Liberty or Death
Rebellion to Tyrants20050829
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/29/MTFH64277_2005-08-29_13-43-00_SP4749.html
U.S. crude oil futures jumped nearly $5 a barrel in opening trade to touch a peak of $70.80 a barrel, the highest front month price since the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) began trading contracts in 1983.
Retail gasoline prices are poised to jump to new highs this week as Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the heart of U.S. oil production and refining operations in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, sending crude-oil futures briefly above $70 a barrel for the first time.
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050829&cat=news&st=newsd8c9ic1o0&src=ap
Wholesale gasoline prices in the New York and Gulf Coast markets soared by 25-35 cents a gallon on Monday following reports that about 8 percent of U.S. refining capacity had been shut down ahead of the storm. One analyst said pump prices nationwide would likely average more than $2.75 a gallon by week's end, up from about $2.60 a gallon Monday. "Unfortunately, I don't think $3 a gallon is a hyperbolic number in some markets anymore," said analyst Tom Kloza of Wall, N.J.-based Oil Price Information Service. He emphasized that the market reaction is a reflection of supply tightness, not shortages. The Category 4 storm advanced on an area crucial to the U.S. energy infrastructure _ offshore oil and gas production, import terminals, pipeline networks and numerous refining operations in the southern states of Louisiana and Mississippi. Oil companies evacuated workers and shut down more than 600,000 barrels of daily production in the Gulf.
Corrected: Reuters soundman killed in Baghdad, police blame US
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-08-28T203336Z_01_MAR862048_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-IRAQ-REUTERS-DC.XML
Iraqi police said the two, both Iraqis, were shot by U.S. forces. A U.S. military spokesman said the incident was being investigated. The cameraman was being held and questioned because of "inconsistencies in his initial testimony," he added.
Bush on road after weekend of dueling demonstrations
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-28-bush-demonstrations_x.htm
Bush predicted an increase in insurgent attacks "more desperate, more despicable and more vicious" leading up to the Oct. 15 referendum in which Iraqis will vote on whether to accept a new constitution. Bush did not comment on the demonstrations or take questions from reporters.
Fictional President Meets with Cindy Sheehan
http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=3776543&nav=5D7ldqyy
Meanwhile, a few dozen Bush supporters held signs from their small camp in a ditch across the street from Sheehan's original site, where most of the dozens of protesters have continued camping off the main road leading to Bush's ranch.
Area parents of fallen soldiers take issue with war protesters
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/08/29/build/state/20-protest.inc
Instead of marching in the streets, Karen would like to see protesters direct their efforts to visiting veterans, writing members of Congress or even doing "some hard praying."
"The media feeds on it (protest)," she said. "It makes everyone upset and doesn't accomplish anything." The evolving headlines - reports questioning the president and the lead-up to war - also haven't changed Karen's resolve. If a person listens to enough conspiracy theories, she said, he or she could believe anything.
Does Anyone Know What We Are Doing in Iraq?
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7115
Sooner or later, too, Shi'ite and Sunni leaders will realize that they are pawns in American hands bleeding themselves in behalf of American power. Sooner or later, Muslim humiliation at the hands of the U.S. and Israel will permit an Osama bin Laden to reunify the Muslim world.
20050827
Thank you, George Bush.
Hurricane Katrina aimed at Gulf oil and gas fields
http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=31223984&brk=1
The National Hurricane Center now expects the year's fourth hurricane to make a second landfall near the major oil and gas hub at Port Fourchon, La., sometime late Sunday or early Monday, and then continue inland to New Orleans.
Oil companies evacuate Gulf platforms
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=50284&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
About 25% of domestic US production of natural gas and crude oil comes from offshore operations in the gulf. Offshore production capacity is 1.5mn bpd of crude and 10bn cu ft per day of natural gas.
Hurricane Katrina gains power in Gulf
http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-0064509.html
Some projections foresaw it becoming a Category 4 storm on the five step Saffir-Simpson scale by late Sunday or early Monday -- a potentially catastrophic hurricane.
US braces for second strike by Hurricane Katrina
http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=detail_info&article=306182&lng=1
High oil prices eased when initial predictions suggested Katrina would spare most of the US oil and gas production rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. That bet now, however, looks increasingly uncertain.
Oil eases from $68 record
http://olympics.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-08-25T153317Z_01_SP337503_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-MARKETS-OIL-DC.XML
Financial bookmakers said they would start taking wagers on $100 a barrel oil if the price broke through $70.
Crude Oil Plunges as Hurricane Katrina May Miss Gulf Platforms
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aF2EqHNAKojg&refer=news_index
Katrina is heading for the Florida panhandle, missing the bulk of offshore platforms, which are located off the Louisiana and Texas coasts. Last year prices surged after Hurricane Ivan destroyed platforms and closed refineries in the Gulf. "Not every hurricane is an Andrew or an Ivan,'' said Bill O'Grady, assistant director of market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. ``The prospect of it becoming an incredibly destructive storm was being built into the price. This doesn't look like it will be another Ivan even if it strengthens.''
...a category four hurricane destroys a vital pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico...panic sweeps of the nation...speculation drives the price of crude higher and higher...U.S. government turns to Saudi Arabia for oil...Saudi extremists commit terrorist attacks, killing 300 American oil workers...America sends troops to Saudi Arabia...still major lines at gas stations...Americans begin to turn against each other...the U.S. government decides to turn to Russia for oil...the Russians help in return for an investment in the upgrade of their pipelines...oil falls from it’s high of $153 a barrel down to around $77...and all is right with the world.
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2005/DR070905.html
The steadily rising gas price results in major loss of American lives, a U.S. military expedition to the Middle East, a major depression, and martial law in effect across America. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification. Could these situations occur?
If the US was spending the money on energy research that they are spending in Iraq, I have no doubt some new sources woulkd be developed that would meet most of our needs.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/letters/
But the issue in Iraq is more than just oil to power our cars and homes. Oil is the key to conventional war fighting. If the US controls the world's oil, the US also controls who can put tanks into the field and planes into the air. Japan's biggest single mistake at Pearl Harbor was not dropping an incendiary bomb into the tank farm on the eastern edge of the harbor, which held enough oil to run the Pacific War for two years. Learning from that leson, it follows that any establishment of a "New World Order" by military means mut commence with grabbing control of the world's oil supplies. Once that is done, it won't matter what military hardware any target nation has because they won't be able to fuel it.
George W. Bush remains an untreated alcoholic. The untreated alcoholic who has simply stopped drinking treats anxiety as an enemy. Bush’s current enemy, the primary cause of his anxiety, is Cindy Sheehan.
Tempers, temperatures up in Crawford
The Bushistas are loading up Crawford with ringers, including "White Supremicists" (Registered Trademark FBI).
FBI'S COINTELPRO: The Sabotage Of Legitimate Dissent
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/coloring.html
Along with the anti-war movement, the Nixon White House targeted the civil rights movement for disruption, using on-campus informants to infiltrate and in many cases to disrupt legal protests and activism. This coloring book, which was purported to be from the Black Panthers, had actually been rejected by them when it was brought to them by a man later revealed to have intelligence connections. Not to be troubled by the fact that the Panthers found the coloring book revolting, the FBI added even more offensive illustrations, and mass mailed it across America. It so infuriated the white population that they stopped listening to the legitimate grievances of the black people.
Oh brother get out the hip-waders; the Bushistas are getting desperate to save their war.
Bush's job approval rating among Americans had slipped to the lowest point of his administration, with 40 percent of the poll's 1,007 adult respondents, supporting his performance and 56 percent disapproving. Bush's previous low point was 44 percent, one month ago.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050826/2005-08-26T213604Z_01_SCH670855_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-USA-PROTEST-DC.html
The latest survey, conducted this week, noted a drop in support among independents and confirmed the findings of other recent polls, which showed Bush's approval rating even lower. Compared to other post-World War II presidents at this point in their second term, only Richard Nixon had a lower job approval rating and he was in the midst of the Watergate scandal!
BOOM!
Hawks and doves descend on Bush ranch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1557489,00.html
A big white marquee has been erected and minibuses shuttle protesters in from Crawford. In a kitchen area, volunteers prepare meals for up to 200 people, much of it with donated food - including 220kgs (50lbs) of bison meat from a local farmer. "I'm a vegetarian cook but I was like, 'OK, I'll cook meat for the revolution'," said Rebekah Patrode, 28, who drove 1,800 miles from Wendel in Massachusetts to be here.
George W.M.D. Bush, assailed by sagging poll numbers and criticism from anti-war protesters camped outside his ranch, called on Saturday for Americans to show resolve and brace for additional sacrifice in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082700565.html
Bush, who personally intervened this week with a key Shi'ite leader in a bid to broker a deal on Iraq's constitution, said Iraqis were "making the tough choices and compromises necessary for a free and peaceful future."
Nearly 1,000 Released From Abu Ghraib
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082700262.html
Abu Ghraib prison, built by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1970s on the outskirts of Baghdad, was retained as a major detention center by U.S. occupation authorities after the dictator was toppled in 2003. It gained international notoriety after some U.S. military personnel were charged with humiliating and assaulting detainees.
What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.
Forget all that prewar talk about a secular, modern and united Iraq emerging after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Get ready instead for some form of Islamic republic in Iraq that gives special status to clerics and majority ethnic groups, and less deference to women's rights. A new Iraq free of violence and divisions? Oops, never mind.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/26/AR2005082601479_2.html
Which brings us back to the troops who are doing the suffering and dying. Are their sacrifices worth it?
