Scudson Kuwait, had already been discredited); he never does. (Nor does he retract.)
Israeli warplanes violate Lebanon airspace, drawing fire. DS
US bombs Hilla.
Terrifying film of women and children later emerged after Reuters and the Associated Press were permitted by the Iraqi authorities to take their cameras into the town. Their pictures—the first by Western news agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront—showed babies cut in half and children with amputation wounds, apparently caused by American shellfire and cluster bombs.Much of the videotape was too terrible to show on television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able to send only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that included a father holding out pieces of his baby and screaming
cowards, cowardsinto the camera. Two lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital. I
Air Canada files for bankruptcy protection.
US shoots up Iraqi hospital to rescue a PoW.
(I wonder how many doctors and patients were killed in the process?)
I guess they didn't shoot up the hospital at all, since the hospital had
fallen
a couple of days before; and Lynch may not have been a
prisoner as such, because the hospital staff claim they tried to give her
over to US forces shortly before and were fired upon.
(ABC World News Tonight told the same story on May 7, adding that the hospital had to sellThe most important thing to know is that the Iraqi soldiers and commanders had left the hospital almost two days earlier,[Dr.] Houssona said.The night they left, a few of the senior medical staff tried to give Jessica back. We carefully moved her out of intensive care and into an ambulance and began to drive to the Americans, who were just one kilometre away. But when the ambulance got within 300 m, they began to shoot. There wasn't even a chance to tell them[RC citing S]We have Jessica. Take her.
precious drugsto make some repairs.) The damn thing was an April Fool!
[SC quoting CT] All theseHer story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived,the BBC concluded—the polite British way of sayingliar, liar, pants on fire.
allegationshurt Pentagon's wittle feewings:
The idea that we would put a number of forces in danger unnecessarily to recover one of our POWs is just ridiculous.CNN (Think about that sentence carefully! Besides, none of the
allegationsclaim there was danger, since the hospital had been in US-controlled territory for several days.) (Nevertheless the Pentagon has been warning Lynch's comrades to keep their traps shut.
It's almostThey certainly keep this famous heroine cloistered suspicioulsy long and hard. K And her family may have been gagged. [ · CBSNY]) Many initial claims she had been multiply stabbed were false. Eventually it comes out it was all thanks to a cooperative Iraqi volunteer gobetween. Some wonder why there had to be a special-ops op in a city that the US had claimed it controlled.say a word and you'll be shot at dawn.
The Jessica Lynch story has all the elements of a Hollywood classic. As the Independent's Deborah Orr observed Friday, right from the day she disappeared, Lynch commanded all the media attention, far more than her less fortunate sisters-in-arms, Shoshana Johnson, whose terrified eyes in that PoW video will haunt me forever, or Lori Ann Piestewa, a Hopi Indian we will never see alive.It is, wrote Orr,
recognizable that America does have a hierarchy of life, with pretty blondes at the top, black Americans and Native Americans further down and the rest of the world trailing hopelessly. Which might help explain the unseemly rush to war.ICH
It was interesting that Lynch was not the only woman serving in the ambushed unit of US car mechanics by Iraqis during the allied push. Only one of them fired a shot before Lynch was taken to hospital where she was well treated. But the rescue was given the Hollywood treatment, with the result that she was then portrayed as someone blonde and cute who needed to be rescued.There was in fact another woman in the unit who was black and not as cute, so the episode illustrates how the old prejudices still come up in their starkest terms. S
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
If a President's motives are generally considered worthy until proved otherwise, the same can be said of the President's appointments. When he appoints a Defence Secretary, your average American is willing to believe that this man or woman is worthy of trust, worthy of respect. He or she is the choice of the President. The journalists charged with the task of questioning the President and his advisers must work within the bounds of a culture that is willing to give national leaders the benefit of the doubt. Even after Watergate. Even after Monica Lewinsky. Even after Wag the Dog.That's why the BBC's Correspondent programme caused a minor sensation here when it questioned the veracity of the Jessica Lynch story. Lynch was the 19-year-old West Virginia soldier taken prisoner by the Iraqis and rescued by US special forces during the war. At the time, Pentagon sources said—and the American media reported—that Lynch had fought back against the Iraqis; that she had been stabbed and shot; that she had been abused in hospital.
The BBC team went to the hospital and heard a different story. Her injuries, according to the Iraqis, were caused by a car accident; after the accident, she had been brought to the hospital and treated well. The
rescuehad been unnecessary; the doctors had been trying for some time to hand her back.It does not matter which story is true. The issue is that there were conflicting accounts but the American media overwhelmingly chose to report the Pentagon's version as fact.
Let's be honest, though: much of the questioning of American motives and purposes in the British press is equally one-sided. I
new coronavirusNS not closely related to any known clusters. It's also not hitting the
customarily susceptibleyoung and old. ND (Wasn't
Spanish Flulike that?)
Israel's overall human rights record in the occupied territories remained poor, and worsened in several areas as it continued to commitTAnumerousserious human rights abuses.
Senior British military officers on the ground are making it clear they
are dismayed by the failure of US troops to try to fight the battle
for hearts and minds…
[CD
emphasis mine—some think the US has said You can see why the Iraqis are not welcoming us
with open arms,
a senior defense source said yesterday.f*k it
]
(British troops are having much more luck w/the Iraqis than the US; whereas
the US troops stay in their armour and helmets and bristle like stormtroopers
from Star Wars (as one journo put it), the British have shed most of
that stuff esp the helmets. They look a lot less threatening and thus make
more hearts and minds
headway. I can't remember if the word is
sympathy
or empathy
or something else—but the US, as a
nation and as persons, is desperately short of the ability to view themselves
from someone else's PoV.)
stretched supply lineideas. Rommel managed to run his North Africa ops on a supply line megametres long with half-broken-down trucks. But he had a lot less trouble in his rear.
(Despite my better judgement about x.x.0 releases, I take a couple days and upgrade my kaputey to NetBSD-1.6.0 and KDE-3.1.0. Stick to 1.5.3 and 3.0.5! I knew I should wait for 1.6.1…)
Awkward moment at Pentagon briefing when reporter asks why it's supposed to be a war crime when Iraqis wear civvies to fight, but not when US special forces do it. SPI
The civilian-dress issue is less clear-cut than US-led forces are making out. They say the stiff resistance encountered by US and UK forces at Nasiriya was put up by a mix of Iraqi regular army, Ba'ath party officials and militiamen from the Fedayeen Saddam.(I happened to catch that on CNN. The squirming was highly entertaining. Interval ended with Clarke sayingSince Ba'ath party officials and Fedayeen are not part of the regular military it could equally be argued they have every right to offer armed resistance out of uniforms just as the French Resistance did during the Nazi occupation.
Attacks launched by openly armed belligerents in civilian clothes do not constitute perfidy. The first Additional Protocol in 1977 to the Geneva Convention allows for guerrilla warfare, which has been seen as a valid and appropriate means of fighting for national liberation. AJ
I'll check on it but I'm pretty sure you're wrong about it.I don't know what she found out if she even bothered. I think the journalist that asked was one the Iraqis held during GW1.)
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
evidence of executionson the remains. US spins it up as evidence of atrocities. So? The US executes piles of persons itself, and GWB may be the executinest executive the country has ever known. And it turns out the remains were Iranian losses of the '80s war undergoing recovery and repatriation. IRNA
An event that had happened 5 days before also received publicity at the coalition HQ. During a night
IW
cleanup
in one of suburban houses near An-Nasiriya three marines shot a man and afterwards raped and shot his wife. The command got information about this accident from one of its informers. After interrogation the marines were sent to Qatar for additional investigations.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
But I still can't get the thought out of my mind of that Iraqi family that was killed by US troops as the Iraqis' van approached a checkpoint.One survivor, Bakhat Hassan, said in published reports that his van was waved on past the first American checkpoint, but then was fired upon at the second one. They left their village, Hassan said, after reading air-dropped US pamphlets telling them to flee for safety.
As AP reported,
Hassan…said 11 members of his family were killed in the incident—his daughters, aged 2 and 5, his son, 3, his parents, two older brothers, their wives and two nieces, ages 12 and 15. His wife, Lamea, who is nine-months pregnant, said she saw her children die.US officials blame the van for not stopping, but The Washington Post reported that the captain in charge of the checkpoint also blamed US troops, telling them:
You just f*ing killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough.Yet official military statements and pro-war commentators expressed nothing but support for the troops that fired on the van. Reports on the pro-war Web site, WorldNetDaily, claim that the family, or others like them, are on forced suicide missions by Saddam's forces. Given the hideous nature of Saddam's regime, it's certainly possible. OCR
Police attack antiwar protestors in Oakland CA.
KTVU
·
CD
The wooden bullets used by the police clearly indicated on their casings that they were not meant to be shot at demonstrators and that they could be fatal.
I
·
I
·
I
(Rep Barbara Lee and Harry Belafonte may have been part of this crowd.
I)
US blows away the Baghdad offices of al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, killing several media persons. CTV Palestine Hotel also hit, making a bad day for some who hadn't heeded the warning shot a days ago. CENTCOM would like us to believe it was all accidents, or (in the case of the hotel) a response to sniping. But no surviving journalist recalls hearing sniping before the shelling, and French TV videoed the tank taking aim and waiting many seconds before firing, with no sniping visible. IOL · DT Goes before an extradition judge in June. AN
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Iraqi Kurdish control of oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk would constitute grounds for Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq.Y!) and Iran DS (although Iran is on the target list anyway). How's he getting out of this bind? My prediction: he'll screw the Kurds again.
As Reuters reported last Tuesday,(Yeah, does Blitzer have to yell everything!?!)When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spelled out the eight US objectives in Iraq on day two of the war, he said the first was to topple Saddam Hussein and the second was to locate and destroy Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.On Day 10 of the war, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke restated those eight objectivesas Secretary Rumsfeld described just a week ago.Not quite. Suddenly, unearthing those nuke-u-lar, chemical and biological weapons had dropped to fourth on the chart while destroying them slipped to No. 5. Which is why, for the past week or so, including yesterday in his treacly weekly radio address, President George W. Bush has been all about
ridding the people of Iraq from one of the cruelest regimes on earth.Can't say I've caught any discussion of this shift on CNN. But then, being cooped up with Wolf Blitzer's blather is a form of brain-destroying torture so evil that I would recommend it to any brutal, vicious dictator looking to gas his own people. Yesterday, it got so bad, I actually started to miss all the talking brass who were MIA. Maybe their contracts ran out, seeing as how the war has lasted more than two weeks now. ICH
In June, 2001, the notorious Alexander Haig Jr. joined NewsMax's advisory board. It is probably only a coincidence, but lately NewsMax has become a sort of mouthpiece for the Republican Party and an uncritical provider of the Bush administration's propaganda.IN)
friendlyPatriot misfire.
CNN shows piece about Saddam's chamber of horrors
secret-police HQ
in Basra. It reminds me instantly of Bush's chamber of horrors at
Guantánamo.
iraqwar.ru closes its daily Russian military intel update
under
USUK suspicion it's aiding the Iraq military.
IW
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
Last week Bush authorised US troops to use teargas in Iraq. He is permitted to do so by an executive order published in 1975 by Gerald Ford, which overrides, within the US, the 1925 Geneva protocol on chemical weapons. While this may prevent Bush's impeachment in America, it has no standing in international law.The chemical weapons convention, promoted by George W's father and ratified by the US in 1997, insists that
each state party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare. Teargas, pepper spray and other incapacitants may be legally used on your own territory for the purposes of policing. They may not be used in another country to control or defeat the enemy…Rumsfeld, formerly the chief executive of GD Searle, one of the biggest drugs firms in the US, has never been an enthusiast for the chemical weapons convention. In 1997, as the Senate was preparing to ratify the treaty, he told its committee on foreign relations that the convention
will impose a costly and complex regulatory burden on US industry. Enlisting the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy with which we have since become familiar, he maintained that it was notrealistic, as global disarmamentis not a likely prospect. Dick Cheney, now vice-president, asked the committee to record hisstrong oppositionto ratification.Last month Victoria Clarke, an assistant secretary in Chemical Donald's department [the one doing the briefings w/McChrystal], wrote to the Independent on Sunday, confirming the decision to use riot control agents in Iraq, and claiming, without supporting evidence, that their deployment would be legal. Last week the US Marine Corps told the Asia Times that CS gas and pepper spray had already been shipped to the Gulf. The government of the US appears to be on the verge of committing a war crime in Iraq.
