It consisted of largely sending Jay Garner and his organisation to sit in Kuwait until the military forces had moved into Baghdad, and then going to Baghdad and other places in Iraq with no other purpose than to deliver a little humanitarian assistance, perhaps deal with some oil-field fires, put Ahmed Chalabi or some other similar Iraqi in charge and leave. - Larry Wilkerson

It also lead, as I recall, to the firing of anyone from Jay Garner's team who so much as read the massive after conflict civil planning report prepared by the State Dept. Why no comment by Powell or Wilkerson concerning that?

David, now that the SCOTUS has dropped the ball on the Sibel Edmonds story, will you please pick it up?

Any other regulars want to join me in this request?

Robert, I second that motion! It is WAY past time for people to get behind that courageous woman in her efforts to get the truth out there. She has very important pieces of the 9/11 puzzle, and we, as American citizens, have a right to see them, state secrets be damned! The only reason to keep her gagged is to keep her quiet. That is reason enough for suspicion as to who knew what and when regarding 9/11, the very foundation of the hellhole known as Iraq.

In fact, 9/11 is the foundation for all the bullshit we have been forced to deal with, like this:

American Police State: The Frog Has Cooked
Miami cops to stage sieges, randomly check ID's, ride buses and trains

Paul Joseph Watson | November 29 2005

How do you boil a frog?

You don't throw the frog into a pot of boiling water, it would immediately jump out. You let the frog sit in warm water and slowly heat the pan until the frog boils to death.

How do you erect the infrastructure of a police state?

You incrementally condition both the police and the public that relinquishing liberty in the name of security is necessary because 'we live in dangerous times.'

Be sure to make Grandpa remove his shoes at the airport but let that cargo through without inspection every time. The truth is that the mythical 'war on terror' was never meant to be won and can never be won because it doesn't exist.

The real terror is being waged against ordinary people by our own government.

To say we live in a police state is no longer an alarmist cliche. Perception has clearly and permanently shifted from the police being there to serve the people to the police being there to control the people.

The Associated Press reports today,

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

Here we have American police chiefs using military terminology and directing it against American citizens. The random sieges, ID checking and public transport casing is the very benchmark of a police state.

During a recent trip to the States I realized that the 'land of the free' is in many ways less free than the quasi-Socialist European cesspit I call my home.

You have to carry your ID everywhere in America, it's almost impossible to get by without it. Buying a pack of cigarettes, renting a canoe, using any public service, requires you to show your ID. Americans are so used to being asked for it that the kind of random sweeps being planned in Miami won't raise an eyebrow. The frog has been sitting in the pot carelessly boiling to its death for too long now.

The Miami model is the very definition of a pervasive police state based on the fear of terrorists and the fear of being identified as a terrorist if you do not comply with every demand, no matter how much it brutalizes every notion of what it is to live in a free society.

And where are the terrorists exactly?

Those goatherders and shoemakers being tortured at Gimo?

The Pakistani citizens grabbed in the mountains and sold to the US as terrorists by Taliban gangsters for $25,000?

The whole pantomime is quite pathetic but it is being scripted to convince Americans that giving up their rights aids the baloney war on terror.

The phantom terror cells waiting to strike inside America are about as real as Saddam Hussein's intercontinental biological weapons drones. They don't exist.

Yet the semi-retarded police chiefs and foot soldiers who salivate over the Miami model do so in the warped fundamentalist belief that they are protecting America from the evil Muslims.

The government terrorists that blew up trains and buses in Madrid and London chose those targets because they want to move the police state into areas which affect all of us on a day to day basis. That way the dictatorship has the excuse to be up close and personal.

If we do not radically increases our efforts to stop this horror, in a very short time America is going to look like a combination of 1984, They Live, The Running Man and 'V' all rolled into one.

Showing your ID to the federal stormtrooper as he cases the bus with an M16 will be the least of your concerns.
------------
This isn't a movie script, or a fiction novel, this is right here, right now.

I agree entirely about picking up the Sibel Edmonds story - - if any journalist worth his salt at all were to pick that up it would be the beginning of the end - but that will never happen because it would lead to the great unmentionable topic of 911 -

I guess some people think it's ok that the History Channel and the Discovery Channel et al can run their little propaganda films and call them "the true story of that fateful day" and what-not, but an increasingly larger percentage of the population feels that a cover-up is being perpetuated -

god-forbid anyone should want to get at the truth

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without a congressional hearing". Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) quoted in:

Mike Whitney: 'Bush's fascist Valhalla'

James, have you heard about hollywoods new and improved efforts to spin 9/11 into what they want us to believe? And what's really pathetic? The sheeple will swallow it!
Robert, did you read the story about the woman riding a public bus in Denver who now faces court for refusing to show her ID on a random sweep by the storm troopers? What I find ironic is that the bushbots would be screaming bloody murder if this scenario were being played out under a dem administration.

First, to address the post.

..."Beginning? It's not too late for that either. Now when will Colin Powell speak as frankly as his former deputy?"...

It is telling that the liars, themselves, are beginning to admit to their lies!

Some call it conscience, but it will be spun by the bushbots that it is just "sour grapes" from "disgruntled former employees".

I, personally don't know how these murderers can sleep at night, knowing what they've done. Myabe I underestimate the power of denial.

sigh...

(1) Go to www.80s.com
(2) Click "Entertainment"
(3) Scroll down and click "Valley URL"
(4) Type in any URL (David's, for example) and hit "Enter" on your keyboard, and...
(5) You get the website translated into Valley Girl talk! Like, it's totally a riot, fer sure!!!

From the grody swamps of Arkansas, Ivory Bill Woodpecker

Colin Powell -- literally -- holds the straw that could break the camel's (read: cabal) back. Some people still put some faith in Powell's credibility. For those of us who have no faith in his integrity/honesty, he could rehabilitate himself if he stood up like a man and told the country what he knows.

I think it just might do it -- if he reclaims his cajones.
****************************

BTW, where is Scottie McClellan these days?

He first made headlines several weeks ago by accusing Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld of running a "cabal" that seized control of national security decision-making in the Bush administration prior to the Iraq war.

and there you have it! - what would this mysterious cabal be called? PNAC! it's not even a bleedin secret! what IS a secret is why the topic is STILL BEING IGNORED TO THIS DAY even though this mysterious cabal and their PUBLICLY STATED principles/goals called for a "New Pearl Harbor" which they miraculously and coincidentally got with 911 -

I like how you put the word "cabal" in quotation marks - maybe to ensure that any mention of PNAC remains a "wacko conspiracy theory"

James, David's on our side, remember? He makes his living doing this, so he needs to be more cautious than you or I; we don't have reputations to maintain. ;)

From the swamps of ill repute, Ivory Bill Woodpecker

Ivory Bill, he also has a boss to answer to. No stepping over the line. I know he has to be careful but I must admit, it is frustrating to me the boundaries that are set on the truth.

oops I meant "he"

"I think it just might do it -- if he reclaims his cajones."

Haji,

My opinion is that these 'bushbots' are not only in denial, but are in full blown delusional thought disorder. Compounding matters of group delusion, there is also a group character disorder.

We are living in the story The Lord Of The Flies.

If Col. Wilkerson really has the goods on President Cheney and can actually trace the memos and directives authorizing "questionable" detention practices to Cheney's office that led to U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners, then it would seem that General Colin Powell -- Mr. Military -- should, through the call of duty, set the record straight.

Powell has a moral obligation to come forward. The credibility of United States military is at stake. Why should Powell allow the corrupt Cheney/Bush regime ruin the reputation of the U.S. military?

Come on Colin. Be a man. Your own man.

...meanwhile, bush is not getting much traction on his latest snakeoil tour...seems his guest worker/border security *plan* stinks just like everything else that comes out of his regime.

They can't get anything right.

Bad news for the lefties. Looks like Dem Sen Joe Lieberman says we must stay in Iraq and finish the job. The new Va Gov Mark Warner agrees with Joe. This is bad news for the screach Howard Dean. I guess he isn't the leader he thought he was. Last but not least, John McCain has admitted twice since being release from Vietnam that torture works-he knows from personal experience. Looks like you lefties are just going to have to except the fact that we are in Iraq, we are going to stay there until the job is done and toture will be used if needed. Now get over yourselves and enjoy the ride.

I must go get some sleep now. Sayonara, all--IBW

Sibel Edmonds' overt muzzling? Yes, yes, by all means, please keep pushing for the revelation of all she knows.

-T

Davids got quite the fan club here, must be at least five to ten regular fans that use this site. He must be getting funding from that Boys and Girls club that made an illegal loan to Air America to keep him on the internet. It's good for you lefties though since no one else would listen to your wack-job theories.

I know that he's on our side....that's probably why he allows us these unrestrained comments - I bet there are a good number of strangers who view these comments every day even if they don't leave a comment of their own, so I always try to make my point every day:: 911 was an inside job - PNAC are the bad guys - the mcMedia are lying corporate whores and so is congress -

click my name!

Looks like Dem Byron Dorgan may be the next victom of Jack Abramoff's dirty money. An attorney for the indian tribes said that they gave Dorgan $20,000 to buy votes from him. I have a funny feeling that Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi will be next, their silence speaks volumes on this matter.

John McCain has admitted twice since being release from Vietnam that torture works-he knows from personal experience.

he has also admitted twice that torture does NOT work - I guess that makes him a two-faced lying shill

which 911 highjackers snuck across the canadian border baf? - - did Mohammed Atta cross the canadian border on his way to one of his many visits to Abramoff's floating casino?

I suppose our resident headache is arguing for removing corporate lobbying money from the political structure.

I say expose the money trail wherever it leads - it should be noted that Dorgan's vote though, was for Tribal School construction.

I listened to McCain on the radio the other day. He stated clearly "Torture does NOT work."

Got that? Torture No worky. No good. Not right.

Anyone who defends torture has serious issues in the mind, the heart and the soul.

McCain is about as vocal an opponent of torture as you can find.

Torture's Terrible Toll
By Senator John McCain
Newsweek
25 November 2005 issue

james

Why do you waste so much time and energy on this 9/11 conspiracy? You can't change the past. The families of the 3000 dead aren't concerned about any conspiracy. They are concerned about stopping it from happening again. Did you have someone close to you die on 9/11? This would seem to be the only logical answer to your obsession, if not, then you have problems that need to be addressed. I am worried about you man!!!

It's OK, John McCain is confused. In his autobiography- "Faith of my Fathers" McCain writes in detail how the enemy totured him and extracted information that he was not supposed to devulge. The torture was no medical treatment for his wounds. In 1973 when McCain just got released he gave an interview with US News & World Report and again detaailed the torture that drove him to give up info he regretted giving them. I know he is against it now, but he is on record admitting it works.

EU Threatens Sanctions for States Operating Secret CIA Camps
Agence France-Presse
Tuesday 29 November 2005

European Union Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini threatened sanctions for any EU nation found to have allowed secret CIA prison camps to operate on their soil.

"Should the accusations be accurate, I would be forced to draw serious consequences," Frattini said at a security conference in Berlin.

He said that any EU country found to have harboured one of the reported prison camps could have their voting rights in the Council of Ministers, the body which groups the 25 EU heads of government, suspended.

Frattini said the operation of such camps on EU soil would violate the bloc's rules governing freedom and human rights.

The EU had made contact several days ago with the White House about possible secret CIA activities in Europe, but Washington had "unfortunately not yet given any formal assurance" that the reports were untrue, he said. More.

********************

I never bought that "Truth, Justice & the American Way" line anyway...

It's OK, John McCain is confused. In his autobiography- "Faith of my Fathers" McCain writes in detail how the enemy totured him and extracted information that he was not supposed to devulge. The torture was no medical treatment for his wounds. In 1973 when McCain just got released he gave an interview with US News & World Report and again detaailed the torture that drove him to give up info he regretted giving them. I know he is against it now, but he is on record admitting it works.

Wilkerson refers to the interrogation of Sheikh al-Libby. Is this guy related to Scooter? Just asking.

actually baf, many of the 3000 victims families believe that 911 was an inside job and have signed a petition to reopen the investigation -

YOU are the one who claimed that the highjackers snuck thru the northern border, not me - I'm just calling you on your nonsense - and while I can't change the past, I can do my best to keep it from being swept under the rug, so you can either deal with it or blow me -

Goo goo ga joob!

I am not sure I understand corrnut parlance.
does "Cabal" mean "Top Adm Officials"?

RS #25

Removing corporate money has already been tried and is a joke, just ask your billionare buddy George Soros. My point is that both parties are corrupt in this environment and the guilty parties should be removed like Cunnigham, like Dorgan, like Reid and anyone else that is corrupt. If you lefties had any integrity, you would be saying the same. But no-its all about the Republicans being corrupt. I guess the brain washing fron Howard Dean and the Dem party is working on you.

I am not sure I understand cornnut parlance.
Can any one help.

Does CABAL mean "inner ring of adm officials"

just asking?

james

You're not my type, you should hook up with Anita for that blow. I here she likes guy's like you. She also works well on small jobs, so you're good-man!!!

ON TORTURE

_____________
Dailykos.com – November 28, 2005

Here's a story that will disappear until bloggers start talking about it. Only PBS Frontline and Democracy Now! have dared to interview U.S. interrogator Tony Lagouranis, who reports widespread torture and abuse throughout Iraq.

He admits:
- frustrated US soldiers torture Iraqi families at length in their homes - including flesh burning, bone breaking, and ax attacks - with impunity
- no matter how obvious their innocence, detainees are always treated as guilty and sent to Abu Ghraib
- officers filed unfounded reports to bolster the claim that Fallujah dead were foreigners
- actually the Fallujah corpses included numerous women and children
- Lagouranis's multiple official abuse reports, ignored by CID and commanders for over a year, were suddenly re-filed after he appeared on Frontline
- torture has produced no useful intelligence, and efforts to legalize it are "the worst thing we could do."

_________________

james

You and the other five cornut fans might make a difference and keep it from being swept under the rug. Just keep telling yourself that and thinking good thoughts. I am curious if David Cornhole has written anything on this, since it is of such seriousness. I am sure that he has you on his redial to trade info on this matter, right?

34 And a John Belushi Holiday turkey to you too, sir!

More good news for the lefties!!! Lefty Ramsey Clarck is coming to Sadamms defense!! He didn't like the way Saddam was treated when first captured from his demorat hole. Jeanne, looks like your buddy Saddam has more fans than just you. What a friggin traitor, this jerk should be tortured just for the hell of it!!!!

Jeez, Baf, goes to show how little you know about those you comment on.

You've called me a coward, my passport's got a Visa Stamp for Afghanistan in January 2002, does yours?

I didn't vote for Gore in 2000, because I acknowledge the corruption within the Democratic party, I voted for Nader, and I only voted for Kerry after seeing the many more magnitudes of degree of corruption within the GOP leading to 9/11 and the wars which followed.

No the removal of corporate money has not really been tried - the whole damn structure is corrupt - and the overthrow of the GOP in 2006 can only be seen as a first step in the clean-up which must involve Democrats as well.

Man, it is really annoying when you pay good money to have a nice meal at a restaurant and the family at the next table can't or won't keep their ill mannered children quiet.

NPR reports that videos and photographs of Christian Peace workers, kidnapped in Iraq last week have been released.

I hope all will join me in thoughts, hopes and prayers for their safe return. Nothing is more noble than the cause of peace.

-T

hajji # 39

What a bunch of friggin crap, you're pathetic to even post such garbage. Accussing our children of such horrible crimes by some F_ _ cked up interrogater. Wheres the proof? Post some facts ass_ ole. It's scum like you that allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place. If it weren't for scum lke you we wouldn't have to be Iraq- so screw you-traitor!!!

RS #43

You voted for Nader? I take it back, you're not a traitor, you're an idiot!!!

sSaladin, Capt, Jeanne..all. Our dear friends peggy and Art are about to board their planes for Aman Jordan. Peggy is fine...and still going to Iraq to continue to be part of the support team.

In regard to my frustration with even alternattive media. I contacted many new outlets today including Democracy Now's Amy Goodman (for the 4th time). she immediately called ARt and Peggy in San Francisco, and talked with them. THANK YOU AMY. SOME IN THE MEDIA WILL RESPOND. I HAVE HAD NEIL CONAN ( i DONT'T ALWAYS AGREE WITH THESE FOLKS ..BUT THEY ARE ACTUALLY ACCESSIBLE) AND SCOTT SIMON, AND DIANE REHM RESPOND TO OTHER ISSUES.

JUST WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE MEDIA RESPOND BEFORE THERE IS A CRISIE. THE WORK OF CPT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER THE MEDIA YEARS AGO.

I STILL SAY THANK YOU AMY GOODMAN FOR RESPONDING.

