I refuse

I refuse to accept the following government actions by the current administration and its servants, the Republican Congress and the Republican Senate, that include:

* spying on its citizens without their knowledge or consent, an action contrary to existing law;* elimination of personal privacy through the Patriot Act, an action that presumes culpability, not innocence until proven guilty;

* preemptive invasion of other nations determined by the unilateral judgment of an all powerful executive that eviscerates the power of the peoples’ representatives;

* acts of extrajudicial execution and the abandonment of rule by law thereby making the President, in effect, judge, jury and executioner;* acts of torture and the unilateral infliction of "acceptable" torture techniques thus casting America before the world as an amoral nation beholden to no international agreement and placing at risk the soldiers who defend it

* imposition of illegal actions of war instituted through an orchestrated control of lies communicated to the citizenry thereby negating their democratic right to know that they might vote in accord with their conscience;

* levying an incredible tax burden on the citizens to pay for the consequences of these lies that will cost them and their children dearly for decades to come while corporations reap a windfall of profit from closed bids and corruption;

* infliction of a forced military occupation on a nation against the desires of its people and enabling that occupation to use illegal weapons of war contrary to the Geneva Conventions thus implicating its citizens in acts against humanity;

* development of diverse nuclear weaponry in direct violation of the UN Charter even as it decries other nations for attempting to acquire their own nuclear weaponry;.

These are not the actions of a democratic state; these are the actions of an autocratic state, an amoral state, an arrogant state that rules by force and acts as ruthlessly as the "extremists", which also participates in the killing of innocent women and children.

If you support these tyrants, these actions will be on your conscience and your record when you stand to be judged by your maker. May God have mercy on your soul.

facism step by step

By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities.

By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities.

The administration attempted to make the bill bulletproof by including provisions that would sharply restrict judicial review and limit the application of international treaties -- signed by Washington -- that govern the rights of wartime detainees. The bill also contains blunt assertions that it complies with U.S. treaty obligations.

University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic."

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."

Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.

your republican controlled government

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights. Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price. Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to choose.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night. Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

what makes a good liar

"We believe that the more we inform our American citizens, the better our government will be," President Bush said Tuesday.
In reality, of course, classification, secrecy and denial of access to information has expanded in size and scope to unprecedented levels in the Bush Administration.

How he can say that with a stright face shows what a good liar he really is.

closed minded fanatics

It is just amazing how people of closed minds cannot disagree with without these snears, smears and personal attacks. It's a common affliction of which there is apparently no cure.

Oh well, I will try again: Iraq facts: Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1)Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Westerndomination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) theIraq .jihad;. (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, andpolitical reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-USsentiment among most Muslims.

Our generals on the ground in Iraq are retiring so they can complain. Three of them said so in a hearing that Republican politicians boycotted.

Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said, "we went to war with a flawed plan. We certainly had the troops necessary to win the fight to take down Saddam Hussein, but we in no way considered the hard work to win the peace. There was 10 years of good, deliberate war planning by U.S. Central Command that was essentially ignored."

Soldiers are complaining, parents are complaining and these people turn a deaf ear. Iraq caused us to take our eye off the ball, so says the 9/11. Hello, earth to all those closed minds.
1:19 PM

the solution

Our nation can ensure every American access to health coverage but we can't do it with this Congress...Progressives don't need a new vision, we need increased representation in Washington.

We have a government that can't, won't, and shouldn't solve great national challenges like our energy dependence, education, and the war on terror.

That's why it's time to stand up for a new vision of government this November.

We can restore our democracy... The good news is we just need to get a majority and we can stop these threats in their tracks... Here's what I hope you will do, vote and get your friends to vote.

Iraq facts

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1)
Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western
domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the
Iraq .jihad;. (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and
political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US
sentiment among most Muslims.

Countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require coordinated
multilateral efforts that go well beyond operations to capture or kill terrorist
leaders.

Modern Christians vs.the Prince of Peace

Those who proclaim their adherence to the words and suggestions of Christ may recall the Christ that spoke words of non-violence. (I’m speaking of the Jesus Christ pre-Constantine, and certainly pre-Augustine – Augustine, who penned, The Just War, making God a partner in the crime of war. Modern-day sensibilities could re-title his text as, War, Positive Pre-emptive Thinking with Jesus’ Blessing).

Before Constantine no Christian parent would offer up their child for a war nor allow them to be sent off to kill or be killed, although they might pray the state would be successful in its endeavor.

Since Constantine, Jesus not only condones war, but is expected to pick a side. Before Christ became a product of the State; before Christ was usurped from Christianity, Christians were non-violent.

They did not and would not participate in government actions that tested their faith. No man no state, whether secular or theocratic, is given or receives in some fashion the moral authority over the rest of us.

Pointing the barrel of a gun at our heads, destroying all of our possessions, torturing us for a confession or information, or just because they can, should not be the standard barer for moral authority; nor should the use of weapons of mass destruction that leaves the air, water and land tainted with radioactivity.