Given that the entire war contravenes international law, does it matter? It does, for three reasons. The most immediate is that there is no such thing as a non-lethal chemical weapon. Gases that merely incapacitate at low doses, in well-ventilated places, kill when injected into rooms, as the Russian special forces found in October…
The second reason is that, if they still possess them, it may induce the Iraqi fighters to retaliate with chemical weapons of their own. At the same time, it encourages the other nations now threatened with attack by Bush to start building up their chemical arsenals: if the US is not prepared to play by the rules, why should they?
The third reason is that the use of gas in Iraq may serve, in the eyes of US citizens, to help legitimise America's illegal chemical weapons development programme. As the US weapons research group Sunshine Project has documented, the defence department and the army are experimenting with chemicals which cause pain, fear, convulsions, hallucinations and unconsciousness…Among the weapons they are testing is fentanyl, the drug which turned the Moscow theatre into a gas chamber. Since March 2002, the government's
non-lethal weapons directoratehas been training the Marine Corps in the use of chemical weapons. All these activities break the convention. GM
humanly. [CNN]
The preventive effect of the fluoridation of drinking water could not be proved by any study. When specialists do not succeed in producing definite proof in 40 years, the issue has to be abandoned…In spite of the fluoridation of drinking water caries has been on the increase with children…Less than 1% of the fluoride in drinking water is actually used forNPWAprevention of caries,more than 99% of the fluoridated water is used for washing, cleaning, industrial production etc. and thus only pollutes the environment, a very undesirable imbalance.
Meanwhile, the EPA is having great difficulty finding a fluoridation
defender for an impending debate. W'm Herzy tells Sen Mike Crapo I respectfully suggest that if no person from the Federal Government is willing to defend the practice by invitation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, then the subpoena power of the US Congress be invoked to compel such a person or persons to appear before a Joint Committee of the Congress to do so.
FA
The EPA's own scientists have for some time been battling their employer
over fluoridation, even filing amicus briefs in suits against the EPA..
F
Much media hubbub today that Iraq has been liberated—because a statue got pulled down in Baghdad. Wahuh?!
Thismonumental eventturned out be just as illusory as the coalition's proclaimed control of the Iraqi capitol…Elsewhere in Iraq US soldiers frequently open fire on civilians approaching checkpoints. But here in Baghdad, where thousands of Iraqi troops are still battling the US forces, a US armored vehicle with a single unarmed soldier in it was surrounded by a crowd of cheering Iraqis and the soldier did not appear to be particularly concerned.
In the end the big picture (literally) revealed the truth: Fardus Square was surrounded by the US tanks and the
jubilant crowdturned out to be a few dozen Iraqis, some of which were recognized as Iraqi opposition members delivered to Iraq by Pentagon just days earlier.Several strategically placed cameras created an impression of a large crowd. Iraqis cheering US troops in Baghdad—just another
Potemkin villagestaged by the Pentagon PR teams. I
Norman Solomon saw yesterday's focus on the statue as anexample of the tremendously subjective character of the media coverage in this war…What was notable was how few Iraqis were there. It was almost like a lethargic pep rally. There was scarcely a pompom in evidence. Despite the best of efforts, it had a kind of low-budget staged quality as though a movie was being shot but they couldn't get any extras.CD
Still photos grabbed off of Reuters show a long-shot view of Fardus Square…it's empty save for the US Marines, the International Press, and a small handful of Iraqis. There are no more than 200 people in the square at best. The Marines have the square sealed off and guarded by tanks…The entire event is being hailed as an equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling…but even a quick glance of the long-shot photo shows something more akin to a carefully constructed media event tailored for the television cameras. ICHThe US flag that briefly masked the statue was the one flying on the Pentagon on 9/11 [ICH quoting BBC];
pure coincidenceLt McLaughlin had it with him, sez the army. I John MacArthur:
It was absolutely a photo-op created for Bush's re-election campaign commercials.[SI quoting R] See also RMN.
Evening Standard runs cheering Baghdad crowd
photo
TMH
that has
suspiciously repeated elements (colour) and is possibly two photos (black).
Paper claims it was just eliminating the BBC logo. (But even if that's its
entire motivation, it'd be more honest to just black out the logo and
most honest to use the image untouched.)
Those years of
Where's Waldo
weren't wasted.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
All we are trying to do is create the conditions for representative government.I (Which is rule by a monarch-appointed governor, a governor-appointed council, and elected advisors with no actual power. Canada replaced that with responsible gov't over 150 years ago. But maybe Iraq needs to be brought along slowly.)
Bush is a rich bully,said a heavily armed man standing by the roadside.The US has no legal right to be here…Probably Saddam would have sold chemical weapons to somebody some day and then the US would have been right to invade, but now this is the first free democratic [sic] country ever to occupy another without good reason.He was a lance-corporal in the US Marines. TA quoting Meek Guardian]
last standin Tikrit. US media begin asking about what the Kurds will get out of this, since the US just reassured Turkey the Kurds are not going to get much. M (Ha! I was right. I'm just surprised it came so soon.)
Lt Gen Wallace denies Baghdad can be called liberated.
VoA
Fmr D NB Rep. Clair Callan files restraining order against GWB ordering further attacks in Iraq pending war-crimes hearings. OC · I
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
It's hard to believe that the US military would not be well aware of this site—it's the center of Iraq's nuclear research activities. Just as you wouldn't be surprised to find hamburgers at McDonald's, no one should be surprised to find nuclear materials at this site. Inspectors have been in Tuwaitha since 1991, and they've inspected it 12 times in the last four months. It's the single most inspected, understood site that the IAEA has in Iraq. They've been up and down and in and out of Tuwaitha. No site is more well-known to us.DJ
because he just does it for profit.(Yeah. So? I like what Moore does for profit a lot more than than what GWB does for it.) A few days later I happen to catch him narrating a thing about Palm Beach, pointing out Rush Limbaugh's M$11 estate. No apparent complaining about what he does for profit…
stooges,Nizar Al-Khazaraji and Majid Al-Khoi'i, hacked to pieces by Najaf Iraqis. [JR quoting AN citing
five independent witnessesand Al-Khoi'i's family]
Blair's favourite candidate for leadership…Abdul Majid al-Khoei was hacked to death by a mob outside a mosque in Najaf. The Shi'ite religious leader had returned to the country only 17 days ago. Meanwhile, convicted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi remains the favourite candidate of the Pentagon.SW (
was widely perceived to be pro-American…[his] pro-American sympathies were no secretand may have had M$13 from the CIA to win supporters. TS
best friendsgetting better and better all the time.)
Iraqis are dancing in the streets now—well, some
Those people that you see on the streets, are the people ofThay're still shoutingAlthowra cityor as they call it sometimesSaddam's city.Those people do not in any way resemble the people of Iraq. They resemble the community of criminals in Iraq. As you can see, they are not only dancing, but they are also looting, robbing stores, stealing cars, burning places, and trashing the streets! Those people whom you see dancing were the very same people who used to appear on TV, clapping for Saddam like crazy, when everyone else was against him. They are opportunists who have no principles at all. Always with the winner—and they sell very cheap. GO
Death to America!Palestinians have very long faces on, disappointed their sole benefactor didn't put up more fight. [CBC Newsworld] BTW the US' failure to protect hospitals from looting is a breach of the Geneva Conventions, according to the UN. (Rivero wants to remind everyone what happened when Brazilian medequip looters got hold of some cesium in cancer-burning machinery…though I doubt the sanctions allowed Iraq to have anything so sophisticated.) They're also failing to protect the musea, JR · G which I bet is another GC problem.
A coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's invaluable archaeological collections. The group is known to consist of a number of influential dealers who favour a relaxation of Iraq's tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. Its treasurer, William Pearlstein, has described Iraq's laws asThe libraries are burning, just like in the Crusades.retentionistand has said he would support a post-war government that would make it easier to have antiquities dispersed to the US. JR
The American Council for Cultural Policy, a New York-based coalition of about 60 collectors, dealers and others, had receivedBut the oil is secure! DT (Ruth Wedgewood, Defense Policy Board, sez yeah it's a pity they had to protect the oil ministry ahead of musea etc but that's Turkey's fault for quashing the northern front. [Counterspin Apr 16])no special treatment,the official insisted, despite reports that members of the group met with Bush administration representatives in January to argue that a post-Saddam Iraq should have relaxed antiquities laws. NI
India's defence minister ponders inflicting preemption on Pakistan citing US' example. ICH
Baghdad shopkeepers firing on looters. IA (Saddam appears to have been the first cruel dictator in history not to have disarmed his people. Rivero claims LA shopkeepers were not permitted to so defend their livlihoods in the Rodney King riots.)
US troops issued playing cards doubling as wanted posters. Saddam is the ace of spades—I wonder who the jokers are.
I give Leon Benoit and Joe Clark final reminder that I still await
specification of which weapon banned to Iraq Benoit claimed he knew they
had used in the war, and what Clark's argument underlying his war had
proven necessary.
Rumsfeld complains bitterly about the media's overemphasis
of
the rioting and looting in Iraq. He didn't complain bitterly about the
media's overemphasis of that hokey Baghdad statue pulldown, or the
Saving Pvt Lynch April Fool!
Tony Blair tapes his Simpsons episode. M
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
advancednations still practicing capital punishment, and presently run by the Texecutioner himself. They may find, out of the Iron Fist into the Iron Maiden. (
US planning camp for 24000 Iraqi PoWsCBC even though PoWs are supposed to be released when their war ends.) On the other paw, wait'll the Texecutioner tries to disarm Iraqis =)
It is unclear what principle the weapon is based on. Searching for a description, al-Ghazali said it appeared to be shooting concentrated lightning bolts rather than just ordinary flames. Drawing on his many years as a professional engineer, al-Ghazali speculates that radiation of some kind probably figures into the weapon's hideous capabilities…Has the US figured outAl-Ghazali and his family sheltered in their house as a fierce street battle erupted in his neighborhood. In the midst of the fighting, he noticed that the Americans had called up an oddly configured tank. Then to his amazement the tank suddenly let loose a blinding stream of what seemed like fire and lightning, engulfing a large passenger bus and three automobiles. Within seconds the bus had become semi-molten, sagging
like a wet ragas he put it. He said the bus rapidly melted under this withering blast, shrinking until it was a twisted blob about the dimensions of a VW bug. As if that were not bizarre enough, al-Ghazali explicitly describes seeing numerous human bodies shriveled to the size of newborn babies. By the time local street fighting ended that day, he estimates between 500 and 600 soldiers and civilians had been cooked alive as a result of the mysterious tank-mounted device…US forces were abnormally scrupulous about immediately detailing bulldozers and shovel crews to the job of burying the grim wreckage…[But] they easily uncovered large puddles of resolidified metal and mounds of weird fibrous material that, al-Ghazali explained, were all that remained of the vehicles' tires. Dillon, who accumulated plenty of battlefield experience as a medic in Viet-Nam, and has since covered a number of wars from Somalia to Kosovo…has witnessed every kind of conventional ordnance that can be used on humans and vehicles.
I've seen a freaking smorgasbord of destruction in my life,he said,flame-throwers, napalm, white phosphorous, thermite, you name it. I know of nothing short of an H-bomb that conceivably might cause a bus to instantly liquefy or that can flash broil a human body down to the size of an infant. God pity humanity if that thing is a preview of what's in store for the 21st century.JR
scalaror EMG weapons? G
Global protests. State-run TVNZ picketed for its pro-US bias.
