New Life for Initiative to Apportion Electoral Vote

Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times, writes: "Republican donors are pumping new life into a proposed ballot initiative, considered all but dead by Democrats a month ago, that would alter the way electoral votes are apportioned in California to the benefit of Republican presidential candidates."

Rumsfeld Urged Staff to Exaggerate Terror Threat

From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld . . .

By Robin WrightWashington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 1, 2007; Page A01
In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.

Man falsely links son-in-law to al-Qaida

Source: Associated Press
Man falsely links son-in-law to al-Qaida
32 minutes ago
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish man accused of falsely telling U.S. authorities that his son-in-law had links to al-Qaida has been charged with defamation, a newspaper reported Friday.
The false warning spoiled a business trip to the U.S. for the man's son-in-law, who was stopped at a Florida airport and questioned for 11 hours before being sent back on a plane to Sweden, the Sydsvenska Dagbladet daily reported.
U.S. authorities apparently reacted to an e-mail sent to the FBI saying the man "likely has links to the Muslim terror organization al-Qaida's network in Sweden," the newspaper reported.
The 52-year-old father-in-law admitted to having sent the e-mail after it was traced to his home computer, the paper said. He reportedly told police he sent the e-mail in anger after a dispute with his son-in-law, who was divorcing his daughter.
LinkHere

And Georgie is worried about Iran, should be worrying about Pakistans Nuclear Weapons

White House has asked President Musharraf to quit the army office before he is sworn in as the president

Updated at 2250 PST
WASHINGTON: White House has asked President Musharraf to quit the army office before he is sworn in as the president.State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "The United States is deeply disturbed by reports." "A state of emergency would be a sharp setback for Pakistani democracy and takes Pakistan off the path toward civilian rule. President Musharraf has stated repeatedly that he will step down as chief of army staff before re-taking the presidential oath of office and has promised to hold elections by Jan. 15. We expect him to uphold these commitments and urge him to do so immediately." The state of emergency complicates what was already, in the view of U.S. officials, a complicated relationship.

Army Improperly Awarded $150 Billion KBR Contract

Yet another horrid misuse of taxpayer dollars by the Bush administration- war profiteer corporation KBR's contract supporting American forces in Iraq is being reviewed by the Army after a GAO ruling condemns "unequal treatment."

The Air Force Cover-Up Of That Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight

By Dave Lindorff
If America has put electronic alarms and motion sensors on Russian nukes, wouldn't they be on our nukes too? If so, who turned them off at Minot, and why?

Congressional Shame And Duplicity

by Stephen Lendman

Democrat-led congressional betrayal of the public trust.

Welcome to Georgies America

Torture '08: Leading Republicans All Support Water-Boarding

New York Times November 3, 2007 01:57 AM
A central tenet of every leading Republican candidate's campaign for president is one simple and powerful idea: I alone can best defend the United States from the threat of terrorism.
And in recent weeks, three candidates, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred D. Thompson, have embraced some of the more controversial policies on the treatment of those suspected of supporting terrorism, backing harsh interrogation methods and refusing to rule out the use of waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, on detainees.

Condi wants a few good men

not my president says!!!!!!!! Darn excellent post nmp

Image by Dood Abides:
The US has built the biggest embassy in the world in Baghdad. Problem is, no one wants to serve in it. The State Department, under Condi Rice, is considering forcing diplomats to move to Iraq. In a town hall meeting, one diplomat criticized the policy calling it a "death sentence." They were told that their names wouldn't be placed on a list if they were critical of the policy. And if you believe that I have some Iraqi WMDs I want to show you.

Juan Cole says the embassy should be closed.
LinkHere

Missing Constitution

I just read two horrible stories about torture done in the name of the US government. In one, an illegal immigrant was detained for almost one year and was not given urgent medical care. He had a cancerous growth on his penis, and he is dying. In the other, an Egyptian who was believed to be a terrorist (later found not to be) was told by the FBI to confess to his crimes or his family would be tortured by Egyptian authorities.
Is this the US? Will a candidate for the highest legal position in the country, Michael Mukasey, be confirmed for his position when he can't even say for certain whether waterboarding represents torture? This torture technique was introduced in the Spanish inquisition, and was a war crime in WW II. If he doesn't know that its torture and that the US is in serious trouble, we need someone who can do the job.

I want my country back.

LinkHere

Blackwater Delves Into Spying

The Washington Post's Dana Hedgpeth reports that "The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater Worldwide ... has assembled a roster of former spooks - high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence - that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas."
LinkHere

Are You Sure You Can Handle the Truth?

Petraeus Report Cooks the Books with Deft Kabuki Spin.Benefactor: Big Oil.

September 21, 2007, Baltimore, MDReading the General Petraeus report on the Iraq debacle reminded me of nothing so much as Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men yelling, "You can't handle the truth!"
The report goes to great lengths to paint a picture of progress in Iraq, but the truth is a far different story. As the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported, the declining number of deaths in Iraq that Petraeus cites depends on a few accounting tricks: like not counting a death as an assassination if you're shot in the front of the head, and not counting deaths by car bombs.
So, what are we really doing in Iraq?
We're building and maintaining permanent military bases from which our military will ensure a near-monopoly of the world's second-largest oil reserve. All this... for a small cadre of corporate fatheads, including the top members of Bush, Inc. The American taxpayer will be burdened with footing the bill for security in Iraq ($2 billion PER DAY!) to provide stable working conditions for Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Halliburton, not to mention the dozens of corporations feeding off the military spend bosom.
But this White House clearly believes you can't handle the truth.
Well, those of us in the energy world can handle it, and here it is: because the U.S. could not tolerate the possibility that the second-largest oil bonanza on Earth might be held beyond our reach by a dictator who hated us.
The fact is, the U.S. uses fully one-quarter of the world's oil, but we possess only about two percent of its reserves, and we rely on imports for about 60% of our consumption.
Meanwhile, Peak Oil is either just behind us, or nearly upon us...
Without guaranteed access to Iraq's oil, we absolutely could not maintain our military and economic dominance of the world. Vice President Cheney has known this, even spoken publicly about it, for many years. And why else would he have convened a meeting of Big Oil representatives within his first month in the White House to pore over maps of Iraq's oil fields, as if that were the top priority of the administration?