HERE IS ART AND PEGGY'S LATEST E MAIL FROM SAN FRAN
Dear Family and Friends,
We are thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving time here in the San Francisco area.
Most of you by now have heard the news that four CPTers were kidnapped in Baghdad on Sat. afternoon. Since then the remaining team has been working hard along with many Iraqi and international persons and groups to try to find them and get their release. We are obviously very concerned and are keeping those kidnapped, their captors, and others working on their behalf, in prayer.
I have been in discussion with the team about what I do now. We have decided that I should proceed with my flight today to Amman, Jordan. I may stay there for a time and be a support person from there, or I may soon go to Baghdad and support the rest of the team from there. I will let you know as plans develop. Art will immediately be traveling on to Hebron
I apperciate your love and concern and invite you to join us in prayer for all involved.
With love, Peggy and Art

Message 2 of 582 (New)

you're not a traitor, you're an idiot!!!

Ah, such eloquence, such erudition.

ya baf...WHERE'S THE PROOF that muslims did it?
idiot. I still say blow me.

the dog that did not bark

James

Jeanne say's theres nothing to blow-so give it up fool!!!

RS # 49

"I voted for Nader"

Ah such eloquence, such erudition.

Four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq!!

I thought the insurgents were the good guy's?
Maybe our troops that Hajji accussed of burning the flesh off of innocent Iraq's will be able to save them before they are beheaded by the lefties mis-understood heroes!!!

"I am a graduate of West Point currently serving as a Captain in the U.S. Army Infantry. I have served two combat tours with the 82nd Airborne Division, one each in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I served in the Global War on Terror, the actions and statements of my leadership led me to believe that United States policy did not require application of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan or Iraq. On 7 May 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's testimony that the United States followed the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and the "spirit" of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan prompted me to begin an approach for clarification. For 17 months, I tried to determine what specific standards governed the treatment of detainees by consulting my chain of command through battalion commander, multiple JAG lawyers, multiple Democrat and Republican Congressmen and their aides, the Ft. Bragg Inspector General's office, multiple government reports, the Secretary of the Army and multiple general officers, a professional interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, the deputy head of the department at West Point responsible for teaching Just War Theory and Law of Land Warfare, and numerous peers who I regard as honorable and intelligent men.

Instead of resolving my concerns, the approach for clarification process leaves me deeply troubled. Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. I and troops under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is a tragedy. I can remember, as a cadet at West Point, resolving to ensure that my men would never commit a dishonorable act; that I would protect them from that type of burden. It absolutely breaks my heart that I have failed some of them in this regard.

-Cpt. Ian Fishback, US Army Infantry in a letter to Senator John McCain

N.C. Judge Declines to Protect Voting Machine Maker Diebold Inc.; Vendor May Pull Out
By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. Nov 28, 2005 — One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.

Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.

The requirement is part of the minimum voting equipment standards approved by state lawmakers earlier this year following the loss of more than 4,400 electronic ballots in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months. More.

*********************

These machines have got to be decertified and rejected. All monies spent by states and the federal govt. through HAVA must be returned.

From my Collins GEM Webters Dictionary New Edition, 1990:
Cabal (ke-BAL)n. Small group of intrguers; secret plot .

The statement was, as I read it, a quotation from Larry Wilkerson.

Sorry about the typ, that was "intriguers" not intrgeuers.

Pardon the typo..not "typ" . OK I'm signing off now. My hand is injured after I tripped over the cat.
Don't worry Capt, Junior The Cat is fine. Little brat ;)

Funny how much worse the REPORTING of the crimes is to the morally challenged than the COMMISSION of these crimes, ain't it?

-T

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings
By Dexter Filkins
The New York Times
Tuesday 29 November 2005

Baghdad - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured. More.

***************

Sounds just like the Salvadorian option that was discussed as John Negroponte went first to Iraq and then to head the US Intelligence operations overall.

Jesus Mary and Joseph Wilkerson and all.. I repeat.....How in the hell could a 53 year old soccer mom living in south eastern ohio..just by listening to the BBc and NPR and going on the web daily..know that the intelligence was bad.

Christ Almighty...help us...I heard Mr. el Baradei in early march of 2003 at the UN tell the world the Niger documents where falified documents and bad ones at that.

Holy Mackerel... I heard an endless stream of CIA analyst including Ray Mcgovern tell us it was more than likely that the intelligence was false. I heard Scott Ritter before the invasion say it over and over and over again. I heard Jimmy Carter, General Zinni, Robert Mcnamara for god sakes Robert McNamara say don't do it...they all warned against the quagmire.

I know some of our Reps and the military were given more hogwash than the mainstream media was stuffing down the americans collective throats. But don't these people get out?

Maybe Wilkerson and the others should hang out with soccer moms and the millions of people who were protesting against this invasion. Maybe they should have listened more to the BBc, NPr and reading Justin Raimando (of anti-war.com) who was on target and way ahead of the MSM and the Left stream media with his information about the false intelligence. Along with Julian BOrger of the Guardian etc.

Jesus Mary and Joseph...how did many americans and people around the world know just by listening to the news well not the MSM who just kept showing Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz, and others link 9/11 and Al queda over and over again prior to the invasion .

Yes some journalist were investigating..some). David, Arianna, THE GUARDIAN THE INDEPENDENT..ANTIWAR.COM MOTHER JONES...AND OTHERS...I THANK YOU...

Geez maybe these military folks and other mainstreamers should get out a bit and listen and read other information beside what the MSM provides them with.... But Npr is the MSM and there were plenty of dissenting voices on their programs before the invasion....plenty

SOME LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED....HEY DAVID WHEN ARE YOU FOLKS GOING TO DO A SRORY ON THE DIFFERENT REPORTS..LANCET..ROBERT FISK..OF JUST HOW MANY IRAQI'S HAVE DIED.

THESE NUMBERS JUST MIGHT PUSH THESE CRIMINALS OFF THE WORLDS COLLECTIVE CLIFF.

Hajji #34 --

I assume that "goo goo ga joob" was directed at me. Congratulations on spelling this correctly - I occasionally get a "koo koo ka choo" but rarely see the thing done right.

Colin Powell is too gutless to speak out against the Bush and his cabal. Remember Powell at one time was part of the cabal.

I finally feel vindicated from my statements that Bush and his cabal are murderers and war criminals. I can only hope and pray that the American people will believe me when I say that anyone who voted for Bush is an accomplice to murder and war crimes. The majority of Americans are guilty of treason to humanity and they are on par with Hitler and Stalin.

Hajji, you related to scooter?

I'm a BIG fan of Craig Stadler, eggman!

-T

A Growing Wariness about Money in Politics
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
The Washington Post
Tuesday 29 November 2005

For several years now, corporations and other wealthy interests have made ever-larger campaign contributions, gifts and sponsored trips part of the culture of Capitol Hill. But now, with fresh guilty pleas by a lawmaker and a public relations executive, federal prosecutors -- and perhaps average voters -- may be concluding that the commingling of money and politics has gone too far.

After years in which big-dollar dealings have come to dominate the interaction between lobbyists and lawmakers, both sides are now facing what could be a wave of prosecutions in the courts and an uprising at the ballot box. Extreme examples of the new business-as-usual are no longer tolerated.

Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, are most vulnerable to this wave. But pollsters say that voters think less of both political parties the more prominent the issue of corruption in Washington becomes, and that incumbents generally could feel the heat of citizen outrage if the two latest guilty pleas multiply in coming months.

No fewer than seven lawmakers, including a Democrat, have been indicted, have pleaded guilty or are under investigation for improper conduct such as conspiracy, securities fraud and improper campaign donations.

*************************

On voting Nader in 2000 - in the safe state of California - No Regrets.

Off now for a thrillingly short 8hr shift in the local ER. Set some new records for patient processing during 16 hrs yesterday. I'm thinking that we could use a 24-hour non-acute care clinic across the street or something.

In the face of dwindling ability for US citizens (and it AIN'T just those "welfare moms", either) to purchase and maintain comprehensive health care insurance, the Emergency Departments of our cities' hospitals have taken the place of familiy doctors.

The unpaid bills of all those people who come for non-urgent care are directly reflected in the escalation of the cost to everybody!

So...got feverish child? C'mon down!
Sprain your ankle? C'mon down!
"Just not feeling well?" C'mon down!

I'm sure you're gonna feel MUCH better after a 5-hour wait in a tiny, crowded, virus and bacterial incubator we call the WAITING ROOM!

C-y'all later!

-T

American Soldiers

American soldiers are being killed like flies for Bush's lies. To date 2,356 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

OF COURSE, NONE OF THEM WAS GOING TO GET SHOT AT. NONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE TO ANSWER TO THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS OF DEAD SOLDIERS AND MARINES. GENERAL SCHWARZKOPF

DON'T PATRONIZE ME WITH TALK ABOUT HUMAN LIVES. COLIN "LAPDOG" POWELL

It sounds like human lives are not important to Lapdog.

If anyone thinks Powell is a honorable person, he or she is full of human dung.

Behind Colin Powell's Legend -- My Lai
By Robert Parry & Norman Solomon

A Pattern of Brutality

While a horrific example of a Vietnam war crime, the My Lai massacre was not unique. It fit a long pattern of indiscriminate violence against civilians that had marred U.S. participation in the Vietnam War from its earliest days when Americans acted primarily as advisers.

In 1963, Capt. Colin Powell was one of those advisers, serving a first tour with a South Vietnamese army unit. Powell's detachment sought to discourage support for the Viet Cong by torching villages throughout the A Shau Valley. While other U.S. advisers protested this countrywide strategy as brutal and counter-productive, Powell defended the "drain-the-sea" approach then -- and continued that defense in his 1995 memoirs, My American Journey. [...]

[...]By late 1968, Powell had jumped over more senior officers into the important post of G-3, chief of operations for division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles Gettys, at Chu Lai. Powell had been "picked by Gen. Gettys over several lieutenant colonels for the G-3 job itself, making me the only major filling that role in Vietnam," Powell wrote in his memoirs.

But a test soon confronted Maj. Powell. A letter had been written by a young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen, who had served in an Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of his Army tour. In a letter to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal division of routine brutality against civilians. Glen's letter was forwarded to the Americal headquarters at Chu Lai where it landed on Maj. Powell's desk. [...]

[...]Glen's letter contended that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." Gratuitous cruelty was also being inflicted on Viet Cong suspects, Glen reported.

"Fired with an emotionalism that belies unconscionable hatred, and armed with a vocabulary consisting of 'You VC,' soldiers commonly 'interrogate' by means of torture that has been presented as the particular habit of the enemy. Severe beatings and torture at knife point are usual means of questioning captives or of convincing a suspect that he is, indeed, a Viet Cong...

"It would indeed be terrible to find it necessary to believe that an American soldier that harbors such racial intolerance and disregard for justice and human feeling is a prototype of all American national character; yet the frequency of such soldiers lends credulity to such beliefs. ... What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated."

Glen's letter echoed some of the complaints voiced by early advisers, such as Col. John Paul Vann, who protested the self-defeating strategy of treating Vietnamese civilians as the enemy. In 1995, when we questioned Glen about his letter, he said he had heard second-hand about the My Lai massacre, though he did not mention it specifically. The massacre was just one part of the abusive pattern that had become routine in the division, he said.

Maj. Powell's Response

The letter's troubling allegations were not well received at Americal headquarters. Maj. Powell undertook the assignment to review Glen's letter, but did so without questioning Glen or assigning anyone else to talk with him. Powell simply accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that Glen was not close enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about, an assertion Glen denies. More.

***************

No expectations of Powell from this corner...

HI'YA!!
Wilkinson has also quoted that "Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because otherwise, I have to declare him a moron, an idiot, or a nefarious bastard."

Of course, you all know that there will always be troll MF's who'll follow bushco to the end, who love to listen to pom-pom waving, skirt- wearing cronies, pundits and media whores who were scared to fight "'Ol Ho & 'Da Cong" (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Scooter, Frist, Lott, Hasert, Novak and other bitch-made clowns, come on down).You too Limbaugh, with your 4F for boil on fat asscheek, and over 3,000 pills of Oxy, which should get you at least 10yrs Fed for Posession With Intent To Distribute.

Drink your f$%kin Kool-Aid. Bottoms up, bitches!!

RS #66

Voting for Nader -in the safe state- no regrets

Then why are you defending your vote with the little caveat -in a safe state- I am sure you wouldn't want anyone to think you were dumb enough to waste a vote on Nader, so you throw that in. Have you ever questioned Nader what he did with all those millions of dollars he took from corporations suing them? Nah! What for, I'm important I have a passport.

Thank you, Shepherd Bliss

RS

Boy, I sure would love to see you take that passport to Afganistan and tell all the troops there how you and Hajji trash them back home on the internet instead of using it to bring home all that opium to your Cornob buddies.

Then why are you defending your vote with the little caveat -in a safe state - baffled

Knowing full well this is worthless...it is simple logic, the Dems are mildly bad, as a generalization, and the GOPhers are horrific.

A protest vote that indicates displeasure at the Dems and does not empower the GOP.

Sadness will never end in America

Hey all you lefties out there!!!

Any thoughts or words for the terrorists that captured four peace activists in Iraq today. Maybe you would like to recite the Geneva convetion rules to them about torture (beheadings in particular) or threaten them with the ACLU. Now I know these are the terrorists and not American troops so you can go easy on them- we'll understand.

Atrocity Fatigue

My energy level is down in part to my health problems but now I find out that I might be suffering from atrocity fatigue. Since I am only 66 years old and the military can call me until I am 68 years old, can I receive a derferment for atrocity fatigue?

I didn't think there would be any takers. It's a little awkward when the terrorist that you call freedom fighters turn the tables on you and don't play by your rules, isn't it?

The Grave Threat

RS #74

There you go again, defending your vote.

I guess winning the White House in 2000 and the House in 2002 and the Sen back after being stolen from the Dems after that doesn't empower the GOP- ya, if you say so!!

RS

That protest vote was real effective!!

Baf,

I am a real person, with a real passport. And you have just accused me with a real crime.

You have called me a coward...perhaps you will let me know who you are so I can sue your ass.

Otherwise, maybe David will provide me with your I.P. address so I can persue this matter.

Ah, on second thought, the good general is not going to reclaim his cajones...in his book "My American Journey", Colin Powell explained the
*practice* of murdering unarmed "MAM" Vietnamese.

"I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male. If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen (West Germany), Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."
*********************

Powell was Caspar Weinberger's toady...I guess he's too far gone to expect him to act honorably.

RS

You can't sue someone for telling the truth. If the kitchen too hot then get the hell out and quit whining-whiner!!!

I believe that the time has come for the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands to hold a trial against all Americans who have voted for Bush. I believe the the Court would rule that the majority of Americans are guilty of crimes against humanity as murderers and war criminals.

I believe that the time has come for the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands to hold a trial against all Americans who have voted for Bush. I believe the the Court would rule that the majority of Americans are guilty of crimes against humanity as murderers and war criminals.

yawn.

"post invasion planning", which was as inept and incompetent as perhaps any planning anyone has ever done.

Next invasion, we will put the cornnuts in charge, but only after they first agree to dust off their crystal ball.

This is our tax money at work!!!

Did you know that 47 countries have reestablished their embassies in Iraq?

Did you know that the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers, all currently operating?

Did you know that 25 Iraqi students departed for the US in Jan 05 for the reestablished Fullbright program?

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operatinal? They have 5-100 ft patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a navy infantry regiment.

Did you know that Iraq's Air Force consists of three operational squadrons, which include 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft (under Iraqi control) which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers?

Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a commando Battalion?

Did you know that the Iraqi police service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

Did you know that there are 5 police academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?

Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 64 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilites, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid-October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in raq and phone use has gone up 158%?

Did you know that Iraq has an idependent media that consists of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Bagdad Stock exchange opened in June 2004?

Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidentail election had a televised debate recently?

OF CORSE WE DIDN'T KNOW! OUR MEDIA WOULDN'T TELL US!!

Oh ya and according to Hajji all were doing is burning the flesh off Iraqi's.

So, as I understand it, the cabal sat around and try to figure out the worst way to conduct this unique invasion whilst misleading to maximum.

You guys are precious!!

Yeah Baf, you got that right, was not Rummie's brief this day great.

Dad once told me, if youre not making mistakes, youre not doing anything. While I would agree things could have been done better, that is only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. If rummie would have upgraded huvie armour, and there was no insurgency, you all would scream waste of tax-payer money. Get it? didnt think so.

DMR

Rummie was great! I loved it when he waited for the press to ask all their anti-america questions and he then asked them one - "How come no-one has asked one question about the Iraqi elections that will take place within a few weeks-not one question?" No on in the press room could answer this and looked like idiots-as usual!!