John Minto of GPJA: Since the invasion began the coverage has slipped from merely poor quality, unbalanced reporting to the spreading of unashamed, blatant
SNZ
pro-war
propaganda on behalf of the US.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
GWB appears to decide to not to visit Canada in May. Harper, predictably, is disappointed. (So am I, actually; at a lost opportunity to rrest a war criminal.) Wesley Clark spins their wellbeing as Saddam saw them as valuable, planning to use them as bargaining chips. [CNN] (Too bad the US doesn't think of people as valuable anymore.)
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
The findings reinforce the theory that has guided the FBI's 18-month-old investigation—that the mailed anthrax was probably produced by renegade scientists and not a military program such as Iraq's.It tends to support the idea that the anthrax came from a domestic source and probably not a state program,said David Siegrist. SFC
Chris TaylorChristensen, was a plant by the Arapahoe Sheriff. I (Cointelpro again?)
Stephen Zunes asserts Hezbulah has not used terrorism for 20 years, and then mostly against Israeli occupation; Sean Hannity goes apes*t and demands to know who funds him. M (Pity Hannity doesn't ask those promoting Zionist goals where they get their money.)
The war seems to have gone invisible…only if you catch it out of the
corner of your eye do you notice the fierce
battle ongoing in Tikrit
AJ, supposed
to be Saddam's last stand. (Y'know what I think about that? Pure WAG, but:
the US rescued Important Nazis in WW2. PBS is saying the US rescued
Important Taliban from Afghanistan.
I
What was that mysterious US envoy
to Baghdad doing? Cutting a deal to rescue Saddam?
That's my suspicion, and it's the rumour going around Arabia.
DFP)
The cheering and
dancing we see seem to be US plants, not real Iraqis
who are mostly
cowering at home hoping not to get looted, raped, pillaged, and/or shot.
The Pentagon has definitely said, get those f*ing journos outta here
so we can go fight a real hyperpower's war!
Blair pledges
to help that poor kid whose arms and family USUK blew
away. Shoulda done that long ago.
M
Tim Robbins on Today show, cut off in mid-sentence; was not ill-behaved.
A conversation about free speech. An anchor asking reasonable questions. A guest responding in equally reasonable tones. No attempt to close out the discussion\—to sayWell thank you Tim. This was not a filibuster. Robbins was not hogging the spotlight.Someone in the control room simply decided that it was time to pull the plug. And without grace or ceremony, or even the face-saving of letting Lauer say
We're out of timeas morning shows do on so many occasions.A conversation about free speech and free expression was cut off mid sentence as the network went to black.
Television history was made, as million of Americans got to watch in real time just how powerful and inescapable censorship can be. Robbins wasn't revealing troop locations, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy JR
Gunman kills one, wounds three at Atlanta high school. not immediately clear how the gun got through metal detectors and guards
AJC
Puerto Rico decides it didn't want the head of the Hall of Fame throwing the first pitch after all. CTN Meanwhile the Bull Durham event is resuscitated by HBO.
In the end, baseball looks doofish, which is nothing new for baseball. Contraction, labor strife, steroids, quarter-billion dollar contracts, the Yankees, $7 hot dogs, 22homegames for the Montréal Expos in Puerto Rico, US Cellular Field, the All-Star Game tie, Barry Bonds' moodiness…The league-pushed concept of competitive imbalance, expansion, relocation, taxpayer-funded stadiums, skinflint owners, possible collusion, the players' union, cheap home runs, too many strikeouts, the Rangers' pitching…sometimes, you wonder if the folks in baseball can get anything right. Just one thing. Once. [WMD quoting Sport Illustrated]
Shia boycott US-called meeting at Nasiriah on the future of Iraq. Nizar Abdul Rahman Khazraji, the CIA's favourite to run Iraq who was facing war-crimes trial in Denmark for the Kurdish massacres SFC, may have been bumped off en route to this meeting. AB
US claims to have laid paws on an Achille Lauro hijacker ('85 Oct) Abu Abbas, but apparently is going to let Italy have him, probably since they officially let him off the hook c1996.
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
For some soldiers, trauma is already sinking in.For lack of a better word, I feel almost guilty about the massacre,says one soldier privately.We wasted a lot of people. It makes you wonder how many were innocent. It takes away some of the pride. We won, but at what cost?Adding to the potential for post-war trauma, some officers suggest, is the fact that many of the 3rd Infantry Division's troops are barely 20 years old.
The average soldier now is 19 to 21 years old,says Sergeant Mack.You have 21-year-old sergeants. They're not experienced enough to maintain control over themselves or their soldiers in the heat of the battle. They're just two years off the streets. We have WIAs [Wounded In Action] wearing Purple Hearts who are 20 years old.CSM
As US troops battle remnants of Iraq's fallen regime, their wives are locked in a bitter struggle against money woes that have forced some to resort to charity handouts to survive. Low military salaries and the high cost of living in parts of the US means that families of many of the lower ranking US troops fighting in Iraq live a hand to mouth existence.SMH
Rosa Gonzales' misery over the loss of her son Jorge, a corporal in the US Marine Corps, was paraded in maudlin reports on major media outlets upon the announcement of his death. But after she had served her propagandistic purpose she has complained that US government has done little to support the family. Complaining the government paying little attention to the dead soldier's family, Rosa said,They gave us nothing but the bad news.…Rosa's disillusion with the US government was damaged further when she received the US Marine's death benefit; a grand total of $3000.The US government only paid $3000 for my son's death. Only 3000,said Rosa.The money is for funeral service. Nothing except,she said. RC
The British Ministry of Defence is demanding Lianne Seymour refund
£400 wage overpayment;
her husband was killed in a chopper
crash early in the war. It beggars belief that this demand for cash was made just days after Ian Seymour was buried with full military honours.
It makes a total mockery of his funeral. It's also an insult to every single member of his grieving family.
M
·
M
If George Bush [Jr] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes. In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy.[ I citing BBC] (GWB:
Just watch me.)
The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now. Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's—these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people.S
Now we are being told that finding the chemical and biological weapons that are supposed to be there—and were the stated reason for invading—is not our top priority. Our top priority has been to secure the oil wells. Which is interesting because we were told that the war had nothing to do with oil and one of our major concerns was supposedly that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of terrorists. So if we really believe that is a possibility, shouldn't we be securing those weapons first—even before we secure the precious oil wells? And if the reason for invading was to help the people of Iraq, why didn't we secure the hospitals?* They have been looted of medicine and supplies while US Marines watched from the sidelines.*Possibly so a bunch of evidence of what dU really does would disappear. UNOWe have to keep our eye on the ball because the government and media are trying to juke us out of our pants. BF
to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer.G
We lost the war.We defeated the Iraqi military, to be sure, and we fired Saddam Hussein. We have lost the real war, the important war, the war against those who attacked us on September 11. We lost the war because we betrayed the international community, whose help we desperately need in this wider war, by lying to them about Iraq's weapons and by disregarding their legitimate concerns. We have lost the war because our actions have given aid and succor to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, whose agents were and are nowhere to be found in Iraq despite the avowed words of the Bush administration. We have lost the war because the Iraqi people themselves already understand that the
liberationthey were promised is as false as the evidence we used to invade their country. We lost the war because our moral standing to make it in the first place was utterly bereft of substance. We lost the war because the rest of the world sees the American government for what it is—a mob of hyperactive right-wing extremists with an army to play with and a dream of global dominance glowing like coals in their eyes.There is no victory here. We lost the war before the first shot was fired. NP
Americanosfound aboard cruise ship heading into Hawai'i. The ship waits offshore for several days (the note promised docking as the trigger event) while FBI etc crawl all over. Turns out the note was written by a 6-mo-preg 20-y-old who wanted the cruise cancelled so she could get back to her boyfriend. [Inside Edition]
Ravitch reveals that a story entitled The Friendly Dolphin was rejected by one school committee because it discriminated against students who did not live near the sea. Another story, The Silly Old Lady, was rejected because it contained anegative stereotypeof an elderly woman who put too many gadgets on her bicycle. A story called A Perfect Day for Ice-Cream had to be rewritten without reference to ice-cream—because of a ban in California on any mention of junk food. Mickey Mouse fell from favour in some schools either because of his rodent heritage or because he is also a corporate brand (banned in California and elsewhere).Ravitch's list of test subjects that individual schools deem best avoided—on the grounds that they might distract sensitive students—includes disobedient children, ghosts, quarrelling parents, ski trips and birthday parties. In some schools, dinosaurs cannot be mentioned because they imply a theory of evolution that not all Americans accept. [JR quoting A]
Tim Robbins gives pointed speech to Nat'l Press Club. CD
US fires into protest in Mosul, killing 7 Iraqis. BBC
Venezuela claims to have proof of US involvement in last year's abortive coup. CBC
No WMD use blamed on Iraq.
That figure is proving to be extremely troubling to the Federal Reserve.NYP
Avoid war, avoid war? That's something Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Churchill couldn't do, and they were geniuses!
US fires into crowd in Mosul, killing 17 Iraqis.
BBC
They are killing us and no one's talking about it. We want Saddam back. At
least there was security.
CBC
Robin Cook denounces Blair's pro-US policies. [G citing New Statesman]
No WMD use blamed on Iraq. (I think it's okay to abandon that expectation.)
shock and aweas a trademark; later thinks maybe that was a bit tasteless. [Hypaspace]
Saddam on Apr 9.
All weekUS refuses a Save the Children aircraft permission to land in Northern Iraq, which the agency believes is against the GCs and cost lives. US and UN at apparent odds about what
safemeans. ICH
faces repercussionsif WMD are not found in Iraq. NJ (Horse hockey. The US, suffer consequences for its actions?) Not to worry, though; the US has sent in Charles Duelfer WT, who seems to have had something to do with the dubious VX discovery in '98.
Pu pitin 14 a. Production will ramp up to 500/a.
According to the Bush administration's central plan for atomic weapons, the Nuclear Posture Review, making additional nuclear cores is key to keeping America's potential adversaries cowed.W
Hundredsturned away from packed Herbst-theatre showing of Aftermath: unanswered questions from 9/11 and panel discussion in SF. Film got standing ovation. I · GO
antisemiteat least once too often, this time against Evergreen CO couple W'm and Dorothy Quigly. DP
White powder found at Tacoma and Ft Myers FL mail facilities.
All but one field test indicate nontoxic;
that one is wrung for all
its scare value until comprehensive testing show it was false.
CNN
The Bush administration [bars] UN weapons inspectors from returning to
Iraq to search for suspected weapons of mass destruction, declaring that [USUK]
forces alone would conduct the hunt without UN help.
TS
Blair follows suit
MEO
special listbecause of SARS. Toronto officials whine and cry. Mayor insists he's never even heard of WHO—which begs the question why, if they're so unimportant that The Lord High Mayor of Toronto Mel Lastman *da dadadaaa* doesn't know 'em, why does he care what they think? =)
Ron Dittemore announces he'll leave NASA when the Columbia investigation concludes.
Israelis fire into crowd, killing child and taxi driver. Palestinian suicide bomber takes out himself and Israeli security guard. EI
Bigshot Republican fundraiser Richard Anthony Delgaudio pleads guilty to production of teenie porn. He had once accused Clinton of being a terrible example to Mercan youth. SS
fast filling power vaccuumIW threatening jihad against the US occupation. I Leaders say US military worse than Saddam. Y! US tells
liberatedIraqis not to try to run their country. Y! hires Ba'athists for the job. GO
Media bosses
Ted Turner and Greg Dyke (BBC Dir Gen'l) admit
to pro-war bias in the media…Rupert Murdoch's media in particular.
WSWS
Tariq Aziz gives himself up. WP
PA highschool student James Sheets shoots principal Eugene Segro and
himself to death. Officials did not know of any school or legal problems
the boy was facing…[He] was not known for being a disciplinary problem,
and police and [the] Superintendent…did not know him to have any
specific disputes with Segro.
Y!
Just as GWB needs excuses to take more guns from his people.
The Electronic Intifada has obtained, and today publishes in full,
[Wexner Analysis: Israeli Communication Priorities 2003,]
a document
prepared for pro-Israel activists by the PR firm Luntz Research Companies and
The Israel Project. The document spells out the tactics that Israel and its US
advocates should use to maintain support for Israel and its hardline
policies.
