Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator    

Friday, January 08, 2010

Rewriting History!!!!!!! Keep Wanking Liar

Rudy Giuliani has joined fellow Republicans Dana Perino and Mary Matalin in seeming to forget that the September 11th attacks happened under President Bush.
On "Good Morning America" Friday, the former New York mayor declared, "We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we've had one under Obama."
Not only does the statement suggest Giuliani does not remember the devastating attack in his own city, it also omits the anthrax attacks and the attempted shoe bomber attack.

Giuliani falsely claims "[w]e had no domestic attacks under Bush"

Listing of terrorist acts during Bush/Cheney regime. (Part 1)

United States, September 11 2001: Attacks kill 2,997

United States: 2001 Anthrax attacks on the offices the United States Congress and New York State Government offices, and on employees of television networks and tabloids.

United States, December 12 2001: Jewish Defense League plot

United States, May 2002: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest.

United States, July 4 2002: An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.

United States, October 1 2005: Joel Henry Hinrichs III detonated a bomb near the packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma

United States: March 2006 Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate.... drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.

USA: July 2006 A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was "angry with Israel."

August 2006 An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV in the San Francisco Bay area.

December 2006 Federal Agents disrupt Derrick Shareef’s attack on an Illinois shopping mall planned for December 22nd. LinkHere

Perino claims no terrorist attacks on U.S. during Bush presidency ...

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Lawyer who worked with both President Bushes tried to kill wife:

Police say that a former White House lawyer who worked with both President Bushes tried to kill his wife.
"John Michael Farren, 57, of New Canaan, was charged with attempted murder and first-degree strangulation after police received a panic alarm from his home shortly after 10 p.m.," Connecticut's NewsTimes reports. "Farren was arraigned in state Superior Court in Norwalk Thursday. He appeared in court with a large bandage on the right side of his neck and has been placed on suicide watch."
The report adds, "Farren has served as general counsel and vice president of external affairs for Norwalk-based Xerox Corp. and served as Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade under President George H.W. Bush and in the White House counsel's office under President George W. Bush."
Wall Street Journal law blogger Ashby Jones notes,
White House lawyers go on to do a lot of things. The become highly-paid partners at Washington law firms. They go to think tanks. They, like Fred Fielding, reemerge to serve as White House Counsel again. They write memoirs.
John Michael Farren, a lawyer in the Bush (II) White House, might be on his way to doing any of those things. But for now he’s got an issue. A potentially big issue. Farren was charged Thursday with strangulation and attempted murder. Connecticut authorities are claiming that he tried to kill his wife at their Connecticut home by beating her with a flashlight and strangling her.
LinkHere

States ‘with the most to gain under health care reform are overwhelmingly represented by Republicans.’

On the Wonk Room, Igor Volsky highlights a new study in Health Affairs that shows how misguided — and political — Republican lawmakers’ opposition to health reform legislation is. “States with the most to gain under health care reform are overwhelmingly represented by Republicans, while those states likely to do worse are much more likely to have Democratic senators,” conclude the study’s authors. From their findings:
[T]he states most likely to “win” as a result of health care reform are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah. All of these states have a relatively high number of uninsured and all are in the bottom half of states in terms of cost under both financing mechanisms. … Among the states most likely to “lose” are Delaware, Nebraska, and New Hampshire as well as the District of Columbia. Each of these states has a relatively lower-than-average proportion of uninsured residents, and each would fall in the “High Cost” category under either of the financing options. There are four states — Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, and Rhode Island — that while also “Low Benefit” are “Low Cost” as well.
Volsky writes that “if Senators and Representatives dropped their ideological allegiance and voted to advance the interests of their constituents, the health care reform effort would actually attract bipartisan support.”
LinkHere

Blackwater offered $30,000 for each person who was wounded and $100,000 to the families of people who died.

Blackwater settles lawsuits over shootings
Iraqis accused it of cultivating a culture that allowed civilians to be killed

Source: MSNBC/AP

RALEIGH, N.C. - The security firm formerly known as Blackwater has reached a settlement in a series of federal lawsuits in which dozens of Iraqis accused the company of cultivating a reckless culture that allowed innocent civilians to be killed.

Plaintiffs' attorney Susan Burke filed a motion in federal court late Wednesday requesting the cases be dismissed. The seven lawsuits cited a pattern of illegal activity, including several killings, such as the 2007 shooting in Iraq's capital that left 17 Iraqis dead and strained relationships between Washington and Baghdad.
...
"This enables Xe's new management to move the company forward free of the costs and distraction of ongoing litigation, and provides some compensation to Iraqi families," the company said.

‘I achieved victory’
Hassan Jabir, a lawyer who was wounded in the 2007 shooting, said that all of the victims' families and people who were injured agreed to the settlement and met with lawyers at a Baghdad hotel about a week ago. He hailed the settlement as a win for the plaintiffs.
...
Not all the plaintiffs appeared happy with the decision. Sami Hawas Hamoud Abu al-Iz also was wounded during the 2007 Nisoor Square incident along with his son. His mother was killed. He said the agreement came after the plaintiffs were told by their lawyers that there was a risk that they might not receive anything.