It is great you all live in the past and slam any action with your 20/20 hindsight, less, you might actually sense a need for vision, but then, I guess that is difference between leadership and habitual nay-saying. No vision, no leadership, just throw yourselves on the ground and cry. Look 04 is over, move on. How about the border issue in 06??? look foward, not half ass backyards.
Here, let me help YOU ALL WITH VISION and LEADERSHIP

As you Know, our great hero, and commander in Chief, President George W. Bush, leader of the free world, and the man having guts enough to take down the butcher of Baghdad, had a great news conference this day in El Paso re the border issue.

Now, hard-right republicans dont want any form of amesty, which is implied by Bushie's 3 year work visa plan, so, LISTEN UP GANG, forward thinking here, (try it sometime) I proposed the following to the GOP this day.

It is great you all live in the past and slam any action with your 20/20 hindsight, less, you might actually sense a need for vision, but then, I guess that is difference between leadership and habitual nay-saying. No vision, no leadership, just throw yourselves on the ground and cry. Look 04 is over, move on. How about the border issue in 06??? look foward, not half ass backyards.
Here, let me help YOU ALL WITH VISION and LEADERSHIP

As you Know, our great hero, and commander in Chief, President George W. Bush, leader of the free world, and the man having guts enough to take down the butcher of Baghdad, had a great news conference this day in El Paso re the border issue.

Now, hard-right republicans dont want any form of amesty, which is implied by Bushie's 3 year work visa plan, so, LISTEN UP GANG, forward thinking here, (try it sometime) I proposed the following to the GOP this day.

President Bush,

Great News Conference this day in El Paso TX! Bravo!!!!

Stay on the Border Issue, pound the table, and drive it home, its the winning issue in 06. I have been campaigning for John Campbell, here in the 48th Cal district, and he is a purported Border Hawk, and hence has my vote on 12/6/05 replacing Chris Cox. Here in laguna beach CA, the people overwhelming, from both parties, want that border shut down. Hard-right republicans equate your 3 year work visa plan to be "amnesty". To a limited extent they are correct, in that, illegal immigrants who cross illegally in the past, effectively get a reward of a temporary work visa.
I think you should counter this argument by saying that nationwide ruthless round-up at this time would be harsh, disruptive and cause economic and societal caos, and that the practical approach, it to encourage them to sign up, get registered, and reward the sign up with a return home with another work visa, and if they dont, the USA will round them up and throw them out, to never return for work again. After the first three years, THEN YOU START the round up. In this way, you approach the border problem of those already here, IN A COMPASSIONATE manner, minimizing social unrest, and yet provide a practical approach to a long term solution. You must also during this first three years SHUT DOWN all "safe haven" cities, such as Los Angeles, that protect illegals for immigration officials. This will help close the republican ranks behind your plan.

SO, update your plan with ROUND-UP after three years, and immediate shut down of safe haven cities.

As such, you keep gains in the Hispanic vote, while limiting social caos, during its implementation, for a long term solution, and provide leadership on the border issue. This seems like a win-win-win for the administration.

I am urging John Campbell to fully support your plan, when he takes his congressional seat in December.

ANYONE, I am suggesting a FUTURE COURSE of conduct. Try it, you might like it.

Why all the silence about the four peace activists taken hostage by the terrorists
(whoops, I mean freedom fighters)? Oh, I know, it's because they are christian peace activists, isn't it? You don't want to associate yourselves with anyone called christian-it all makes sense now!!

Thats it! I'm sick of these right wing wannabe goosestepping gestapo wackos invading this blog. If they can read they should study the Wolfowitz Doctrine (Bush Doctrine) then read the info on this website:http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma05speed Keep up your support for the despicable nazis in charge because your ass will be as dead as us left wingers when these bastards are done. Better start praying idiots, your going to need all the help you can get. your dead bitches, just like the rest of us.

Merely echoing Bush's stand-down stand-up plan, couched in other words, IS NOT LEADERSHIP, by the way.

It just kill me (ROFLMAO) when the dem suggest its now time for a withdrawal, ddaaaaaaaaaaaaa,

despicable nazis or weak minded panderers, WOW, now there election I want to see. I go with the nazi, at least they STOOD for something.

How dare you all say such things of those who are protecting your butts. Talk about wacko?

Do you all really believe what you are saying about the "cabal"???? This is amazing. I reporting to gestapo HQ for unamerican activities.

"Thats it! I'm sick of these right wing wannabe goosestepping gestapo wackos invading this blog."

Am I sensing a temper tantrum? ROFLMAO

Here, let uncle Derrick wipe them little tears, and now now, dont worry, hero bush will protect your unappreciative butt, but you have to get 04, OK?

Den

So you don't agree with David Cornhole on the whole free speech thing-huh? I guess the only way you trolls can compete is if you sue-like RS, have your dogs attack-like Hajji, castrate all men-like saladin, pout like Dr Sulu (capt)
or spend all day looking for your man-hood like James wa wa, wait until late night when your competition is home with their family's to come out to play(lucky for you windows allows you to go from your favorite porn site to David Cornholes site without missing a beat. This must be why you lefties are so against the free market-your afraid of being bullied?

#61 - Kathleen

You are very right on. My position has changed little since before the war. Why? Because I read the Atlantic Monthly, listen to NPR, read many books as well as all the typical MSM. Guess what... the most salient & lucid information/analysis I read before the war that seemed to ring true ended up forming my opinions and these same sources are still just as viable and correct in their analysis today.

I tend to step around the argument of whether Cheney and team purposefully lied. Not because it can't be proven, but because even if they didn't, then they can still be charged as incompetent leaders. Assuming no lying/deception... then their behavior and words are showing them as so limited in their thinking processes (and vision) that they couldn't determine poor intelligence from good, nor do basic statistical analysis. They were incapable of making strategic changes in their thinking as new information became available (i.e. admit that they held some wrong suppositions).

The argument that they did share the same info with congress carries little weight. Because most of the info they share was wrong, and no one would expect congress to query into all the original sources (if we assume the WH admin leadership were competent and trustworthy). As I detailed in a past post a week or so ago, if the WH Admin stands by the argument that all information was truly shown to congress and that they expected congress to do their own complete analysis to match that of the WH admin, then Cheney and team were abdicating their authority to congress. Because you can't transfer responsibility without eventually transferring the authority to go with it.

Is the WH admin really asking for the bond of trust to be broken between these two branches? It's one thing to say that congress didn't ask enough questions, but to hold them equally responsible is an abdication of authority and Cheny and gang must now submit to daily detailed oversight by congress.

If Cheney was running a legitimate company that had to truly survive in a free market world (unlike oil), he would have been fired by the board. Rumsfeld would have been fired or at least some direct reports for the PR fiasco of the prison torture scandals. But this Administration has no ability to self-discipline or learn, and are incapable of leading a diverse and transparent nation like the USA. Instead they seek to follow more in the steps of power-driven dictatorships that gain control of the masses out of fear.

Now I know why I have so much fun on this site-it reminds me of High School when I used to pick on geeks like you trolls on a daily basis. Good thing for me, none of you lefties turned out to be Bill Gates. Wow! what fond memories.

Now I know why I have so much fun on this site-it reminds me of High School when I used to pick on geeks like you trolls on a daily basis. Good thing for me, none of you lefties turned out to be Bill Gates. Wow! what fond memories.

This is david Corn's cite, and if he sends me a email requesting I no longer visit, I will respect his wishes. But, as far as you sheep are concern, I would have trouble letting you all continue with your disgraceful dream-world accusations at our BELOVED PRESIDENT, without giving you the benefit of my wisdom, wanted or not.

DEN, try to ignore them. There are just some people that love the idea of stormtroopers harrassing innocent citizens riding the bus to work and causing general panic among the masses. This, for some sick reason, gives them some kind of rush. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually HOPE for a terrorist attack so that they can have a sense of vindication. I really think they are that twisted.

Yelnat, I can respect that, and maybe you are right, cheney and rummie should be fired, and in 20/20 it seems that the war could have been prosecuted much better, but screams of BUSH-LIED and the cospirator cabal are just little over the top. But, I think they are well intentioned, with a long term vision of world movement, and we always disagree as to how competent they are. Sure, mistakes have been made, I will conceed that. Maybe we should have just nuke the whole rat's nest, and not loose 1 soldier.

After what has been described as the most foolish war in over 2,000 years, is there a way out of Iraq for President Bush

Tuesday November 29, 2005

There is a remarkable article in the latest issue of the American Jewish weekly, Forward. It calls for President Bush to be impeached and put on trial "for misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them".
To describe Iraq as the most foolish war of the last 2,014 years is a sweeping statement, but the writer is well qualified to know.

He is Martin van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the world's foremost military historians. Several of his books have influenced modern military theory and he is the only non-American author on the US Army's list of required reading for officers.

Professor van Creveld has previously drawn parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, and pointed out that almost all countries that have tried to fight similar wars during the last 60 years or so have ended up losing. Why President Bush "nevertheless decided to go to war escapes me and will no doubt preoccupy historians to come," he told one interviewer.

The professor's puzzlement is understandable. More than two years after the war began, and despite the huge financial and human cost, it is difficult to see any real benefits.

read on using the link

- - - - -

Puzzling? No clear direction or purpose. Was it knee jerk reactions, myopic or simplistic idealogies that don't translate well to wider groups?

Using Hanlon's Razor...

Cheney's Administration is either
a) Ignorant about leadership
b) Incompetent to lead
c) Malicious leaders

Either they have failed as good leaders

or

They have succeeded (or are succeeding) according to a set of goals that escapes America and historians.

#106

Thanks for the admission that you are a bully.

Now why don't you spend some of your time writing down why it is good to be a bully.

New, improved platitudes coming tomorrow...

MR. McCLELLAN: Iraq, yes. In terms of tomorrow, it's an important speech. It's the first in a series of speeches that the President will be making between now and the December 15th elections about our plan for victory in Iraq. We are pursuing a comprehensive strategy to defeat the terrorists and those trying to prevent democracy from advancing in Iraq. And the President believes that the American people should have a clear understanding of our strategy. And that means how we see the enemy and how we define and achieve victory. So as part of the speech tomorrow, we are going to be releasing a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." It's an unclassified version of the plan that we've been pursuing in Iraq, and it will be made available to the American people. I think we'll also be posting it on our website, as well.

Q When is that -

MR. McCLELLAN: Early tomorrow morning is the goal, before the networks go on the air.

**********
check this out at whitehouse.gov

Please Don't Visit

From: The Toronto Star

Fascism then. Fascism now?

When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
Nov. 27, 2005. 01:00 AM
PAUL BIGIONI

Observing political and economic discourse in North America since the 1970s leads to an inescapable conclusion: The vast bulk of legislative activity favours the interests of large commercial enterprises. Big business is very well off, and successive Canadian and U.S. governments, of whatever political stripe, have made this their primary objective for at least the past 25 years.

Digging deeper into 20th century history, one finds the exaltation of big business at the expense of the citizen was a central characteristic of government policy in Germany and Italy in the years before those countries were chewed to bits and spat out by fascism. Fascist dictatorships were borne to power in each of these countries by big business, and they served the interests of big business with remarkable ferocity.

These facts have been lost to the popular consciousness in North America. Fascism could therefore return to us, and we will not even recognize it. Indeed, Huey Long, one of America's most brilliant and most corrupt politicians, was once asked if America would ever see fascism. "Yes," he replied, "but we will call it anti-fascism."

By exploring the disturbing parallels between our own time and the era of overt fascism, we can avoid the same hideous mistakes. At present, we live in a constitutional democracy. The tools necessary to protect us from fascism remain in the hands of the citizen. All the same, North America is on a fascist trajectory. We must recognize this threat for what it is, and we must change course.

Nuking the World

#109

Don't get distracted by extreme outcries often out of frustration or fear, stay focused on the facts. There used to be a fear of what was said when records were played backwards in various religious circles, but as some said just listening to them played forwards is enough to make a judgment.

Would you agree that this current administration showing extremely and costly incompetence in their leadership?

Is there a lack of accountability and discipline within the WH administration that a corporate enterprise in competitive environment would have tossed long ago? Are people not being held responsible for incompetent decisions and poor management? Has personal loyalty gone on long enough? Demanding loyalty is either a sign of immaturity or a mark of a unhealed wounded past, and neither situation is healthy for being a leader especially at the highest levels.

It appears that far more people have left this admin out of frustration in combating the top down driven political policy on all administration decisions (driven by Rove and Cheney) then as a result of discipline. As one departed official says "What you've got is everything--and I mean everything--being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis"

O'Neill, Whitman, John DiIulio, Powell and many others leave worn out in trying to serve their country.

Very few leave as a consequence of malfeasance or incompetence to the government... Perle, Michael Brown.

America's Sinister Shadow

America continues to dysfunction under an insane fuehrer.

Saladin; think it is a coincidence that the first jack boot thugs are doing their work in Jeb-boys state? Like I said and the trolls proved me right, bully and co.can go bother someone that gives a s**t what their little minds contain.

They've 'swift-boated' Muhammed Ali now.
giving Ali that medal was the nadir of Bush's career

Well ya know it was because he was a "man of peace". They hate it when you refuse to fight in an unjust war. Some just hid, others stood up and said they weren't going. Who's the 'girlie man' that hid? (that Alabama stint was "harrrrd work...so I got daddy to get me out early) Who is braver, I ask? Who got the medal too?

In a recent poll conducted by the Gerald Polling Agency reveals that 99% of Americans believe that Bush is mentally deranged; 66% of Americans view Bush as a god; 54% of Americans would still vote for Bush; 51% of Americans would march into hell for Bush; yet 33% of Americans feel that America is headed in the wrong direction under the bushgod. With statistics like these no wonder the world views America as certifiably nuts! Would the real America be counted?

#119 Alan, medals from Bush are a joke! The medal that Bush deserves is a branding iron up his rectum.

from a link posted yesterday... this part of the "Wall of the Fallen" is about Pat Tillman.

And from beyond the grave, the administration's would-be propaganda puppet (who, it turns out was a major Noam Chomsky fan) had the last word – via the recollections of his close friend, Army Specialist Russell Baer, who served with Tillman in Iraq:

"We were outside of [a city in southern Iraq] watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin [Tillman, Pat's brother] and Pat, we weren't in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f____ illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush."

Would you agree that this current administration showing extremely and costly incompetence in their leadership? No, too many variable in war to make that conclusion, but would agree that things could have been better planned.

Is there a lack of accountability and discipline within the WH administration that a corporate enterprise in competitive environment would have tossed long ago? Well possibly, but the presidency is not a corporate board room, it is a commander in cheif, and someone has to make A DECISION in a prepresentative democracy, and Geo Washington well understood.

"It appears that far more people have left this admin out of frustration in combating the top down driven political policy on all administration decisions (driven by Rove and Cheney) then as a result of discipline." The president sets HIS policy, and if you dont like, tuff, even if in the same party. When you vote in a president, you AUTHORIZE him to conduct HIS agenda.

I can understand the frustration, look at what they said about Lincoln at the time of civil war.
Sure, mistakes are made, war never goes to plan, people disagree, and get frustrated. I understand, but when you are boss, you got to be the boss, or you end up like Prez Carter. While Bush should respectfully listen to his advisors, and the party opposite, in the end, its his call, and though you may not like it, having a presidency is the only possible to conduct WAR. Someone has to be the commander in chief.

What I wonder is whether you all are just anti-establish, sour-grape dem losers in 04, or really believe the Bush-lied, Conspirator Cabal theories.
Clinton was no ideological fav of mine, but you known, I never slammed him, gave him respect as president, but then of course, when I found out about the dress, I said, hey, he can cum party with me any time!!! Bottom line, Bush aint perfect, no one is, and the presidency deserves our respect. I like the idea of you all watching out as a guard dog, and that is good, but think you all have cross the line, with the Bush-Lied conspirator cabal thing, that is an insult to the American Presidency. Would someone please put a sock in Pelozi's mouth, geeeewiiizzzz

From #116: "the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis." For the country's sake, I wish Dubya were more like Andy Taylor and less like Ernest T. Bass. I must prepare for work now. Those trees won't peck themselves, you know.---IBW

Sorry the polling results of America actually feel that 67% of Americans see America headed in the wrong direction.

DEN, I don't think it is a coincidence at all. Seems wherever there's a bush something awful happens! Funny, the trolls don't seem to mind this outrageous policy being inflicted on people. Just goes to prove my point, it's what floats their boat!

It seems more evident that Cheney is the target for the new investigation by Fitzgerald. An inside source and friend says that Bush was ruled out of the investigation process because he is too lame and stupid to know what is really going on behind his back.

#125 Sorry the polling results of America actually feel that 67% of Americans see America headed in the wrong direction.

This is kinda like the OReilly show. OReilly is politically centered, with is right of left, and so the left says he is ring.

This is kinda like those who say WITHDRAW NOW, or, PUT IN ANOTHER 100K troops to 250,000. Bush has 150K in there, so both sides disagree.