With almost 1,900 U.S. troops dead in the Iraq conflict, Bush is under mounting pressure from critics to finish training a new Iraqi security force and bring the soldiers home.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N2699100.htm
Bush supporters and anti-war protesters, including relatives of soldiers who died in Iraq, were slated to face off this weekend with rallies near the president's 1,600-acre (648-hectare) Crawford ranch, where he has been spending much of August on vacation.
Thousands of people are flocking to a small town in Texas Saturday to show their support for the war in Iraq or their opposition to it.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1125155678093_28/?hub=World
Most of the visitors to Crawford, where U.S. President George Bush is vacationing, plan to attend a rally supporting U.S. involvement in Iraq?
Poll: 90% of Americans Back Right to Protest Iraq War
Republicans are the most likely to disapprove of people voicing opposition to the war.
20050825
While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him. “I’m not meeting with that goddamned bitch,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!” Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “motherfucking traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “bullshit protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I’ll never speak to them again is they can’t keep their members under control.” White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President’s honesty. “Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit.” Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger at the camera before going live. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go fuck yourself.” Bush’s behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,” is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear. To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. “http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2297
To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear.”
If some other nation made up a bunch of lies and invaded the USA, I would fight back and so would you.
The man who dishonored American veterans by hiding out from the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard added insult to injury this week by shamelessly invoking memories of those who died in war as a pathetic excuse to continue his illegal and failed war in Iraq.
Bush’s lame attempt so disgusted veterans attending the VFW annual convention in Salt Lake City that many of them wore “B.S. Protector” ear muffs during his speech to the group on Monday.Memo to the dimwit now living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: When the vets who actually fought for their country stop buying your bullshit you’re in a lot of trouble.
Opposing Bush, Iraq war 'treason'
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/OPINION/508240305/1009
Our president was quick to action "after" the 9-11 attacks. Most Americans rallied to the call and most agreed. The world and even our Congress were behind him. Now, we have extremists who bash our president, the war in Iraq, and everything being done to keep us safe here on our native soil. We should take action against the extremists (or terrorists) among us.This includes those who work to bring down George Bush, stop the war in Iraq, and go back to a "good nature attitude" that resulted in the 9-11 attacks. During times of war, these should be dealt with as acts of treason.There are many people in this country who agree with me, and support our president and the brave troops who are fighting to keep America safe and free. God bless America!
"If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out." - Cindy Sheehan
'We will stay, we will fight and we will win' George Bush
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-24-bush-reply-pullout_x.htm
George WMD Bush responded Wednesday to calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq with an emphatic vow to stay there "until the terrorists have nowhere to run."
It's been 1,438 days since Bush said he'd catch bin Laden 'Dead or Alive!'
US general sees significant withdrawal in Iraq
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9f81fef2-14de-11da-9df1-00000e2511c8.html
The US is expected to pull significant numbers of troops out of Iraq in the next 12 months in spite of the continuing violence, according to the general responsible for near-term planning in the country.
Bush Tells Veterans That Iraq Policy Will Make U.S. Safer
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/international/middleeast/22cnd-prexy.html
Defeating the "hateful ideology" of terror-mongers in Iraq will not only make Iraq and the Middle East safer, Mr. Bush said, but it will make the United States more secure - if not yet safe - in a world whose new dangers were brought home to America on Sept. 11, 2001?
Anti-Iraq war protestors besieged wounded and disabled soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C!
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200508\SPE20050825a.html
The Pro-Iraq War demonstrators carry signs reading "Troops out when the job's done," "Thank you U.S. Armed Forces" and "Shameless Pinkos go home." Many wear the orange T-shirts reading "Club G'itmo" that are marketed by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Walter Reed Medical Center to Be Closed
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/25/D8C6TUA00.html
Located in the nation's capital, century-old Walter Reed Army Medical Center has treated presidents and foreign leaders as well as veterans and soldiers, including those returning from the Iraq war.
Anti-Iraq War Military Families protesting camped outside George W.M.D. Bush`s Western White House are being confronted by Pro-Iraq War military families who claim they are disrespectful?
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1043667.php/Anti-war_protesters_defied_by_supporters
Thursday, about 500 signs that say "Support Our Troops" and "Bush Country" were to be placed on property directly across from Sheehan`s camp.
Anti-Iraq War parents to take protests across nation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/24/AR2005082401307.html
A majority of the U.S. public doubts the United States will win the war in Iraq and believes the Bush Administration deliberately misled Americans over Iraq's weapons capabilities, according to a July 27 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.
Pro-Iraq War Military Family a Counterpoint to Cindy Sheehan
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050825&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagepruett_family_050825&src=abc
"Our boys have told us time and time again how appreciative the Iraqi people are, Our country is based on freedom and other people around the world deserve freedom."
PROTEST: New ordinance would be more restrictive
http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=1&nid=7862
Group to Hold Pro-Bush Rally
The Texas Military Family Foundation on Fort Hood plans to show its support for the war in Iraq with 5,000 Tee-shirts.
George W. Bush sure knows a lot more than the experts. He believes intelligent design is a scientific theory on par with evolution--even though his science adviser has said that I.D. has no merit as a scientific theory. He also seems to be more wise in the ways of Iraqi society and politics than leading Iraqis. On Tuesday Bush praised the draft constitution hammered out by Shiites and Kurds without Sunni involvement. He called it an "amazing event."
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m15035&l=i&size=1&hd=0
And during his speech on Wednesday to a stacked audience of National Reservists in Idaho, Bush went on and on about the enemy in Iraq, describing the opposition as only a collection of foreign fighters who have amassed in Iraq to fight the United States because they "fear the march of freedom" and "despise our freedom and way of life." Sure, there are jihadists in Iraq. But part--if not most--of the problem comes from Sunni insurgents who did not have to cross any borders to take up arms against US troops (and who don't give a fig about freedoms and ways of living in the United States). Once more, Bush is peddling a comic-book depiction of the conflict in Iraq: us versus the evil terrorists. Many analysts are already describing the war there as a civil war, as militia attacks increase. Bush, though, is immune to reality. I know that's no news flash. But as the gap continues to grow between Bush's "reality" and what's really occurring in Iraq, his warmed-over sales pitch is likely not to have much impact.
Iraq Misses Third Constitution Deadline
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050825&cat=news&st=newsd8c71ni00&src=ap
OCCUPIED BAGHDAD, The New Iraq - Iraq missed yet a third deadline Thursday for finishing the new constitution as faction leaders failed to make enough progress toward compromise even to schedule a parliamentary session.
Iraq's Shiites split violently
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p01s01-woiq.html
Moqtada al-sadr's militia clashed with Badr fighters, revealing a Shiite divide over the new draft charter.
Sectarian Violence in Iraq Precedes Submission of New Constitution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/25/AR2005082500294.html
In Baqubah, Sadr's black-clad forces fought with those of the Supreme Council on Thursday, said Ahmed Karim, spokesman for the joint coordination center for Iraqi and U.S. forces there. Baqubah police officers said four Sadr fighters were killed in clashes in which Sadr's followers fought members of the Iraqi army, police and U.S. forces.American military spokesmen in Baghdad said they had no immediate information on those clashes. Karim said U.S. helicopters were patrolling over the city and that American forces had made an unspecified number of arrests. Baqubah's people took shelter inside their homes. Sunni mosques in the city blared messages calling on Sadr's forces "to continue fighting those who want to divide Iraq," Karim said.
An American flag that purportedly flew over the Pentagon on September 11 was burned by a man who said he wanted to end questions of authenticity over the banner he bought for $25,000.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/25/flag.burned.ap/index.html
The disposal followed one of several methods outlined in Scout protocol.
The White House declines to discuss travel costs related to the presidential entourage, and did not respond to a request for the overall effect of higher fuel prices on its budget.
20050824
Bush says anti-war protests threaten to weaken the United States
And borrowing and pissing away billions every day for a pointless war started with lies isn't?
The National Young Men’s Meat Grinder
The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 72 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 1 through 19 August, 2005 – Official Total of 1,978 US Dead to date (and rising)
Hearing a drumbeat, Bush speaks
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0508240211aug24,1,3625116.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Bush said Tuesday that "immediate withdrawal" from Iraq would be a mistake. He also sought to portray his critics on Iraq as critics of the broader effort against terrorism, which remains more popular than the Iraq policy. Bush sought to paint protesters as opponents of engagement in the entire region, even though Sheehan and others have focused their criticisms on Iraq.
Bush to defend war on terrorism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4181186.stm
Um isn't War, Terrorism? 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed by "smart " bombs. Anyway I thought they changed the name to the global struggle against violent extremism so they wouldn't get hanged for treason, during a time of war.
Bush Says Activist Doesn't Speak for Kin of Casualties
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301281.html
President Bush, confronted by antiwar protesters on his travels, Tuesday renewed his refusal to meet with high-profile activist Cindy Sheehan, asserting that she does not speak for the majority of families who have lost relatives in combat. Bush's quickly scheduled appearance came against a backdrop of antiwar protests that have sprung up during his three-day visit to Utah and Idaho, two politically Republican states. The president's sojourn from Texas suggested the protests threaten to bracket his appearances in ways that could complicate the White House's ability to argue for the Iraq policy and maintain support for it.
Some Christian Pro-War Bush supporting dead' troops' families angered by crosses at war protest site
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/12457532.htm
Demonstrators also were still trying to repair and replace about 150 crosses damaged when they were run over a week ago; Pro-War Bush supporter was arrested in connection with the incident.