"All the victims' families signed the settlement papers under pressure, after we were informed that the Blackwater firm is broke and if you don't sign, you will get nothing," he said.

He said the firm offered $30,000 for each person who was wounded and $100,000 to the families of people who died. LinkHere

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

US Marine Tells Australian Girls To Cover Up, Offends Nation

WANKER!!!!!!!
A letter from a US Marine captain criticizing Australian women's clothing, or lack thereof, has prompted angry rebukes from Aussie men and women.
The trouble began when the marine, named Capt. John Campbell, went on a night out in Darwin, Northern Territory. During this night out, he was shocked at the skimpy clothing being worn by Australian females. Unable to contain his outrage, he wrote a letter to the local newspaper, the Northern Territory News.
"It's about having standards, ladies," he wrote.
"What are standards? Well, it can begin by dressing in a manner that leaves something to the imagination, to say the least."
The letter has provoked nation-wide outrage in a country where a comfortable climate, not to mention a laid-back attitude, permits many to wear as little as they want.
The Northern Territory News reported that it had been flooded with negative responses to the article. They interviewed one girl, a 19-year-old Darwin dancer named Lana Sandic, who said, 'Most Territory girls would say 'Put it where the sun doesn't shine'."
Other responses were even less charitable:
"Another bloody American trying to educate the world," a Nightcliff resident said. "Mate, look at your women in the US - Rosanne (Barr) to Britney (Spears). At least we have a bar to raise."
Another reader wrote: "Leave your opinions in the USA. PS: You didn't vote for Bush by chance?"
LinkHere

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Murder For Hire

CIA Reportedly Ordered Blackwater To Murder 9/11 Suspect

By Diana Sweet

In 2004, the CIA sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill an alleged al Qaeda financier who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda, according to a little-highlighted element in a Vanity Fair article to be published this month.

Australian Soldiers Kill Afghan Children

SBS Dateline == Reporter Sophie McNeil
Posted January 04, 2009

LinkHere

"We're OK With It All"

Dumbing Down of the American People
Video capturing the how the dumb down American people have no idea as to what is truly going on and could careless as they sit and sip suds, watching dancing with washed up celebrities.
Posted January 04, 2010 LinkHere

Secret Service investigating effigy of President Obama hanged in Georgia.

Over the weekend, an effigy of President Obama was found hanging off a building in Plains, GA, the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told the AP that the agency is investigating the hanging of the doll. A witness told WALB-TV that the doll had a sign with Obama’s name on it. Watch WALB-TV’s report:

In November 2008, effigies of Obama were displayed in Ohio and Kentucky. LinkHere

Former Bush officials avoid publicly supporting Obama’s policies out of fear of ‘Cheney’s circle.’

Reporter Peter Baker has a New York Times Magazine piece out today about “Obama’s War on Terrorism.” Matt Yglesias flags an interesting passage from the article revealing the cowardice of former Bush administration officials:
A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama’s policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record. Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney’s circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama’s anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him.
Yglesias adds, “It’s really staggering what this says about the ethical caliber of the people we’re talking about. … But some of them don’t want to say he’s [Obama's] doing the right thing because that might make Dick Cheney mad and they’re timid, gutless careerists? And others don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because their feelings are hurt that a Democrat said bad things about his grossly unpopular Republican predecessor?”

Serial Catastrophes in Afghanistan threaten Obama Policy

You probably won't see it in most US news outlets, but on Monday morning in Kabul and Jalalabad, hundreds of university students demonstrated against US strikes this weekend that allegedly killed a number of civilians. I want to underline the irony that the students in Tehran University are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while students in these two Afghan cities are calling for Yankees to go home. Nangarhar University in Jalalabad only has a student body of about 3200, so 'hundreds' of students protesting there would be a significant proportion of the student body.The demonstrations could be a harbinger of things to come, but there was worse news. CIA field officers blown up, four US troops killed Sunday, and the rejection of most of the cabinet nominees by parliament, all signal rocky times ahead.The past two weeks have seen the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate palpably, raising significant questions about the viability of the Obama-McChrystal plan for the country. The chain of catastrophes has been reported in piecemeal fashion, but taken together these events are far more ominous than they might appear on the surface.First, the US military launched a raid in Kunar Province two days after Christmas on a village at night, in which President Hamid Karzai alleged that 10 civilians, some 8 of them schoolchildren, had been killed (some say dragged out of their beds and executed). The NYT reported the head of a Kabul delegation to the village saying,“They gathered eight school students from two compounds and put them in one room and shot them with small arms." (The spokesman is a former governor of Kunar and now a close adviser to President Hamid Karzai-- i.e. not exactly a pro-Taliban source). The charitable theory is that in a nighttime raid, US troops got disoriented and hit the wrong group of young men.The outraged Afghan public saw this raid as an atrocity, and on Wednesday December 30, they mounted street protests against the US in Jalalabad, an eastern Pashtun city, and Kabul. In Jalalabad, hundreds of university students blocked the main roads, and then marched in the streets, chanting "Death to Obama" and "Death to America," and burning Obama in effigy. (If they go on like that, the anti-imperialist Pashtun college students of Jalalabad may attract the support of Fox Cable News . . .)Even while the protests were taking place in Jalalabad and Kabul, a NATO missile strike on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province was alleged to have killed as many as 7 more civilians, some of them children. Now the Afghan public was really angry.Then on Thursday, all hell broke loose when a high-level Pashtun Jordanian asset who had been informing to the CIA on the location of important al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives detonated a vest bomb at FOB Chapman in Khost province, a CIA forward base. The attacker killed 7 field officers and one Jordanian intelligence operative detailed to the base. Those experienced field officers were on the front lines in the fight against al-Qaeda and their loss is a big blow to counter-terrorism. It is true that they had been drawn in to a campaign of assassination, but it is the president who gave them that task--unwisely, in my view.
LinkHere

