20050815
Is President Bush Out of Control?
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7218.shtml
Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research. "There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it," a high-level aide told me recently.
Bush, in my opinion, is criminally insane, a pill-popping dry drunk whose erratic behavior and reckless actions threaten world peace and the future of this nation far more than any Islam-spouting religious fanatic. He is an enemy of the state, a mood-swinging despot who threatens the very freedoms that form the foundation for this country. He has created a police state where basic American freedoms have vanished under an politically-exaggerated threat to national scrutiny, milked the human tragedy of 9/11 for his personal agenda and ripped the Constitution to shreds through the USA Patriot Act, a rights-robbing piece of legislation put together by his former attorney general, the bible-thumping John Ashcroft, an inept former Senator who couldn’t even win an election against a dead man.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7102.shtml
Having a President on the payroll of the family of the man who killed 3,000 plus Americans on September 11, 2001, raises a very real concern that Bush’s illegal and immoral actions are a lot more than just politics as usual. It may explain the decision to all-but-abandon the search for bin Laden in Afghanistan and move American military resources to the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. It took less than a year to capture Saddam Hussein yet bin Laden is still at large nearly four years after the September 11 attacks. All this suggests to me that the President of the United States owes a lot more to his Saudi money boys than he does to the country he has sworn to serve. It tells me the President of the United States is a traitor. Traitors should not be President. They should be arrested, tried and, upon conviction, punished for their crimes against their country. And, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who continues to support this traitor to America is equally guilty of treason.
It's been 1,428 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
New study finds that men who doubt their oen masculinity more likely to support war
... so long as someone else has to fight and die in it, of course.
A man fired a shotgun into the air as about 60 anti-war protesters held a religious service on the road to President Bush's ranch.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2005/aug/15/081508586.html
S.S. agents in the area of the demonstration site Sunday rushed to the home of Larry Mattlage after the shots were fired but did not arrest him. "I ain't threatening nobody, and I ain't pointing a gun at nobody," Mattlage said. "This is Texas."
"We're going to start doing our war and it's going to be underneath the law," he told me. "Whatever it takes. So y'all go find another place to do whatever you do. 'Cause this is our front yard and back yard."
http://198.65.14.85/News/2005/31-40/32news21.htm
I asked, "Do you mean the protestors?"
CRAWFORD, Texas -- Larry Mattlage has had enough. He's tired of all the commotion at the antiwar camp across the road from his ranch house. He wants all the cars out of his ditch, and the antiwar protesters, the pro-war demonstrators, and the media to leave.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/08/15/antiwar_camp_losing_appeal_with_bush_neighbor/
''It is disruptive," Sheehan acknowledged after Mattlage's complaints about the camp. ''But George Bush is the one who caused the disruption, not us."
The White House had no comment yesterday, referring inquiries to local law enforcement authorities.
Anti-war protesters outside President Bush's ranch here were startled Sunday by gunshots fired by a Texas rancher frustrated by the group's presence.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/15/bush.neighbor/index.html?section=cnn_topstories
"If the neighbor is tired of having us here, he should talk to his other neighbor, George Bush, and ask George Bush to come out and meet with me, and then we'll leave," Cindy Sheehan said.
George Bush defended his decision not to meet with the grieving mom of a soldier killed in Iraq, noting Saturday that lots of people want to talk to the president and "it's also important for me to go on with my life.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/2005/08/bush-itas-also-import_5666.html
In addition to a two-hour bike ride, Bush's Saturday schedule included an evening Little League baseball playoff game, a lunch meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a nap, some fishing and some reading.
The funny part is that Bush almost certainly could have maintained the public fantasy with one simple act. He could have jumped into his pickup truck last Saturday, when Cindy Sheehan was alone except for her sister in that ditch, and driven down to see her. He could have invited her into the shotgun seat and driven her around the neighborhood for a few minutes. He could have then gone back up to the "ranch" and told the press corps that he met with her, and that they had looked into each other's hearts. That would have been the end of it.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/081505Z.shtml
He did not do that. Now, his generals are at loggerheads with the public line coming from the White House about getting out of Iraq. Unnamed officials are going on the record to state that the whole plan was hare-brained from the word "go," and that the entire deal sits now in the ashes of its own utterly ruined failure. Bush has to keep explaining why we have to stay, why rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic is a noble and worthwhile process. Meanwhile, the whole world mocks him for hiding from one woman and her broken heart.