When you say not in the right direction, you have to be careful of what direction and viewed by whom?

Dont read to much into "Right Direction" poll.

The better poll is the one that ask which party has better leadership and vision, and there the republicans beat the dems 56 to 38.

I dont want either party in the WH for more than 12 years, and hope the dems can field a real leader in 08 or 2012, as I like it back and forth in the WH. Dem are great on social issues and Rep are good on business issues, and want the back and forth in control. Where is the old dem party that american needs???? Reps need a soul mate!!

It seems more evident that Cheney is the target for the new investigation by Fitzgerald. An inside source and friend says that Bush was ruled out of the investigation process because he is too lame and stupid to know what is really going on behind his back.

Robert Schwartz: "No expectations of Powell from this corner..."

Nor from this one. Good soldier, lousy human being. Military heroes are at least as corruptible and capable of self-delusion as the next guy. Look at "Duke" Cunningham.

Powell displayed the limitations of his conscience to all the world during his Baba WaWa interview. There's just no more there.

And for what it's worth, include me among those who would like to see David pick up the Sibel Edmonds story and run with it. The Vanity Fair piece a couple months ago was fascinating, but apparently there's a lot more to this.

This is a strange damn place, isn't it? John Murtha, who was so dead wrong about this war from the very beginning and actually helped make it happen, is now being lionized for finally opening his eyes. But the people who were dead right all along -- people like Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and Bob Graham -- get not so much as a tip of the hat.

Apparently it's now better to be a repetant fool in this country than to be a wise man.

If Cheney OUTED plame, and knew it was wrong, he should get BOOTED ASAP!!!! Dang, Condi as VP, Im getting WET!!!!! She is so great!

We have received more information of the USA's missile network to preempt a missile launch upon Russia and China. Americans are not aware that in a secret agreement between Russia and China reveals that all their missiles are aimed at the mainland USA. Russia and China can never knock out America's missile network but they can do great harm and destruction to America.

Keep in mind the year 2015! Either that year or sooner will be the nuclear holocaust that will alter the world for centuries. Americans still living will see those glorious bombs bursting in air and on land and at sea. There will be contaminated air, water, land, food, and bodies. That, too, will be a glorious scene.

Personally, I sense that America desires such an attack because in the end America is still a winner in defeating Russia and China. Americans who survive can endlessly relish the victory.

One would assume that libs are always failures in life because they are always guilty of premature withdrawal, be it from Iraq or, you know, other places.

Second Thoughts

A former senior U.S. State Department official says he has come to doubt
whether President Bush's administration presented an honest intelligence case for the war in Iraq.
"You begin to speculate, you begin to wonder -- Was this intelligence spun? Was it politicized? Was it cherry-picked? Did in fact the American people get fooled? I'm beginning to have my concerns," Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said.

Wilkerson added that in recent days he's started to question a number of other deeply held personal beliefs, saying he now suspects that Madonna is not really a natural blonde, that many congressional campaign contributions are nothing more than thinly diguised bribes, and that the personal interactions shown on "reality" television shows are often scripted in advance.

"My years spent climbing bureacratic ladders at the Pentagon and in the State Department simply didn't prepare me to deal with such devious behavior," Wilkerson explained. "It's been a shattering experience."

...you know, other places.

You mean Bosnia/Kosovo?

also at Billmon...

Riding With the Bad Boys
U.S. officials have long been concerned about extrajudicial killings in Iraq, but until recently they have refrained from calling violent elements within the police force "death squads" — a loaded term that conjures up the U.S.-backed paramilitaries that killed thousands of civilians during the Latin American civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s.
But U.S. military advisors in Iraq say the term is apt, and the Interior Ministry's inspector general concurs that extrajudicial killings are being carried out by ministry forces . . .

This month, U.S. forces raided a secret Interior Ministry detention facility in southern Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials linked to the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia that has long-standing ties to Iran and to Iraq's leading Shiite political party. Inmates compiled a handwritten list of 18 detainees at the bunker who were allegedly tortured to death while in custody. The list was authenticated by a U.S. official and given to Justice Ministry authorities for investigation. It was later provided to The Times.

The U.S. military is investigating whether police officers who worked at the secret prison were trained by American interrogation experts.
========================
the 'beacon' and teaching them the 'better way'

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God And Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics (Paperback)
by Former Senator Gary Hart

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart has written the most compelling, cogent contemporary treatise for the separation of church and state in America that we have come across. Titled "God and Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics," Hart's work is in the tradition of Tom Paine.

This is a trenchant, earnest commentary that combines Hart's personal experience as a child raised in a Church of the Nazarene household (he attended a Nazarene College), his years as a Yale Divinity student, and his career as a Yale Law School educated attorney and elected politician. Although his faith-based upbringing combined with his years as a national leader in the Senate provide him with a unique perspective, it is the eloquent, impassioned analysis that Hart applies to the interjection of religion into politics that makes his short book so insightful.

Hart can move from analyzing the deplorable manner in which right wing ministers hold Jesus hostage to achieve their own selfish political goals to the historical factors behind the separation of church and state that were enshrined into our Constitution by our founding fathers. More importantly, Hart makes a moral and practical case as to why mixing religion with politics is detrimental to both.

"Our founders knew that we would be governed by fallible human beings," Hart concludes, "from among whom we would select our leaders. They did not believe that human fallibility in the political sphere would be corrected by opening the corridors of power to ministers, priests and rabbis. To the contrary, to turn over the reigns of government to religious leaders could lead to one of only two destructive consequences: we would become a theocratic principality familiar to old Europe or religion would be totally discredited and taken over by the state."

"Indeed, how can religious judgment all seem to be rendered against one political party?" Hart asks in a chapter called, "Beliefs, Values and Justice." "The 'values' employed are very partisan values. All this religious partisanship is a very short step away from preaching that Jesus was a member of one political party."

"This kind of political activity may encourage one party," Hart continues, "and its candidates, but it certainly does nothing to further the gospel of Jesus."

Indeed, in the original debates over the Constitution, one of the reasons religion was guaranteed the right to be free of the influence of politics -- and politics to be kept free of religion -- was that once a specific religious faction took control of politics, that religion itself would eventually become corrupted by the secular, practical concerns of the political sphere.

Hart convincingly argues that religious values, as seen by a member of any faith, should be practiced in deed in the public sphere, but that absolutist religious principles have no place in the political world of the American democracy.

Because of the absolutist nature of the religious right, we have seen less and less compromise in American politics. "This circumstance has been created in no small part by the introduction of absolutes, especially 'faith-based' absolutes, into a political system, where no single group gets everything that it demands, and often does not even get one thing it wants unblemished by compromise."

Hart is optimistic that the pendulum will swing back to the heritage of our Constitutional wisdom creating the separation of church and state: "Politicians hiding behind the robes of ministers, policy makers courting a vociferous religious element, adventurers cloaking foreign military ventures in the crusader's rhetoric, political manipulators cynically using public fears to turn out voters all will be swept back into our nation's nooks and crannies from whence they emerged. This must happen, because America cannot be governed otherwise."

"God and Caesar in America" is a profound and vitally important reflection on the danger to our democracy posed by religious fanatics who have seized control of our government. This is a must-read book for anyone concerned about the Mullah fundamentalists who have hijacked this nation.

OOPS

Sorry about all the "get here"

Drewp: "Apparently it's now better to be a repetant fool in this country than to be a wise man."

This is one part of the intended result of the conditioning of the sheeple through message manipulation and low expectations.

Goebbels is smiling, joined by Lee Atwater, General Rove, John Rendon, etc.

#48
Kathleen,
Hope everything goes well for your friends. I'm glad you called Democracy Now. It's one of the places you can hear the news that is happening. Sibel Edmonds has been on several times.

Gerald, the nuclear option is not just for Russia and China. There are rumblings about a "premptive strike" on Iran not to mention a revision of nuclear policy to include testing and use of bunker busting nukes to use at chimpy and companies' discretion. We are in EXTREMELY DANGEROUS times. We are under the thumb of lunatics bent on world domination period, trouble is the lunatics are running the asylum and no one especially these right wing trolls is willing to CHANGE the course we are on. Please read:http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma05speed 7 minutes before twelve o-clock is no joke either.

They've 'swift-boated' Muhammed Ali now.
giving Ali that medal was the nadir of Bush's career

#119 "Well ya know it was because he was a "man of peace". They hate it when you refuse to fight in an unjust war. Some just hid, others stood up and said they weren't going. Who's the 'girlie man' that hid? (that Alabama stint was "harrrrd work...so I got daddy to get me out early) Who is braver, I ask? Who got the medal too?"

I guess it comes down to who violated law, and who didnt?

I'm not a constituent of Ron Paul anymore (I got Delay'd), but I seem to be still on his mailing list. Here's the first part, and has anybody heard of this he talks about (I'll put it in bold)?

Dear Mr. xxxxxx:

This is the first in a series of periodic e-mails I intend to send updating you on activities of importance to my constituents in Galveston County. The rules of the House of Representatives closely monitor these communications. The content and timing of these messages is regulated by House Rules. Nonetheless, it is my hope that these communications will provide you with valuable information about important federal activities relevant to Galveston County.

Please feel free to share this communication with others who may have an interest.

Due to House Rules, I will not be able to send you an update on these items again until the 2nd quarter of next year.

"Gerald, the nuclear option is not just for Russia and China. There are rumblings about a "premptive strike" on Iran not to mention a revision of nuclear policy to include testing and use of bunker busting nukes to use at chimpy and companies' discretion. We are in EXTREMELY DANGEROUS times"

OK, listen up, it aint all that bad. After Iraq stablizes over the next year, the UN will address Iraq and if they buy in the Russian option, the US may act, but here is how it goes down. We park two carrier battle groups in the persian guld and declare a blockade, oil out food in only, and declare a no fly zone (shoot down any aircraft) all done from the stand-off position. The economy implodes and the democrats rise and sieze control. Or, the stupid iranian attack a US ship, after which, the bunker buster go into over drive and take out all nuke facilities. But it will never get to that point, Russia will behind close doors, accept the deal, or we will turn the Americans loose. It is so great to have a gunslinger in the WH, the loose cannon, the intimidation factor can in and of itself work.

Yikes!!!!!!!

Can you feel the fear?

Scared little pinheads.

How sad they live their lives like puppets. Their strings pulled to make them dance to the music of fear.

Researchers have found the "fear gene" and we can only hope the vaccination is available soon.

A total of 17,013 alcohol-related fatalities were recorded in 2003. Many times the number killed on 9/11. We have more reason to fear driving to the grocery than a terrorist attack.

capt

Micki: "This is one part of the intended result of the conditioning of the sheeple through message manipulation and low expectations."

It must be powerful conditioning if a guy who was so tragically wrong is now considered the most "credible" spokesman of the stop-the-war movement.

Meanwhile, the people who were right all along are treated like background noise.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that a society that engages in this kind of warrior-worship should find itself in such a bloody mess.

"We park two carrier battle groups in the persian guld (sic) and . . . "

Somebody's read way too many Tom Clancy novels.

The Abuse of 'Democracy'

Thus, President Bush’≥ recent contention that his war in Iraq is designed to further the cause of "democracy" is not out of line with the statements of past U.S. government officials, who have not been very scrupulous about how they have packaged their policies. Nor is it out of line with the behavior of other governments, always eager to put the most attractive face on their ventures.

Even so, given the long-term abuse of the word "democracy" as a public relations device –†as well as the collapse of the president’≥ earlier justifications for the Iraq War –†we might be pardoned for viewing his sudden enthusiasm for democracy with a good deal of skepticism.

*****end of clip*****

A good deal of skepticism indeed.

capt

# Robert...Yes I stand right behind you in asking David to draw some more attention to the Sibel Edmonds story...this woman is focused on the truth.

Here is an idea for you.
I have had quite a bit of success lobbying the Diane Rehm show, Talk of the Nation, Kojo on Wamu, C-span to do particular shows. I have also been able to get certain guest on the shows. If you begin to call and e-mail producers of these shows, and leave messages on their comments line, it works.

It works best if you have a team of people doing this during the same period of time. Say you pick a certain show and some of the folks on this site politely target that media outlet at the same time. I tell you it works.

Today I had a great success all though it was not looking good for a while. My friend Peggy Gish who is on her way to Iraq as I type and is member of the CHRISTIAN PEACE MAKER TEAM. (4 people from this group were kidnapped this weekend).

I had been after Amy Goodman of Democracy Now for a while to have Peggy and Art Gish on her program ( Peggy has been in Iraq 18 months out of the last 3 years) and her husband Art is on his way for his 10th time to live with Palestinians who are about to have their houses bulldozed and escorts Palestinian children to their schools).

Well AMY GOODMAN FROM DEMOCRACY NOW called ART AND PEGGY this morning in San Francisco just before they were getting on their plane. I had called her producers four times this morning with their phone numbers and she called them.

So Robert if you decide you want other folks to join you in targeting a certain program to shed more light on the Sibel Edmonds story...just let me know..I will join the effort.

#104 yelnats I agree with every thing you wrote...although I believe we can push, pressure, hammer congress to FULLY INVESTIGATE all of the original sources of the false intelligence...every individual and every special office...including the OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS THE WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP THE OFFICE OF NET ASSESSMENT AND THE COUNTER-TERROISM EVALUATION GROUP. ALL OF THEM.

Investigating these groups and the individuals involved with creating and dessiminating the false intelligence has nothing to do with being a Republican, Democrat or an Independent. Getting to the bottom of the intelligence has to do with the TRUTH. It has to do with sending soldiers into a war based on LIes. It has to do with hundreds of thousands of peoples lives being destroyed.

We must continue to pressure every representative to fully investigate every inch of false intelligence and every person who knowingly passed this intelligence .

IT IS OUR JOB TO PRESSURE..PRESSURE PRESSURE...THEM.

# Baf and Derrick Michael Reid... I am not sure why the two of you are not serving in the military. I have made this offer before. I come from a military family. Five uncles who
are engineers at WPAFB (WRIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE IN DAYTON OHIO).

I have a cousin who was a pilot for the air force and is way up the ranks in the Air Force ( I forget his title, but I can certainly find out).

They all have connections in the military. Even if you have some mental disablity I could hook you up with these gentlemen and they would help the two of you enlist. Let me know.

Is the President's Soul in Jeopardy?

An Evangelical Christian Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation

By LEWIS ALPER

Skull and Bones is a worrisome and strange Yale secret society. On August 17, 2000 there was an interview with President George W. Bush that bestirred controversy regarding his initiation into Skull and Bones. Time Magazine asked if it troubled him that he had been initiated into the Society when he was a young man. President Bush responded, "No qualms at all. I was honored." Inevitably some people, knowing the Skull and Bones reputation of blasphemy, were surprised that the President said he was "honored." Others, particularly Christians defended him saying, in effect, "Let's put this aside. He was forgiven of that when he accepted Christ." The disturbing fact, however, is that President Bush's statement came many years after he announced he had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

In that light, the more one learns about Skull and Bones, the more distressing the President's statement becomes. It raises vexing questions for those of us who live our life in Christ and do so as evangelicals.

*****end of clip*****

WOW! Is five years a bit of delayed reaction?

Now, after all of this time? I have been waiting to hear the backlash from the American Christian Leadership[sic]. Not just the skull and bones but the warmongering and lying.

This is the real damage done by exposing the lies that started the quagmire. The Libby indictment is enough reason for many middle-of-the-road folks to turn away.

capt

Nice,
This is the real mentality of the neocons. Rewrite history. Reality be damned. Assholes.

Wikipedia gets Swift Boated

The upside of an open-source encyclopedia is that anyone can provide detailed information. The downside of an open-source encyclopedia is that anyone can provide detailed information.

This became readily apparent when a aquiline-eyed reader noticed that Swift Boating was defined as "accurate and truthful," and that Cindy Sheehan was dubbed a "left wing moonbat."
--------------------
If you click on the link you can see the before and after.

By the way, I respect Wilkerson for going public. I respect his analysis of what happened. History will not protect the Bush administration and will not treat it kindly.

"We don't torture people in America and people who say we do simply know nothing about our country." : George W. Bush - Interview with Australian TV - October 18, 2003

=
Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management: Edward Kennedy

=
"They are torturing people. They are torturing people on Guantanamo Bay .they are engaging in acts which amount to torture in the medieval sense of the phrase. They are engaging in good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages." : Australian attorney Richard Bourke

=
"Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But every one of us -- every single one of us -- knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them." - Republican Senator John McCain

===

Thanks ICH newsletter!

Is he selling a book?

A war supporter disillusioned in Iraq

He believed in the fight, his family said, until he entered the war zone.