Rice Reaffirms Plan To Force Diplomats To Fill Iraq Posts

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," said Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. ... Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"

Three Foreign Service officers have been killed since the war started.

Musharraf Declares State Of Emergency In Pakistan: Shuts Down All Indep TV Stations, Cuts Telephone Service

Constitution Suspended, All Indep TV Stations Shut Down, Telephone Service Cut, Troops Swarm The Capital

AP MATTHEW PENNINGTON November 3, 2007 11:24 AM
Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, suspending the constitution, replacing the chief justice and cutting communications in the capital.
Pakistan's main opposition leader, Benezir Bhutto, flew back to the country from Dubai and was sitting in an airplane at Karachi's airport, waiting to see if she would be arrested or deported, a spokesman said. Dozens of paramilitary troops surrounded her house.
LinkHere

Pakistan declares martial law

Supreme Court protests as the military takes over the country.

Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars?

These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war … I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

LinkHere

Meltdown at the US State Department

Rosemarie Jackowski , MWC NEWS
November 2, 2007
You almost have to feel sorry for Condoleezza Rice these days. Seems that the Secretary of State is under attack on all fronts. Dissension in the ranks - possible insubordination - resignations - forced assignments.
About the forced assignments in Iraq, Jack Croddy, senior Department official, commented,

"...It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment...I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"

What's a Secretary of State to do - a gigantic, new, luxurious Embassy and department employees who don't want to serve there. Too bad the Embassy can't be turned into a gigantic planter. Because of its size, maybe it should be turned into a rain forest. Better yet, turn it over to the Iraqi people as partial payment on the reparations that are owed to them for the destruction caused by the US war of aggression and bombing which has continued since 1991.
Lack of morale in the department is nothing compared to the more important issue that plagues the State Department - dead bodies - seventeen dead Iraqi civilians that we know about, and an unknown number of other victims. If that was not bad enough, someone in the State Department granted limited immunity to the accused murderers.
There has been so much bad Press that there hasn't been time to ask, what did Rice know and when did she know it. The granting of Immunity has undermined the prosecution of the accused murderers. Maybe the Secretary did not know about this. It doesn't really matter if, when, or what Rice knew. If she didn't know, she is incompetent. If she did know, a Charge of Obstruction of Justice might be appropriate.
LinkHere

WHAT THE MEDIA DOESN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TORTURE

Desert Peace

What responsibility do Bush administration lawyers bear for torture?

That provocative and important question will be examined by Massachusetts School of Law Dean Lawrence R. Velvel and Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR) on Monday, November 5, at 9:30 a.m., on"What the Media Doesn't Tell you," aired on the World Radio Network's European and North American affiliates. Velvel produces and hosts the broadcast, during which he discusses with experts issues the mainstream mass media fails to cover adequately, if at all, and their implications for American democracy...

continua / continued

Paper Route: Grim Reading from the Guardian

Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
... the purpose of the war was never cheap oil; the skyrocketing oil prices spawned by the "creative destruction" in the Middle East is a dream come true for the Bush-Cheney faction and their energy biz cronies. The aim was and is domination of the global oil market (and the enrichment of America's militarist-industrial apparatus, of course: a vast transfer of public money to a few elite interests, who in turn finance the militarists' radical and rapacious political agenda). As we've said many times before, Bush and Cheney have not "failed" in Iraq; they have accomplished almost everything thye set out to do....
LinkHere

Three US airmen killed in Iraq

Fri Nov 2, 12:09 PM ET
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three US airmen have been killed during combat operations near an air base north of Baghdad, US Central Command said on Friday.
The three were killed on Thursday near Balad air base, it said, adding they were "assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Balad".

Deadly Month Dulls US Claims of Iraq Progress

887 Iraqis killed in October, up from 840 in September

BAGHDAD: The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October, according to government figures obtained on Thursday, in a blow to a 9-month-old US troop-surge policy.

Senior Bush Official Had Himself Water-Boarded

Found Practice "Terrifying" And Tortuous

ABC News November 2, 2007 07:15 PM
A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004, became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.
Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.
After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the...

One-Day Iraq Toll Is Highest for U.S. In Many Months

Ellen KnickmeyerWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, October 19, 2006; Page A01BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 --

A roadside bombing and other attacks killed 10 American troops across Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military reported Wednesday, making it the deadliest day of combat for U.S. forces in 10 months.The one-day toll, part of what the U.S. military has said is a 43 percent increase in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital since midsummer, occurred as casualties among Iraqi troops and civilians are soaring far higher than at any previous time in the war, according to U.S. and Iraqi tallies.

LinkHere

US Army Contracting Alarms Panel

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched US armed forces An independent panel has strongly criticised the way the US army manages contracts to supply its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The panel said there were high levels of fraud and waste in relation to contracts worth $4bn (£1.9bn) a year.