EI
Republican White House, Republican Fence? Next we'll have Bush's Republican Guards walking the perimeter.IS
ideological diversitylegislation which would cut off federal funding for colleges and universities which permit faculty, students, or organisations to hurt Israel's feelings, what he calls
antisemitism.BP
Are the people who are caught up in a mass delusion ever aware that they are living in a malignant fantasyland? Did the puritans of the Salem colony suspect that they were not hanging realwitches,but instead were collectively engaged in a monstrous injustice? Did thegood Germansin the 1930s ever doubt that Adolf Hitler was anything less than what the captive press said he was: thesavior of the nation and the protector of the Aryan race?Did thegood patriotsof the 1950s ever ask for proof that Senator Joe McCarthy really had a list in his hand ofknown communists in the State Department?(The number changed with each speech). How long did we persist in believing the telegenic generals' reassurances thatwe've turned the corner in Viet Nam,and thatthere was a light at the end of the tunnel?How many Americans today are aware, or if aware, care, that the Bush regime's justifications for the Iraq war were based upon lies, forgeries, and plagiarisms, and that the images of the
coalition'striumphs(e.g., the toppling of the Saddam statue and therescueof Private Lynch) were staged. OLJ
May God exact his revengesays an Iraqi.
Whatever the precise cause, the incident seemed likely to hamper US efforts to win Iraqis' support for their presence…SMH
Washington Post: In the 38 days since [USUK] troops invaded Iraq, however, military forces have yet to produce any of the weaponry or chemical or biological agents Powell described, nor have they produced Iraqi scientists with evidence about them, officials said.
They also have not turned up anything to support Powell's claim to the Security Council that
WP
(Yet in just a day or two, documents appear in dubious circumstances.)
nearly two dozen
al Qaeda terrorists lived in and operated from Baghdad.
Then came Judith Miller's story in the New York Times. The smoking gun at last! Not exactly, as we shall see. But first a word about the reporter. If ever someone has an institutional interest in finding WMD in Iraq it's surely Miller, who down the years has established a corner in creaking Tales of Terrorism, most of them bottle-fed to her by Israeli and US intelligence.It was Miller who served up Khidir Hamza, the self-proclaimed nuclear bombmaker for Saddam, later exposed as a fraud. It was Miller who last year whipped up an amazing confection in the Times, blind-sourced from top to toe, about a Russian biowar scientist (sounding suspiciously like Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love, and since deceased) ferrying Russian smallpox to Saddam. At least the Times's headline writer tried to keep things honest this time.
Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, An Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert.…Miller does concede that the MET Alpha group would not tell her who the scientist was, would not allow her to question him (assuming it wasn't a
her,maybe Lotte Lenya in a later incarnation) or do anything more than look at him from a great distance as he stood next to what was billed to Miller as a dump forprecursorsfor chemical weapons. (Come to think about it, it's probably a recycling facility for used cans of Roundup). … CP
six Iraqi scientistswho
had not been working on weapons programsbut claimed Saddam told them to destroy their materials just before inspectors showed up anyway, into justification for the war. Hoping you'll forget no WMD were found or used, and what these scientists hope to receive from USUK in return for helpful
testimony.NP
There may be no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted yesterday. He told the Commons that war was declared because the regime had once been in possession of them. And he insisted they did not have to be found to justify the invasion.His astonishing U-turn stunned MPs on all sides of the Commons—and came hours after Tony Blair again insisted that weapons were there and would be found…[Blair] added defiantly:
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit.…MPs said they were staggered by the U-turn. Senior Labour backbencher Ian Gibson said:
The justification for war was that Iraq had weapons and could use them. Apparently that wasn't the case after all. Now they are backtracking because they suspect that there are no weapons to be found. The public should beware the point where spin and lying by politicians comes together.Labour MP Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House, accused the Government of hoodwinking the nation. He said:
We were told again and again the reason for going to war was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they could be used within 45 minutes. Now it's clear that the Iraqis have had no weapons for some time and that Parliament was given a completely false impression.M
Iraqi Sunni protest US presence in Fallujah; US troops kill some.
Reports differ as to whether the crowd was armed.
[CBC radio]
It started when a young boy hurled a sandal at a US jeep\—it ended with two Iraqis dead and 16 seriously injured. I watched in horror as American troops opened fire on a crowd of 1000 unarmed people here yesterday. Many, including children, were cut down by a 20-s burst of automatic gunfire during a demonstration against the killing of 13 protesters at the Al-Kaahd school on Monday.
M
Second time in a week US uses deadly force on protestors.
G
The Iraqis were protesting the US' killings in the ealier demo.
TS
·
RMN
Rumsfeld declares Iraq free.
MD
Jerome Berlin and Michael Pecora found shot to death in locked office of their Signature Grand banquet hall in Davie FL. Berlin was an important fundraiser for Lieberman, Hilary Clinton, Daschle, and Bill Nelson. WP
Suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, just as Israel needs something to kill the
roadmap.
Both bomber and a second failed bomber are British.
H
(Even a CBC Overnight reporter, BBC I think, noted the
pattern that these things tend to flare up just as there's a peace inititive.)
Palestinian officials have said they will support the US peace plan
unconditionally, but the Israeli government wants a precondition that all
violence be halted.
(ie Israel wants a veto for itself)
What I wouldn't have given if I could've attended the meeting! I would be jumping out of my seat pointing my finger at the Israeli ambassador and asking him about the protection of Palestinians. And what about your definition of violence, Mr. Israeli Ambassador? Is it only violence when a Palestinian suicide bomber strikes or do you also define violence when Israeli soldiers are killing innocent Palestinians on a daily basis, including women, and children? Is it your definition of violence when American peace activists like Rachel Corrie is brutally and deliberately crushed by an Israeli bulldozer or is killing innocent peace activists only wrongunless Israel does it?…Even while the Israeli ambassador calls for protecting Israeli citizens before implementing any peace plan, Israeli soldiers backed by helicopter gun-ships are at this minute raiding a Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank killing an unarmed 16-year-old boy. MM
Freighter isolated for some days off the NS coast released when it's determined the sailor that died did not do it of anthrax. [ATV news] (Several inconsistencies about where he died and whether he had a suitcase.) C · Re · BBC · CTV · R
if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear,are the ones whining about being
harassedover invading a sovereign country? If the facts truly are on their, what do they fear?) Belgian gov't eventually wusses out by
referring the case to the US.WTNH
On the day Rachel [Corrie] would have celebrated her 24th birthday, [her mother] Cindy's anger won out. A day earlier, Tom Horndal, British ISM activist, had been critically injured and she phoned the Israeli consul in San Francisco and told him that despite her great empathy for the Jewish people, the fact that the army had already injured three unarmed peace activists was not giving her any peace.Even worse is that that same week 17 Palestinians were killed, including five children and that didn't make any waves here,says Cindy Corrie. H
Many of you have probably seen the TV spot in which former Senator Fred Thompson put forward the followingdilemma:Many people ask, 'what did Saddam Hussein do to us?' And I answer, what did the 9-11 hijackers do to us…before September 11th?The message was designed—by means of a putatively rhetorical question—to justify a preemptive strike against Iraq. But it was based upon a lie any celebrity could've highlighted; prior to 9-11 we knew damn well that Al-Qaeda was plotting against us; we had profiles on eleven of the 19 hijackers; nine of the 9-11 terrorists were suspects in the 1993 WTC bombing; we'd loosely tied many of the same men to the bombing of the USS Cole; etc. [and mentally tied Saddam to 9/11]Enter Bill Maher, unafraid to wield his acute wit and provide intelligent answers to the dumb questions some right wing-nuts consider
important.The week of Thompson's TV spot, Maher—who you may recall was removed last year from the air for beingpatriotically incorrect(Maher's term), but who is thankfully back on the air now—stepped right up to the plate and knocked Thompson's rhetorical balloon out of the park (unfortunately I don't think a whole lot of people noticed, or even cared). FNC
We can all be proud of America's victory.Proud? Was any other outcome remotely possible? Iraq's military budget was $1.3 billion annually, according to the CIA Factbook, less than 1/200th of America's annual military budget, $276.7 billion. I'm unable to find a reliable estimate of Iraq's actual military strength, but the same source tells us Iraq had 3,430,819 males age 15–49 (fit for military service) in 2002, while America had more than 20 times as many, 73,597,731. It's like a fistfight between Mike Tyson and Bob Hope: I'm sure Tyson could kick the stuffing out of Old Ski Nose, but it wouldn't be fun to watch, and I wouldn't whoop and holler and celebratevictoryafterwards.
gag ruleReagan created and Clinton suspended and GWB restarted. Curious, since AIDS money wasn't subject to the gag in first place. Instead, in fact, groups doing family planning and AIDS work will have to separate the two fiscally and phyically, a not insignificant butt-pain in the
third world.
If this legislation passes through Congress unchanged, poor and rural communities that have only one clinic would have to build a new one in order to separate their AIDS work from their family-planning work—an unlikely development, given the depressed economies in the targeted African and Caribbean countries. Or they would have to shut down their family-planning clinic altogether in order to qualify for the AIDS money.SFC
Kissinger is wanted for questioning by courts in Chile, Argentina, France, and Spain. He should not be telling his lies in Minneapolis; he should be telling the truth, under oath, to the people of the world! This is a man who has committed crimes many orders of magnitude larger than those of anyone on death row. But instead of being imprisoned for life, he is actually honored by the Center of the American Experiment and their rich guests! I
US hopes that 14 55-gal drums found near Baiji contain weapon chemicals are dashed. WT
Israeli raid on Gaza strip kills 8, incl 2- and 13-a-old. G · AN Annan accuses Israel of undermining the roadmap, released shortly before. ABC · ITV
Grand jury indicts Andrew Fastow, wife, and 7 other Enron officials. CNN
Michael Hardee sentenced to 3½ a for his role in terror-bomb plot; would have had over 5 but for his grassing on Robert & Kristi Goldstein. TD
Dixie Chicks play to cheering sell-out SC crowd of 15 000.
If there was a boo, few could hear it.
And a specific opportunity was granted.
There were about a dozen protestors outside the arena.
S,
MSNBC
Children scored inferior IQ's even when fluoride levels were similar to that added to US water supplies.[ENN citing Flouride]
Don't tell us this was a triumph in the war on terror, Mr. President. Don't tell us the defeat of a secular dictator has turned the tide against a gang of religious fanatics. And don't talk about patience. You inserted a battle that could have waited into a war that couldn't, precisely because you lacked-or thought we lacked-patience for the slow, diffuse, half-invisible struggle against the people who hit us on Sept. 11. You wanted a quick, clear victory, and you got it. But don't flatter yourself. You haven't changed the world in 19 months. You've only changed the subject. MSN
investigationbut denies is witholding anything. · UPI
Czars give a warm fuzzy feeling? =P ) David Murray
not to tramp on anyone's sovergeinty butuses apocalyptic words to describe the consequences of Canada following through on its hemp rethink. CBC (Harper is against a rethink because it'd piss off the Mercans.) British antihemp campaigners claim it's almost as dangerous as tobacco!! (Which is legal. And otherwise useless.)
However, there is no firm evidence of the long-term risks of smoking cannabis. Studies are clouded by the fact that many cannabis users also smoke tobacco, and it is hard to conduct large-scale studies of individuals who admit using illegal drugs.BBC Celucci's comments were more subdued, and actually acknowledged several States have already done what's being considered. [CBC radio]
weapons safetyplans. [CNN] (uh, what'd I say about GWB having fun disarming Iraqis?)
natural, from the prevalence of arsenic in the local rock.)
substantialBechtel investments. NY
Saddam Hussein, despite all his ills, gave these women many of their rights three decades ago, making Iraq the relatively progressive oasis of women's rights in a highly conservative and repressive region. While the views of the vast majority of Iraqi women remain a mystery, the dictator's rare generosity toward them may explain why at least some of these women are plotting to oust what they call American invaders in the name of theirliberator,Saddam Hussein…We love Saddam Hussein very much,says Arwa, 23, who was a senior in chemical engineering at Baghdad University before it was trashed by looters.He was kind. We were safe, even when there were wars. He gave opportunities to Iraqi women. Now every dream is broken…a and her female relatives, including internet-junkie Lubna, 16, proudly show off photos of them training in the desert with revolvers and machine guns to kill invading Americans. They say they are femalefedayeen… ICH
British cameraman shouting journalist
etc in English and Arabic under
white flag and helmet with bright yellow TV
gunned down at close range
by IDF (not caught in crossfire).