Afghan tensions rise amid civilian and CIA deaths - 01 Jan 2010


Monday, January 04, 2010

Tony Blair’s £1m-a-year paymaster seeks giant Iraqi oil deal

Source: UK Times Online

A Middle Eastern investment fund that pays Tony Blair about £1m a year as an international adviser is in talks to develop one of Iraq’s biggest oilfields.

Mubadala, a United Arab Emirates investment firm, is in negotiations to join a consortium of western oil companies developing the Zubair oilfield in southern Iraq. More than £6 billion of investment is required for the project.

Blair has always insisted that the Iraq conflict was never linked to the country’s vast oil reserves, but he was facing criticism this weekend over his role with Mubadala. The investment firm, which receives 80% of its revenues from oil and gas, intends to build the biggest oil company in the eastern hemisphere.

It has been confirmed that Mubadala’s oil and gas division is in talks with Occidental Petroleum, an American company, about sharing some of its stake in the Zubair deal, which is to be developed by a consortium headed by Eni, the Italian energy firm. The talks were confirmed to financial analysts in a public briefing by Ray Irani, Occidental’s chief executive.

Zubair is one of Iraq’s largest oilfields, with four billion barrels of reserves. The Baghdad administration offered contracts to develop Iraqi oilfields to foreign companies for the first time last year and the Eni-led consortium has the preliminary go-ahead for the Zubair field.
LinkHere

Jordanian double-agent killed CIA officers

Source: MSNBC
Officials: Perpetrator of Afghan attack was supposed to infiltrate al-Qaida
The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double agent, Western intelligence officials told NBC News.
Initial reports said that the attack, which killed seven CIA officers, was carried out by a member of the Afghan National Army.
According to Western intelligence officials, the perpetrator was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, an al-Qaida sympathizer from the town of Zarqa, which is also the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant Islamist responsible for several devastating attacks in Iraq.
Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. However, the Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side, setting him up as an agent and sending him off to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.
LinkHere

Embassies shut after 'Yemen lost track of arms trucks'

Source: BBCThe closure of three embassies in Yemen was prompted by Yemeni security forces losing track of six trucks full of arms and explosives, say reports from Yemen.France announced its mission in the capital Sanaa was shut on Monday, a day after the US and UK closed theirs.
LinkHere

Parker Griffith Staff Resigns: Nearly Every Member Quits

Nearly every staff member of Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Parker Griffith's office quit Monday morning in response to his decision to switch parties. His chief of staff resigned, along with his entire legislative and communications team -- many of whom have worked for Griffith since before he arrived in Washington.
"Alabama's Fifth District has deserved and has benefited from great Democratic conservative leadership since Reconstruction. And until now they had it," Chief of Staff Sharon Wheeler said. "I appreciate Congressman Griffith's being a very dedicated congressman. But we believe he made a mistake -- a well-intentioned but misguided mistake that is not in the interest of the great people of North Alabama who elected him a year ago as a Democrat. As his staff, we wish him only the best, and we all remain committed to the citizens of the Tennessee Valley. But we cannot, in good conscience, continue working for him. It is with deep sadness that we leave our work for the Fifth District. But because we are unwavering in our own principles, we have no choice but to move on. We do not know what the future holds, but we are taking a leap of faith with the belief we will soon find ourselves in the employment of principled public officials."
Joining Wheeler were Legislative Director Megan Swearingen, Legislative Assistants Brian Greer and Will Crain, Press Secretary Sean Magers, Legislative Correspondents Arinze Ifekauche and Chase Chesser, Staff Assistant Mary Lou Hughston, Congressional Fellows Dr. Anjali Shah Kastorf and Leslee Oden and intern Andrew Menefee. They waited until the winter break was over so they could return to Washington to resign. Griffith's campaign consulting team dropped him when he announced his party switch.
LinkHere
free hit counter