It blamed a lack of oversight and said only about half the army's contracting staff were properly qualified.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he was "dismayed" by the report and the Pentagon would pursue its suggestions.

The army says it is pursuing 83 criminal inquiries related to contract fraud and more than $15m in bribes have been exposed.

The panel did not address specific allegations against individuals, but made clear that a lack of oversight and too few army contracting personnel had exacerbated systemic problems.

LinkHere

There needs to be accountability

The REAL Rudy: Radios

"My promise is I'll do everything I can to get answers."

With the councilman's support, we can hold Giuliani accountable for his failure to equip firefighters with radios that could have saved lives on 9/11, and get answers to these questions:
Why was nothing done to improve FDNY radio performance for seven years after a clear need was demonstrated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack?
When new radios were finally ordered, why did the city award a contract to Motorola without a competitive bidding process?
Once Motorola was given the contract, why did its cost jump from $1.4 million to $14 million?
Why were these new radios never field tested? No, this is not the answer to the distortions of Rudy Giuliani's campaign and administration. This is just the beginning.
But it is a helluva start!
Robert Greenwald

Schumer, Feinstein back Mukasey

Schumer in a ‘Tough Spot’ After Supporting Mukasey

US Criticized for Use of Torture

Ian Munro reports for The Sydney Morning Herald:
"The United States's willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says. Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US's standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison."
LinkHere

Democrats Stand Back as War Funding Continues

Truthout's Maya Schenwar reports: "In the next few days, a Congressional conference committee will likely pass the largest defense spending bill in the history of the United States. Despite Democratic lawmakers' promises to stop issuing blank checks for war, the bill does not call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan, nor does it prevent military action against Iran."
LinkHere

Japan Pulls Out of Afghanistan Coalition

Eric Talmadge for The Associated Press reports that "Japanese warships were ordered home from the Indian Ocean Thursday after opposition lawmakers refused to support an extension of their mission supporting US-led forces in Afghanistan."
LinkHere

Ex-Saudi ambassador: Kingdom could have helped U.S. prevent 9/11

Source: CNN
Saudi Arabia could have helped the United States prevent al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington if American officials had consulted Saudi authorities in a "credible" way, the kingdom's former ambassador said in a documentary aired Thursday.
The comments by Prince Bandar bin Sultan are similar to the remarks this week by Saudi King Abdullah that suggested Britain could have prevented the July 2005 train bombings in London if it had heeded warnings from Riyadh.
Speaking to the Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya on Thursday, Bandar -- now Abdullah's national security adviser -- said Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision."
"If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened," he said.
Bandar was the Saudi ambassador to Washington for nearly 22 years before he was replaced in 2005. A knowledgeable U.S. official told CNN that Bandar's comments should be taken "with a grain of salt."
Watch Video
LinkHere

White House Edits ABC News Then Takes it Back

Source: ABC News
ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: News flash --
November 02, 2007 12:21 PMJennifer Parker -->
ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: News flash -- The White House has selectively edited a report on Iraq, taking out negative information and distorting the report's meaning.
This isn't about intelligence or weapons of mass destruction. It's my report on Thursday's evening on World News with Charles Gibson.
WATCH THE FULL REPORT HERE.
The report noted "violence in Iraq is down and down considerably" in virtually every category, but my report also noted that "there has been almost no political progress on the national level" and that "U.S. officials know military gains won't mean much if the Iraqi government doesn't get its act together."The White House sent out an edited version of my report in an official White House publication called "White House Iraq Update."
Iraq Update is put together by the National Security Council and distributed by the White House via email to government officials, Congressional staffers, radio & television talk show hosts, journalists and foreign policy experts.
As edited by the White House, my report looked like an unqualified declaration of success in Iraq. The White House e-mail publication is headlined: "In Case You Missed It: "Violence Is Down in Iraq and Down Considerably."
LinkHere

Video: Is Bush Crazy??

"Near the end of this interview Bush says;

"Whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, we got more work to do. We the free world has more work to do, and I believe those of us who live in liberty have a responsibility to promote forms of government that deal with what causes 19 kids to get on airplanes to kill 3000 students.

"What is he talking about???"

President George W Bush interview (Part 1)

President George W Bush interview (Part 2)

Caged & Lonely...

P.S: Incidentally, one of the parrot pets was taught to shout out "Down with Bush." Maybe the loneliness will ease after all.

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Iraq the model of American/Western democracy. In Iraq, you smell putrefied, decomposing bodies daily, it has become part of the National "flavor." So have abandonment and neglect – our new national emblems. And loneliness a by-product of our Liberation "à l’0ccidentale." You have managed to export not only, your "freedom" with its death, exile and misery. Not only your puritanical, perverted sexual repressions finding release- Abu Ghraib style. Not only your men and weapons that guarantee instant rapture. Not only your culture that consists of nothing but junk. But you have also managed to export your soul sickness over here...Loneliness. "Dozens of Baghdadis flock to the centre of the Iraqi capital on Friday mornings, ignoring the threat to their lives, with a sole aim -- to ease their loneliness in the company of a bird. Their destination is not a cinema, theatre or concert hall -- a rarity in the Iraqi capital -- but central Baghdad's Al-Ghazl bird market Fuad is one of them. "I do not go out of my home. Because of the dangers, I prefer to stay at home rather than seek work. So I decided to buy a parrot who can entertain me," says Fuad, an unemployed graduate.<(...) Ironic don’t you think ? Here is a people unable to venture out, unable to enjoy the fruits of "their liberation," unable to taste the "culture of democracy," unable to have a normal life like any other people. So they go and risk their lives, and head to a pet market. Braving it all, to buy a bird to entertain them and ease their loneliness. A caged people seeking a caged bird to give them the illusion of Freedom. How terribly sad. How terribly criminal... LinkHere