·
I
Amira Hass awarded UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom prize for her
reporting from Palestine for Ha'aretz. People in general are not
truly aware of what takes place in these refugee camps in Gaza and other parts
of the occupied territories. People do not begin to understand the system of
control which is practised by Israel…to restrict the freedom and
movement of Palestinians…to get them to surrender.
JG
To the(I dunno about all that asNew World,and by default the New World Order, the Arab/Muslim world is backwards in its values. It prohibits abortion and birth control. They have large families, as opposed to the West, where the average family has only 2 children. It prohibits usury banking, to which the West credits its own economic superiority. Theirs is aclosedsociety (read into this no sodomy, pornography, gay lifestyle, et al) Theirs is acruelsociety (read into this—they do not have people on death row for 20 years) And finally, they will not play the game the way the market wants it played, meaning, they want a just price for their only real source of wealth, their oil, instead of giving it away to the West for a fraction of its worth. In other words, the picture that has just been painted here is, the Muslim world is now what the Christian world once was and should be. MM
should be,, but about one half is, and the other half what GWB wants the world to be, which is the irony.)
Tam Dalyell accuses Blair of being a toady for the Bush Jew cabal;
I
·
T
may face race-hatred inquiry.
G
(Well, he made one error: accusing the Jews instead of the Zionists.
However, so far, there has been no attempt to accurately refute Dalyell, but to smear him. Rabbi Romain claimed It is also obvious that the majority of President Bush's circle is Christian Evangelicals rather than Jews
IO
but that is not obvious; Ashcroft is the only evangelical Xian that leaps to
mind.
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish…
H
Blame for the bloodshed in the Holy Land lies squarely on the Zionist movement's moral blindness and obstinate refusal to take into account the existence of peoples other than themselves.LF
How did George Bush help Pierce City? He made a speech. Had he reached into his pocket and wrote a personal check to help rebuild the grocery store, I would have been impressed. Speeches don't mean much to me.If he had taken the price of just one of those cruise missiles dropped on Iraq, extorted from the people of Pierce City, and all across America, we could rebuild Friendly Supply (the hardware store) and Freda Mae's Tea Room. We could reopen Casey's General Store, and Thompson Drug.
Instead, he gave a speech and kept me from getting to my house so I could continue cleaning up the mess. At least he could have dragged a tree limb to the debris pile, or helped get my boy's trampoline off the Methodist Church across the street. Then I would have shook his hand and said,
Mr. President, you're a good man.As it is I say,
Mr. President, you're a windbag, and an infernal nuisance.LR
Norwegian parliamentarianJan Simonsen—probably the same dipstick that nominated GWB for starting the war on Afghanistan—nominates Bush and Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize for starting yet another war.
he would encourage like-minded parliamentarians in other countries to also nominate Bush and Blair.MSNBC (Stephen Harper:
Me! Me! Meeee! I'll do it!)
Top 10 Bush Excuses for not finding WMD:
10. we've only looked through 99% of the country
9. we spent entire budget making those playing cards
8. containers are labelled in some crazy language
7. they must've been stolen by some of them evil X-Men mutants
6. did I say Iraq has WMD? I meant they have goats
5. how are we supposed to find WMD when we can't even find Cheney?
4. still screwed up because of Daylight Savings Time
3. when you're trying to find something, it's always in the last place you look, am I right, people?
2. let's face it—I ain't exactly a genius
1. Geraldo took them [TL quoting LNDL]
US losing credibility in IraqAJC So US trots out rather dubious claims about a canvas-sided trailer truck found in northern Iraq being a nastyweapons lab although there's no apparent hazmat protection in the photos. No traces of nasty agents found, either. An official British investigation concludes the trailers are exactly what the Iraqis claimed—hydrogen generators. G
Hydrogen gas can be manufactured using a simple process that is entirely consistent with what was found in the trailer factories in Iraq.Russia doesn't swallow the germ-lab story. RThe CIA says that hydrogen production is a
plausible cover storyfor the mobile production plants recently found in Iraq. However, thiscoverstory seems to match exactly what was found, whereas the germ production theory is a bit of a stretch.Aluminium residue was found in the
fermentationtank. Also, the CIA says that the vessel was decontaminated with a caustic solution. However, hydrogen can reasonably be manufactured from aluminium and a sodium hydroxide (caustic) solution (see link for a delightful explanation). This also explains thescrubbingunits—they clean, dry and cool the hydrogen produced. The reaction generates a lot of heat, hence the cooling unit. The hydrogen would be compressed into gas cylinders, hence the compressor and cylinders.In contrast, the germ production hypothesis has these problems:
I
- According to the CIA, we are missing the required additional trailer or trailers which must be
equipped for growth media preparation and post-harvest processing and, we would expect, have equipment such as mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dryers.- There is no biocontainment system to safeguard the scientists or technicians who worked inside the trailer from exposure to deadly germs.
The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.O · WSWS · HS · PM And even were they biolabs, which seems very unlikely, there's no reason to think they were weapon labs—try decontanimating petrol-mucked earth. VV
There were inconsistencies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof, like the presence of pathogens in trailer gear,the New York Times reported, making you wonder why this is even a story.The officials acknowledged that they had discovered neither biological agents nor evidence that the equipment had ever been used to make germ weapons.Then what makes them smoking guns?
The best evidence of that,CIA officials told the Times,was the trailers' close resemblance to prewar descriptions of mobile germ plants given by Iraqi sources.
I now loathe the US and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world…I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about
friendly fire,which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were…s. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.
There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history…
America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them—it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.
They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom. T
most corrupt American president since Harding…illegitimate…super-patriotic hawk who was a coward when his country was actually involved in a war…[his] is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown.Fleischer claims never to have heard of Livingston. US embassy in London says
Livingstone's opinions…are a matter of complete indifference.BBC · ABC · JR · M (How come he gets off so easy?)
In early May, Bush met with a delegation of US Jewish leaders, one of whom said afterward that Bush had made the following statement about Sharon:I saved his ass in Iraq. He owes me, and I intend to collect the debt.H
US dollar plummeting, even against the loony (less than 1.4)
[ATV Evening News]
The US dollar is in full-blown retreat across the board. The euro led the
way last week with a staggering 2.4% rise, the Aussie$ was close behind at
+2.3%, while even the yen rose 1.5%. Conspicuous by its absence in this list
of gainers was the UK£—it was flat against the greenback last week
and has somehow managed to find a way to weaken slightly so far this year.
CBC
The US is now trying to spin weak buck as a good thing.
BBC
(They better get Iraq's oil flowing in US$ soon.
Y'know what bugs me? A year or two ago Canadian
bizniz was whining
that our dollar was doing so badly against the US' that we should give up our
money for theirs; it'd save bizniz a lot of hassles, too. Now that we're
coming up a bit they're whining that a stronger dollar is going to hurt
bizniz. Can't they get their stories straight?)
Coordinated suicide bombing in Riyadh. (Who the heck did this?
al Qaeda wanted the US outta SA, and the US was leaving…)
At a speech promoting his economic plan in Indianapolis, White House aides went so far as to ask people in the crowd behind Mr. Bush to take off their ties…so they would look more like the ordinary folk the president said would benefit from his tax cut…For a speech that Mr. Bush delivered last summer at Mount Rushmore, the White House positioned the best platform for television crews off to one side, not head on as other White Houses have done, so that the cameras caught Mr. Bush in profile, his face perfectly aligned with the four presidents carved in stone. [CNN quoting NYT]
The main cause of lying is increased probing by the public into areas that the government would rather not discuss candidly. If voters only asked fewer questions, politicians would tell them fewer lies.[MSNBC citing Observer]
FTW lands full-page ad in Washington Post. An earlier version set for April may have caused the firing of Army Sec'y via a leak, and then been bumped by an ad-space buyup. FTW
Bombings in Casablanca.
Sharon, busily trying to tear up the roadmap, bars Muslims from
the al Aqsa mosque.
IRNA
what they had to do,Home Office says it's illegal.
There are no circumstances in which police could operate some kind of shoot to kill policy under the law.S (Of course it's always possible to correct such defects of the law.)
Hatfill fined for letting an FBI SUV run over his foot and knock him down. ND
More of history repeating—a new Seabiscuit story.
A horse who'd never won a race before the KY Derby, first gelding to win
Derby in decades, owned by a group of Yankee blue-collar types, ridden by a
jockey w/very little English, and a few other uncouth points against him,
wins the Preakness by a mile.
(Mum expected the Big Guys to try to
foul him, pointing out the odd pairing of staunch rivals in a horse from
the right side of the tracks.)
Apparently in Oregon, they have no laws against terrorism or the initiation of violence, so they felt the need to create some. A few activities listed under Section 19, chapter 666 include theft, unauthorized use of a vehicle, forgery, prostitution, cheating, dogfighting, unlawful distribution of cigarettes, unauthorized use of a livestock animal, interference with livestock production, and even unlawful labeling of a sound recording. Anyone convicted ofterrorismwould get an automatic life sentence (at aforest or work camp) with a 25-year minimum before being considered for parole. If a group is engaging in these activities, such as protesting, orunlawful labeling of a sound recording, the entire group could be detained, charged with said crime, and sent to aforest or work campfor the rest of their lives. [SN citing Bill 742]
On April 10, for example, Defense Policy Board member (and former Deputy US Representative to the UN), Kenneth Adelman, predicted that such weapons would be found(Carrying accusation-in-the-mirror a leettle far…)pretty soon, in the next five days.He now concedes that the situation isvery strange,and suggests that Saddam Hussein may have launcheda massive disinformation campaign to make the world think he was violating international norms, and he may not have been.CP
governmenthas little influence beyond Kabul. If there. WP
Bush's efforts at nation building have failed in Afghanistan and promise no better success in Iraq. Experts remain unsurprised, as The Bush family hasn't had success picking winners in the Middle East. The Republican record in general hasn't been very good either.Consider Reagan–Bush–Cheney actions regarding Iraq during the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1980s, the Republicans broke our laws and spent $billions of our dollars to build up Saddam Hussein. There is a picture of Donald Rumsfeld grinning at Saddam from this period. The Republicans claimed this was to reinforce Iraq as a bulwark against Iranian-backed Shiite extremism, and later said Saddam was a person they could work with, someone they would
bring into the family of nations.Never mind that Iraq actually attacked Iran—rather than vice versa, and Reagan's people were helping Iran at the same time.The Republicans sent Rumsfeld, Sen. Bob Dole and other top representatives on good-will trips to woo Saddam. Republicans continued helping Saddam after the Iran–Iraq War ended, right up until the invasion of Kuwait. They had their Ambassador April Glaspie assure Saddam the Bush White House would not oppose Iraq in any intra-Arab dispute against Kuwait.
Even after the Persian Gulf War I, Bush I claimed we could not topple Saddam because that would create chaos, a power vacuum radical Islamacists might fill unless the US undertook a prohibitively costly open-ended commitment to occupy Iraq. In short, US national security and the survival of oil-rich sheikdoms relied on Saddam's regime containing Shiite-sponsored Islamic Revolution. Was there even a speck of substance to that Republican claim?
If so, then Bush's rush to war against Iraq has made us less safe according to Dick Cheney his own Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld his own Secretary of Defense, his father, and James A. Baker III his father's Secretary of State. [If not, they've been lying for 20 years.]