Bush could hardly have missed seeing the protesters as he ventured out from his ranch on Friday for a Republican Party fundraiser and for a Little League baseball game on Saturday, in a fast-moving convoy of black sport-utility vehicles.
On his way to and from the fundraiser, his motorcade sped past the roughly 50 demonstrators gathered behind Sheehan, who clutched a sign that read "Why Do You Make Time for Donors And Not For Me?"
'Support our troops' — bring them home alive
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/neuharth/2005-08-11-troops_x.htm
They're burying young Marine reservists in Ohio this week. Fourteen of them, ages 19 and up, were killed last week when their amphibious landing vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq.George Bush won't be at any of the Ohio funerals. He has not attended any funeral for any of the 1,840 servicemen and women killed in Iraq, although he has met with some groups of families who lost loved ones.
Local Military Wife Supports Cindy Sheehan
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3712723&nav=0Ra7dF2x
"I believe that the war in Iraq has done nothing but fuel the fire of the hatred. And it's like putting a stick in a wasp's nest. I think that's what we're doing in Iraq,” said Jari Sheese, whose husband was in Iraq for a year.
Cindy Sheenan: Without Internet, U.S. Would Be a “Fascist State”
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200508111811.asp
"Our government is run by one party, every level," Sheehan continued, "and the mainstream media is a propaganda tool for the government."
Mom's Protest Riles Gun-Toting Neighbor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/14/AR2005081401242_pf.html
More than 350 war protesters rallied at the site Saturday afternoon, hours after some 250 Bush supporters waved American flags in a counter rally across the street, holding signs that said Sheehan was unpatriotic and was hurting troop morale.
A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-987358.php
The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units’ morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent. Although respondents said “combat stressors” like mortar attacks were higher in the most recent survey, “noncombat stressors” like uncertain tour lengths were much lower, the report said. The thing that bothered soldiers the most, the latest assessment said, was the length of their required stay in Iraq. At the start of the war, most were deployed for six months, but now they go for 12 months.
On Being in a Ditch at the Side of the Road
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=6941
Retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey to Time magazine: "The Army's wheels are going to come off in the next 24 months. We are now in a period of considerable strategic peril. It's because Rumsfeld has dug in his heels and said, I cannot retreat from my position."
Doubt on war grows in U.S.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/trib004.html
Even supporters say the effort isn't worth loss of American lives
Bush Approval Ratings At Lowest Ever In Every Catagory…
Bush's job approval in recent polls ranges from the low- to mid-40s?
Only the 53.5 rating he received in September 2001, just before the terror attack, was worse.
Majority of Americans Have Lost Confidence in the War, Polls Show
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0814-01.htm
Retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, an expert on war and public opinion who teaches at Boston University, said: “At this point, the president has nearly exhausted the extra moral authority that he was granted after 9/11. It’s hard for people to accept battlefield deaths when they can’t see where a war is going.”
With every poll showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush's war against Iraq and convinced that Bush's invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, the White House moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already ordered the U.S. Strategic Command to come up with plans to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons.
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=6936
Bush is in hiding from Mrs. Sheehan, because he knows only ignoble causes are being served. According to the CIA, the main beneficiary of the war is Usama bin Laden's recruitment drives. While America's military recruitment falters and U.S. generals announce that the war has broken the Reserves and National Guard, the cause of Islamic extremism basks in the Iraqi war.
Military Update: Perception of war in Iraq labeled recruiting roadblock
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=29807&archive=true
Deep into a four-hour congressional hearing on why the active Army and its reserve components are missing recruiting goals, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., turned a spotlight on the elephant in the room. The war in Iraq, Snyder said, is unpopular with many Americans, a fact that needs airing, given the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military. Until that moment in the July 19 House armed services subcommittee hearing, blame for recruiting shortfalls had focused on negative news coverage of the war, an improving economy, the pace of military operations and an unexplained drop in propensity of parents and other “influencers” of American youth to recommend military service. Nothing was said of a nation that, polls show, is souring on a war that was launched to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and shifted, after none was found, into an open-ended occupation and a Herculean effort to turn a fractionalized Muslim nation into a democracy. Snyder, senior Democrat on the panel, finally raised what other lawmakers, two senior defense officials and 10 star-rank officers had ignored in their own remarks, perhaps in deference to the president or to protect troop morale.“I don’t think I agree with the view that somehow all we have to do is change the news reporting that comes from Iraq and Afghanistan and that’s going to take care of our problems,” Snyder said. “First of all, there ain’t no one in this room going to change the news reporting. These folks are professional journalists. They’re reporting what they think is the news.“But there’s a deeper issue,” Snyder continued. An advantage of civilian control of the military, he said, is that the commander in chief and the Congress, not the military, is responsible if force is used in ways not supported by a large segment of society. That division in the nation doesn’t make military service any less noble or honorable, Snyder said, but it shouldn’t be ignored. He hears about it from parents who have children serving in Iraq but who opposed the original decision to invade.