Bush: Pullout Would Hurt Iraq's Democracy
Is it a theocracy yet?
US Democracy Breaking Up
US Military Dictatorship Rearing It's Head
All Hell Breaks Loose in Utah - 2000+ Protest Bush
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/22/202433/261
Several people attending the protest boasted that they were from military families or had served in the armed forces.
President faces a new insurgency
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/237698_rich24.html
Cindy Sheehan couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing. On this Aug. 6, the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 Marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.
CBS Affiliate Will Not Air Sheehan Ad Because There Is “No Proof” Of Absence Of WMD In Iraq...
Bush Approval at All-Time Low in U.S.
36 per cent of respondents approve of their president’s performance, down six points since July.
Louis XVI thought he could not be beaten by the public. Charles the First thought so as well. So did Mussolini. So did Ceacescu. The US GHovernment is weaker than yuo might imagine. A revolution does not have to march into DC to bring the whole place down; a prolonged General strike would do it. The US Government is borrowing like crazy on the promise that it can continue to force We The People to makwe the payments. But if the restr of the world sees the American people start to say, "NO, I will NOT sell my life and that of my children to make the payemnts on loans taken out without my permission" lenders will close their checkbooks, and foreign investors, no longer assured that the taxpayers will cover their losses, will start taking their money elsewhere (as Iran is already doing). Borrowing is NOT an option for the US Government. It MUST borrow to survive, and to prop up the dollar against a $2 billion a day trade deficit.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
A general strike lasting more than a few weeks will bring the entire over-debted system crashing down.
The 21st century feels like a letdown. We were promised flying cars, space colonies and 15-hour workweeks. Robots were supposed to do our chores, except when they were organizing rebellions; children were supposed to learn about disease from history books; portable fusion reactors were supposed to be on sale at the Home Depot. Even dystopian visions of the future predicted leaps of technology and social organization that leave our era in the dust.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00031010-F7DA-1304-B72683414B7F0000
Demographically and economically, our era is unique in human history. Depending on how we manage the next few decades, we could usher in environmental sustainability--or collapse
20050823
There's a new batch of photos from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and these are reportedly far worse than the sickening originals.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/22/opinion/main791067.shtml
...the images reportedly depict "assault, coerced sexual activity, rape, even dead bodies."
Bush says war critics would weaken the U.S.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9051990/
Bush charged Tuesday that anti-war protesters like Cindy Sheehan who want troops brought home immediately do not represent the views of most U.S. military families and are “advocating a policy that would weaken the United States.”
Isn't Bush advocating the policy that weakens the United States?
...Bush then went on to invoke the dead soldiers as reason to stay the course in Iraq -- a policy that will inevitably create many more of them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
One US soldier and a contractor were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber attacked a joint US-Iraqi coordination centre in the restive Iraqi town of Baquba, the US military said.The deaths brought to 1,868 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led March 2003 invasion.
Bush won't meet with war protester
http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/08/23/news/local/doc430b408b554bd917295096.txt
In remarks to reporters outside an exclusive resort where he is vacationing, the President gave no indication that he would change his mind and meet with Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq.
PR blitz counters antiwar protest
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/23/pr_blitz_counters_antiwar_protest/
White House, military kin launch effort
'There's so much negative information in the media," said Deborah Johns, a Roseville, Calif., mother of a Marine who is about to serve his third tour of duty in Iraq. ''If the building of bridges and roads and schools and power plants was portrayed in the media, it would make a huge difference. We need to stand by our men and women so they can keep their morale up."
Iraq power blackout may impact oil prices
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/08/23/news/nation/tuenat02.txt
Saboteurs triggered a cascade of blackouts that halted Iraq's entire oil export capacity for most of Monday, a move that cost the country almost $60 million in lost exports and rattled already jittery world markets.
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 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.
War Supporters, Anti-War Activists Clash
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082300105.html
"You are ruining the morale over there," whined Greg Parkinson, a Bush supporter. Some caravan members called the anti-war protesters communists and said they were "aiding and abetting the enemy."
Pentagon says it has found no evidence Atta identified before 2001 attacks
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050822/1/3uexl.html
A Pentagon review has so far found no evidence that a secret intelligence operation identified Mohammad Atta as a member of a US-based Al-Qaeda cell before the September 11, 2001 attacks, a spokesman said.
An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/politics/23intel.html?ei=5090&en=4010d072ce411d88&ex=1282449600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Captain Phillpott, about the early identification of Mr. Atta.
Pentagon reviewing death of former NFL player Pat Tillman
http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=e4675016-0abe-421a-0088-f5f37c4bb554&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf
Tillman left the NFL after the September 11th attacks to join the Army with his brother. He had played for the Arizona Cardinals. In April of last year, Tillman was killed by the gunfire of fellow soldiers. They mistook him for the enemy as he got into position to defend them.
Military's Recruiting Troubles Extend to Affluent War Supporters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081900815.html
Are wealthier Americans, who are more likely to be Republicans and therefore more likely to support the war, stepping up to the plate and urging their children and others from their communities to enlist?
Letter: Supporters of war in Iraq should be on front lines
So let me get this straight - the United States government took the only secular country in the Middle East and turned it into an Islamic republic? The United States government installed and supported Saddam Hussein for decades; the same goes for Osama bin Laden. It's been 1,435 days since President Bush said he'd catch bin Laden dead or alive. Our government lied to start an illegal, pre-emptive war of conquest. The "we are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" argument is going to look pretty stupid after the next terrorist attacks. So now we are fighting for freedom. When the war started in Iraq, most UNM students were in the silent majority that supported the war. Those who were not were gassed, maced and shot at with pepper balls. The silent majority has a lot of blood on its hands. If you support the war in Iraq, what are you still doing here? Go defend Israel and big oil: 1-800-USA-ARMY.Brian FejerUNM student
20050822
Bush: Freedom Requires Sacrifice
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166363,00.html
Several veterans attending the convention said the protesters were disrespectful of their sacrifices.
Bush said the lesson from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was that America "must confront threats before they fully materialize.
The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US.
It's been 1,435 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
Usama bin Laden:A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osama_dead
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information.
UTAH RAVERS TREATED LIKE TERRORISTS!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/fascism.wmv
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/fascism.mov
Those do NOT look like police officers beating up on the kids. And a source inside the Utah government reports that this action was undertaken out of fear that the Rave would be used to rally support for the protest against Bush's Utah visit. Is this enough? Need we wait to have another Kent State where American children are gunned down by other Americans in uniforms? Or can we finally see what this government has become? Take a good look at this video. This is the image of the USA the rest of the world sees. This is the Neocon dream for America.
One of the promoters friends (a very small female) was attacked by one of the police dogs. As she struggled to get away from it, the police tackled her. 3 grown men proceeded to KICK HER IN THE STOMACH. The police confiscated 3 video tapes in total. People were trying to document what was happening out there. The police saw one guy filming and ran after him, tackled him and his camera fell, and luckily.. his friend grabbed it and ran and got away. priceless footage. That's not all though. Out of 1,500 people, there's sure to be more footage. The police were rounding up the staff of the party and the main promoter went up to them with the permit for the show and said "here, I have the permit." The police then said, "no you don't" and ripped the permit out of his hand. Then, they put an assault rifle to his forehead and said "get the fuck out of here right now."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/22/13030/7546
This event was 100% legal. They had every permit the city told them they needed. They had a 2 MILLION DOLLAR insurance policy for the event. They had liscenced security guards at the gates confiscating any alcohol or drugs found upon entry (yes, they searched every car on the way in). Oh, I suppose I should mention that they arrested all the security guards for possession.
Oh another interesting fact.. the police did not have a warrant. The owner of the land already has a lawsuit against the city for something similar. A few months ago, she rented her land for a party and the police raided that as well. And catch this, the police forced her to LEAVE HER OWN PERSONAL PROPERTY. That's right. They didnt arrest her, but made her leave her own property!!!
Don't get it twisted, this is all going down in probably THE most conservative state in the USA. And this is scary.. a gross violation of our civil liberties. The police wanted this party shut down, so they made it happen. Even though everything about this event was legal. The promoters spent over $ 20,000 on this show and did everything they had to to make it legit, only to have it taken away from them by a group of radical neo-con's with an agenda.
This was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed in person. I can't even begin to describe how surreal it was. Helicopters, assault rifles, tear gas, camoflauge-wearing soldiers.... why? Was that really necessary?
This needs to be big news across the USofA. At least in our music scene (edm as a whole)... this could happen to any of us at any time. When we're losing the right to gather peacefully, we're also letting the police set a standard of what we can get away with. And I think that's BULLSHIT!
The system fucked up last night... They broke up a party that was 100% legal and they physically hurt a lot of people there at the same time. The promoters already have 6 lawsuits ready to file with their lawyers and the ACLU is already involved. I'm sure some pictures (and hopefully some video) will surface soon. I'll make sure to post them up here on 404, so you can see the Police State of America at work. p.s. - there are more stories of police brutality that i'll post up later. gotta hit the airport soon. can't wait to get the fuck out of this shit hole state.
20050821
Danger Of Staged Terror Attack at Red Alert Level
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2005/210805stagedterror.htm
At no greater time since 9/11 than during the next few months have we faced such an imminent danger of a staged terror attack being carried out to reign in the seeds of dissent and again rally the sleeping masses behind the elite.