For the past two decades, up until 1999 when Dick Cheney's Halliburton continued trading with Saddam through a subsidiary, top Republicans have been helping Saddam Hussein remain in power. Their excuse was that Iraq under Saddam counterbalanced extreme Islamicists. Unless US national security really depended on Saddam, Bush I, Cheney, Baker, Rumsfeld and other top Republicans were lying…
But what if they weren't just lying? The only other possible alternative is that Saddam's secular socialist Iraq actually did shield the precariously balanced oil sheikdoms from the Islamic tide. In that case, Bush II's war replaced that shield with nothing—at best. At worst, Bush II made Osama's dreams come true by unleashing and reinvigorating the tide of anti-west, pro-terrorist radical Islam. LS
Mutinyat Baghdad PoW camp
dealt with—no info on how. The US' treatment of Iraqi PoWs seems to be much worse than the Iraqi treatment of US PoWs. And the ICRC has been barred access. O I don't know when the US will learn that its abuse of PoWs bodes ill for its own captured troops.
Bush, you may remember, declared the Iraq war won while on board a US aircraft carrier out in the Pacific Ocean. He flew to it on a navy jet, emerging with his flight suit on, looking for all the world like the Top Gun that he never was. I watched the performance live on US television and marvelled at the difference in coverage that there would have been on a British TV channel for a British prime minister attempting the same stunt.Only once did the anchor people remark to each other—in the most delicate fashion—that the pictures would likely be used by the Bush team during next year's election.
Likely be used! The whole thing was set up for political use—it had no other purpose. The President could have stepped on board the carrier on shore; but it had been slowed down to make sure that it was still at sea. Incidentally, some questions were asked after the event about whether the White House had overstepped the mark with the carrier landing, but they were asked in a tone of hurt surprise, a tone that said:
We trusted you and you let us down.The British media would surely have sunk the whole enterprise. I
I didn't know Kirk Straseskie, in fact my only contact with him was reading a newspaper article about his death. Straseskie was a marine who was killed in Iraq on May 19th of this year. He drowned after leaping into a canal to save four fellow Marines whose helicopter had crashed. By the time Straseskie was killed the newspapers and embedded reporters were on their way home. The staged-managed tearing down of the Hussein statue was just a memory. The little man who had started the war had taken his dress-up victory lap on the USS Abraham Lincoln and had film in the can for his reelection effort next year. The 24/7 cable news channels had moved on to Laci Peterson.So not much attention was paid to Kirk Straseskie, who drowned after jumping into a canal to try to save four other Marines who had crashed in a helicopter. The war is perceived as being over and the fate of the new casualties only resonates in hometowns like Beaver Dam WI where Straseskie grew up.
Straseskie and the other Marines that he tried to save probably didn't ask a lot of questions about why they were in Iraq. A good serviceman follows orders and leaves the larger decisions for others. They had more than enough to occupy them without dwelling on the political issues that surrounded the war.
But Straseskie's father had seen enough of the war to know that Iraq did not and in fact had never posed any threat to the US as the President had claimed. John Straseskie who had served in the Army and National Guard for 26 years expressed anger at the loss of his son in a war that that he now thinks was sold under false pretenses.
He put our troops over there to finish what his dad didn't do. They found no weapons of mass destruction,he told the Capital Times, a Madison WI newspaper.Now [Jun 7], far too late to save to save Kirk Straseskie or console his father, the press and the intelligence community have begun to wake up to the fact that they and the American people were deceived…Kirk Straseskie will never have his own children or find his life's work or be able to comfort his parents as they grow older. His life was ended sixty years prematurely because of a lie told by his government, the government that he volunteered to fight for. He almost certainly went to his death believing that he was in Iraq to defend Americans when it is now obvious that he was not. DU
The USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been at sea for 10 months, was within helicopter range but that didn't offer the exciting visuals of a carrier landing and Bush in a flight suit. So, the ship slowed its pace and circled idly in the Pacific Ocean to guarantee favorable camera angles while servicemen and women delayed their homecomings.Though Bush's father made great fun of Democrat Michael Dukakis when he rode in a tank in 1988 and the national news media had a field day in 1993 when President Bill Clinton got a haircut while Air Force One waited at a Los Angeles airport, the tone was different when Bush pulled off his Top Gun performance.
US television coverage ranged from respectful to gushing,observed New York Times columnist Paul Krugman [on May 6].Nobody seemed bothered that Mr. Bush, who appears to have skipped more than a year of the National Guard service that kept him out of Vietnam, is now emphasizing his flying experience.…Bush got the images he wanted in his carrier landing while his aides mounted a mini-cover-up of the facts. In the days after the photo op, the White House first lied about the reasons for the jet flight, insisting that it was necessary because the ship was outside helicopter range. That story fell apart when it became clear that the ship was only 30 miles offshore and slowing up to give Bush an excuse to use the jet.
A later New York Times article revealed that Bush had personally collaborated on the jet landing idea and that the imagery was choreographed by a White House advance team led by communications specialist Scott Sforza, who arrived on the carrier days earlier. The carrier landing was just one scene in a deliberate pattern of images sought by the White House, the article said. CN
Bush declared [on Oct 28 WH] that the bannerwas put up by the members [sic] of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished.It was not an idea from his staff, he said. But, as the Administration later admitted, the banner was approved, constructed, paid for, and delivered by the Whitehouse. [AulettaFortress BushNew Yorker 2004 Jan 19 p64, see CBS]
Op Wake the F*ck Up gets underway in NH, placing warning labels on
public phones—This Phone is Bugged
, citing the enabling passage
of USA PATRIOT (§215).
[LF,
IS
quoting
I]
Mad-cow hubbub in Alberta. Apparently a single mad cow was discovered and
destroyed back in January, and suddenly now the US is barring Canadian beef.
In the end it seems to have been a single cow affected—and it may
have been American in the first place! Any further discussions on access to the US market that would include any concerns related to elevated risks, to animal health or production processes from Canada really would be discounted from here forward.
TS
leftiesand
righties,the Pentagon changes the name of Total Information Awareness (and the logo?) to scare less. (replacing
Totalwith
Terrorism) AZC
Deviceexplodes at Yale law bldg.
EPA admin Christie Whitman quits. FTW
strongest-yetresolutions against USA PATRIOT. House (27 R, 13 D) voted 32-1; Senate (12 R, 8 D) voted 19-0. ABC
Transportation Sec'y Norman Mineta tells the Independent Commission,
I don't think we ever thought of an aircraft being used as a missile. We had no information of that nature at all.
CR
(They're still kiting this @hit.)
Why would such a peace-loving president so emotionally engaged with the struggle of the common man ever be included alongside such dark images!?!? Excuse me, but Hitler had far more empathy with the common man than Dubya.)
Commission members, meanwhile, posed pointed questions to McKinley, Arnold and Mineta, suggesting NORAD and transportation officials should have been aware of the possibility that hijacked jets could be flown into targets.Members cited an array of previously known incidents, including a failed mid-1990s terrorist plan to fly an Air France plane into the Eiffel Tower, a 1996 plot to hijack a Japanese airliner and crash it in Tel Aviv and even a 1998 threat that unidentified Arabs might try to slam an explosives-laden plane into the World Trade Center.
Members also noted that a small plane had crashed on the South Lawn of the White House in 1994 and US officials had considered the possibility that a plane could be flown into the main stadium during planning for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
But NORAD and transportation officials continued to insist that they were never apprised by the nation's intelligence community of the potential for a US jetliner to be used in such a way.
This would seem to be a pretty significant failure of our intelligence system,said committee member John Lehman, a former US Navy secretary, as Arnold and McKinley testified. NJ
intellectual capacityfor unconventional weapons justified the invasion.
stability and social cohesion,in bottom half on human rights. IPC
[W]hat is this binge we're on in defense spending?…here they are, asking for $15 billion over last year. And last year was 15% over the previous year. And the previous year was 10% over the previous year. What do we want all this for? We're already spending more than the other 18 NATO nations combined, plus the eight rogue nations! What are we gonna do with all this? What new worlds do they want to conquer now? We went through Iraq like a dose of salts. We were told by this president that Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent threat to our security. Bunk! That man couldn't even get a plane off the ground![BF citing WP]
unnamed sourcestory of the NY Times, but a bit unusual:
The Howard government has been accused by the New York Times of blocking the release of two Australians imprisoned by the US military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The two men, 27-year-old David Hicks and 46-year-old Mamdouh Habib, together with the more than 660 prisoners from 42 countries, are incarcerated at the concentration camp style jail without charge and denied all access to lawyers and their families.The New York Times story, entitled
A Drifter's Odyssey From the Outback to Guantanamoand published on May 4, focused on the plight of David Hicks, who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 during the US-led assault on that country.Citing unnamed Australian senior police and intelligence officers, the newspaper reported that the Bush administration
no longer wantsHicks and hadasked the Australian government to take custody of him and prosecute him. The Howard government, however, had refused to take Hicks because there wasno evidence that he has violated Australian law.Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer immediately claimed the report was untrue and Prime Minister Howard, who had just concluded a visit to President Bush's Texas ranch, refused to discuss the issue…
Notwithstanding the official denials the Times story substantiates allegations made by the Hicks and Habib families and their Australian lawyers that one of their main obstacles in securing release of the two men is the Howard government. WSWS
I think what this all means is that non-OPEC oil, particularly outside the [former] Soviet Union [(FSU)], is either peaking as we speak, or has already peaked. Any serious analysis now shows solid evidence that the non-FSU non-OPEC oil has certainly petered out and has probably peaked. FSU's supply is suspect or should be. A new frontier is always a possibility but it is becoming increasingly unlikely now that deep water is basically here and come and gone…Five years ago I barely had thought about the question of[PO citing FTW]What does peaking mean and when might it occur?…But the event will occur, and my analysis is leaning me more by the month, the worry that peaking is at hand; not years away. If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But if I'm right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating. Unfortunately the world has no Plan B if I'm right.
At long last, asmoking gunhas been found to justify the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Investigators probing obscure government archives in the occupied capital city have uncovered a document signed by the unelected tyrant that provides a clear casus belli for the much-disputed conflict…A more powerful instrument of repression can scarcely be imagined—yet the bleeding-heart apologists for tyranny, those craven bootlickers who so strenuously opposeregime changeto remove a thugocracy choking the life from a long-suffering people, have not uttered a peep about this nefarious document, which lies at the heart of a criminal enterprise that has claimed thousands of innocent victims and fanned the flames of international terrorism…Ostensibly, Order 13303 is aimed at preventing sissy-baby war-shirkers like, say, Russia, from going to court to enforce their existing oil contracts with Iraq. Here, the Regime is merely recognizing
facts on the ground: Iraq's oil doesn't belong to Saddam anymore; it belongs to George Bush, and he can do what he likes with it. (Forget the shuck-and-jive aboutpreserving the resources of the Iraqi people—that's just cornball for the yokels back home.). MT
The people who backed the conflict—including this newspaper—did so because both the British and American Governments produced intelligence which they said proved Iraq had chemical and biological weapons…After Donald Rumsfeld's comments those who backed the crusade against Saddam might be feeling like they have been used. It is not even the fact that he said it that is so shocking, but the dismissive way in which he said it.S · L (Now all he has to admit is that it was years before OIL. Robin Cook figures as much. SW)
The military action is designed to complete a popular uprising on which the Pentagon is counting.SMH (Hey, that assumption worked well last time…)
Pigeon holing is a mental tool used by the ignorant to help them disregard information, ideas and people whom they are incapable or unwilling to understand. A good example of pigeon holing is to declare flippantly that anyone who believes any sort of conspiracy whatsoever as some sort of kook. Never mind that history is replete with proven conspiracies and that a conspiracy is merely two or more individuals conspiring together for any means. Mention the word conspiracy and you will get the condescending looks and the rolling eyes from those who refuse to remove their heads from the sand. PP
bureaucratic reasonfor the war, an acceptable rhetorical hook to keep the focus, and 2) the war was really about being able to withdraw forces from SAudia Arabia. [AJC · SMH citing Vanity Fair July] (Amazing. Two of Osama's goals were getting the US out of Saudi and Saddam out of Iraq. If Osama did 9/11, it was worth it!)