Family sues government over Iraq veteran's suicide

David Edwards and Muriel KanePublished:
Friday November 2, 2007
A recent study by the Veterans Affairs Department showed that since 2001, 430 combat veterans have committed suicide either while serving in Afghanistan or Iraq or after leaving the service. Others died after returning from combat but while still in uniform.
One of those veterans was Marine Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, who died by his own hand in June 2004. His parents, Kevin and Joyce Lucey, are now suing both the government and the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs over their son's death. The Luceys are members of an anti-war group, Military Families Speak Out, and hope their lawsuit will help force an overhaul of the VA system.
Jeffrey Lucey returned from Iraq in 2003, profoundly depressed and drinking heavily to handle the pain. Lucey's sister Debbie told CNN, "He looked at me and, as he took two dog tags off of his neck and tossed them at me, and said, 'Don't you understand, your brother's a murderer.'"
LinkHere

UK cops guilty in 'terror' shooting

Jury finds police guilty in 2005 shooting of Brazilian man after London bombs.

To Implement Policy, Bush to Turn to Administrative Orders

By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan WeismanWashington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, October 31, 2007; Page A03
The White House plans to try implementing as much new policy as it can by administrative order while stepping up its confrontational rhetoric with Congress after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership, administration officials said.
According to those officials, Bush and his advisers blame Democrats for the holdup of Judge Michael B. Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general, the failure to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills, and what they see as their refusal to involve the White House in any meaningful negotiations over the stalemated children's health-care legislation.
White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration. They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases.
LinkHere
And look what Hoyer had to say..
House Democratic leaders fired back at Bush with strong rhetoric of their own. "The president wants the same complacent, complicit Congress that was a co-conspirator in a coverup of what was going on in this country," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

Heat Builds On Blackwater: Congresswoman Moves To Ban Private Security Contractors

"Curve Ball" Revealed: CBS Exposes Secret Source Of False Iraq War Intel

U.S. pilot who dropped Hiroshima bomb dies: report

Reuters Photo:
Thu Nov 1, 12:36 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the U.S. bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945, died on Thursday at age 92, a newspaper reported.

Tibbets, who died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, had suffered strokes and was ill from heart failure, the Columbus Dispatch said in its online edition.
An experienced pilot who had flown some of the first bombing missions over Germany during World War Two, Tibbets was a 30-year-old colonel commanding the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress bomber named for his mother.
After a six-hour flight to Japan, Tibbets' crew dropped the bomb, code-named "Little Boy," over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m.

If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified," Tibbets said later. "The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."
The bomb instantly killed about 78,000 people. By the end of 1945, the number of dead had reached about 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000.
Three days later the United States dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.
Tibbets said in interviews he did not regret the decision to drop the bomb.
He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966. Later he was president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service, the newspaper said.

LinkHere

"Cease and Desist"

Right-Wing Bloggers Launch Campaign -- With MoveOn! -- Against Fox News Over Debate Footage

By Greg Sargent - November 1, 2007, 12:27PM
This is interesting: A coalition of right-wing bloggers and MoveOn that helped force several networks to allow public use of their political debate footage last spring has just launched a similar campaign against Fox News.
Fox recently sent letters to all the GOP Presidential candidates "cease and desist" from using Fox footage in any way. In response, the right-wing bloggers and MoveOn are demanding that Fox rescind these cease and desist orders and allow public use of its debate footage.
In a press release just blasted out by MoveOn, RedState.com founder Eric Erickson, a prominent right-wing blogger, is quoted saying: "Already FOX is viewed as a partisan network by the Democrats, who will not use that forum for debates...Every other news organization has liberated their debate footage and FOX should either be no different or no longer have the privilege of airing debates."

Bush Defends Mukasey Over Waterboarding

Paper: Hedging On Torture Is Meant To Protect Bush Officials From Criminal Charges

AP November 1, 2007 11:34 AM
President Bush, seeking to salvage the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, on Thursday defended the former judge's refusal to say whether he considers waterboarding as illegal torture.
Bush said it was unfair to ask Mukasey about interrogation techniques on which he has not been briefed. "He doesn't know whether we use that technique or not," the president told a group of reporters invited into the Oval Office.
Further, Bush said, "It doesn't make any sense to tell the enemy whether...

Out with CNN in with FAUX

Largest Cable Provider In Israel Drops CNN From Platform, Replaces With Fox News

Blackwater's New Mercenaries: DC's Most Powerful Lobbyists

Blackwater Mounts a Defense With Top Talent

By JOHN M. BRODER and JAMES RISEN
Published: November 1, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — Blackwater Worldwide, its reputation in tatters and its lucrative government contracts in jeopardy, is mounting an aggressive legal, political and public relations counterstrike.

Giuliani Faces Investigation Of 9/11 Radios

November 1, 2007 10:10 AM

In the midst of his presidential candidacy, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani now faces a looming government investigation into his handling of the radios used by firefighters on 9/11.
The investigation, which will examine how the FDNY ended up using faulty equipment during the terrorist attacks and why Giuliani gave a no-bid contract to Motorola for that equipment, has been endorsed by New York City Councilman Eric Gioia, chair of the city's oversight and investigations committee.