They Are Stardust, And in Texas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101113.html
At the Crawford Protest Camp, Growing Echoes of Woodstock
Counter-Recruitment demonstrators shot with Tasers, bitten by dogs
Today in Oakland in front of the Army Recruiting Center on Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh Police and University of Pittsburgh Police fought with protestors on the sidewalk. At least six people were arrested; police fired tasers and other weapons at the crowd, including restrained arrestees and bystanders.
George WMD Bush will launch a new round of speeches to rally support for the war in Iraq, as protesters camped outside Bush's Texas home and polls showed weaker support for the two-year conflict.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/21/bush.iraq/
Senior aides say Bush will attempt to portray the Iraq conflict in the context of long wars like World War II, which U.S. forces fought from 1941 to 1945.They said the president also will invoke the September 11, 2001, attacks, arguing once again that the insurgents battling American troops in Iraq share the same ideology as the al Qaeda operatives who crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
Open Letter to GWB from a Gold Star Mom
So, Mr. President, exactly what is the "noble cause" that my son and the other sons and daughters are dying for? It's not the liberation of Iraq and it's not for Democracy, because most of the people of the Middle East don't want democracy. It's not to fight terrorism because we are only fanning the flames of terrorists every day that American troops are in Iraq. It is not to make America safer because you have done nothing to make America safer. Your "noble cause" couldn't possibly have anything to do with giving the Iraqi people a better life, because their lives are worse now, not better. Our boarders are wide open for terrorists to come across, but you insist on keeping them open to make your pal, Vincente Fox, happy. Your "noble cause" changes from week to week.
How can you be PRO WAR?
PRO WAR supporters create opposing camp!
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/20/crawford.counterprotest.ap/
"If I have to sacrifice my whole family for the sake of our country and world, other countries that want freedom, I'll do that," said the soldier's father, Gary Qualls, a friend of the local business owner who started the pro-Bush camp. He said his 16-year-old son now wants to enlist, and he supports that decision.
Downtown, more Bush supporters arrived at a pro-Bush camp that had been set up as a reaction to Sheehan's. As of Sunday afternoon, more than 150 people had visited the large tent with "God Bless Our President!" and "God Bless Our Troops" banners and a life-size cardboard cutout of Bush.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082200149_pf.html
The pro-Bush camp is called "Fort Qualls," for Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, killed in Fallujah last fall. His father, Gary Qualls of Temple, said the anti-war demonstrators are being disrespectful to soldiers. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, also died last year in Iraq. He is among more than 1,800 U.S. soldiers killed since the March 2003 invasion.
Qualls' frustration with the anti-war demonstrators erupted last week when he removed a cross bearing his son's name that was among hundreds the group had put up along the road to Bush's ranch.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050821/ap_on_re_us/peace_mom_8
Qualls called the protesters' views disrespectful to soldiers, and said he had to yank out two more crosses after protesters kept replacing them.
The backlash comes as the Bush administration struggles to maintain support for its policies in Iraq. A majority of Americans now think the invasion was a mistake.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,1553853,00.html
Yesterday, an influential Republican senator added his voice to the growing chorus of critics, saying the longer the US stayed bogged down in Iraq, the more the conflict looked like another Vietnam war.
Bomb kills 4 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, deadliest assault in 2 months
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050821/w082126.html
Some 187 U.S. military personnel have been killed in and around Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 - including 64 during a rash of insurgent attacks in the last six months, which have left about 1,000 other people dead as well.
"It's been a long, hard road, and people are going to question whether it's worth it," he said. "But I think Sept. 11 is still fresh enough in people's minds that the American public will support (the government)."
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050822/1046919.asp
If the public were to swing sharply against the war, that could "cheapen the sacrifices these guys have made?"
It's been 1,434 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
Bush invokes Sept 11 to defend Iraq war
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050820/us_nm/bush_dc
The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq in 2003 by saying it posed a threat because of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. None have been found.
The banner decorating the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, turns out to have been accurate after all. If only the president himself had taken to heart the banner's proclamation of "Mission Accomplished." For by that date, having deposed Saddam Hussein, the United States had achieved in Iraq just about all that it has the capacity to achieve. The time has come for Bush to dig the banner out of the closet, drape it across the front of the White House and make it the basis for policy instead of continuing under the inglorious banner of "Mission Impossible."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000114.html
What will pulling out of Iraq mean for the United States? It will certainly not mean losing access to Iraqi oil, which will inevitably find its way to the market. To be sure, bringing the troops home will preclude the Pentagon from establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq -- but the Bush administration has said all along that we don't covet such bases anyway. In addition, withdrawal will put an end to extravagant expectations of using Iraq as a springboard for democratizing the Islamic world -- but that notion never qualified as more than a pipe dream anyway. For Bush personally, the consequences of leaving Iraq might be the most painful. The prospect of looking antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan in the eye to explain exactly what her son died for will become even more daunting. But as it is, the president can't dodge that question indefinitely. Postponing the issue simply swells the ranks of those with similar questions to ask.
Refusal to See Sheehan Is Second-Guessed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001046.html
A Decision Characteristic of Bush Has the Potential to Be a Consequential Act
CINDY SHEEHAN couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21rich.html
THIS summer in Crawford, the White House went to this playbook once too often. When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war's critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.
Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/20/D8C3QATG0.html
Why?
There were no WMDs.
Iraq was not aiding Al Qaeda.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
Saddam is in jail.
The Iraqi people do not want want the US there.
So, why stay another four days, let alone four years?
20050820
I understand that hell is even hotter than Crawford.
Bush invokes Sept 11 to defend Iraq war
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-08-20T201014Z_01_MOL050830_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-BUSH-DC.XML
The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq in 2003 by saying it posed a threat because of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. None have been found.
Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin initially said no pepper spray was used on protesters, but Sgt. Clint Winkler, a supervisor on duty, told The Associated Press he tried to use pepper spray on one woman who would not leave, but it hit her glasses. She was then subdued with a Taser, Winkler said.The Taser victim and the dog bite victim were being treated at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. Winkler confirmed that the older woman was bitten in the leg by a police dog when she refused a police order to disperse.
“We shall not any longer mourn alone and grieve alone, This country is at war. People are suffering and it is not any longer right, or ever was, that we should only have a few families holding the weight and the burden of this war. So we are saying we are in solidarity with their grief.”
After the nearly hour-long prayer vigil, about 30 ordained and lay clergy took a letter to state troopers and U.S. Secret Service agents manning a blockade down the road from President Bush's Central Texas ranch. The group was informed that no one was available to accept the letter, which called on the president to bring the troops home from Iraq. The clergy members then placed the letter and sprigs of carnations on the ground at the feet of a state trooper.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/08/20/20050820wacsheehan.html
Earlier in the day, about 50 people from Oklahoma and Georgia arrived near the gates of Bush's ranch and dropped off 32 white bed sheets signed with names and messages of support for the president. A White House staffer accepted the sheets, which were tied with yellow ribbons. “The president has something tangible to hold on to. He has supporters,” said Valerie Duty, a local Republican who helped coordinate the effort, dubbed “I Give a Sheet.”
U.S. concedes ground to Islamists on Iraqi law
http://olympics.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-20T152720Z_01_MOL045458_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-DC.XML
U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.
There is Such a Thing as “Too Late”
Ignore. That’s what the vast majority of Germans did in the 1930s as Hitler curtailed civil liberties and launched aggressive wars. I was born in August 1939, a week before Hitler sent German tanks into Poland to start World War II. I have studied that crucial time in some detail. And during the five years I served in Germany I had occasion to ask all manner of people how it could possibly be that, highly educated and cultured as they were, the Germans for the most part could simply ignore. Why was it that the institutional churches, Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran, could not find their voice? Why was it that so few spoke out?
With anti-war protesters continuing their vigil outside President Bush's ranch, the commander in chief began a five-day push Saturday to tell Americans why he thinks U.S. troops must continue the fight in Iraq.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/08/20/national/w072123D08.DTL
"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy?"
It's been 1,433 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
'P2OG' allows Pentagon to fight dirty
"Run away from the light": Such might be the motto of a new, covert policy that the Bush administration is considering implementing. According to recent news reports, it would be the largest expansion into the world of black ops and covert action since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
Rockets narrowly miss U.S. warships in Jordan
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/19/MTFH98446_2005-08-19_21-00-04_DIT931916.html
The hundreds of police and troops involved in the operation were looking for Arabs, including Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and Jordanians, thought to have fired the rockets.
A truth "that has been largely forgotten in the post-9/11 frenzy is that terrorism is a technique, not an ideology or a country. It is a technique that any group can pick up and use, without distinction of ideology, creed, or cause, and the people wielding it could as easily be fanatical anti-government Americans, Trotskyists Germans, (or) Islamist Arabs."
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19503
"If terrorists were someday to get their hands on a nuclear device and explode it in some unfortunate city, it would be a disaster, certainly -- but a disaster... magnitudes smaller than a real nuclear war."
And don't be fooled by "realists" who claim to know the past and insist they've learned the "lessons of Vietnam." We're fighting "terrorists" in Iraq, they say. No, we're fighting nationalists who use low-tech terror techniques because they're up against a vastly superior military.
And what about the history Dyer is referring to? "In anti-colonial guerrilla wars, the locals always win. The Dutch learned that lesson in Indonesia, the French in Vietnam and Algeria, the British in Kenya and Cyprus, and the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique.
"The United States went through the same learning process in Vietnam, and the Russians in Afghanistan... The fighting may go on for years (and) the better equipped foreigners will win almost all the battles...but there is an endless supply of locals...the guerrillas are never going to quit and go home because they already are home. And it makes no difference how noble the foreigners think their motives are; only the opinion of the locals count."