When they swept a town, the insurgents would return just days later. Foreign fighters were allowed to slip easily through unsecured borders. Army leadership seemed disorganized and disconnected from the ground. Certain tactics, such as 3 a.m. house raids, created a new generation of terrorists.

The military seemed to scrimp on armor but served filet mignon and lobster tails once a week. At first, the unit entered Iraq with crudely assembled armor, but the vehicles were upgraded over time, said Spec. Edward Greene, 28, of Gloucester City, who served with Kulick.

"I think his greatest disappointment in the Army was the way that the soldiers were treated," Jill Kulick said. "John had the same concerns that we all have here, and that is the fact that it doesn't look like we've really accomplished a lot in the improvement of the Iraqi people's lives and in eliminating terrorist activity."

His mom described him as "disillusioned" by a sense of helplessness.

*****end of clip*****

War is hell.

capt

Wow, I got thru 155 posts in record time because there was much to scTROLL thru. I had time for Gerald and read some of his posts. Gerald, you should give us a couple more neocon-visitor stories. That would be fun. I enjoyed every time you mentioned them.

Firefox will NOT let me paragraph! Have to remember to open IE if I want to post something.

"scTROLL thru."

HA! Good one!

capt

Palestinians, Israelis to play soccer for peace

11/29/2005 3:7:27
Source ::: Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israeli and Palestinian soccer players, accompanied by a host of sports and political dignitaries, flew to Spain yesterday to promote Middle East peace in a friendly match against Barcelona.

The "Peace Team" sponsored by Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres’≥ Centre for Peace includes Israeli internationals and Palestinian players from the occupied West Bank. The bulk of the group flew from Tel Aviv for today’≥ match which comes at the end of a two-day Euro-Mediterranean summit in Barcelona.

Leaders of all 25 European Union member states and 10 of its Mediterranean neighbours are meeting in the city to discuss closer cooperation in the region. The "Peace Team" will be coached jointly by newly-appointed Israel national team coach Dror Kashtan and Palestinian coach Jamal Hadeideh of Tulkarm.

"Soccer is a language which anybody can understand and I am happy to be a part of the message which will go out to the world through this match, that Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in soccer is a natural thing," Kashtan said in a statement.

"I hope that this game is only the first of many other joint sporting ventures which will take place in the future," he said. Israeli players in a 15-strong group include national team captain Avi Nimni, veteran defenders Arik Benado and Alon Harazi, and Israeli Arabs Abbas Suan and Walid Badir.

*****end of clip*****

This is very good news! I swear, it could make a major difference in the way people relate.

capt

I have given you freaks 4 hours to come up with some plausable answer to the 4 peace activists that were captured by your freedom fighters (according to Cindy Sheenan)and how you would stop them from using torture (like beheading). All I've read is some lame come back from Kathleen #150 how she could hook me up with the Air-Force. By the way Kathleen my brother served in the first Iraq war(USAF and my sister just returned from a tour in this Iraq war(USAF). My father served in the US Navy and was in Vietnam. I have another brother that served in the USMC. I enlisted in the US Navy and was unable to serve do to a car accident. I have two boys that are looking at joining in the future so f_ck you!!

Capt, if only the ones who make the decisions could do the same, (and you know who I mean!) I watched the new Star Wars installment, Revenge of the Sith, recently. It was creepy the parallels drawn to our own predicament. In one scene the crowd was cheering upon hearing the news that the Sith had taken over, the best line, the one that gave me chills was, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause." Think George Lucas is trying to tell us something?

The illusion of phased withdrawal

Those Democratic members of Congress who think well of themselves for now advocating phased withdrawal are either deluding themselves, or they are continuing to play the same double game many of them began playing when they originally voted to authorize the use of force - and then sniped at the Bush administration over the subsequent conduct of the war.

Phased withdrawal is an empty slogan that can only result in prolonging the war. It is knowingly advocated by those who wish to prolong the war, and naively advocated by some who earnestly oppose the war.

To the limited extent that a phased withdrawal does result in a draw-down of the number of American combat troops, the pernicious policy will place those troops remaining in ever-greater danger and thereby increase the number of dead and maimed American soldiers.

This is because under a phased withdrawal, Iraq would become progressively more dangerous for American troops, more lawless, and then eventually fall under the sway of the most ruthless and violent of the insurgent and paramilitary forces.

A strategy of phased withdrawal, if actually implemented, might leave Iraq in the hands of America's most avowed enemies and become a secure base from which dangerous terrorist forces could lash out at the US. An Iraq after phased withdrawal could become in reality the looming danger that Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist Iraq was mistakenly held out to be before the war.

*****end of clip*****

Ineptitude is the WH’≥ specialty.

Phased withdrawal is just more of the same.

capt

"The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong
probability that yours is a fake." ~ H L Mencken

"Ask questions from your heart and you will be answered from the heart." ~ Omaha Proverb

Tomorrows front page story NYT

"By most measures, the economy appears to be doing just fine, no scratch that, it is doing great!"

Looks like even the NYT can't find away to spin the fact that the Bush tax cut's are working- Big Time!!! Good news for all you lefties-more welfare on the way for the holiday's!!!

Media Mogul Addresses Tough Issues at Kansas State

In between quips this morning, media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner called for nuclear disarmament and said that Iraq is "no better off" today than it was before U.S. military intervention.

He said he was afraid that someone in a position of power could make the mistake of launching them, particularly President George Bush.

"You have to question ... the President on a lot of decisions he's made," Turner said. "He might just think launching those weapons would be a good thing to do ... he thought Iraq was."

He said the eight super powers should sign a treaty and give the International Atomic Energy Agency the authority to regulate them. He said if he were in charge — and he made clear he isn't and will never be — "we'd be rid of them."

He said war is an outdated form of diplomacy that has stopped working. "You would think that we would have learned that in Vietnam," he said.

Turner said the authority of superpowers of tomorrow will be derived from things like education, health care and science and technology — and that that's where the U.S. should be focusing its efforts.

"That's what's going to be on top in the future," he said.

Things are becoming increasingly globalized, he said, and if humanity is going to survive, its members are going to have to work together.

"We are going to survive together, or we are going to perish together," he said.

*****end of clip*****

Ted can get on my nerves at times but seems spot on in this piece.

capt

Bush Resigns!

On the lighter side,

This is not a doctored photo. Man in West Virginia shown adjusting one of his 12 working satellite dishes. Gets 5,000 channels. Only in America!

Satellites

Drewp --

You are right, this warrior-worship that you mention is pervasive, diffused throughout our society -- take for instance, that *fervent* religious segment who even use terms like "worship warriors." When you couple "warrior-worshippers" with "worship warriors" it is not reassuring!

I meant to comment that I found your original post on this subject re Murtha, Kucinich, Graham very insightful -- and thought-provoking.

One more time,

Satellites

Carol, that's a good word for the blogosphere lexicon! Glad to see that Gerald made you smile. Gerald makes me chuckle a lot -- as you know, I've always enjoyed his brand of humor.

JERRY GARCIA's TOILETS to be AUCTIONED ON E-BAY

(AP)
-Jerry Garcia's dishwasher, toilets and other home appliances will be auctioned by a nonprofit group hoping to raise more than $100,000.

The items, which also include stereo cabinets, cupboards and a freezer, will be available for bidding on the online auction site eBay from Dec. 18 through Dec. 24.

Revenue will benefit the Sophia Foundation, a San Francisco Bay area nonprofit that aids children and families during marital separations and divorces, said the group's chairman, Henry Koltys.

Koltys bought the Nicasio, Calif. home of Garcia, the lead singer and guitarist of the Grateful Dead, in 1997, two years after Garcia died of a heart attack.

An appraiser has valued the items at about $75,000, but Koltys said he expects people will end up spending more.

"There's a lot of Deadheads out there with money, and they want a piece of Jerry somehow."
_________________

"You are what you don't sh*t."
-Wavy Gravy

What about his stash? He had to have had a stash!

TRH, none of us could afford it!

From: News 24.com

'I was paid to blame Syria'
28/11/2005 15:46 - (SA)

Beirut - A man has claimed on Syrian state TV that he was bribed to accuse top Syrian officials of the murder of Rafiq Hariri in his testimony to the United Nations commission into the former Lebanese premier's assassination.

Husam Taher Husam, a former conscript in the Syrian army, alleged in a 75-minute interview on Sunday night that Saad Hariri, the son of the slain Hariri, met him several months ago and offered him $1.3m to testify against top Syrian officials.

The spokesperson for the Syrian inquiry into Hariri's murder, Ibrahim Daraji, said on Monday that if Husam is the unidentified key witness quoted in the UN commission's interim report, then the United Nations' case "has completely collapsed."

Daraji spoke at a press conference in Damascus on Monday at which Husam reiterated the allegations he had made on Syrian television the night before.

Syria criticised UN report

Husam told the television that UN officials told him what to say when he gave evidence to the UN commission, in particular that he was "close to" Brigadier General Assef Shawkat, the chief of Syrian military intelligence and brother-in-law of Syria's president, who was named in the commission's interim report last month.

"But I've never seen him in my whole life," Husam said of Shawkat in the television interview.
--------------
HMMMM, now, why am I not surprised?

#167 -- I knew it couldn't be true, of course. But, man oh man, the writers certainly drive home their point. thnx

BYU Brass Discredit Physics Professor for Saying WTC Brought Down by Controlled Demolition
Professor Steven E. Jones only was in the public eye for five days before BYU told him to stop giving interviews. Now the university has issued a public statement distancing itself from Jones and even discrediting his work. Critics suggest Bush administration had its dirty hand in forcing BYU to 'shut up' its professor.
29 Nov 2005

By Greg Szymanski

Brigham Young University (BYU) issued a public statement this week, discrediting and distancing itself from physics Professor Steven E. Jones for publicly claiming the WTC was brought down by explosives not jet fuel like the government contends.

Jones, a tenured BYU professor, went public two weeks ago after releasing a 19 page academic paper, essentially showing how the laws of physics do not support the WTC'S freefall and, consequently, the official government story.

While expressing doubt about the government's version of 9/11, he called for an independent investigation concerning the strange collapse of the towers and Building No. 7, something the 9/11 Commission failed to do and something the Bush administration adamantly opposes.

However, Jones notoriety turned out to be short lived as only days after giving numerous press interviews, including a six-minute spot on MSNBC, BYU officials twisted his arm and convinced him to stop appearing publicly.

Critics quickly pointed out that Jones must have been silenced quickly after the Bush administration pressured BYU to end any further embarrassment while, at the same time, reminding officials about the numerous government grants swinging in the balance.
---------------
I wonder what took them so long! What could anyone possibly have against a full, non-partisan, completely independent team looking at the myriad questions regarding 9/11? Could it be they have something to hide? Like Sibel Edmonds? But then, if you recall, it was like pulling teeth to get bushco to look into it at all. Then they would only testify without being under oath and with no recording of testimony whatsoever. As usual, it comes down to the money thing.

#161 Baf I could get you a desk job...

#167 Capt. Thanks While Cunningham is a crook and a slime bucket. I really have to give it to the guy for coming clean...not trying to fight it...not making excuses...not going into denial...not blaming someone else.

This is a major crime...but I actually have to hand it to the guy for coming clean.

While he has to pay for his crime.

Forgiveness is something folks are not practicing much these days.

#175

Saladin PLEASE PLEASE GET SOME HELP. You have every indication of a bright woman in need of a 12 step program for conspiracy theory mongering.

I am always amazed by the good hearted, caring, well intentioned, and I have to say, Ding Bats, that think if Americans are just nice, the terrorists won't hurt them. I wish these people would realize the terrorists don't care how nice your are, they don't care about American foreign policy, they do not care if you are trying to help them, THEY JUST WANT THE INFIDELS DEAD, ALL OF US, NO MATTER WHAT AMERICANS DO AROUND THE WORLD.

I will pray the terrorists treat their detainees as well as we treat our detainees. If they do torture them, I will pray they only torture the way we do. Cold showers, no TV in the evenings, only 3 meals a day instead of 4, and wool blankets instead of down.

*Christmas Lights ---- I think this guy might be a roadie for U2 or something! Hella job on his house!

lights set to music
I like the star and the peace sign best.

Got this as an email today. It is tomorrows Democracy Now show.

A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams

Two weeks from the date of his scheduled execution, Williams speaks
from death row with Democracy Now! about his case, his life and his
redemption. Williams helped start the Crips street gang. But behind bars he
has become a leading advocate for the end of gang violence. He has
written nine books and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace
Prize. He is scheduled to die on Dec. 13.

#182
Unbelievable. That was great.
But can you imagine being the pizza delivery guy? I don't think I could make it to the front door. I'd be so disoriented.

Alan,

That was classic! That raised the bar to new heights for "Christmas Lights."

Jeanne,

Tookie was convicted of killing 4 people by a California jury. He was sentenced to die for his crimes. Nothing he has done since can ever undo what he did before. I don't know if you are aware of this but his 16 year old son is also a convicted murderer and his other son is already convicted of or pending trial by raping a woman at gunpoint. So much for influence. Don't forget Jack Henry Abbott, convicted killer and author of the book "Belly of the Beast." Released from prison after pleas from the likes of Norman Mailer because of his book only to kill again shortly after his release. I no longer believe that we should have the death penalty, simply because it is not applied in a manner which deters crime. But nobody who takes the life of another should be able to write books and have privelages that their victims no longer enjoy. They should do hard time with the barest of privelages and never again see the outside of prison walls.

A Feast of Offensiveness and Stupidity

Who are the people who still take the rightwing warhacks at all seriously? Really, who are they? They must have the brain capacity of unicellular organisms.
--------------------
Does he want me to name them? Hmmmm. Does he mean the ones on this blog?

Tim,
I know what you're saying. I don't happen to like capital punishment. We don't have it in Minnesota.

#141 DEN, thank you for the article. I have added it to my computer benchmark and I will read it tomorrow. It is a somewhat lengthy article.

micki, when I can, I try to add some humor into my posts and life. A person cannot spend all his time crying and puking.

Carol, when I can, I will try to add some info about my neocon relatives. I try to block out much of what they say so I don't contaminate my mind with their b.s. I have problems with people who carry the Bible in one hand and an oozie in another hand. Here is the mentality of a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law. "If we don't go into Iraq, they will come over here." These are from people who teach Bible class once a week and and attend Bible classes three times a week. No amount of Bible studies will help if you don't understand Jesus' messages.

#179 Paying for his crime? Does paying back the dough mean he paid for his crime? I don't think so.

Coming clean? Hey, the guy was caught red-handed. He didn't have much of a choice because he KNEW no one would come to his defense, so he makes his mea culpa to keep his sorry ass out of jail and to try to protect himself from the worst outcome. You say he didn't "make excuses" (that's debatable) -- he's probably making deals behind the scenes.

Forgiveness is a wonderful thing and I think most of us practice forgiveness -- but at this stage of the game, it's certainly not time to forgive or to forget. Sheesh! The great American way -- go out there and screw your fellow Americans, cop a whiny plea, and we're supposed to forgive. I think not.

It's his time in the barrel -- and it's his own damned fault. Greed and power.

This is a continuation of the blog on #186. It's good. Kinda nails the attitude.
--------------
But Taranto's demands are the kind I've spoken about before: this is pathology as politics. It's not the rest of the media who follow "a predetermined script," but that's exactly what the warhacks do. The warhacks' demands are genuinely and deeply neurotic in that they require that only the "right" facts be reported -- the facts that support their fictional version of this calamitous war. They want to minimize everything else, if not eliminate it entirely -- everything that doesn't fit their script. All of those facts are the "wrong" facts, and to bring them up is not "fair." What they actually want is not reporting, not of any kind. They want propaganda, 24/7, from everyone.

And take a look at Taranto's concluding paragraph for this item:

When you think about it, the media actually have an institutional interest in seeing the good guys lose in Iraq. If America prevails after years of doom-and-gloom "reporting," a lot of journalists are going to look awfully silly.

What the hell does this mean? That "the media actually have an institutional interest" in being traitors? Is that what he actually means, but doesn't have the guts to say? Gee, Jimmy, paranoid much? I may have again made the error I've made too often before: pathological is far too kind a word for this phenomenon.

As close to clinically insane as that may be, it's the second item that truly angered meHere it is in its entirety:
USA, R.I.P.

Well, it's pretty much all over for America. Valerie Plame, the "glamorous secret agent" who has been the linchpin of U.S. national security, "will retire next month from the CIA after 20 years tracking proliferators of weapons of mass destruction," the New York Post reports. "She remained at the CIA for the past year in order to be eligible for a full government pension." Or at least that's her cover story.

Let me put this bluntly, Taranto: This woman put her life on the line to protect your sorry ass, and for the security of all of us. Her life, Taranto. What the hell have you done, except spew your vicious filth?