"I will do everything in my power to get answers, to get the truth," said Gioia, a Democrat. "These families deserve answers and really the entire city and our country deserve answers."
Calls for an investigation were first proposed by filmmaker Robert Greenwald who has documented Giuliani's handling of 9/11 in a series of shorts for Brave New Films. In The Real Rudy: Radios, Greenwald documents how radios used by the FDNY on 9/11 were the same ones that malfunctioned during the 1993 attack on the Twin Towers. When - eight years later - Giuliani finally purchased new communications equipment for $14 million from Motorola, it was never field-tested. A week later, the equipment was recalled after a firefighter's mayday went un-heard. Giuliani reissued the old batch of radios. And on 9/11 when a police helicopter warned that the North Tower could collapse, more than 120 firefighters remained inside.

Hell No, We Won't Go To Iraq!

Damage Control: Rice Tries To Quell Revolt Over Forced Iraq Assignments

AP MATTHEW LEE November 1, 2007 02:21 PM
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to quell a revolt among U.S. diplomats angry over moves to force foreign service officers to work in Iraq under threat of dismissal.
Rice plans to send a cable to all U.S. embassies and missions abroad on Thursday explaining the rationale behind the decision to begin the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. The effort comes after a contentious "town hall meeting" at the department on Wednesday in...

Mukasey For Media Dummies

Since the media seems to be having difficulty in explaining the problem with the Mukasey nomination and his inability to call waterboarding torture, maybe a post-Gonzales civics lesson might help them.
Michael Mukasey was nominated by the President to be the Attorney General of the United States (USAG). The Attorney General's job is to be the prosecuting attorney on behalf of the people of the United States. Unlike the egregious behavior of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, would suggest, he is not there to protect the President. He is not the President's attorney. The White House Counsel is the President's attorney for legal matters arising from his role as President of the United States. The Attorney General represents the people of the United States. Or should.
The USAG is the chief law enforcement officer of our federal laws and treaties. Were a crime, say for example, torture, to be committed, he would be obligated to prosecute those responsible. All of them. And therein lies the problem for USAG nominee, Judge Mukasey.
Should Judge Mukasey correctly identify waterboarding as torture, then he would have to prosecute any member of the Bush administration who knew of, approved, condoned, executed or threatened to use waterboarding on anyone.Does Mukasey know that the CIA, at the direction of some member(s) of the Bush Administration used waterboarding? He says no, but his reluctance to define waterboarding as torture, suggests that he has reason to believe they did.
Simply put, Judge Mukasey doesn't want to define waterboarding as torture, because then he would have to start investigating the CIA and the Bush Administration, and then prosecuting them.
This puts him in a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. This is more like amputating the hand that feeds you. And if investigations begin now, it's entirely possible that charges may not be brought until after Bush is out of office. Buh-bye pardons. Buh-bye commutation of sentences.
This goes to the heart of what the problem is with the Mukasey nomination. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that was used in the Spanish Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in the Italian Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in WWII by the Japanese government to torture their US prisoners of war, and was defined by our government then as torture. It is defined in the Geneva Conventions now as torture. Define waterboarding as torture, and you will likely have to start arresting members of the Administration.
That's Mukasey's dilemma.
Well, here's my dilemma. The law isn't some fashion that changes based on Who's Your Daddy. The laws we have represent the moral agreements that we hold as a nation, citizen to citizen. They are our minimum daily requirements for civilized behavior. If Mukasey can't define waterboarding as torture, then he's either too stupid, too dishonest, or too immoral and he can get the hell out of my Justice Department.
Really, it's just that simple. It's so simple that even the simple-minded in the media can understand it. And if they can't, it's because they won't.
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Here is JK's statemnt on that:
WASHINGTON D.C. – Senator John Kerry made the following statement today on the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General of the United States.
"Judge Mukasey’s refusal to classify the barbaric practice of waterboarding as torture waves a red flag about his nomination to serve an Administration that has adhered to the Cheney doctrine on executive power and torture. I am not comfortable confirming anyone who cannot see that this method of interrogation is antithetical to American values and traditions – especially not to a position that is charged with representing our entire justice system. We need to reestablish faith in the Department of Justice.
“Many of us wanted to believe that Judge Mukasey could undo the damage of the Gonzales years. Unfortunately his lack of candor and his refusal to acknowledge this abuse of power suggest he is unable or unwilling to do so, and this is why I will be opposing Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States."

Time to close the US Embassy

Bush is trying to Shanghai several hundred foreign service officers and force them to go to Iraq.

They are protesting.

Now is that time for all Americans to stand up for the diplomats who serve this country ably and courageously throughout the world, for decades on end. Foreign service officers risk disease and death, and many of them see their marriages destroyed when spouses decline to follow them to a series of remote places. They are the ones who represent America abroad, who know languages and cultures and do their best to convince the world that we're basically a good people.
The Jesse Helms Right always hated the State Department, because it is about compromise and finding peaceful solutions, whereas the US Right is about war, violence and imposing its will on people. But is is the State Department that, despite some lapses over the decades, generally embodies the best of what America is abroad.
The guerrillas in Iraq constantly target the Green Zone and US diplomatic personnel there with mortar and rocket fire. State Department personnel sleep in trailers that are completely unprotected from such incoming fire. At several points in the past year, they have been forbidden to go outside without protective gear (as if outside were more dangerous). The Bush administration has consistently lied about the danger they are in and tried to cover up these severe security precautions.
The US embassy in Iraq should be closed. It is not safe for the personnel there. Some sort of rump mission of hardy volunteers could be maintained. But kidnapping our most capable diplomats and putting them in front of a fire squad is morally wrong and is administratively stupid, since many of these intrepid individuals will simply resign. (You cannot easily get good life insurance that covers death from war, and most State spouses cannot have careers because of the two-year rotations to various foreign capitals, and their families are in danger of being reduced to dire poverty if they are killed).
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The Strange Death of Dr. David M. Graham

Jordan Green
He warned the FBI about a ring of alleged Arab terrorists - before 9/11
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Power plants shut due to lack of fuel:

Several Iraqi power plants are idle due to shortages in fuel supplies, exacerbating blackouts across the country.
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King Abdullah Flies In To Lecture Us On Terrorism

In what world do these people live?