Russia: Putin Calls For Withdrawal Timetable For Iraq
Russian President Vladimir Putin called yesterday for a timetable for pulling foreign troops out of Iraq. The Russian leader said many Iraqis view the foreign troops as "occupiers" and suggested the withdrawal will encourage insurgents to abandon violence in favor of contributing to the creation of the state. The United States was quick to reject his call, saying it is still too early for a pullout.
US reject Russian call for Iraq troop pullout
Ready to go to war against Russia? That is where Bush is taking us.
Rumsfeld's Ray Gun
A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you.
20050819
TORTURE 
KILL
U.S. 'Will Not Relent' in Iraq, Cheney Tells Veterans Group
"In Iraq, terrorists have slaughtered innocent people in marketplaces, in restaurants, in private homes, at police recruiting stations, in a hospital, and outside a mosque. They have beheaded bound men in front of cameras, and killed UN employees and international aid workers. Earlier this summer, as American soldiers were giving candy to children, a suicide bomber drove into the crowd, killing 18 boys and girls and an American soldier." Yes, Iraqis are serious about teaching their children not to take candy from strangers.
Donald "I don't do quagmires" Rumsfeld
"It's true that weapons clearly, unambiguously, from Iran have been found in Iraq," he announced last week, with same clinched-sphincter certainty he once displayed in declaring that he knew where Iraq's WMD were hidden: "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south and north somewhat."Left unexplained is why Shiite Iran would want to help Sunni insurgents overthrow a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government led by Tehran proteges (and employees) who are busy aligning the country with, er, Tehran. That's the kind of self-defeating stupidity one might expect from the Bush poltroons, who have spent $300 billion and almost 1,900 American lives to establish an unstable, terrorist-ridden, fundamentalist Islamic state in the center of the Middle East. But it's unlikely that the subtle Persians, with 3,000 years of statecraft behind them, would be foolish enough to kill the golden goose that Bush has handed them by destroying Saddam and installing their allies in power.Still, a lack of sense and credibility in a casus belli has never hindered the Bush Faction before. And it won't now.
Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice
Rice acknowledged that "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/
"We're at the point where we think time is not on our side," Cheney said.
Bush, Aides Ignored CIA Caveats on Iraq
The administration's prewar comments -- and the more cautious, qualified phrasings of intelligence analysts -- are at the heart of the debate over whether the faulty prewar claims resulted from bad intelligence or exaggeration by top White House officials -- or both.
While the culprits would like to pin the blame on the Central Intelligence Agency, the facts point in a different direction. To cite just one example, the now-discredited claim that Saddam was trying to buy "Yellow Cake" Uranium from Niger came from the Pentagon, specifically from Paul Wolfowitz, using information the CIA stated was unreliable. Wolfowitz, and his assistant Douglas Feith, set up a special office called the "Office of Special Plans" in 2001, that fed information to the White House to urge the attack on Iraq. Shortly after the invasion, the OSP was disbanded.
...the trail of the lies that started a war, beginning at the White House, and via Dick Cheney moving upstream to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, under Wolfowitz and Feith, then from OSP to a parallel group operating out of Ariel Sharon's office in Israel.
George "Slam Dunk" Tenet
"George actually did call Secretary Powell, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary."This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."
George "Mission Accomplished" Bush
So far, Bush has been shielded from peace activists. His audiences are usually vetted to make sure there is no anti-war disruption. That's one reason that Sheehan's request to meet with the vacationing president has attracted so much attention. Cindy Sheehan's presence outside the Prairie Chapel Ranch -- home to the bike-riding, brush-cutting president -- has made Bush's five-week vacation one that he'll never forget.
Now is the summer of discontent for President George W.M.D. Bush, a man beset on every side -- by a failing war and falling popularity, by scandal, suspicion and rising hostility, even in the red-state heartlands. With each passing day of his long vacation in the Texas wastes, his presidency is shrinking palpably before our eyes, his wildly inflated public image shrivelling like a punctured balloon.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/19/120.html
The plain fact is that Bush doesn't want "diplomacy to work" against Iran. He wants the situation to reach a crisis point that will "justify" military action. It's the only form of politics he knows: You foment (or invent) a crisis, then use deceit, fear and brute force to impose your radical agenda. And the takedown of Iran is a long-held ambition of the corporate militarists behind the Bush Faction's relentless quest for "full spectrum dominance" over world affairs. The "high" Bush got from his Iraq assault is now wearing off, politically and personally. He needs another hit of blood and destruction. And don't think he's worried about the prospect of a much wider conflagration arising from a bombing strike against Iran. After all, chaos and instability only mean more money for his war-profiteering family and cronies -- and greater authority for "war leaders" seeking to "secure the Homeland." More war is the only way for the Bush Faction to maintain its power and keep advancing its rapacious agenda. So there will be more war.
Iran, China discuss defense cooperation
That means that if Bush invades Iran, the US will find itself at war not only with Russia, but with China as well.
Iran, Venezuela discuss oil embargo
Ecuador just cut their oil exports. If Iran and Venezuela stop selling their oil to the US, gas prices will skyrocket and our economy will grind to a halt.
Jordan Hunts for Suspects in U.S. Attack
Two more rockets were shot toward "nearby Israel" without causing serious damage. Jordanian security forces hunted for at least six Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi suspects, and an "al-Qaida-linked group" that "previously claimed responsibility" for "terror" "bombings" in three Egyptian resorts said it "staged the attack here"?
Pentagon Hid September 11 Attackers from the FBI
High-Ranking Military Officer Warns Of Major Terrorist Attack Looming; Cheney Consumed Day And Night With Nuclear Retaliation In Iran
One has to wonder if the missiles fired at US warships near Jordan, had they not missed, were intended as the kick-off to another major war.
Crude Oil Rises on Ecuador Output "Cut", Failed Jordan Attack
Gas prices hit record high for tenth straight day
Thanks, George Bush
Thanks, Neocons
Thanks, Israel
Poll: Sheehan 35% Favorable 38% Unfavorable... http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Cindy%20Sheehan.htm
VS
POLL: Sixty-One Percent of Americans Disapprove of the Way Pres. Bush is Handling Iraq
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050806/nysa006.html?.v=20
Thirty-Eight Percent Say Troops Should be Brought Home in Less Than a Year; 12 Percent Say Now Sixty-Four Percent Say War Has Not Made Americans Safer
California Man Arrested Near Bush Ranch After Protesters Threatened
It was the third incident involving protesters since Sunday, when a nearby landowner fired a shotgun blast that startled demonstrators and Secret Service agents alike.
Market Street has reopened following a fiery explosion that rocked downtown San Francisco this morning leaving one woman hospitalized in critical condition.
The blast shattered the windows of the Ralph Lauren store on the corner, critically injuring one woman.
The Irish clergyman and political satirist, Jonathan, Dean Swift (1667-1745) wrote his brilliant satire, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in 1727 but only recently has it been discovered that Swift was, in fact, a great prophet. In the eighteenth century, Swift very clearly foresaw events centuries in the future, as witness some of his brilliant and insightful comments on our present political scene.
For example, here is what Swift had to say about Bush Republicans:
“Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and other lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet; but the rest of their bodies were bare, so I might see their skins, which of a brown buff color. …The females were not so large as the males; they had long lank hair on their heads, and only a sort of down on the rest of their bodies, except about the anus and pudenda. Their dugs hung between their fore feet, and often reached almost to the ground as they walked….Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal, or one against which I have naturally conceived so strong an antipathy.”
And further there is an amazingly accurate depiction of our current President, to wit:
…”in most herds there was a sort of ruling Yahoo who was always more deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the rest. That, his leader had usually a favorite as like himself as he could get, whose employment was to lick his master’s feet and posteriors…He usually continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor, at the head of all the Yahoos in that district, young and old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their excrements upon him from head to foot.”
Swift ends his prophetic comments: “When I behold a lump of deformity, and diseases both in body and mind, smitten with pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience; neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an animal and such a vice could tally together”
Surely this astonishingly accurate vision of our present situation must convince us that Swift, like Nostradamus and George Orwell, could indeed see into the future. No one can miss the reference to Karl Rove and it is suggested that interested readers might wish to learn more from reading Swift’s amazingly accurate prophesies.
Tentative Schedule for "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" Tour "We Support 'Our' Troops AND 'Their' Mission"
What is the mission? Defending Zionist Hoodlums? WMDS? OIL? UBL-RIP?
A man in a hole is a threat to America? The USA installed and supported Saddam and Usama? I'm not a democrat or republican, I'm a citizen of the United United States In America. My brother died in the "global struggle against violent extremism", now another brother is heading to Iraq in a few months. If you really support the troops, enlist, 1-800-USA-ARMY! The entire US Government needs to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
20050817
Funny thing is, we won that war without a single killed in action.
Quotes from when Clinton committed troops to Bosnia:
"You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99
"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." --Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush
"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." --Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)
"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today" --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." --Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050817&cat=news&st=newsd8c1ncd81&src=ap
A woman opposed to the pullout set herself on fire at a police roadblock in Israel, suffering life-threatening injuries.In Kfar Darom, several hundred settlers went on a rampage, pushing large cinderblocks off a bridge and trying to torch a nearby Arab house, witnesses said. Israel troops brought the fire under control and tried to push the settlers back into Kfar Darom as Palestinians threw stones.During the forced evacuation, unarmed soldiers carried away worshippers wrapped in white prayer shawls. Wailing men ripped their shirts in a Jewish mourning ritual. Women in a synagogue pressed their faces against the curtain covering the Torah scroll.