I realize conservatives now believe that outing CIA operatives is a matter of no consequence whatsoever, which rather gives the lie to their protestations about how only they have America's interests at heart and only they can be trusted to defend our country. I well understand that to treat this literally criminal matter with the seriousness it demands might endanger their unhinged vision of Saint George. But honest to God, have these people no decency at all? "USA, R.I.P."? "The linchpin of U.S. national security"?

There's still more that's deeply offensive in Taranto's column (including his reprint of a very nasty email about Bono and his supposed hypocrisy), but I've already far exceeded what I find tolerable, at least without having consumed mass quantities of a variety of alcoholic beverages. These people are truly despicable. Damn them to hell, along with anyone and everyone who falls for this kind of disgusting crap.
posted by Arthur Silber at 5:19 PM

------------------------------
Well,
at least I now know where the trolls get their material.

Furthermore, if we want to stop this abuse of power and rampant corruption, we shouldn't be so quick to talk about forgiveness of the corrupt until we know more of the story story.

We only know the tip of the iceberg of Cunningham's story -- who knows he could have been funneling lots of dough into far worse endeavors than getting himself a luxury home in Rancho Sante Fe.

That's my position and I'm sticking with it. I am a liberal/progressive but I will not be soft on crime.

Micki,

189
#179 Paying for his crime? Does paying back the dough mean he paid for his crime? I don't think so.

Coming clean? Hey, the guy was caught red-handed.
=========================
I'm with you Micki,

Does writing a book or two, pay back for murder, or starting the crips, I DON'T THINK SO. That piece od shit should die.

Whoa!!!
Bill O'Reilly is really mad. He's going to take people down.
Bill O'Reilly goes Nuts

Oh it get's better. Here's the list.
A Message from Bill: Media Operations that Traffic in Defamation

What a Hoot!
Like the organizations on that list care, Bill.

Get Your War On

I may have mentioned it in a previous post. A neocon brother-in-law said that BBC is anti-America. I told him that I disagreed. What I like about BBC, they give you information. In America MSM fills are mind with butterflies and flowers. How often do we see the dying in Darfur, Niger, and Sudan or the misery that the world suffers on a daily basis? The world has real problems and real pain and suffering. Being sheltered from the real world is not the answer.

I mention God in several posts because I truly believe that God will not permit inaction toward many of His people. His time is different from our time and when He is ready His wrath will be felt. Is it too much to suffer from some compassion fatigue for our brothers and sisters?

We can pray and we can inform our elected officials of our concerns. Is that too much to ask?

#186 Good post Jeanne. Didya see those quotes on the right-hand side? Here's one of 'em I liked, though all were pretty good.

We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou Shalt Not is soon forgotten, but Once Upon A Time lasts forever. -- Philip Pullman

The BBC reeks of left-wing agendi

Don't mean to tread on your territory Capt... you send the best quotes by a ton. But here's a couple more from the same web page...

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. -- Salman Rushdie

Stories are the single most powerful weapon in a leader's arsenal. -- Howard Gardner

Does writing a book or two, pay back for murder, or starting the crips, I DON'T THINK SO. That piece od shit should die.

Agreed, it should not be the number of books, but the number converted soul, turning away from gangs and crime. He should be put to death for his result, or maybe commuted for result of truly saving lost lives, yet I have not heard any of his promoters list the number of lives saves.

ALREADY?!? Christopher Hitchens Says we Should Start Debating the Iraq War!

Right! Another great suggestion made by Christopher "Johnnie Walker Bile" Hitchens is that we stop taunting each other.

(Hmm. OK, I should have remembered that was his suggestion before I made that "funny" little nickname joke, sorry! But when I started typing that sentence, I couldn't actually remember what his other suggestion was, so I had to find the article and read it again, and by that point, well... the damage was done! MY BAD.)

Anyway, I think it's great that Hitchens is now officially "anti-taunt" (or, "taint"), because maybe now he will stop screeching long enough for me to whisper something in his ear: "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret--the fairly reasonable, kinda principled, somewhat intelligent opponent of the Iraq war. Just want to say that, contrary to EVERY ARTICLE YOU'VE WRITTEN IN THE PAST THREE YEARS, I am not a pro-Slobodan, bootlicking, A.N.S.W.E.R.-brainwashed Kurd-basher. OK, thanks! See you at the GREAT DEBATE."

*****end of clip*****

For those of you who cannot stand Chrissy Snitchens. For any of the trolls with their persoon screeds about the lefties, you sound like Chris, head up!

capt

Like the organizations on that list care, Bill.

Exactly, they dont care, they will print any smear, like "Bush-Lied". They must be staffed with cornnuts.

TSA to RELAX "Pointy Sticks" RULES on AIRLINERS

(file under oh, Fu**, is Bushco really THAT desperate?)
__________________

A new plan by the Transportation Security Administration would allow airline passengers to bring scissors and other sharp objects in their carry-on bags because the items no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans.

________________

".......no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans."

Begs the question, when did they EVER!!??

-T

#179 189 192

Coming clean? JMJ! That's not coming clean where I come from. No wonder we're in such bad shape. If the goody-two-shoes attitude at #179 of prevails, we are effin' doomed to obscurity. #189 & 192 are more reality-based. #179 Would you be so willing to forgive (without getting to all the facts) if Bush suddenly whined and moaned that he was sorry for taking us into an unnecessary war in which thousands of people have been killed? No moral equivalency arguments, please.

Jeanne,

I can't believe you made me go to the Bill O'liely site!

I feel so dirty now. I've got to get in the shower and LOOFAH before I can ever attempt to eat FALAFEL again!

-T

Now I just grossed MYSELF out!

Kathaleen, I am too old for military service, and they might have me negotiate weapons contract at my age and background, but my 21 yo PFC boy is over there. Does that count?

The Coming Storm: Jack Abramoff’s Bipartisan Sleaze

It is far too early to tell what kind of impact it will ultimately have on the Republican establishment, but the Jack Abramoff scandal could well be the most perilous of all the storms developing in Washington. And the cloud forming on the horizon is a dark one indeed.

The most fascinating aspect of this whole controversy is the number of people it potentially involves. From elected officials in Congress to top conservative activists, the Abramoff lobbyist sham could ravage the neocons far worse than the CIA-leak affair. It could also take a top Democrat or two down as well.

The Abramoff saga is more than one sordid tale of an insider gone wild; it’s a vivid narrative of how business is done in Washington. From legal maneuvering to backroom bribes and pay-offs, Abramoff is just one in a long line of power hungry lobbyists.

*****end of clip*****

No doubt, sleaze and corruption is a bi-partisan endeavor.

capt

operationtruth.com

To read/blog with those who have been there.

No fakers/posers there.

capt

#206 Liar.

Great Idea, by the time UN gets around to sanction enforcement against Iraq, gunslinger bush will be out of office. How how a grass roots effort to amend constitution to allow Bush a 3rd term, so he can park carrier battle groups in the persian gulf and take care of them iranians and their nuke facilities.

against Iran

joe, all I will say to you is, prove me wrong, PLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!!! Accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist is not proof of anything, other than the fact that you have nothing else. Come on trolls, where's your proof?? Gimme something, anything, other than name calling and derision. If you can't, F**K OFF!!

hmmmm long range missiles, wipe Israel off the map, terror support, nuke facilities. Iran preemptive stike anyone? Or, do we wait for NY to get hit again, and to only then send Kerry to Paris to get on his knees to beg for permission to send them a nasty letter?

Saladin,

"........Husam Taher Husam, a former conscript in the Syrian army, alleged in a 75-minute interview on Sunday night that Saad Hariri, the son of the slain Hariri, met him several months ago and offered him $1.3m to testify against top Syrian officials.

The spokesperson for the Syrian inquiry into Hariri's murder, Ibrahim Daraji, said on Monday that if Husam is the unidentified key witness quoted in the UN commission's interim report, then the United Nations' case "has completely collapsed."

Daraji spoke at a press conference in Damascus on Monday at which Husam reiterated the allegations he had made on Syrian television the night before.".......
___________

I was actually discussing this with Dr.TJ, who is from Damascus and still speaks with his family there, every day. He intimated that such has been suspected by the gereral populace.

He said his family likens the set-up to the way the LAPD handled the OJ Simpson case. (stay with me, I was just as confused)

As guilty as Shawkat and others might be, the practice of paying for "testimony" to buy a conviction is actually more than likely to backfire causing conspirators to escape prosecution because of questions raised about the handling of the investigation.

That's the second-hand local Syrian Scuttlebut, anyway!

-T

Hajji,
Can you believe I actually read Bill O'Reilly's stupid kids book at Target one day? The chapter on bullies was hilarious. May as well learn from the expert.
And then there was the chapter on sex. Guys should respect the girl.
Ok, Bill. Maybe you should read that one. It might save you money in legal fees.

Bishop Says Edict Allows Some Gay Priests

U.S. Catholics at Odds Over Interpretation of Vatican's New Directive

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A01

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that under a new Vatican directive on homosexuality, men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.

*****end of clip*****

I wonder why they have not outlawed the pedophiles? Gay straight or whatever, it is the pedophiles that are the problem last I checked. Maybe I am missing something?

capt

Listen to this muskrat!

UPI: "U.S. forces are obliged to stop inhumane treatment wherever they see it in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday. This was news to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who told reporters "the United States does not have a responsibility" to prevent abuse of prisoners or civilians at the hands of the Iraqi military or police forces they are training.

"It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it," he said.

"But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it," said Rumsfeld, turning to Pace.

"If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," Pace said.

Expanding bottoms pose problem for medical jabs

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 29 November 2005

The expanding size of people's bottoms is presenting doctors with a new medical challenge: how to get injectable drugs to where they are needed.

The findings were delivered in Chicago yesterday to a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Dr Chan said the study did not directly show less of the drug was being absorbed but it strongly suggested that was the case.

Drugs companies had designed their drugs so that the proper dosage was absorbed into the bloodstream from the muscle and if it was injected into fat tissue less of it would be absorbed. The answer, she said, was to use longer needles when injecting into the buttocks. .

*****end of clip*****

I think this means I get a shorter needle? My better half says I have no arse. I imagine she is correct.

HA!

capt

Alan,

Rummy's just concerned that he'll be required to keep the glowsticks well oiled or something. That creepy Mofo makes me think of Buck Henry on SNL as "Uncle Buck, Babysitter"!

-T

I wonder why they have not outlawed the pedophiles? Gay straight or whatever, it is the pedophiles that are the problem last I checked. Maybe I am missing something? capt

I like the interview on the New Hours where a priest indicated a number of dead priest from AIDS. I wonder if there is a correlation, NABLA anyone?

Good for Pace, it just goes to show there are still good people, people that care about what is right not what they can do.

capt

Capt,

Ain't no way the HMOs're gonna spring for 2 different sized needles! You'll get the whole 2.5 inches, just like us lardasses!

If you're lucky, they'll be able to squeeze your pennicillin through something narrower than a basketball-inflation needle!

-T

The point was also made that there is sub-culture of gay in the semenaries, and that, many "straights" have left the church, and the priest indicated that by gay purging, the ranks of priests would actually increase.

"My better half says I have no arse."

haha Somebody told me once I should quit taking them noassatall pills.

#222
Hajji,
I don't care if I'm dying. I'm staying out of your way.

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" ~ Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000)

From the one guy that made money working for peanuts!

capt

Rummy's just concerned that he'll be required to keep the glowsticks well oiled or something.

haha Or late to the ethics class (like the 'toon).

I'm not much for the corny jokes people forward around, but this one I thought was funny.

A man was walking down the street when he bumped into a construction worker. They get into a conversation and the man asks him what he would do if he only had 5 minutes to live.

"Well, I haven't lived a very passionate life, so I suppose I'd screw anything that moved." he answered. "What would you do?"

"I'd stand perfectly still."

Saladin 212
joe, all I will say to you is, prove me wrong, PLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!!!
If you can't, F**K OFF!!

All I have to say to that little hissy fit is,

YOU, PROVE ME wrong, PLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!!!
If ...YOU ... can't, GET F**KED!!

David Corn was walking down the street when he bumped into a construction worker. They get into a conversation and the man asks him what he would do if he only had 5 minutes to live.

"Well, I haven't lived a very passionate life, so I suppose I'd screw anything that moved." he answered. "What would you do?"

David just started to wiggle all over.

That was good Alan, You just told it a little wrong.

Hajji

Why do you always try to act so macho, when it's so easy to tell by your posts you're really just a wussy little dick licker?

aww heck Joe, I thought you were a little different from the others, like Baf 'n them.
Guess I was wrong.

OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT – EYES ONLY

Minutes of meeting

43: Al who???
Rummy: Al Jazeera
43: Lemme have some of that… pfffft,,,, what do they want???
Rummy: bunch a newsies with a transmitter… gimme…. Pfffft…
Dickie: I say it’s time we bombed the shit out of them….
43: Can we do that???
Rummy: Oh yeah…. Pffft…. Here…
Dickie: Pffft…. Damn straight we can….
43: What’s the risk… lemme have some…. Pffft…
Rummy: Risk??? Shee-it….
Dickie: If the pilot’s good…. and I mean if he’s really good…. he can fly that baby 2 feet above the water and drop a 10,000 pound turd right in the middle of the big mouth’s lap….
43: hah hah!!!! Pffft…. No shit…. Damn … let’s call Tony….
Tony: Blair here…
43: T-bone!!!!
Tony: Fartman!!!!
43: ‘sappinin’
Tony same ol’ fish and chits!!!!
All: (laughing)
43: Hey!!! Dickie has a fabulous idea… he wants to bomb Al Jazeera…
Tony: you can’t do that, they’re in Qatar!!!!
43: Al Jazeera plays the guitar??? Me too!!!! pffft….
Dickie: No not guitar, he’s in Qatar… it’s a fucking place…
Tony: it’s not a he, it’s a major media outlet for the entire arab world… please… fartman… for me, please don’t bomb the place…
Rummy: T-bone, you are just simply no fun at all… pffft…
Dickie: Maybe we could just
Tony: No… absolutely not… promise me.
Dickie: hummmph… dammit… this shit used to be fun…
Rummy: hell, honestly I don’t give a damn either way… I got plenty of shit to bomb…
Tony: That’s the spirit!!! Fartman???? C’mon….
43: oh, hell… seein’s how he can play guitar an’ all… all right… roll a new one Dickie… I’ll call you tomorrow, T-bone… keep a cool tool and don’t let your meat loaf…. Hah haha!!!
Tony: Right.

Need help finding Doofus? Get this guy..

he knew where to look

Abortion debate makes Republicans fear for votes

A Newsweek poll this month found that 58 per cent of voters thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37 per cent said it should not be legal.

Sixty-six per cent said a candidate's position on abortion would be important in determining how they voted in next year's mid-term congressional elections and7 per cent said it would be most important.

As Republicans in Congress grow increasingly focused on the 2006 mid-term elections, Mr Teixeira said Mr Davis was trying to send party leaders a message on how hard to push on abortion: "You're driving the bus off the cliff, and we might want to think about this a little bit first."

*****end of clip*****

Even if it polled well, I wager the court will be stuck at 5-4 based on the wording or some narrow test. They will not (as Bob from ND and others have posted) they will not lose the wedge issue no matter who they put on the court. Alito will be confirmed.

capt

Capt, "Crooks..." has the "60 Minutes" segment on Plan B. Remember the scientist that resigned when they overruled a 23-4 vote and banned 'over-the-counter' sales?

US conjures up Iraqi cataclysms to delay retreat

November 30, 2005

Talk of a jihadist takeover if American troops withdraw is an absurd ploy, argues Daniel Benjamin.

IN A speech at the American Enterprise Institute, the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, used this nightmare vision to lash those who have argued it is time to begin withdrawing US forces from Iraq. "Iraq is part of a larger plan of imposing Islamic radicalism across the broader Middle East, making Iraq a terrorist haven and a staging ground for attacks against other nations," Cheney said.

"In light of the commitments our country has made, and given the stated intentions of the enemy, those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a few simple questions: would the US and other free nations be better off or worse off with [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, [Osama] bin Laden and [Ayman] al-Zawahiri in control of Iraq? Would we be safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent on the destruction of our country?"

The suggestion that a jihadist takeover in Iraq would follow a US withdrawal verges on preposterous. It is the latest in a parade of straw men dispatched to scare up support for wrongheaded and failed policies.

*****end of clip*****

Yes, completely absurd but that is what this misadministration does so well.

Too predictable, just like the communists would take over the world if we got out of Vietnam.

capt

Billmon is all over Lieberman. Look at this picture. haha He's got quotes from him, bracketed around John Lennon's.
Strawberry Fields

"Iraq is part of a larger plan of imposing Islamic radicalism across the broader Middle East, making Iraq a terrorist haven and a staging ground for attacks against other nations," Cheney said.