By Robert Fisk
True, there'll be no public executions outside Buckingham Palace when His Royal Highness rides in stately formation down The Mall. We gave up capital punishment about half a century ago. There won't even be a backhander - or will there? - which is the Saudi way of doing business. But for King Abdullah to tell the world, as he did in a BBC interview yesterday, that Britain is not doing enough to counter "terrorism", and that most countries are not taking it as seriously as his country is, is really pushing it. Weren't most of the 11 September 2001 hijackers from - er - Saudi Arabia? Is this the land that is really going to teach us lessons?

Cashing In on Terror

Thanks to bin Laden and Bush’s exploitation of “war on terror” hysteria, the taxpayers have been hoodwinked into paying for a sophisticated military arsenal to fight a Soviet enemy that no longer exists. The Institute for Policy Studies calculated last year that the top 34 CEOs of the defense industry have earned a combined billion dollars since 9/11; they should give bin Laden his cut.
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Why Did We Invade Iraq Anyway?

Michael Schwartz, writing for TomDispath.com, says: "Why is occupying Iraq so 'vital' to those 'national security interests' of ours? None of this makes sense if you don't have the patience to drill a little beneath the surface and into the past; if you don't take into account that, as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once put it, Iraq 'floats on a sea of oil'; and if you don't consider the decades-long US campaign to control, in some fashion, Middle East energy reservoirs. If not, then you can't understand the incredible tenaciousness with which George W. Bush and his top officials have pursued their Iraqi dreams or why - now that those dreams are clearly so many nightmares - even the Democrats can't give up the ghost."

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Iraq, Afghan Vets at Risk for Suicides

WA State Rep. Richard Curtis (R-La Center): XXX-Gay

A state legislator who yesterday insisted he was “not gay” was being blackmailed by a young man he had engaged in “sexual activities” with after the two met at a Spokane Valley adult bookstore last week, court documents filed today allege.
State Rep. Richard Curtis, a Republican from the Vancouver, Wash., area, met Cody Castagna at Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague Avenue at 12:45 a.m. Friday before the two went to Curtis’ room at the Davenport Tower in downtown Spokane, the documents say. Castagna told investigators Curtis agreed to pay him $1,000 for sex, the documents allege.
No criminal charges have been filed in the case. Castagna, 26, has been questioned by police but not arrested.
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Curtis resignation statment: 'Events have hurt people'

Source: Associated Press OLYMPIA, Wash. --

State Representative Richard Curtis has issued a statement on his resignation from office while involved in a gay sex scandal in Spokane.

Curtis says he feels he's done a lot of good during his time in the Legislature, but "events that have recently come to light have hurt a lot of people.

"He says, "I sincerely apologize for any pain my actions may have caused."

He says, "This has been damaging to my family, and I don't want to subject them to any additional pain that might result from carrying out this matter under the scrutiny that comes with holding public office."

"Stand Up" Resist

DENNIS KUCINICH CALLS FOR IMPEACHMENT DURRING THE DEBATE

Thank the Lord, for some sanity

Jury awards father $11M in funeral case

By ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago
BALTIMORE - A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."
Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."
A number of states have passed laws regarding funeral protests, and Congress has passed a law prohibiting such protests at federal cemeteries. But the Maryland lawsuit is believed to be the first filed by the family of a fallen serviceman.
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Most Hated Family in America gets chased out of Seaford, DE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9IbtD7Kzrg

Just don't hold your breath

Mukasey may not be confirmed: Senators

Embrace of waterboarding could sink Bush's Attorney General nominee.

Another one bites the dust. Good Riddance

Another one bites the dust

Another one bites the dust

And another one gone and another one gone

Another one bites the dust hey

US image chief Hughes to resign

Karen Hughes's Dismal Legacy

Scholar links Bush's US and Hirohito's Japan

Published: Wednesday October 31, 2007

A top US scholar of wartime Japan said Wednesday that the Bush administration's "war on terror" bore close parallels to Japan's past militarism through a defiance of international law.
Herbert Bix, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his landmark biography of wartime emperor Hirohito, said he believed US aerial bombings and alleged use of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq constituted war crimes.
"The current American rampage in Iraq and elsewhere, not to mention the Bush administration's threats of war against Iran, so clearly replicates Imperial Japan during the period when its leaders willfully disregarded international law and pursued the diplomacy of force," Bix said during a visit to Tokyo.

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Waxman: White House Withholding Hundreds Of Abramoff Documents

CIA Chief Defends Extraordinary Rendition

BBC News October 31, 2007 03:24 PM
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden, has defended the methods it uses to interrogate terror suspects.
Gen Hayden said programmes such as extraordinary rendition produced what he said was irreplaceable intelligence.
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Italy secrets threaten CIA trial
Rendition v individual rights
Bush stands by CIA prisons

Europe under 'rendition' cloud

Now ain't that the truth

George W. Bush - Creeping Death

October 31, 2007 6:35 PM
Christy said:
Terrorists don't scare me.
A punk ass self absorbed silverspooner with a bloodlusty taste for torture in $15,000.00 suits having unlimited power and control of an awsome military... now that is a total freaking nightmare.
bin laden is a b*tch.