A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/politics/17intel.html?ei=5065&en=2aeff500108cbed3&ex=1124942400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Colonel Shaffer said in an interview on Monday night that the small, highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information. But he said military lawyers forced members of the intelligence program to cancel three scheduled meetings with the F.B.I. at the last minute, which left the bureau without information that Colonel Shaffer said might have led to Mr. Atta and the other terrorists while the Sept. 11 attacks were still being planned.
"If the guy closest to the President has potentially committed a felony ... The President said, 'If anyone is involved in this in my administration, they're going to get fired.' ... If Karl Rove were out of business, that's a fucking big story."
20050816
The Post backed out of the agreement after critics said the event, scheduled to take place four years after the attacks that hit New York and Washington and resulted in the crash of a commercial airliner over western Pennsylvania, would have a pro-war slant and that support of the event by the newspaper would compromise the Post's journalistic integrity.
Iran: Western hysteria
The demonology surrounding Teheran began when Washington's hated stooge, the Shah, fell from power.Historically, the United States has repeated this same mistake over and over. One example is the US support for Batista, who became President of Cuba through a rigged election aided by the CIA. After years of driving the Cuban people into the ground for the benefit of US interests such as United Fruit, pepsiCo, CIA, and the Mafia, the Cubans revolted and put Castro into power. Castro actually approached the US about normal relations, was rebuffed, and because of the US blockade was eventually forced to turn to the USSR for alignment and support. There followed the Bay of Pigs, which triggered the missile crisis.
Then there was Chile. The CIA arranged a coup that removed the democratically elected Allende from power and replaced him with the dictator Pinochet. CIA torture squads helped keep him in power. Eventually the Chilians decided they had had enough and Pinochet was removed.
Then there was Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, another US-backed dictator, who eventually trigged a revolution in his country.
The same thing happened in Iran. The US-backed Shah crushed his people down to benefit US interests until a revolution was triggered, which brought Khomeini to power.
Since the Korean war, the US has engaged in over 30 military interventions, always with the claim that we are bringing Democracy to the invaded country. But in point of fact not one Democracy has ever resulted from such invasions. The US produces a dictatorship favorable to US interests, which inevitably leads to a revolution.
Insanity is defined as repeating the same action over and over but expecting a different result.
Christopher Walken 2008
http://www.walkenforpres.com/
"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."
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.
20050814
William Blum's Book "Freeing the world to death: Essays on the American Empire."
If it were me, I'd be "assassinated" BEFORE I took office. There are NO "terrorists" outside "the establishment"- deal with it, it is a fact. Go read 1984, and "The Art of War" and "The Prince".
U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300853.html
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says
Bush raises option of using force against Iran
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050813/2005-08-13T092731Z_01_SPI329552_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAN-BUSH-DC.html
?
Six U.S. Occupation Troops killed in Iraq
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/14/africa/web.0814iraq.php
Six U.S. soldiers died in roadside bombings and a shooting, the military said Sunday, as lawmakers tried to persuade Sunni Arabs to accept federalism provisions in the draft constitution that is due Monday. Three of the soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing late Friday near Tuz Khormato, 150 kilometers (95 miles) north of Baghdad, the military said. Another soldier was wounded in the blast and evacuated from the site. One soldier on a patrol was killed Sunday and three others wounded in a blast east of Rutbah, 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Baghdad, the military said. In another roadside bombing, one soldier was killed Saturday and another wounded in western Baghdad. On Friday a U.S. commander said the number of roadside bomb attacks against American convoys in Iraq had doubled in the past year to about 30 per week.
The Most Honorable Thing a Patriot Could Do
Fight for your country – do not fight for someone else’s country. Do not die far off in some foreign land. Do not die for the greed of an emperor or king.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
Tanker attacks planned, U.S. warns
"Forget about Cindy Sheehan. The TERRORISTS are gonna blow up your God-given gasoline! Ooooh, bad terrorists. EVIL, BAD, terrorists! Oooooh."
US warns of new attacks on London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1734148,00.html
They would know ?
Mother's protest gains momentum
"You would not believe it, there's a line of cars down a five-mile road and hundreds of them are going by," she says with a wide grin. "Ah, this is justcrazy. ... It's like an outpouring of love. I can't believe it."
Bush defends refusal to meet Cindy Sheehan "I think it’s important for me to go on with my life"
What an asshole.
The Bush Monarchy Cannot Face A Grieving Mom. Like Rosa Parks, Cindy Sheehan has refused to give up her seat. Only her seat isn't on a bus, it's in a tent.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/1546
This is the nerve center of the weakness of the Bush Monarchy. This inarticulate poseur cannot and does not have the courage to take criticism. That should explain why a country where once every square inch was a Free Speech Zone, now sports public cages where protesters can say what they want out of the sight of the president. This explains why he is so reluctant to face her. He does not want to appear as if she has forced his hand.
The Bushies can screen audiences so that no one who sees him has a three digit IQ. They can put all the metal tags they want on cars. They can pander to the Nascar rednecks and the Toby Keith/Ted Nugent Neanderthals (Ooops, they don't believe in Evolution). But they cannot stand their ground and answer in good faith or in good reason why we are in Iraq or what we have accomplished there.
...how can you be PRO WAR?
Pro-WAR and anti-WAR demonstrators square off in Texas "She has no right to call Bush a murderer and to compare him to Saddam Hussein," Tom said. There is an interesting mechanism going on here. Tom is a coward. He stood there and let his son get sent off to fight and die in a war based on lies, a war fought not for America but for Israel and oil. Now his son is dead because he was a coward , and Tom is too cowardly to face up to that. So his son's death HAS to be right, and for his son's death to be right, the war has to be right, and Bush has to be right. Tom will go to his grave defending the war and Bush because if he ever, just for one moment, doubted the rightness of his son's death, Tom would have to face up to the fact that he let it happen.
Recruit ads urge parents to let kids go--into Army
To all the readers down in Crawford, please feel free to hand out the Army's toll-free recruitment phone number, (800) 872-2769. Memorize that. Every time one of Bush's ass-wipes starts talking about how right the war is tell them the number and challenge them to call right then and there. Offer them the use of your cell phone on the spot. Force them to back off in full view of the people around you. Humiliate them. The very best reply to anyone who talks about how great the war is is to ask them why they are still standing inside the US instead of volunteering to be in Iraq.
The only way to support our troops is to bring them home from this mess -- now.
The only recruiting story I know by heart, and can effectively comment on, is my son Casey's. I have heard too many similar stories, however. When he was recruited in May 2000, he was promised the moon to get him to join, and he ultimately got an early grave. He was promised a $20,000 signing bonus: he received $4500 and was told that he could use the rest for college. Casey wanted to be a deacon in the Catholic Church, so when he enlisted in the Army, he was promised he could be a Chaplain's Assistant (don't believe the Army Band stories, either). When he got to boot camp, he was told that his promised specialty wasn't open, and he had the choice of being a Humvee mechanic or a cook. His recruiter told him he could finish college while in the military; he could never even get approval to take one class. All of these broken promises mean nothing to me. One does, however. After Casey enlisted, he knew I was upset. He told me, "Mom, you don't have to worry, Sgt. (I forget his name) told me that since I scored so high on the ASVAB (military competency) test, I will never see combat, even if there is a war. I will only be in a support role."
BUSH PROTESTING MOM CALLS FOR 'USA OUT OF IRAQ; ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE'; VOWS NOT TO PAY TAXES
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3cs.htm
Anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq, is calling for Bush's "impeachment," and for Israel to get out of Palestine! "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares. Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: "My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we'll put this war on trial." "And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."
Various Israeli conspiracy theories
"Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy . . . not for the real reason, because the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn't changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq . . . in fact it has gotten worse." -- Cindy Sheehan
Someone Tell the President the War Is Over
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_081405Z.shtml
The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006.
Women had more rights under Saddam than they do under the US puppet regime.
http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=97940
"The United States government has poured millions of dollars into democracy training for Iraqi women, and more than 1,800 Americans have died for Iraqi freedom. But it may turn out to be for Iraqi male freedom.''
US writing new Iraq Constitution
American diplomats offered their own proposed draft in a dramatic attempt to clinch a deal and avert a political crisis that would embarrass George WMD Bush.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff warns that releasing photos and videotapes of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison could have serious consequences.
http://www.wlextv.com/Global/story.asp?s=3717340
General Richard Myers contends in recently unsealed court documents that the release of such information would aid al-Qaida recruitment, weaken governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and incite riots against U-S Occupation Troops.
A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees – some as young as 10 – are also being subjected to rape and torture!
http://www.sundayherald.com/43796
This is the America Bush's supporters agree with.
President Bush declared yesterday that "all options are on the table" -- including nuclear weapons -- to confront states that threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A22091-2002Mar13¬Found=true
Referring to the U.S. nuclear capability, Bush said it is "a way to say to people who would harm America: 'Don't do it.' . . . that there is a consequence." Bush played down the remaining threat represented by Usama bin Laden, saying he does not know where the al Qaeda leader is and dismissing the man he once wanted "dead or alive" as "a person who has now been marginalized." He called Usama bin Laden "the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. . . . I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run."
It's been 1,427 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The FBI investigation, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/motherofallscandals.html
... the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy." This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."
Bush: U.S., Israel united in making sure Iran doesn't get nuclear weapons
George, you will write on the blackboard 1000 times, "Iran is building a power station, and has no more nuclear weapons than Iraq did."