He evoked Nazi Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland to illustrate his case for pre-emptive strikes on(Is he unaware Hitler was invading Poland preemptively, and (IIRC) on pretext of a (nonexistent) Polish terror attack?)outlaw statesand terrorists.
Bush used the nearby Auschwitz and Birkenau camps to make his case against terrorism.(But he's building his own Auschwitz in Cuba, and his own grandfather financed the construction of Auschwitz itself! IJ Not to mention the
human zoohis great-grandfather had at the St.…Louis World's Fair.) He said
Aggression and evil intent must not be ignored or appeased. They must be opposed early and decisively.R
Canadian PC meet to pick new leader. Reaganite Mulroney waves about the
issue of Time that speculates about Canada's irrelevance
as if it was something other than cheap propaganda.
Initially Accepted The Case For War—I Was Silly to Trust AmericaHastings:
Some of us, who accepted public and private Whitehall assurances about WMDs, today feel rather silly. Robin Cook is crowing, and well he may. He said that WMDs did not exist. He appears to have been right. It is irrelevant that the Allies won the war. The Prime Minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks.M · T
In a dossier ofMevidencebefore the war Downing Street claimed that Iraq could launch WMDs within 45 minutes. But intelligence sources have claimed this was based on [a single, unreliable]* source—and that they were ordered to include it in the dossier by Downing Street chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell.
Mr Blair's present difficulties began last Thursday when the BBC claimed that intelligence officers were told by Downing Street to hype up the 50-page dossier on weapons of mass destruction published last September. Downing Street emphatically denied these allegations, but were undermined by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, suggesting that weapons of mass destruction may never be found, and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, claiming that the weapons were merelyH Mother of dead soldier considers Blair a war criminal. TSa bureaucratic reasonfor going to war against Iraq.
that the Prime Minister decided to go to war in August sometime and he duped us all along.ABC · M
Could democracy be stolen from us in 2004?(Sure it could—it will—same as in 2000. Not that digital voting is the only way to rig an election. But it's the slickest method yet.)
Here's some cold water for a red-hot stock market: Executives are rushing to sell their companies' shares at a pace not seen since 2001.Insider selling May was G$3.1, more than twice any of the previous five months. [S citing Thompson Financial]
Robin Cook: It is beginning to look as though the Government has committed a monumental blunder. The reality is that there was no compelling need to go to war…We have not found any…chemical shells capable of being used in 45 minutes or 45 hours…We have been in Iraq since the war ended for over 45 days and we have not found a single chemical shell. It is obvious that that statement was wrong.
Blair promises he and W will cook up another dossier to prove
their case.
M
Tam Dalyell promises to pursue Short's conclusion.
G
liberaliseownership laws.
niggers and democrats—groups the US and UK hate—have killed each other, and they wring their hands and blame
shortcomings of the UN.
Where is freedom when the governor is a foreigner and the council is unelected?
No to Tony Blair, no to Satan.GL
we're so misunderstood.[heard on radio])
You'd think all those uppity Muslim nations and even those sophisticated Euro snoots, likeFreedom FriesFrance and Germany, would be bowing down to our superior godlike machismo, our noble ability toliberatea repressed people and crush a pip-squeak thug Iraqi dictator with our multibillion-dollar military fist, all in the name of oil and, uh, I mean weapons of mass, um, make that strategic power mongering and, uh, oh hell, never mind.But no. Instead, we get sneers. Hatred. Fear. We get more and increasing anti-US anti-Shrub attitude, the general feeling that we as a goodly misguided fear-hammered nation are almost unequivocally unwanted and unloved and bestial the world over, the global beneficiary of enough evil eyes to constipate Satan. Oh those ungrateful punks.
Instead we get a new, 20-nation poll of world opinion that finds admiration and trust of the US in general and BushCo's sneering warmongering foreign policy specifically to be, well, horrible, at a record low, appallingly so, embarrassingly so, gosh go figure.
Seems no one can trust us as far as we can throw them over. Seems the vast majority of those polled think we're violent and dangerous and roguish and heartless and dishonest, so much so that a great many Muslim (read: gul-dang furriner evildoer) nations—not to mention the Palestinians—actually have a higher level of trust and respect for Osama bin Laden than our fair Shrub…
Here is Indonesia, for example, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where just one year ago only 36% had unfavorable views of America. Now? A whopping 86% think we're full of it, with fully 70% there and in Nigeria and Pakistan now believing that a US attack on their nation is highly likely. Gosh. What a progressive and mindful rep we have wrought.
We are now the world's thug, the snotty spoiled schoolyard bully with deep and rather pathetic machismo issues who no one likes and no one wants to sleep with but who still somehow manages to think he's, quite literally, God's gift to humankind. How very touching. SFC
During the 1990s, the US and Russia vied for the dubious position of the highest incarceration rate on the planet.But in the past few years, Russian authorities have carried out large-scale amnesties to ease crowding in disease-infested prisons, and the US has emerged unchallenged into first place, at 702 prisoners per 100 000 population. Russia has 665 prisoners per 100 000.
Today the US imprisons at a far greater rate not only than other developed Western nations do, but also than impoverished and authoritarian countries do.
On a per capita basis, according to the best available figures, the US has three times more prisoners than Iran, four times more than Poland, five times more than Tanzania and seven times more than Germany. Maryland has more citizens in prison and jail (an estimated 35 200) than all of Canada (31 600), though Canada's population is six times greater.
This is a pretty serious experiment we've been engaged in,says Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that supports alternatives to prison.I don't think history will judge us kindly.CD
His parachute opened normally, but on the way down it separated from his harness[LF quoting IO] BBC · TTS (Is this part of Israel's targeted killing?)for reasons that are entirely unclear,Reinicke told a news conference. He then fell away from the chute at under 3200 feet and the reserve parachute did not open, an experienced parachutist who saw the fatal jump was quoted as saying.
In the biggest escalation of repression by the occupation forces, on June 9, 4000 US troops, backed by helicopter gunships, jet fighters and patrol boats, cordoned off a 75-km area around the Tigris river towns of Thuluya and Balad, 70 km north of Baghdad, and began house-to-house searches forsubversive elementsand weapons.Lt-Gen David McKiernan, the commander of US ground forces in Iraq, refused to say how many Iraqis had died in the offensive, code-named Operation Peninsula Strike, but he told reporters it had been carried out with
great lethality.According to a June 13 Associated Press report, in Thuluya:
With helicopters whirring overhead and tanks offering cover, [US troops] kicked down doors and pulled out residents…Troops rounded up hundreds of people for questioning, although most young people were freed within hours…
In a mourner's tent on a side street of the mostly shuttered town, Abid Ali Jassem al Juburi, a former general in Saddam's army, said he was grieving for his brother and cousin who died early in the US operation.My brother was beaten, hit in the face and was killed,he said, adding that US troops took away medicine his family was bringing for a cousin who had suffered a heart attackand smashed it under their feet.The US troops
destroyed all our furniture, all our belongings, another resident told AP. GL
Operation Peninsula Strike has left more than 100 dead and taken 400 prisoners, of whom 60 were later released as beingGof no use to American officials. How many of the dead would also have beenof no use?
Three top execs of Freddie Mac, 2nd-largest US mortgage financier, fired
amid an accounting scandal. US economy jolted.
Earlier this
year…Alan Greenspan sounded
alarm bells when he said he was concerned that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
might not have adequate capital.
G
(Has the real-estate bubble begun popping?)
The debunking of the Bush administration's pre-war certainties on Iraq gathered pace yesterday when it emerged that the CIA knew for months that a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was highly unlikely.
G
(Guardian's coming late to the party. The BBC
emerged
that before the war.
BBC)
Israelis launch massive missile attack on Gaza. (Bush regrets
the
breach of peace but doesn't stop sending money. ADL takes offense at even this
trivial criticism.
[
quoting
ADL]
It is a bit of pot-kettle-noir situation.
TS)
Hamas retaliates with suicide bomb on a bus, triggering more attacks by Israel.
ND
(The Israelis' initial attack is heavily underreported, giving the false
impression Hamas—which has had and may still get Israeli funding,
anyway—started it all. And why? because Sharon wanted an offramp
to the roadmap.)
Correction: the second attack on Gaza was planned before the bus
bombing.
LF
(In fact the op was probably underway at the time of the bombing
given the amount of time of fuel up the choppers.)
peacekeepersgetting more immunity from the ICC. G
regularly calls homosexualsperverts;womenwhores;Asianslittle soy-eaters;progressivesfilthy slime;and immigrants or people of color natives ofsacred Turd World nations,is complaining about (and suing) people who criticise hishate-filledtalk show and encourage boycotts of his sponsors. ANWe couldn't imagine that anyone outside of Mike's small circle of fellow losers would listen to him. His friends were guys in tight jeans and white T-shirts, guys who stood on street corners flipping the bird at passing cars and laughing hysterically. They all thought Mike was(I am guessing theThe Dude.Everyone else thought he was a) psycho; b) creepy; c) pathetic, or d) all of the above.There was Mike again, giving a wedgie to another hapless freshman. There he was sneaking out of the girl's bathroom with a grin on his ravaged face. There he was revving his Camaro and screeching past some VW, shouting
queer!When would he grow up? Thank God we'd never have to see him again after high school.Now Mike has millions of listeners nationwide. People tune in to hear him rant about liberals and
wimpsand immigrants andother scum that are dragging this great nation down.Patriotism works in strange ways.
…listen to me, America. I'm right and you know it. We gotta get all the @#*$&$Listening to Mike, it all came back. The infantile comments. The snapping towels. The rage in its purest form. Why would anyone pay attention to him? I wondered. If my high school knew he was an All-American jerk, couldn't everyone else tell? Or has America become a giant high school, a cauldron of angst and anger, interested only in clothes, music, this week's big game, and who's sleeping with whom. GN
Mikeis Savage. Could be wrong.) One of the more popular fantasies indulged by Illusory America is the idea that the State's law enforcement apparatus exists primarily(Reminds me of the ArseyMP up here that were busier tyring to ticket sunbathers at Crystal Crescent Beach than enforce the speed limit on the 103.)to serve and protectthe public…In the real world, however, the police exist primarily to generate (i.e. extort) revenue for the State, and to intimidate the public into subservience. Law enforcement is nothing more than a protection racket; any pretense of protecting the public is mere window dressing.A good example of this occurred in Florida recently when police conducted Operation Vagrant an undercover sting operation of sorts whereby officers posed as local homeless residents, complete with shopping carts and fake teeth, for the purpose of spotting motorists running red lights at various busy intersections…
Although some may argue that stopping people from running red lights is a good thing, the police involved in this operation had no interest in stopping anyone from doing anything. Had the intent been, as is the claim, to deter people from running the lights at these dangerous intersections, it would have made much more sense (and required less publicly-funded manpower) to park a cruiser at the intersections, within site of approaching motorists…
Imagine if one of the ticketed light-runners had caused a fatal accident while the goon squad looked on in their hobo outfits, cruisers hidden around the corner. Being a good American that believes in the concept of
police protection,how outraged would you be if you learned that one of your loved ones was killed by a light-runner while the police looked on in disguise, hoping to write a ticket? Clearly, the police were not interested inprotecting the public safety,that isn't their job. Their job is to generate revenue. [STR]- 12: State police begin patrolling Logan with submachine guns,
in a move airport officials said would bring peace of mind.BApache shot down in Iraq. GL
I love how Alistair's trying to keep his head from exploding =D
- Contract let for 10Mbbl Iraqi crude, to go into
a fund controlled by the US and its allies that is earmarked for rebuilding. The contractors are ChevronTexaco, Tupras in Turkey, Total of France, ENI in Italy, and Repsol and Cepsa in Spain. SFC- 13: US pressure may be buckling Belgium over its universal-jurisdicton war-crimes stuff. R
- Edgar J Steele:
Simply ask yourself why the Germans went to the trouble of building camps and shipping jews thousands of miles to those camps, supposedly just to gas and cremate them. Don't concern yourself with the now-proven nonexistent gas chambers and crematoria or the sheer impossibility of the numbers of dead claimed by the millions of(I am extremely cautious about Steele, because he consciously goes beyond simple antizionism to full-grown antijudaism. But he asks a damn good question, here. In fact you can get something of an answer: the tattoos indexed the slave-labour force, which the Nazis and their US partners were exploiting. That's certainly a nasty, and resulted in death for many—but far from simple deliberate genocide. The other point that needs reïterating is that Jews were far from being the sole inmates of these camps.)holocaust survivors.Don't wonder why Nazis put serial numbers on their arms in order to keep track of them, if they were going to be killed. Just consider why, if they wanted to be rid of the jews, they didn't simply put a bullet into the base of each jewish skull, wherever found, then bulldoze over all of them. After all, that is absolutely the most cost-effective way to do the job and Germans were very efficient. US Secretary of State Colin Powell came away empty handed from the annual meeting of the Organization of American States held earlier this week in Santiago, Chile. Not only did the US delegation fail to push through its agenda of a unified hard line against Cuba, for the first time in its history the OAS voted against seating the US nominee for the body's human rights commission…Dominating the OAS general assembly was a sharp divergence between Washington and the other members of the organization over what represents the greatest threat to stability in the region. Powell delivered a speech exhorting Latin America and the Caribbean to unite in a battle againstWSWStyrants, traffickers and terrorists.Latin American and Caribbean representatives replied that social unrest fueled by increasing misery represented a far greater danger than all three combined. After almost nine weeks of the downfall of Iraq to the hands of the US-led occupation and now that the free-for-all looting that swept the anarchy-mired country has come under control, the Iraqis are now facing newAli Babas,namely, US soldiers who strip them clean of their savings and possessions.