Kangaroo said: Right On

Blame Game

FEMA Aide Loses New Job Over Fake News Conference

F.E.M.A. HELD *FAKE PRESS* CONFERENCE ON CALIFORNIA FIRES

Join the resistance! at DCP

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Christy Cole: Southern Magic

Preaching to the Choir.
Excuse me, Blue State people. May I have your attention please..? Thank you.
I make it an obsessive habit to watch everything in our country lately. From down here in Louisiana, because of the 'Information Revolution' I keep surprisingly up to date on the current clusterfuck our nation has become.
Now, normally, I don't see things in red state/blue state terms. I was taught to believe we are ALL Americans first. Period. However, there is a red/blue problem that I simply can not remain silent on anymore. It touches on EVERYTHING we hope to do.
I see all our democratic and activist leaders, all on the move. It is truely a beautiful thing. The people are waking up, and the message is trickling out, slowly but surely. Our opposition to the tyranny of the Bush family bonds us in ways that transcend blue state red state and hold us firm against the fear. I see our leaders holding rallies in N.Y., L.A., Phoenix, and D.C.
What I do not see is rallies in Jackson, Shreveport, or Birmingham.
There may be a speech now and then, that gets heartily protested by the very loud minority, and then they are gone. Back to the blue states to preach to the chior. There is no democratic hope in the south because there are no democratic generals here fighting the republicans on thier own turf. Don't get me wrong there are dems here, hard at work, trying desperately to spoon out the ocean. But these dems are underfunded and COMPLETELY INVISIBLE in our daily lives.
Now perhaps, you have been told that we are all morons down here that spit at outsiders, and dream of the days when slaves were ours to own. Perhaps thats the image you have. But nothing could be further from the truth. By tradition the southerners are DEMOCRATS. We are only red state because the damn republicans have been rigging elections down here for more than a century. You think Ohio was ugly...? Try Louisiana EVERY election day. But, who do we tell? We are left with the corrupted leaders or telling those who will pass it on to the yankees, who then turn around and forget they once violently overthrew and occupied the very soil I am sitting above as I write this. And there were consequences.
MANY MANY consequences. All of them political. None of them easy. I wonder at times, if Martin Luther King had been from Cali would he have found it worth dying for? I doubt it.
Coming down here to make a speech and then outrun the fruit throwers on your way back to bluer borders WILL NOT WORK. You are simply overlooking the TRUE problem of the south because it is what..? Distasteful?..Tedious?.. Dangerous?
And you are missing the opportunity of the ages.
The current shuck and jive campaign coming out of D.C. these days is being delivered with a southern accent. But, not eveyone who SPEAKS with an accent, THINKS with an accent. And it is WAY past time to come and engage those people in a VERY lengthy discussion. One that we can sleep on, and engage again in the morning. I have never once believed the republicans outnumber democrats down here. ONLY at the polls is this a republican stronghold, and if you believe the numbers from Florida can be skewwed it's not a hard leap to see the truth about the south.
The truth is, you have abandoned us, and we need you now more than ever. We have the numbers, and the courage, and the will. But, we can not go anywhere without leaders who are willing to risk just as much as we are.
When a hero does come forth I do not know if he will be northern, or southern, black, white, red nor blue. I do NOT know if that hero that leads us to rally down here will even survive the experience. What I do know is this, WHOMEVER that hero is, when they rise from the ashes of the old south, their names will live forever in the halls of heros among men.
When that hero does come, many, including me, will give all we have to protect them. But we can not protect what we can not reach.
When the rallies that electrify the blue states are over, and the chior goes home, there will STILL be a quiet sense of desperation in the deep south. As a region we are the poorest and most illiterate, even now. You could get it all back, and win the very heart and mind of the country.
But you can not take what you refuse to touch.
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"Potential Death Sentence."

Some US Diplomats Angry Over Iraq Posts

AP MATTHEW LEE October 31, 2007 02:28 PM
Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department's decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a "potential death sentence."
In a contentious hour-long "town hall meeting" called to explain the step, these workers peppered the official who signed the order with often hostile complaints about the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam. Announced last week, it will require some diplomats - under threat of dismissal _ to serve...

The news that didn't make the news

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008

Well maybe only Down Under?

I believe in the Holy spirits

AUSSIE churchgoers attend Sunday services at a pub in an attempt to bring back religion.

Secret move to upgrade air base for Iran attack plans:

The US is secretly upgrading special stealth bomber hangars on the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to military sources.

Nooooooo, you don't say

Iran has 'evidence' US backing 'terrorists' :

Reuters Monday, 29 October 2007

Iran has access to evidence of US support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, a senior Iranian official has been quoted as saying.

Bush Cherishes The Fetus, But Loathes The Child And Its Parents

By Sandy Sand

How many times will Bush veto the SCHIP program before everyone gets it? He may cherish the fetus as some holy grail of humanity, but all his actions say he loathes the child and the child's parents, all of whom were once fetuses.

BushCo's Covert Attempt To Force Iraq Into Giving Up 87% Of Its Oil

By Richard Clark
Plenty of evidence, from a variety of sources, that the Bush administration, with the help of the mainstream media, is covertly trying to force Iraq's parliament to sign an oil law that will grant the vast majority of Iraq's oil profits to multinational oil companies.

When Bush Accuses the Dems of "Wasting Time"

When Bush Accuses The Dems Of "Wasting Time"

Virtually every Bushite attack on their opponents, virtually every issue that is contested between the regime and its critics, is an opportunity to expose the crimes and lies and moral bankruptcy of this regime. It's a matter, in each case, of finding the right strategy to turn the energy of the confrontation into a weapon to discredit the Bushite regime in the eyes of the American people. Here's one example.