And yet, nobody makes him admit there wasn't any terrorists in Iraq till we got there. I guess it goes with their creationism argument... and evolution wasn't going fast enough to fit their plans.

*errr, so he created a terrorist haven

capt
said

Too predictable, just like the communists would take over the world if we got out of Vietnam.

No, but, how many was it again that were murdered after the left wing press and protestors squealed so loud we were pulled out of Nam and let them be murdered?

Which I guess we can now all agree was the fault of the left wing.

Just like it will be the fault of the Libs and left wingers like you, if we come out of Iraq to soon and let thousands of Iraqi's be murdered by those still faithful to Saddam.

Right, huh capt

Oh Yeah, I remember how many were killed because the Libs and Left wingers were stabbing our soldiers in the back just like you guys are back-stabbing us. It was:

Under his regime, forced labor, executions and famine killed between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians (more than 20% of the population).

Pol Pot and his army, called the Khmer Rouge, came to power in Cambodia (Kampuchea) in 1975. He was named prime minister of the new communist government in 1976 and began a program of violent reform. The Khmer Rouge abolished currency, religion and private property and evacuated cities in the hopes of creating a Maoist agrarian society free of Western influence (though, like Mao, Pol Pot had studied the works of V. I. Lenin and Karl Marx in Europe). Under his regime, forced labor, executions and famine killed between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians (more than 20% of the population).

U.S. to Respond to Inquiries Over Detentions in Europe

"The mood in Europe is one of increasing concern over what people call the American 'gulag' and the reports of all these stopovers in Europe for prisoners."

Capt,

Isn't it you that keeps saying Iraq is just like Nam?

I guess you want to pull out before Saddam's trial is over, so he can be free and do what Pol Pot did.

Right Capt?

capt

What, no snappy meaningless come back?

Must be nice just to sit back, spew shit, and never feel the need to answer any questions about all the death you help create with all your Anti-America, anti-American soldier hate speech.

Right capt?

capt

What, no snappy meaningless come back?

Must be nice just to sit back, spew shit, and never feel the need to answer any questions about all the death you
help create with all your Anti-America, anti-American soldier hate speech.

Right capt?

Bribery's Scope a Surprise

John Dadian, GOP political consultant and a former Marine, found Cunningham's fall particularly difficult to fathom given his heroics as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

"It is unbelievable that a man who showed so much courage in time of war could lose his moral compass so badly when he went into politics," Dadian said. "Even those of us who have been around politics for ages are stunned at the brazenness of this."

President Bush expressed shock at Cunningham's fall from political grace. Cunningham has been one of Bush's staunchest supporters on the war in Iraq.

"The idea of a congressman taking money is outrageous," said Bush, who was traveling in Texas, "and Congressman Cunningham is going to realize that he has broken the law and is going to pay a serious price, which he should."

*****end of clip*****

To "come clean" Cunningham (no relation to Ricky or Mr. C) will have to give a complete and honest allocution before a legal body (court or congress) and that would have to include naming names. Until he does so he is just another criminal crying crocodilian excretions at being caught. Nothing more.

Now about that Bunnypants?

"The idea of a congressman taking money is outrageous," said Bush

I nearly fell down laughing? This guy never lies? I guess it is true that most congresspersons hire someone to take the bribes, see Bush did not lie again! HA!

Outrageous? Sure, he is so sincere.

capt

Hatch refers to Iraq as Vietnam

Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, flubbed Monday and referred to Iraq as Vietnam while commenting on Fox News against an immediate troop withdrawal.

"The Democratic Party seems to be taken over by the Michael Moore contingent in their attitude toward Vietnam, and they continually call for a withdrawal of troops at a time when we haven't finished the job," Hatch said on the network's morning show. Hatch's spokesman acknowledged the error, which was first reported on the American Prospect Web log.

Spokesman Peter Carr said the Utah senator had been reading a magazine article that referred to analogies between the Iraq and Vietnam wars and misstated what he meant to say.

A transcript of the interview provided by Congressional Quarterly replaced "Vietnam" with "Iraq," without any mention of a correction. A CQ subsidiary later acknowledged making a mistake in the transcription and the actual version of the comments was later posted.

- Thomas Burr *****end of clip*****

Jeeze these guys are still fighting the Vietnam war? I thought our trolls were living in a time machine. HA!

Freudian slip? Poetic license? We report you deride!

HA! & HA!

capt

Alan
Said

"The mood in Europe is one of increasing concern over what people call the American 'gulag' and the reports of all these stopovers in Europe for prisoners."

Alan, If you were, oh lets say a French red cross worker, and you were captured, who's torture camp would you rather be in, ours or their's?

Oh, that's right, we don't even capture red cross worker. Ok, you are a reporter, Oh, that's right, we don't capture them either.

Oh shit, forget it.

Cut Our Losses

by Bob Herbert
The New York Times
November 28, 2005

Washington ‹ Jack Murtha is as tough as they come, but he's seen enough of the misguided, mismanaged, mission impossible war in Iraq to know that it's not sustainable, not worth the continued killing and butchering and psychological maiming of thousands of American G.I.'s.

"I mean, this was a war done on the cheap and we're paying a heavy price for it," he said in an interview just before Thanksgiving.

Mr. Murtha is the Pennsylvania congressman, former marine and traditional war hawk whose call for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq has intensified the national debate over the war. He makes weekly visits to wounded troops in military hospitals, and when he talks about their suffering it sometimes seems as if his own heart is breaking.

"These kids are magnificent," he said. "They've done their duty."

*****end of clip*****

See, a real "troop supporter" knows our troops have done their duty, followed orders and that is magnificent and honorable. Worthy of a plan to get them home. The "operation perpetual war" has to be stopped. All of the pro-war slogans and pathetic hypothetical designs will not save one of our brace and best.

The armchair chicken-hawks are the problem not the answer.

Pro-war is not pro-troops, pro-war is not pro-life, pro-war is not Christian, pro-war is pro-death.

This administration blames the troops for their failure of leadership and failed policies. That is not being pro-troops. Blind support for anything is still blind.

capt

capt,

You raised Vietnam again ... why didn't you comment on my post?

Here is a good question for you to ponder.

How many American soldiers did you help kill last month with your usual hate America, pull out of Iraq bull shit?

The World's Most
Dangerous Man
It's George W. Bush

by Justin Raimondo

As a groggy and very hung-over American hegemon wakes from a dream of imperial dominion and faces the harsh light of morning in war-torn Iraq, the cruel reality of what General William E. Odom calls "the greatest strategic disaster" in our history is beginning to dawn on our political and military elites. The U.S. Senate, which originally signed on to the president's war policy by a 77-23 vote, is backing away, and even some in the president's own party are beginning to voice strong doubts about "staying the course." Especially when we are on a course set for the same disastrous fate that eventually overtook all the strutting imperialists of times past, who took on a weaker opponent only to find that there are different kinds of strength. As Martin van Creveld, a military historian of some note, put it in an interview not so long ago:

*****end of clip*****

As always, Justin is spot on!

capt

Reality Check on Iraq

On Wednesday, President Bush will deliver an address at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, in which, he is "expected to herald the improved readiness of Iraqi troops, which he has identified as the key condition for pulling out U.S. forces." The speech appears to be an effort by the Bush administration to lay the groundwork for potentially large withdrawals of troops in 2006 and 2007.

While Bush and critics of his Iraq policy may agree that a drawdown could be the proper action to take, they differ in one key respect —†the rationale for why such a withdrawal is necessary. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) recently argued that pulling out of Iraq is necessary because "the war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion." Bush, on the other hand, is trying to suggest that a drawdown is the fruits of "good progress" being made in Iraq.

A review of the situation on the ground in Iraq demonstrates clearly that things are getting worse, not better:

Approximately 100 Attacks Per Day; All-Time High.

"Pentagon officials said that in October there were about 100 attacks a day in Iraq compared with 85 to 90 attacks a day in September —†and about half of all attacks involve homemade bombs." That is the highest recorded level since the Iraq war began. By comparison, in January, nationwide figures hovered around 50 to 70 attacks per day. [CNN, 11/3/05; Boston Globe, 1/21/05; Brookings Iraq Index, p. 20]

*****end of clip*****

Reality check is for those that care about reality, that excludes many (obviously).

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ~ Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

capt

UPDATE 1-Virginia governor stops milestone U.S. execution

(Updates with confirmation Warner stops execution)

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Virginia Gov. Mark Warner halted the execution of a convicted murderer who would have been the 1,000th person put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

"The governor commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole," spokesman Kevin Hall said.

Prominent conservatives have said the case could undermine public support for the death penalty. Former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton's extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, argued Lovitt's case at an appeals-court hearing in February.

Lovitt was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing a night manager in a pool hall the previous year. He claims another man committed the murder and his lawyers argued he could have proved his innocence if DNA evidence used at his trial had not been illegally destroyed.

Warner has denied each of the 11 previous clemency petitions that have come before him as governor.

Since Lovitt will not be executed, Kenneth Boyd, scheduled to die Friday in North Carolina and Shawn Humphries on the same day in South Carolina, could be the 1,000th and 1,001st executions since the end of what amounted to a decade-long moratorium on executions by the states as the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue.

*****end of clip*****

Pro-death penalty is not pro-life, not Christian, not humane.

capt

capt

The reality is, things are way better over here.

Ask Joe Leiberman, he has been here four times in the last 2 years. He has a REAL point of reference to work from. Not phony bull shit from liberal slanted reporters and left wing web sites.

The emperor's new restricted airspace

His top aide's been indicted, his nominal "boss" is barely speaking to him, and a former high-ranking government official just suggested he might be "a nefarious bastard." But Dick Cheney is still an important guy -- so important that airplanes cannot fly near his new future residence-in-exile....EVEN WHEN HE'S NOT THERE!

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed flight restrictions over Dick Cheney's new Maryland home, angering private pilots who say they can't fly overhead even when the vice president isn't around. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association spokesman Chris Dancy said Tuesday the FAA only imposes restrictions at Cheney's Jackson Hole, Wyo., home when he's there. He questioned the need to have the restrictions in place at all times over a home in Maryland, which has much more air traffic. Cheney's new home is on the Chesapeake Bay in Saint Michael's, Md., about 30 miles east of Washington. The restricted airspace has a radius of one nautical mile and was established Nov. 22...

Airspace restrictions are an inconvenience for private pilots. If they stray into restricted space, they could have their pilot's license taken away, be escorted away by fighter jets or, in a worst-case scenario, be shot down.

*****end of clip*****

So he will be more safe and secure than our Pentagon.

Not to mention who in their right mind would want to get within a mile of the nefarious bastard.

capt

capt,

You are the real killer. It must make you happy every time you hear your vile comments have caused another
American death.

Karma baby, Karma. It will catch up.

Two men in UK court over 'Jazeera bombing' leak

Reuters

LONDON - Two men appeared in a British court on Tuesday accused of leaking a secret document which a newspaper said showed that U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to bomb Arabic television station Al Jazeera.

The hearing came a week after the Daily Mirror reported that a British government memo said British Prime Minister Tony Blair had talked Bush out of bombing the broadcaster's headquarters in Qatar in April last year.

The White House has dismissed the report as "outlandish" and on Monday Blair denied receiving any details of a reported U.S. proposal to bomb Al Jazeera.

Defendant David Keogh, a civil servant who used to work at the Cabinet Office, was charged with making a "damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations."

*****end of clip*****

Is it just me? Am I too literal?

If the UK government charges these guys and those associated with the DSM, is that a tacit admission that the "leaked" memos and documents are bona fide? They could not bring charges against a hoax.

Just a thought.

capt

Joe Leiberman says President Bush is right, has a good plan, and the plan is working. Joe Leiberman has been to Iraq and actually knows what is really happening there.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S FLIRTATION WITH FASCISM

By Bill Gallagher

DETROIT -- The regime has already produced so many ignominious legacies that historians in the near future will be able to feast on the task of measuring the damage from the wretched deeds the Busheviks have wrought.

Certainly, the unnecessary pre-emptive war in Iraq, sold with lies, will echo for generations as a symbol of America's failed experiment in empire cloaked as proselytizing democracy. Our actions in Iraq have created a terrorist breeding-ground that makes George W. Bush the greatest friend al-Qaeda leaders will ever have.

Unsustainable budget deficits used to fund tax cuts for the rich and create fiscal havoc will be a legacy that will leave our children with an unconscionable burden. Slashing programs for the poor will do the obvious: create more poverty and more misery for people living on the margins, especially children.

Bush, a child of the opportunities flowing from family privilege, has presided over an era of declining economic opportunities for working-class Americans. Real wages have declined, manufacturing jobs have vanished, and the trade deficit isn't sustainable. Forty-five million Americans are without health insurance, and each day more working people are losing their health benefits, or being forced to pay significantly more for them.

*****end of clip*****

Another indictment of the Kkkristo-fascists.

capt

If Bush didn't say, "bomb Al Jazeera" then he is as big a weenie as a left wing liberal.

Bomb the shit out of that F**king Al Jazeera George. Al Jazeera is responsible for American soldiers dying just like our own left wing nuts who kill Americans with their hate speech.

Gallup: Americans Against Torture, But Believe We Do It

By E&P Staff

Published: November 29, 2005 2:30 PM ET

NEW YORK Most Americans believe that U.S. troops or officials have tortured prisoners in Iraq or other countries, and oppose the practice, even if it helps gain information on possible terrorist attacks, the Gallup Organization announced today in releasing poll results.

The survey found that 74% believe the U.S. has tortured prisoners, with 20% disagreeing--with strong majorities of both Democrats and Republicans holding that view.

Asked if they would be willing to have the U.S. torture suspected terrorists "if they may know details about future terrorist attacks against the U.S.," 56% said no, vs. 38% saying yes. The party gap is bigger here, with only 27% of Democrats signing off on torture in that case, vs. 51% of Republicans.

Gallup pointed out that while President Bush recently said, "We do not torture," most Americans "think otherwise."

*****end of clip*****

56% said no when asked. 74% believe we have tortured?

No small wonder Bunnypants and his merry band of moronic neocons are not very popular these days. The more they lie the deeper they are digging.

capt

56% said no when asked. 74% believe we have tortured, and 85% think we should torture.

U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations.

Underscoring the importance U.S. officials place on development of a Western-style media, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday cited the proliferation of news organizations in Iraq as one of the country's great successes since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein. The hundreds of newspapers, television stations and other "free media" offer a "relief valve" for the Iraqi public to debate the issues of their burgeoning democracy, Rumsfeld said.

The military's information operations campaign has sparked a backlash among some senior military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon who argue that attempts to subvert the news media could destroy the U.S. military's credibility in other nations and with the American public.

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media.

*****end of clip*****

Two faced lying bastards is what this misadministration is all about. What they have ordered the military to do does not sit well with the honorable people. No honor in being two-faced or lying.

capt

Of course, Americans do not torture. People only believe Americans torture, because Anti-American Bush haters, continue to pass off lies of torture. Those liberal liars care not what will happen to our soldiers, as long as they can spread false rumors about the President and the American soldiers.

Of course, Americans do not torture. However, the most ignorant believe Americans torture, because Anti-American Bush haters, continue to pass off lies of torture. Those liberal liars care not what will happen to our soldiers, as long as they can spread false rumors about the President and the American soldiers.

Of course, Americans do not torture. However, the most ignorant believe Americans torture, because Anti-American Bush haters, continue to pass off lies of torture. Those liberal liars care not what will happen to our soldiers, as long as they can spread false rumors about the President and the American soldiers.

Of course, Americans do not torture. However, the most ignorant believe Americans torture, because Anti-American Bush haters, continue to pass off lies of torture. Those liberal liars care not what will happen to our soldiers, as long as they can spread false rumors about the President and the American soldiers.

Of course, Americans do not torture. However, the most ignorant believe Americans torture, because Anti-American Bush haters, continue to pass off lies of torture. Those liberal liars care not what will happen to our soldiers, as long as they can spread false rumors about the President and the American soldiers.

capt said
No honor in being two-faced or lying.

capt, why do you lie all the time?
WHY ARE YOU A TWO-FACED LIAR?

What makes you constantly lie?

Will Dorgan recuse himself now that documents prove he accepted $20,000.00 from Abramoff?

A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Sen. Byron Dorgan's political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff's clients wanted to use.

Oh, so that's where the evidence came from. A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushattas. He didn't tell the FBI, though. He told the AP. I wonder why he would do that? And who is this lawyer for the Coushattas?

Well, the story tells us his name is Jimmy Faircloth, Jr. -- although they also misidentify him as Jimmy Fairchild in the same article.

And who's Jimmy Faircloth? (And why doesn't this page list his $2000 contribution to Bobby Jindal?)