I was carrying 750 000 Iraqi dinars [±$575] inside a plastic bag. I was on my way to a friend of mine to buy a second-hand small car to use it in transferring the products of my farmland to the customers. But US soldiers spotted me and frisked me,Hussein Abdul Gabar, an Iraqi breadwinner and owner of a farmland, told IslamOnline.net correspondent.
Once his eyes spotted the cash, one US soldier extracted them and ordered me to leave the place&helip;But when I complained and told him that this was my money, he told me bluntly:…Go away,pointing his gun at me…They, in fact, are not hesitant about killing anyone under the pretext that he was a Baathist or a loyalist to Saddam Hussein…It was breaking my heart to see the soldier sharing my money with his fellowmen who were waiting for him in a nearby tank, with their faces creased into broad smiles.Somia al-Zubeid, a housewife, is one of a myriad of Iraqis who have been looted by US soldiers. She lives in Baghdad's Kafa'at district, where you find doctors, engineers and university professors.
US soldiers stormed into my house at night, turned it upside down and stole $2500, one million dinars in addition to some of my daughters' jewels,she told IOL.The seven soldiers ordered us to lie prone with their weapons pointing at our necks as if we were sheep…four of them scoured the house for more than one hour. They were heedless to the fact that we are women and home alone. Once they left, my daughters and I found out that they had stolen our jewels and the money we saved and used them to eke out a living until their father finds a job.IW My friend Bernie…says it's like we're stumbling around in a Stephen King novel…Bush casually destroys with mindless cruelty literally everything he touches. In an interview at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, for his book, Bush at War, Bob Woodward wrote that Bush told him shortly after the tragedy of 9-11—
We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil…Think about that for a minute. Then ask yourself what kind of spell a journalist of Woodward's stature would have to be under to jot down these mad ravings like an obedient little stenographer. Why did Woodward not leap up—run screaming from
Prairie Chapel—not daring to look back for fear that something would be gaining on him? ICH Topcounterterrorism aide to GWB, Rand Beers, on the Nat'l Security Councils of four presidents, jumps to Kerry camp, saying the admin's focus on Iraq came at the expense of domestic security, damaged America's international alliances, and could help breed a new generation of terrorists. [CBS citing Washington Post Jun 16] CBS · DCA A new survey by Dahaf Polling shows more than two-thirds of Israelis oppose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Sixty-seven percent oppose targeted killings of terrorist leaders, such as the ones that took place this evening in Gaza. While Sharon insists the Palestinian leadership is a bunch ofFAUX (I know, I know, FAUX is dubious, but would they lie about this?)crybabies,Israelis want to give Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas a chance to set up his authority. Sixty-seven percent of those responding to the poll also agreed that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian areas.- 15: Op Desert Scorpion employs tanks and helicopters to round up and/or kill more Iraqi civilians and deprive others of their means of defense.
Jassim Ali Mohammed, 60, said 20 troops raided his house in the middle of the night, handcuffed his two sons and forced them to lie face down on the ground, later taking them away…NDEven Saddam never did a thing like this to us. We got rid of one problem and now we're having a bigger one.- 16: Federal District Judge Lloyd George issues preliminary injunction against sale and distribution of Schiff The Federal Mafia: how the government illegally imposes and unlawfully collects income taxes and how Americans can fight back. [BE citing GML quoting NYT?]
John Howard claims the trailers were bioweapon labs NA long after it has been established they weren't.
- John Dean,
the man who told Nixon there was a cancer on his Presidency:It is a sad but unfortunate truth that our history is filled with examples of presidents misleading the country about wars. President Madison did not exactly lay all the facts and mixed motives on the table in seeking a declaration of war with England in 1812, nor did President Polk in leading the nation to war with Mexico in 1846. President McKinley glossed over facts when calling for war to "free" Cuba in 1898, just as President Wilson did in 1917 with World War I. President Franklin Roosevelt campaigned in 1940 with a pledge that American boys were not going to be sent into any foreign wars and President Lyndon Johnson used a similar ploy in 1964 regarding Vietnam.It will be a sorry commentary if another president is added to this list, which I have only partially set forth. Yet historians and presidential scholars regularly have the highest historical praise for presidents who take us to war, regardless of how they do it—not those who keep us out of war. This has always struck me as not only ironic, but moronic. It may be the best reason in the world to start electing women presidents, because that will end measuring presidents by their machismo—although lots of Americans like Bush's warmongering, and like our nation being a bully. The fact that such people have an aberrant gene is another story. BF
- American Enterprise Institute (of Perle, Frum, and Ledeen) fulminates against nondemocratic NGOs with too much power. Not NGOs like the WTO, or themselves, of course. NGOs like Greenpeace.
NGOs have created their own rules and regulations and demanded that governments and corporations abide by those rules. Many nations' legal systems encourage NGOs to use the courts—or the specter of the courts—to compel compliance.
GWB: Were these troops or government officials he was addressing? Neither, in fact: the occasion was the annual dinner of the American Radio and Television Correspondents Association. It's all very, very cosy.
I Dr. al-Hadithy said that since the war in Iraq ended two months ago, he has seen a sharp rise not only in cases of gastroenteritis but in the so-called black fever, a disease spread by the sand flies which have been multiplying in Baghdad as piles of uncollected litter grow on the streets of the capital.
G&MPoliticians and corporate ledgers are often forced to respond to the NGO media machine, and the resources of taxpayers and shareholders are used in support of ends they did not intend to sanction. The extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal democracies has the potential to undermine the sovereignty of constitutional democracies, as well as the effectiveness of credible NGOs.
[GN
quoting
AEI]
President Bush meant to fall off his Segway. Oh, I'm sure of it. What we've got here is a clever conspiracy—a pre-emptive strike to save the oil industry from a technology that could sap its power.
USAT
(Mmmmaybe. Meself I think W's just inept enough to be the first person
known to fall off one.)
Shucks. Turns out they tend to do that when the batteries are low.
USAT
Saddam Hussein was a threat to his region and to the wider world. I always made it clear that the issue was not whether he was about to launch an immediate strike on Britain. The issue was whether he posed a threat to his region and to the wider world.
CTV
(But except for Israel, who hates everyone anyway, not even Iraq's neighbours
thought Saddam was enough of a threat to warrant OIL.)
entirely innocent
civilians and leave them to die. Sgt 1st class John Meadows: You can't distinguish between who's trying to kill you and who's not…Like, the only way to get through s*** like that was to concentrate on getting through it by killing as many people as you can, people you know are trying to kill you. Killing them first and getting home.
Cpl Michael Richardson: There was no dilemma when it came to shooting people who were not in uniform, I just pulled the trigger.
It was up close and personal the whole time, there wasn't a big distance. If they were there, they were enemy, whether in uniform or not. Some were, some weren't.
He keeps a pic of the WTC over his bed as motivator—even though
Iraq had no connection to 9/11.
M
The specific aim of this test was to assess a new solid-state engine for the interceptor's guidance system. It now appears that the two missiles didn't collide because the engine malfunctioned. In other words, by any serious measure, broad or narrow, the test was an abject failure, regardless of how the Pentagon grades it.
[S
citing
CNN,
WT]
recklessly disobeyed
orders
in killing 4 Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
al Qaida
video. Most of those few with functioning brains ask
if they can afford the high-tech weapons they're supposed to have, why
can't they buy one decent camcorder?
We are determined to discover the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes, no matter how long it takes.
T
(And when you discover that extent was negligible, what then?)
The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
PP
(Note the distinction, United States and the community of law-abiding
nations
—the US has refused to join many international treaties, has
thumbed its nose at the World Court when judgements go against it, and under
W has refused to join the International Criminal Court at all.)
Is any of this stuff made in Israel?
P
[UN
citing North Kansas City company…
Kansas City Star Jun 25]
(Do you need reminding that boycotting Israel, directly or indirectly, is an
offense in the Land of the Free? Check with the
Antiboycott Compliance Office or the
Undersec'y for Industry and Security.)
It's still the case, though, that the US media have not covered themselves in glory in recent weeks. And I am glad to be able to report that the Bush administration is properly grateful. I went to see the Vice-President make a speech a few nights ago. He finished with a reference to the war in Iraq, telling his audience:
You did well—you have my thanks.
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did…
[UN
citing Road map is a life saver…
Ha'aretz Jun 27]
The sanctions [which impeded drinking-water treatment] are gone now, but children like Ibrahim and Aisha still suffer. The situation, many say, is worse now. Even in big cities like Baghdad, the water remains undrinkable, and in the summer heat, many families have taken to drawing water directly from the polluted Tigris River.
They have problems in their stomachs, diarrhea and vomiting. They're sick because the drinking water is dirty,
the children's father, Issam Khalil, says. Things are not better now than during the sanctions.
Doctors here agree. In interviews this week, three of Iraq's top pediatricians said that although no statistics are available, they believe the rate of child mortality—among the highest in the world during the past 12 years—has risen even higher since Saddam Hussein's regime fell and the US took over governing the country…
There's no government since the end of the war, and the crisis is getting worse and worse,
said Emad al-Hadithy, chief resident at the Central Teaching Hospital. When we compare this period with the period of the embargo, the embargo was better.
In 33 months of violence, 2,414 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 806 on the Israeli side.
G
forward bases.
[SMH
citing Jane's Defence Weekly]
[JR quoting Guardian]
I go to whatreallyhappened.com and it's not there!
Just an intermittent DNS name server [sic] problem.
we'll keep Iraqi oil in trust for the Iraqi
people.
C
(Riiiight. Just like they kept Social Security funds in trust for the
American suckers. I mean people.)
Iraq had no official ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, in fact the Bush family has closer ties to the Saudi born Osama Bin Laden than Saddam Hussein ever did.
PP
(And the Bush-bin Laden connections are direct, of long standing, and
well documn=ented. Yet saying so is conspiracy theory.
!!?)
Washington's overlord in Iraq:
We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture or…kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country…We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country.
G
pounds
al Hassan mosque in Fallujah,
kills at least 10. Iraqis vow retribution for the retribution.
IO
·
BS
US would like us to believe the mosque just blew itself up.
MSNBC
But one of the dead is a prominet proShia (antiUS) cleric.
WP
And people actually there can find no evidence to substantiate CentCom's
claims about a bombmaking class.
BG
·
SFC
(I haven't heard the US say much about hearts and minds
lately.
Not that I ever thought it was in earnest.)