We took an oath to defend the Constitution.

Clearly, our Founders who required that we swear such an oath thought that defending the Constitution is no waste of time.

In fact, they thought it the most important duty we have.

If the president would stop violating his oath, then we wouldn't have to spend so much time honoring ours."

Keeping The Constitutional Faith Is Now EVERYTHING

If America hasn't hit bottom, one wonders where we are. We have basically lost EVERYTHING to the Bush/neocon Putsch -- however, our Constitutional Ship is State is turning out to be harder to sink than these fascists, religious fanatics, and vampire elites thought. Our job now is to keep the faith that we can undo everything these psychopath traitors have done. Despair is the end. Faith in ourselves and Constitution is all.

Intentional? YOU DECIDE

House Panel Screw-Up Reveals Whistleblower Email Addresses

Someone screwed up an email send, by openly sending to about 150 people including whistleblowers, what should have been sent as BCC. The email was sent by house Judiciary committee and may have exposed dozens of whistleblowers.
Talkingpoints memo reported,
Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.

The American Police State

Original from archives.gov

Posted on Oct 29, 2007
By Chris Hedges
A Dallas jury, a week ago, caused a mistrial in the government case against this country’s largest Islamic charity. The action raises a defiant fist on the sinking ship of American democracy.
If we lived in a state where due process and the rule of law could curb the despotism of the Bush administration, this mistrial might be counted a victory. But we do not. The jury may have rejected the federal government’s claim that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development funneled millions of dollars to Middle Eastern terrorists. It may have acquitted Mohammad el-Mezain, the former chairman of the foundation, of virtually all criminal charges related to funding terrorism (the jury deadlocked on one of the 32 charges against el-Mezain), and it may have deadlocked on the charges that had been lodged against four other former leaders of the charity, but don’t be fooled. This mistrial will do nothing to impede the administration’s ongoing contempt for the rule of law. It will do nothing to stop the curtailment of our civil liberties and rights. The grim march toward a police state continues.
Constitutional rights are minor inconveniences, noisome chatter, flies to be batted away on the steady road to despotism. And no one, not the courts, not the press, not the gutless Democratic opposition, not a compliant and passive citizenry hypnotized by tawdry television spectacles and celebrity gossip, seems capable of stopping the process. Those in power know this. We, too, might as well know it.
The Bush administration, which froze the foundation’s finances three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and indicted its officials three years later on charges that they provided funds for the militant group Hamas, has ensured that the foundation and all other Palestinian charities will never reopen in the United States. Any organized support for Palestinians from within the U.S. has been rendered impossible. The goal of the Israeli government and the Bush administration—despite the charade of peace negotiations to be held at Annapolis—is to grind defiant Palestinians into the dirt. Israel, which has plunged the Gaza Strip into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, has now begun to ban fuel supplies and sever electrical service. The severe deprivation, the Israelis hope, will see the overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza and the reinstatement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has become the Marshal Pétain of the Palestinian people.
The Dallas trial—like all of the major terrorism trials conducted by this administration, from the Florida case against the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami al-Arian, which also ended in a mistrial, to the recent decision by a jury in Chicago to acquit two men of charges of financing Hamas—has been a judicial failure. William Neal, a juror in the Dallas trial, told the Associated Press that the case “was strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence.”
Such trials, however, have been politically expedient. The accusations, true or untrue, serve the aims of the administration. A jury in Tampa, Chicago or Dallas can dismiss the government’s assaults on individual rights, but the draconian restrictions put in place because of the mendacious charges remain firmly implanted within the system. It is the charges, not the facts, which matter.

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A Virus...

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

...I really want you to focus on the "Health Service" disaster that is now the norm in Iraq. I will not even start mentioning the rampant diseases that we had ERADICATED before our "Liberation," now making a comeback.Cholera, Typhoid, Malaria, T.B, Hepatitis, Dysentery, Polio and AIDS. This latter was virtually unheard of in Iraq. I will not even go through the cancer cases in particular soft tissues and blood cancer that have been multiplied by 600 thanks to D.U. This alone is a tragedy in itself. And will not cover other common illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension for which people can’t find adequate treatment and can’t afford the medication either.Nor will I touch upon the very serious mental health degradation of the majority of Iraqis. An ongoing PTSD with no end in sight. Nor will I mention the lack of pre-natal and post-natal care. Nor the forced ceasarians before their terms. Nor the increasing number of miscarriages. Nor the infants who do not stand a chance of seeing the light of day. Nor the children dying in loads...No, I will not mention any of that. The current Health situation in Iraq is a tragedy of monumental proportions. It is yet another crime that both the U.S and the Iranian puppet government in Baghdad have committed. As I said, the Ministry of Health is run by Muqtada al Sadr’s men. It is one of the ministries that has been affected the most by corruption. Under the Sadrists, the Health System has TOTALLY disintegrated. And there is a VERY SEVERE lack of services....And when I think back to the days when Iraq according to the WHO was considered the most advanced country in the Middle East in its health care system. Not only we had the best doctors, all sent abroad for further studies and specializations. Not only we had the latest equipment. Not only we had some of the best hospitals and medical schools. Not only patients flocked from all over the Middle East to seek treatment in Baghdad...Not only that, but it was also ALL FREE of charge. Our hospital beds today have no sheets. No covers. No meal is served, you bring your own. No gloves. No syringes. No Hygiene. No equipment. No medication. No nurses. No Doctors. No prenatal care. No post natal care...

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