"Thank You for Your Sympathy"?
After my office was destroyed on September 11, 2001, the people of Tehran, Iran left their offices and homes. They gathered in the streets holding candles to demonstrate condolence, sympathy and goodwill towards us, the people of New York, and indeed, all of America. I remember the film footage from Tehran at the time and will never forget. Now, the Bush and his zionist hoodlum puppet-masters plan to nuke them.
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - George W.M.D. Bush said on Israeli television he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear programme.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050813/2005-08-13T092731Z_01_SPI329552_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAN-BUSH-DC.html
"As I say, all options are on the table."
Bush says 'all options' on table for Iraq
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/08/21/bush.iraq/
Bush also said his administration would "look at all options" on how to deal with Iraq, including "all technologies available to us and diplomacy and intelligence."
"'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'
(Short pause)
"'And having said that, all options are on the table.'
http://www.alternet.org/story/21388/
"Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: '(Laughter).'"
The Office of Special Plans operated on its own, off the official payroll and away from Congressional oversight. According to several sources, it was the information given out by the Office of Special Plans that Dick Cheney "encouraged" the the CIA to adopt! So where does the trail lead from the OSP?
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/trailofdisinformation
As it turns out, the OSP was getting their information from primarily two sources. The first was Ahmed Chalabi, the bank embezzler who would be king and didn't care how it came about. The second, and more damning source, is the office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon! As the Office of Special Plans poured out the lies that led to war, Israeli officers, up to the rank of General, were repeatedly escorted inside the Pentagon to the Office of Special Plans. At no time were they required to sign in!
Douglas Feith would then take this information, despite CIA doubts about the credibility of the claims, into private briefings at the White House that bypassed CIA. In some cases, the CIA was unaware of Feith's private briefings until the OSP information became part of White House public policy.So, this is the trail of the lies that started a war, beginning at the White House, and via Dick Cheney moving upstream to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, under Wolfowitz and Feith, then from OSP to a parallel group operating out of Ariel Sharon's office in Israel.
WHOM IS SERVING TERRORISM?
20050812
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/national/nationalspecial3/12terrorr.html?ei=5065&en=12a3c4413593dcc4&ex=1124510400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
It's been 1,425 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'
CIA Commander: U.S. Let bin Laden Slip Away
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek/
Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001,"
Alleged Bin Laden Contact in Iraq Gov't ?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050811/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/american_bin_laden
The State Department declined to comment.
During his monthlong vacation George Bush will cycle without the secrecy that normally surrounds his long weekend rides.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853003/site/newsweek/
Judging by Bush's track record, that aggression borders on recklessness: last summer he flew over his handlebars, scraping his face and hands. Bush was so "fired up" about riding at the G8 summit in Gleneagles last month that he sought advice on how to handle the hilly Scottish terrain, says the family friend. (Bush crashed into a police officer.) "Got a little asphalt still embedded in my knuckles," Bush admitted last week.
President using helicopter to enter, leave Texas ranch to avoid confrontation with mother of dead soldier
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050812.wxbush0812/BNStory/International/
The mostly vacationing President Bush will head down the road Friday for some political fence-tending at the Broken Spoke Ranch, where he plans to eat a little barbecue and raise a lot of money for the Republican Party.
Crawford protest grows in support, opposition
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050812-0039-bush-peacemom.html
"You have hundreds of people protesting there; you have thousands upon thousands who are not," Becky Davis of Orrington, Maine, who has three sons in the military, told The Associated Press. "A lot of military families I've talked to think it's almost sickening to watch." Davis acknowledged that she doesn't know how she would react if one of her sons died in Iraq. But she said she would still support the war because she believes Saddam Hussein was an inhumane dictator who posed a direct threat to the US?
Ranks Swelling At Camp Crawford
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/topstories_story_224083902.html
On Internet chat rooms and blogs, some organizations and soldiers' relatives are criticizing the protest, saying participants are trying to promote a left-wing agenda and lower troop morale?
Majority of Soldiers Say Iraq Morale Low
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/20/national/w133525D22.DTL
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.
The National Guard and Reserve suffered more combat deaths in Iraq during the first 10 days of August — at least 32, than in any full month of the entire war.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050812/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_reservist_deaths;_ylt=AlV_nlqKFmu6xOnPK5Y0nDOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
The recent surge in Guard and Reserve combat deaths comes as the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are stuck in a prolonged recruiting slump that some attribute in large measure to young people's fear of getting sent to Iraq. More than 1,840 U.S. service members — active and reserve — have died since the war began.
Oil prices struck a fifth-straight record high Friday, as strained refinery outputs and solid U.S. demand conspired to push crude above $67 a barrel.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/12/markets/oil/index.htm
"This rally is the perfect storm, It's surreal, it's like watching a movie."
20050807
http://www.prisonplanet.com/112103greatestally.html
Since 9-11, and some say including 9-11, Al Qaeda has practically done everything the US govt would ask its CIA to do. They have killed muslims. They have killed their European supporters. They have timed each bombing to maximise the amount of criticism they will receive and minimise the support for their actions. Is that the actions of the 'biggest threat to mankind, freedom and democracy' ? Logic tells me, that it isn't Al-Qaeda at all. Now tell me, what does logic tell you ?
The United States Embassy says its offices in Saudi Arabia will be closed Monday and Tuesday because of a security threat...
SAUDIS WARNED THE UNITED KINGDOM OF LONDON ATTACKS...
NYPD detectives are looking for hidden messages aimed at New York in the clothes the London bombers wore, officials revealed.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/335189p-286280c.html
...Mohammed "wearing a New York shirt showed that in his mind he was perpetrating his own 9/11."???
Bombs Becoming Biggest Killers in Iraq
The Iraq war has brought a curious reversal of roles. The insurgents have adopted advanced American warfare concepts of attacking from beyond visual range and using remote control to keep fighters out of harm's way, RAND Corp.'s Hoffman said. At the same time, the insurgents blend so well into the population that American technology is ineffective, leaving U.S. troops to fight the old way, with boots on the ground. "We're seeing the automated battlefield, but we're not the ones who are in technological control. The enemy is. They're killing us with remote-detonated IEDs," Hoffman said. "It's like they're fighting a war by technological proxy. But that's what we're supposed to be doing."
Cop G.I. slain in Iraq was life of the party...
"Yeah, and don't forget he was a b---buster"
Iraq war supporter kills Iraq war opponent in Kentucky
A quarrel between two firearms vendors at a Floyd County flea market on Thursday allegedly led both men -- described as "good friends" -- to draw guns. Douglas Moore, 65, of Martin, who supports the [Iraq] war, shot and killed Harold Wayne Smith, 56, of Manchester, who opposed it, investigators said.
Bush Refuses to Meet With Mother of U.S. Soldier Killed In Iraq, Cindy Sheehan. George is a Coward. He Lets Other Men Do His Fighting for Him, And Then He Won't Meet With Their Grieving Moms. The Guy is the Master at Disaster, and a Closet Wimp to Boot.
The mostly vacationing President Bush will head down the road Friday for some political fence-tending at the Broken Spoke Ranch, where he plans to eat a little barbecue and raise a lot of money for the Republican Party.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/06/AR2005080600979.html
In what has become an annual affair, the guest list will include the "Pioneers," who raise $100,000; "Rangers," who bag $200,000; and the more exclusive club of "Super Rangers," who top the $300,000 mark for the GOP cause, according to aides. Smaller donors are welcome, too. Laura Bush and administration officials plan to attend to give the donors face time with the White House brass.
A U.S. grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor and the inquiry ended soon after.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guam7aug07,1,5281180.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Abramoff is now the subject of Senate and federal grand jury inquiries related to his dealings with Indian tribes. He also has drawn controversy for his role in arranging foreign trips for congressional leaders, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
As U.S. troops endured a deadly week in Iraq, 61 percent of Americans polled say they disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8849936/site/newsweek/
Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 42 percent; 51 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president. Bush’s approval ratings reached a high of 88 percent in his first term, in the month after the September 11 attacks.
CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away
Osama bin Laden:A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Bush Admin. Not Cooperating With 9/11 Commission Members...Urgent: Woodstock 2005 Bands Needed NOW- Crawford, Texas- Drop your sched and GO
To all who want peace in America, now is the time to expose the corruption. We urge everyone to drop their schedules and go to Crawford, Texas right now. It’s time to stage the Party to end all parties, camping out in the heat of texas will make for great tv ;-) The truth has emerged, it’s just a matter of getting it to the masses. They all Deliberately lied, they Used 9/11 as a pretext for war. Now Bush, Cheney and all those dopes in Congress are on Vacation! While more innocent Americans and Iraqis continue to die everyday! It is an outrage!
The daughter of Jalil Shaalan, a security guard at a Baghdad school, reacts after her father is gunned down by unknown shooters
20050806
OHMYGAWDLOOKATTHETERRORISTBOMB!!!!!!
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=3421
Also confirming the under-the-radar-screen hostilities involving agents loyal to the administration and others who are disturbed about the cover-up of government involvement in the 9.11 attacks was a recent contact made with this writer by a major New York media outlet which called seeking "names of those who could confirm its own reports of warring factions within the government which were threatening the safety of U.S. citizens."
On the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima, it is worth recalling the effects of a nuclear weapon, and why those effects rule out a real attack by Iran on the US.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/trinitite.html
If Iran needs to be invaded, and occupied, to prevent them from ever developing and possibly using a nuclear weapon against the mainland United States, then our parents and grandparents wasted untold trillions in producing nuclear weapons and submarines to defend against just such a threat.