Jimmy Faircloth is a Republican lobbyist. Why is he giving "new evidence" about Byron Dorgan? And why is he giving it to the Associated Press? And why is it being portrayed as evidence of actual wrongdoing? And why are we playing along?

The plain fact is that the activities that have created a scandal around Jack Abramoff are clearly illegal. He'd overcharge his tribal clients for lobbying, then make them rent his skyboxes from him in order to hold fundraisers for favored Republican lawmakers, and then have them "forget" to charge those lawmakers' campaigns for the expenses, as required by federal campaign finance law, all the while taking "kickbacks" from the tribes for the "rent."

By contrast, Dorgan is accused of accepting a campaign contribution from an Indian tribe who benefitted from something he'd already done, and which benefitted the substantial tribal population in his home state.

And why does Faircloth's "accusation" stand up to initial scrutiny? Precisely because the donation was above-board and legal, and can be verified by looking at the campaign finance reports Dorgan filed with the FEC. The same cannot be said for the "contributions" Abramoff's clients made to Republican legislators like Bob Ney. Why not? Because they weren't reported. Why not? Because they were part of an illegal scheme to funnel gambling slush funds to GOP coffers.

So, does Dorgan now need to return the contributions of any Indian tribe represented by Abramoff? Indeed, is any poltical contribution from any tribe so represented now radioactive? Are the tribes now to be shunned, and their political voice silenced because they were represented by a corrupt GOP lobbyist, as Tom DeLay's infamous "K Street Project" demanded? Is that the method by which we'll deal with illegality by Republicans for Republicans? Refuse the traditionally Democratic tribal populations a voice in the politics of our party?

Let corruption be rooted out wherever it lurks. But let's beware of partisan "tipsters," shall we?

Iraq's Armed Forces Sinking Into Sectarian Chaos

by Jim Lobe

While the George W. Bush administration launches a campaign to persuade the public that an accelerated buildup of Iraqi security forces will permit substantial numbers of U.S. troops to begin returning home next year, recent reports from Iraq suggest that the security forces –†and their sectarian make-up –†are themselves contributing to the country's destabilization.

A spate of articles in the mainstream U.S. media since the discovery two weeks ago by U.S. troops of a secret underground prison in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, where some 170 Sunni Arab men and boys had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment, has detailed the existence of death squads in the largely Shi'ite police and special commandos or operating with their support.

*****end of clip*****

More of the same.

capt

House budget sleeper splits the 9th Circuit

- Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Washington -- A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal judges.

Conservatives long have claimed that the Ninth Circuit is too liberal, and that reputation was reinforced by the court's 2002 ruling that reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

But legal observers say the outcome of such a split is likely to be a more liberal court making decisions for California, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and a more conservative court serving seven other Western states now part of the Ninth Circuit -- Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona.

"The notion that splitting the Ninth is somehow going to take care of judicial activism is not borne out by the facts," said Manus Cooney, a Republican lawyer and former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee who opposes the proposal.

"The reality is you are going to have a much more liberal Ninth and a more moderate court in the 12th. ... For those who have problems with the Ninth and who have wanted to deal a blow to judicial activism, you don't deal a blow to judicial activism by establishing a court that is more liberal than the existing Ninth Circuit."

*****end of clip*****

I had heard nothing of this until now.

capt

Taft's approval ratings sink into single digits

Only 6.5% back governor, poll says

Gov. Bob Taft's approval ratings have hit single digits.

A Zogby International online survey, conducted a week after the Nov. 8 election and released yesterday, shows just 6.5 percent of Ohio voters view the embattled GOP governor very or somewhat favorably. Barely 3 percent rate his job performance as "good" or "excellent."

"I'm not aware of anyone who's ever sunk lower," pollster John Zogby said.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said Mr. Taft should have resigned after pleading guilty in August to misdemeanor ethics charges for failing to report dozens of gifts and golf outings to state officials.

The charges stemmed from a scandal involving Toledo-area coin dealer Tom Noe, a former Republican fund-raiser and Taft golfing partner who was recently indicted on charges that include laundering money to President Bush's campaign.

Mr. Zogby said he has seen only one other politician dip below 10 percent approval: former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who hit 7 percent while immersed in a bribery scandal.

*****end of clip*****

The republican crime family is exposed and look at what happens? 6.5% - Makes me wonder what the 6.5% are thinking? Could there be that many delusional trolls represented in a poll?

capt

Bush is speaking now at Annapolis.

He only speaks in public when the audience is comprised of people for whom he is "boss" or people who are screened for loyalty.

Why won't he speak to crowds who reflect a the makeup of the nation?

He's learned (his handlers, that is) that there's so many people who see him as a naked emperor that it is impossible for him to appear in public without exposure.

He's talking tough, of course...Why does he talk so tough when we know that his preferred facial moisturizer is "Jeffylube"?

Iraq is the terrorists' central front on their "War on Humanity"!

November 30, 2005 -- Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, yesterday postponed a hearing on national security whistleblowers. The decision came one day after the US Supreme Court denied cert in the case of translator Sibel Edmonds against the FBI. The Edmonds case highlighted a Bush administration policy of harassment and termination of intelligence and law enforcement agents who demonstrate any degree of independence, adherence to ethics, or skepticism. Edmonds and other national security veterans formed the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition as a result.

The following letter was sent by wrongfully terminated National Security Agency (NSA) analyst Russ Tice to Shays prior to the postponement of the hearing: From Wayne Madsen,

*********************
Click on the link to read the text of the letter.

Kathleen, I had the idea that perhaps the regular contributors here could help prod David to take up the Sibel Edmonds story. The hearing that was postponed may show us an avenue to apply pressure on. Let me find out which Congresscritters are on that subcommittee and then take it from there.

229, that is just the sort of answer I expected. I have provided a veritable MOUNTAIN of proof, but it is useless to people who refuse to consider ALL available evidence before reaching conclusions. Bye bye now.
Alan, I gave him a chance. But I have only so much patience with these idiots who are great at dishing out insults but can't take them in return. That 12 step program comment pissed me off. Just another uninformed dog barking at everything and seeing nothing.
Also Alan 239. there aren't any terrorists over there NOW, they are just people who want us to get the hell out! I suspect there would be a huge increase of "terrorists" in this country if we were forced to deal with an illegal occupation that was on a mission to bring the destruction of everything we ever had!

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings
By Dexter Filkins
The New York Times

Tuesday 29 November 2005

Baghdad - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.
-----------
Yep, things are SOOOO much better with saddam out of the way! To borrow Geralds comment, it's all flowers and butterflies!

O.K., the ranking member of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations is Dennis Kucinich and Bernard Sanders is also a member.

For a complete list of members click here. (PDF file)

To contact the subcommittee:

By Mail:
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations
U.S. House of Representatives
B-372 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

By Phone:
(202) 225 2548

By Fax:
(202) 225 2382

By E-mail:
groc.ns@mail.house.gov

Subcommittee Staff:

Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel

J. Vincent Chase, Chief Investigator:

I suspect there would be a huge increase of "terrorists" in this country if we were forced to deal with an illegal occupation that was on a mission to bring the destruction of everything we ever had! - Saladin

I think that pretty well describes the GOP...

Robert, I was thinking the same thing. But I also think the GOP has been usurped by demons from outer space.

To Serve Mankind

It's a cookbook!

Seems that those intellectual giants at MoveOn.org ran an ad showing American troops in Iraq and American families pining for their return. Problem is, the troops weren't even American, but British troops. One of the men seems to be in shorts, which are not American standard gear. Also, the camouflage outfits were different.

To make things worse, when the Marxists/Islamofacists at MoveOn were exposed for their mendacity, their calumny, their deception, they doctored the photograph to make the man appear to be wearing long pants and the camouflage darker.

Traitors to the core.

How our governments use terrorism to control us

Excerpt from "The War on Truth, 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism" by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

...The role of the Pentagon in airlifting the Mujahedeen terrorists into Bosnia and Kosovo between 1992 to 1995 has been well documented and widely reported in the European and Canadian media, but almost completely ignored in the United States. However, the geopolitical advantages of breaking the former sovereign nation of Yugoslavia into a patchwork of NATO protectorates, under the firm control of the United States, did not go unnoted. New Republic editors Jacob Heilbrunn and Michael Lind celebrated the event in a New York Times article titled "The Third American Empire" published on January 2, 1996:

"Instead of seeing Bosnia as the eastern frontier of NATO, we should view the Balkans as the western frontier of America's rapidly expanding sphere of influence in the Middle East . . . The regions once ruled by the Ottoman Turks show signs of becoming the heart of a third American empire . . . The main purpose of NATO countries, for the foreseeable future, will be to serve as staging areas for American wars in the Balkans, the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf."
-------------
This is not a popular subject, but then nothing that shows the west in anything other than a heroic light is very popular. But the truth is, this has been going on for many, many years. Reagan, bush 1, clinton and jr. have been soaked in the blood of innocents to accomplish their dreams of empire. Please take the time to read this article. Understanding is the first step towards healing, and change.

The role of the Pentagon in airlifting the Mujahedeen terrorists into Bosnia and Kosovo between 1992 to 1995 has been well documented and widely reported in the European and Canadian media, but almost completely ignored in the United States.

Not to mention the KLA-Afghan opium/heroin connection...

From the article above.

And Then There Is September 11 Itself . . .

But what about the September 11 attacks themselves? Were they "blowback," i.e., unintended domestic consequences of foreign covert operations, or were they an integral part of the Strategy of Tension? Based in part on an analysis of intelligence warnings of the attacks, and on the absence of any air defence response, Ahmed strongly endorses the latter view. He reviews the dozens of very specific foreign and domestic intelligence warnings of terrorist attacks in the United States using airliners that came in the months leading up to the attacks. These in turn led to warnings issued by American intelligence to Pentagon officials, and to others, including author Salman Rushdie and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, to cancel all flight plans on the day of September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, no action whatsoever was taken to warn or to protect the American public.

Ahmed points out that the responsible authorities at the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration have produced several profoundly contradictory accounts of their own actions on that day -- each subsequent story seemingly an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of a previous one. And still no remotely satisfactory account of the failure to intercept even one of the four hijacked airliners has been produced. Under ordinary circumstances, interception of wayward aircraft by military fighters would have been absolutely routine; such interceptions occurred at least 56 times in the calendar year prior to September 11, 2001. Ahmed points out that the attacks were allowed to proceed "entirely unhindered for over one and one half hours in the most restricted airspace in the world." He finds the idea that this was due to negligence beyond belief. Instead he argues that there must have been a deliberate stand-down of the air defence system managed by senior national security officials including the vice president and the secretary of defense.
-----------------
Incompetence? Sorry, that excuse will never wash with me. We may have a lot of faults, but our airforce is absolutely the finest in the world. People may consider this merely circumstancial evidence, but it is a screaming red flag! And it's just one piece out of many.

Another look at the postponed hearing:

National security whistleblowers boycott upcoming hearing
By Chris Strohm

[...]"The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, together with supporting organizations and over 100 national security whistleblowers, respectfully urges you to postpone this hearing," Sibel Edmonds, founder and director of the coalition, wrote in a letter to Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., the subcommittee chairman. "We stand ready to work with your office to do the work necessary to schedule a meaningful event where valuable testimony and information may be provided to Congress."

Lawrence Halloran, subcommittee staff director and counsel, said he was surprised and confused by the opposition.

[...]"It's just too bad they can't take yes for an answer," Halloran said. "This is the hearing that the whistleblowers wanted."

"We're not a perpetual platform for organizational building," he added.

Several letters sent to the subcommittee said the hearing could do more harm than good.

"None of the witnesses on the panels you have proposed has current, firsthand knowledge of the issues," wrote Daniel Hirsch, a GS-15 level foreign service officer at the State Department. Hirsch earlier this year founded Concerned Foreign Service Officers, a group of more than 40 officers who have had their security clearances revoked or suspended.

"None of your panel members can truly testify to the real problems, real issues, real cases, that need your attention and need to be addressed," Hirsch added. "On the contrary, the hearing, as scheduled, will only confuse the issues, or worse, hide them, and prevent the repair to our systems and security that our nation requires."

Halloran said that despite the letters, the subcommittee does not plan to change the witness list.

*********************

So that's what I've found so far. This article came out before the hearing was postponed.

Just saw an article about o'lielly's hit list with a funny comment after, "never let facts get in the way of outrage!"

Those stores that do not have "merry christmas" wont get 1 dollar of mine, nor all of next year.

Saladin, dont underestimate the most powerful name in cable news, nor 85% of christains that do not like the redefinition of THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY.

Notice how France is talking tuff against Iran, lately?

DEPOPULATION: 4th GENERATION NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DEPLETED URANIUM

"It is shown that the radiological burden due to the battlefield use of circa 400 tons of depleted-uranium munitions in Iraq (and of about 40 tons in Yugoslavia) is comparable to that arising from the hypothetical use of more than 600 kt (respectively 60 kt) of high-explosive equivalent pure-fusion fourth-generation nuclear weapons."

The use of weapons in war are most effective when the weapons do not kill, but create long-term health and environmental consequences such as lingering illnesses which slowly destroy the health of the environment and productivity of a nation and the economy. The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam is a good example of an environmental disaster with lingering and long-term health effects on a population, as well as causing trans-boundary contamination. DU is a permanent terrain contaminant with a half-life of 4.5 billion years, forms immense volumes of nano-sized particles (smaller than bacteria or viruses) which are lofted permanently as components of atmospheric dust traveling around the world until they are rained or snowed out of the air.

The US has staged four nuclear wars since 1991 using illegal DU dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets as radiological weapons and released an amount of radiation into the atmosphere which is at least ten times more radiation than the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs, released during atmospheric testing. In June 2003, the WHO predicted in a press release that cancer will increase 50% globally by the year 2020, which can only be from an environmental cause.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been proposing, funding, and building BioWeapons Level 3 and Level 4 labs at many places around the US –†even on university campuses and in densely populated urban locations. In a BioWeapons Level 4 facility a single bacteria or virus is lethal.

For what purpose are these labs being developed, and who will make the decisions on where BioWeapons created in these facilities will be used and on whom? More than 20 world-class microbiologists have been murdered since 2001, mostly in the US and the UK –†nearly all were working on developing ethnic specific BioWeapons.
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Think you know how evil these creatures are? Think again. To read the full article scroll about halfway down.

Saladin, while you may be a NY times fan, are you sensing Border pressure, lead by OReilly and Foxnews??? Are you sensing a get tuff attitude against child predators, led by OReilly.
Saladin, notice it is back to being the capital "christmas tree".

What you call a joke, is real, and OReilly traditionalism is well recieved by mainstream USA. You cant sense mainstream American at all?

Bill 284 -

moveon.org - - is that the george soros operation?
I've never looked at it and I won't start now, but others have gone out of their way to link Dr. David Ray Griffin and his FREE DVD: 'CONFRONTING THE EVIDENCE:Reopen 911' to soros, which is completely unfounded - click my name to order the FREE DVD.

I have only found 1 thing that I disagree with Mr.O, he does not favor death penalty, though like to see harsh prison terms.

I LIKE DEATH!!!!

My name is Lori Berenson. I am a New York born and raised political prisoner in Peru. I have spent many years in Central and South America, trying to contribute to the efforts of those who seek social justice for all. I continue this work from prison.

On November 30, 1995, I was pulled off of a public bus in Lima, Peru. Like thousands of Peruvians, I was detained by the anti-terrorist police, tried for treason by a hooded military tribunal under draconian anti-terrorism laws and condemned to life in prison.

Read the rest of Lori's statement on the 10th Anniversary of her arrest.

The World's Most Dangerous Man

Bush and his cabal are guilty of treason!!!!!

I did not post #269!!! Someone used my name!!! If you ever read a post with the name Gerald showing Bush in the positive light, that should send up a red flag. I loathe Bush and his entire cabal.

I can hear it all now:

capt, Saladin, Hajji, Jeanne, and James Ha, if they were living in the American civil war days.

Saladin says, "capt, that Abe Lincoln and Grant are just a couple of liars". "We should never have gone down south to help those slaves". "The slaves were happy, and there was no reason to send our soldiers to be killed just to free a bunch of blacks". "The slaves do not want us there" "We should pull out of the south and let the SLAVE OWNERS run things the way they want"
"There aren't any SLAVE OWNERS down south NOW, they are just nice southern people who want us to get the hell out".

I suspect there would be a huge increase of "SLAVE OWNERS " up north if we were forced to
deal with an illegal occupation that was on a mission to bring the destruction of everything we ever had".

"That F**king Lincoln is just a murdering jerk". "The Union soldiers don't really want to save those blacks anyway". "They just want to come home, and to hell with those blacks"

I hope you enjoyed my little story of, How Abe Lincoln and U.S. Grant lied us into the Civil war and freeing the slaves, through the eyes of:
capt, Saladin, Hajji, Jeanne, and James Ha,