statement. Jordan, a reservist from Fredericksburg, Va., could be sentenced to 16 1/2 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

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'98 Vitter OpEd Calls For Clinton Impeachment "Because He Is Morally Unfit To Govern"

The Nation David Corn July 11, 2007 09:31 AM
In the fall of 1998, David Vitter felt compelled to weigh in on the national debate over the possible impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about sex. Vitter was not yet a member of Congress; he was a Republican state representative. And in an October 29, 1998, opinion piece for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Vitter took issue with a previous article, written by two law professors who had argued that impeachment "is a process of removing a president from...
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Study: Northeast Cities In Danger Of 'Disastrous Flooding' If Global Warming Continues

Washington Post Marc Kaufman July 11, 2007 02:37 PM
People in Philadelphia would swelter through as many as 30 days over 100 degrees each summer. The entire Northeast ski industry except western Maine would likely go out of business. And spruce and hemlock forests -- as well as song birds such as the Baltimore oriole -- would all but disappear from New Jersey to the Canada border.
These are some of the conclusions of a two-year study by the public interest group Union of Concerned Scientists of the effects of...
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