And we want our money back.
Military Says Troops Demanded 'Rent' From Iraqi Vendors
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guard6aug06,0,1746838.story?coll=la-home-headlines
California Army National Guard troops charged unauthorized, off-the-books "rent" to Iraqi-owned businesses inside Baghdad's Green Zone in Iraq to raise money for a "soldier's fund," military officials and sources within the troops' battalion said Friday.
As the blood of US soldiers continues to drain into the hot sands of Iraq over the last several days with at least 27 US soldiers killed and the approval rating for his handling of the debacle in Iraq dropping to an all-time low of 38%, Mr. Bush commented from the comforts of his ranch in Crawford, Texas today, "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq."
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2089.shtml
While the entire group nods in agreement and two other soldiers stand up to shake his hand, Anderson says firmly, "You subverted us, you destroyed our lives, you owe us. I want your resignation in my hand in the next five minutes. Get packin' Georgie."
A half-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iran.
This is the Pentagon "Office of Special Plans", the very office at the center of the current Israeli spy scandal.
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring
-- US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.
New York Times tries to shill for the Israeli spies
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/06/politics/06inquire.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1123344701-sFUyUtTG4BsGNRNqrYTAIA
THE REAL AIPAC SPY RING STORY--IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAN
It was also about the lies used to trick us into war in Iraq, but this article does have a lot of good info.
Plame-gate + AIPAC-gate = Neocon-gate.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=2270_0_1_0_C
Sit back, and enjoy ...
Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says
"And they have nookular bombs, too. And chemicals. And, and, they have a Death Star! No kidding; Iran has a Death Star. Bad, bad, Iran. OOOOH, Iran gonna getcha if we don't get them first. Really. Honest." -- Official White Horse Souse
Experts: Suicide Bombers Not Crazy
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050806&cat=frontpage&st=frontpagesuicide_bomber_sanity_050729&src=abc
It's been said that the suicide bombers who cause the scenes of carnage and chaos relayed on American TV screens and front pages must be driven by a cocktail of religious fanaticism and outright insanity. However, some experts -- including people who are advising the U.S. government on terrorism -- said not only are suicide bombers sane, but also that anyone of us, under the right circumstances, could become one.
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. He points to a passage from Lincoln's speech on giving up one's life for a cause: "From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion."
More About Those Nuclear Attack Speculations
If George Bush were no longer President, it would add to the power of the PNAC crew. If you think they assumed great power because 3,000 anonymous Americans died, just imagine how much more power they can assume after claiming that terrorists are a great enough threat to get to an American president. Bush would be the sacrificial poster boy. He would have served his purpose and would no longer be needed. He would provide PNAC with more power than they ever could achieve if he had lived. An interesting side note is that George W. Bush’s Skull and Bones nickname is “Temporary!” Interesting, to say the least.
Next week, on Monday, George Bush will be traveling to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He will be touring the Sandia Laboratory there, and then he will be making remarks after signing the comprehensive energy legislation that passed recently.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050803-4.html
Q Do you have any reaction to the announcement by Iran that they're going to start uranium processing again on August 6th?
Jihadists Turn the Web Into Base of Operations
This appears to be the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign by the US, UK, and Israeli governments to discredit the Internet, and create a climate under which the public would except a halt to the free exchange of information. But the fact is that while the Internet crawls with phony terrorist websites (hosted from Texas and Virginia), and assorted "phlogs", no real terror organization would use the Internet to communicate for the very reason that it is a favored playground of government propagandists and shills. The real "threat" of the Internet is that it breaks the government's and media's monopoly on the flow of information in society. As Bush's poll numbers plummet, it has become clear that the mainstream media has lost the war for the minds of America. Panic is in the air. Without a restoration of the media monopoly, the planned war in Iran cannot move forward.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
20050805
I do not send our troops to kill innocent men, women and children based on lies, corporate profits and political agendas of foreign goverments.
I do not support war and violence as a central tenet of the American way of life.
I do not condone the torture of human beings.
I do not meddle in the affairs of foreign countries.
I do not murder scores of America's or other countries' citizens in order to promote a poltical agenda.
I do not leave the American populace defenseless from their enemies, both foreign and domestic.
I do not spread hatred of other countries, religions or races.
I do not legislate, vote for or rule in favor of laws to restrict the personal freedoms of Americans.
I do not accept bribes from corporations or organizations to vote for legislation which is detrimental to Americans.
I do not accept bribes from foreign governments to vote for their poltical agendas against the needs of the American people.
I do not issue propaganda based on government and corporate sponsored PR releases in order to confuse, "dumb-down," or terrorize American citizens.
I do not promote false interpretations of scientific discoveries and world history.
I do not build mechanisms that take away the voting rights of citizens, both here and around the world.
I do not divulge the names of CIA operatives.
I do not blindly accept the pronouncements of people and organizations who wrap themselves in the flag and/or religious dogma.
I do not use my scientific knowledge and expertise to devise new weapons to kill my fellow human beings.
I do not denigrate or violate the United States Constitution.
I am not a traitor.
But, I know who are.
20050804
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050804/2005-08-04T171414Z_01_N0475285_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SPACE-SHUTTLE-DC.html
"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."
"Insurgents" Using Bigger, More Lethal Bombs, U.S. Officers Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/international/middleeast/04bomb.html?th&emc=th
"This was a catastrophic event," said Sgt. Jason Knapp, an Air Force bomb technician who arrived at the scene of the multiple attacks the next morning. He found a foot from one of the American soldiers in the shallow water of a nearby canal. "It was pretty disturbing," he said.
Ohio families reeling after battalion loses 21 in six days
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iohio04.html
"Oh, my God," she said softly. "I'm all for protection but this is getting a little bit ridiculous."
Palmer said she and her husband, Paul Schroeder, last spoke with their son about a week ago. He said he was tired of flushing insurgents out of the same places, just to have them reappear with better weapons. "He said the closer they got to the time to come home, the less it was worth it," she said.
“Make no mistake about it,” Bush said. “We are at war.”
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1010240.php
“These terrorists and insurgents will use brutal tactics because they’re trying to shake the will of the United States of America. They want us to retreat.”
Bush says US will not be driven out of Middle East
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050804/pl_afp/usattacksiraqqaeda_050804191810;_ylt=Aqpagem5ytc8X9yVuEKB_q1X6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Though US generals and officials have indicated that plans for a US troop withdrawal in 2006 are already being made, Bush said "Our troops will come home as soon as possible.
U.S. lays groundwork for Iraq troop withdrawal
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8810557/
The Pentagon is laying the groundwork for beginning a withdrawal from Iraq, even as it is weighing the risk of moving so quickly that Iraqi security forces collapse without U.S. support.
Al Qaeda threatens more UK, U.S. attacks
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/04/zawahiri.london/index.html
He told the American people that their leaders are lying to them about the Iraq war and called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. "The truth that has been kept from you by (President) Bush, (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice and (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld is that there is no way out of Iraq without immediate withdrawal, and any delay on this means only more dead, more losses.
"If you don't leave today, certainly you will leave tomorrow, and after tens of thousands of dead, and double that figure in disabled and wounded."
U.S. military reports four more American service members killed in Iraq amid upsurge in violence
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2005/08/04/news/latest_news/d1932eb7d48e67b88625705300666abc.txt
Bush added: "The comments of the No. 2 man of al-Qaida make it clear that Iraq is part of this war on terror, and we're at war."
MP George Galloway has defended comments referring to insurgents in Iraq as "martyrs", saying he has not put British troops at risk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4744685.stm
"I said countries occupied by UK and US troops are being raped by them. Jerusalem and Baghdad are in the hands of foreigners who are doing their will. "The people stirring up hatred for our troops are those who put them in Iraq, not the likes of us who want to bring them home to their families.
"The people who put our troops at risk are the people who put them abroad."
Former pro-Israel lobbyists charged with classified leaks
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-04-spyingcharges_x.htm
An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., named Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, the organization's former senior Iran analyst.
Iran's new president: Scrap all WMDs
http://english.people.com.cn/200508/04/eng20050804_200255.html
"I will plead for the suppression of all weapons of mass destruction," Ahmadinejad said after taking office in a ceremony attended by government leaders and foreign ambassadors.
A teenage Israeli soldier shot dead four people in a blazing row over the country's imminent withdrawal from Gaza before being lynched by furious residents of an Arab-Israeli town.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050804/1/3tzvd.html
The 19-year-old religiously observant Jew, dressed in army fatigues, unleashed a volley of fire inside a bus in the northern Galilee town of Shfaram in an argument over the pullout, police said. Four Israeli Arab passengers died in the hail of bullets. The gunman was lynched by a furious crowd as hundreds flocked to the blood-smeared bus in a Druze neighbourhood of Shfaram shortly after the attack, police and witnesses said.
Three Israelis Killed in Attack by Soldier on Bus
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSnUlCTJBlew&refer=top_world_news
Haaretz identified the gunman as 19-year-old Eden Tzuberi, a Jewish activist who deserted his unit a month ago to protest the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, according to security officials who weren't named. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon released a statement late today calling the incident ``a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist.''
IDF, police fear riots in wake of Shfaram shooting
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/608864.html
The attacker - Eden Tzubeiri, 19 - was a newly religious man, an IDF deserter from Rishon Letzion who recently moved to the West Bank settlement of Tapuah. He was an activist in the outlawed extreme-right Kach movement and went AWOL a month ago to protest the disengagement plan.
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