Most of the U.S. casualties in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs. The bombs are built from military munitions. The munitions come from unguarded ammunition dumps. The dumps are unguarded because we don't have enough troops. We are shorthanded because the White House vetoed massive force as too expensive. The war is being fought on the cheap because President Bush wanted his ill-advised tax cuts. The tax cuts are the direct cause of American blood in Iraq. My Marines are dying so Mr. Bush's friends can buy another yacht.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1462669/posts
If you really support our troops, write to your representatives in Congress and demand an end to tax cuts for the rich. If you don't write your representatives, take the "Support our troops" stickers off your cars.
Gas prices leap to record
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm?cnn=yes
The nationwide average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas jumped 7 cents over the weekend to $2.484 a gallon.
Editors Ponder How to Present a "Broad Picture" of Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/business/media/15apee.html?ei=5090&en=4a4f32424faa6ab5&ex=1281758400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
"The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we're making progress in Iraq?"
Marines, insurgents tangle on Falluja
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/14/ied.hunt/index.html
Throughout the confusion, the Marines were crawling into the fireball that had been the Humvee to pull out all the ammunition and weapons inside. They retrieved anything that could possibly be recovered and used later by insurgents. As journalists, we taped everything in front of us. We also tried to stay out of the troops' way.
A man who was named Marine of the Year last month is charged with firing a shotgun at a crowd of revelers outside his second-floor apartment, wounding two people.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=98031
...a 15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man were injured by bullet fragments from the shooting.
When Matthew Sepi returned from Iraq a few months ago, he spoke to his family reluctantly of gunbattles and the "weird noises" children make when they die. He never told relatives whether he killed anyone during combat but said he recently had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had been placed on a waiting list for treatment.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-02-Tue-2005/news/26983251.html
To help shield his psyche from images of bodies, family members said, the 20-year-old soldier had adopted a simple technique: Just don't think about it.
A decorated U.S. Marine, who had been treated for post-war stress since serving in
Iraq', opened fire outside a Massachusetts nightclub, wounding two people!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050815/ts_nm/crime_marine_dc
"He shot into what he thought was a safe area, but there was some ricochet effects that Mr. Cotnoir never intended," his lawyer, Robert F. Kelley, was quoted as saying.
"It was a military-type response to a threatening situation that was civilian in nature."
Sema Olson was in the living room watching television when the phone rang. It was the Department of the Army calling. A voice asked if she'd heard from her son in the past 24 hours.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/opinion/15herber
t.html
Ms. Olson tried to ward off the panic. "Is he still alive?" she asked.
After verifying her identity, the man on the phone assured her that her son, Bobby Rosendahl, who was stationed in Iraq, was still alive. But he'd been badly wounded.
Frat Could Face Torture Charges
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/13/national/main777036.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=U.S._777036
A judge raised the possibility that four fraternity members could be charged with torture in the death of a 21-year-old pledge, comparing the alleged hazing death to the torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers.
Rush: Abu Graib is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/06/opinion/meyer/main616021.shtml
...and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?"
Questions Unanswered in London Investigation
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/international/europe/15bombings.html?hp&ex=1124164800&en=c333e06117911537&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Investigators now doubt their early estimation that the two groups of attackers had an organizational link to Al Qaeda, a senior British police official said, though the attackers might have taken their inspiration from it. Nor have investigators identified any outside mastermind, or any evidence of an operational link between the groups of attackers.
Israel Begins Withdrawal From Gaza
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050815&cat=news&st=newsd8c09h3o1&src=ap
In Gaza City, the Islamic militant group Hamas hung banners proclaiming the pullout is a result of attacks by militants on Israelis. "The blood of martyrs has led to liberation!"
Cages at the ready to remove Israeli settlers who flout deadline
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1549302,00.html
The military considers it dangerous for both sides to have to drag resisters down stairs, so they will be forced into large yellow cages lowered on to the rooftops, locked in and swung into the arms of police waiting on the ground. ¶ 15.8.05