Radioactivity or depleted uranium (DU) that will eventually and lethally kill our soldiers and their families and our enemies and their offspring forevermore.

The only moral authority We the People have given the State is defined by its social contract. That contract is the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. It exists only because we the people affirm its promise. It’s been said the world has changed since 911. That’s true for our government is indiscernible.

It’s unrecognizable. It no longer adheres to the principles of our founding papers. It no longer accepts The Bill of Rights as the law of the land. No longer does it recognize treaties, proclamations or conventions.

Our leader leads by fiat. No longer does congress proclaim their responsibility to be both check and balance. Signing statements have become the law of the land. We the people look for justice. We look towards the courts that used to represent mankind’s last resort against tyranny.

If we begin with God’s basic premise, Thou Shall Not Kill and continue with the rebellious and revolutionary teachings of Christ: Love one’s enemy; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, one has to question if these teachings apply to modern times? Or are they quaint expressions?

Certainly, nowadays one risks being deemed an enemy combatant or accused of treason if they espouse such notions. Today, Jesus would find Himself confined to a maximum security prison as a radical censoring his unpatriotic rantings of peace and non-violence. After all, He was a simple man.

A man of principle: The Prince of Peace. We knew how His story would end, even as children. We knew the State had to kill him; it was a given. Just like we knew in our hearts and minds what would befall Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

As we ponder our existence, question our reason and purpose in life, is it not the right to believe in non-violence and the right to practice it? Is it not the responsibility of those who govern to adhere to the social contract that we all agreed upon?

Or is it all for naught: null and void; is it all conjecture; is hope the false prophet in a dismal world of chaos? We need a new vision. A new belief that is more inclusive - so help us God.

killing for democracy

read today:
Bush said, "I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma." It will bring democracy. Really?

Killing innocent people, torture, draining our treasury, stealing elections, spying on American citizens without due process, leaving the people of the Gulf States hanging on their roofs for their dear lives, etc, do not bestow democracy and the people harmed should not be reduced to punctuation marks.

Democracy rises from the people. Great Britain did not go to war with our forebears to impose democracy, but to stop it

USA more at risk under Republicans

White House and Republican lies about Iraq:
America's Spy Agencies have concluded that the invasion of Iraq has created a flood of new Islamic terrorists and increased the danger to US interests to a higher level than at any time since the 9/11 attacks.

The study represents a consensus opinion of 16 different intelligence organizations. Entitled 'Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States', it was completed last April.

Its stark warning is that the threat from Islamic terror groups and their jihadi philosophy has spread across the world.

So much for White House and senior Republicans who often say their tough line has made America safer over the past five years.

Republicans destroy freedom, one step at a time

If ever there were a case that should turn the public against the Bush Administration's push for broader powers to suspend due process and continue to torture terror suspects, it is the story of Maher Arar, a Canadian computer engineer who found himself caught up in post-9-11 law enforcement paranoia.

Arar was a victim of the secret "rendition" program President Bush only recently acknowledged--a process by which terrorism suspects have been "disappeared" to other countries notorious for torturing prisoners during interrogation.

Arar, who was exonerated on Monday by a Canadian government commission of any ties to terrorism, spent a year enduring beatings in a small cell in Syria, before he was released.

The Canadian government blames the United States for withholding information from Canadian authorities, and sending Arar to Syria without notifying his family or the Canadian consulate, and for ignoring Arar's objections that he would be tortured. And, of course, there is the matter of his innocence.

Stories like Arar's show how much freedom we sacrifice under Bush's war on terror. This is not the kind of country most of us want to live in.

Rove, Bush's Brain,The Architect

recommended reading:
In The Architect, James Moore and Wayne Slater, the bestselling authors of Bush’s Brain, return to document how Karl Rove:
• Used lobbyist Jack Abramoff as a cat’s-paw to manage unruly legislators.
• Energetically led the antigay marriage movement while protecting a family secret that made his stance bizarrely cynical.
• Turned Christian churches into a gigantic vote delivery system, despite privately admitting to being a nonbeliever.
• Repeatedly leaked information to harm political opponents, making him the man investigators most wanted to talk to when they began probing the Plame affair.
• Was intimately involved in an international disinformation scheme to lead America to war.
The Architect is an eye-opening and frequently shocking report on the maneuverings of a brilliant but morally ambiguous political strategist, and the first-ever in-depth look at a political operative striving to absolutely control the future.

terroism, republicans

The Iraq war has contributed to an increased threat of terrorism, according to an intelligence assessment that has not lessened the Senate majority leader's defense of the U.S.-led invasion three years ago and occupation.
The classified assessment of the war's impact on terrorism came in a National Intelligence Estimate that represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, an intelligence official said Sunday.

First, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. said he had not seen the classified report, which was completed in April. Now as majority leader, that sounds like a lie. Then later in the TV program he said, "I think — and the majority of the American people think — what it shows is that we've got to win," Frist said

terroism threats increase under Republicans

The Iraq war has contributed to an increased threat of terrorism according to the latest intelligence assessment.

The classified assessment of the war's impact on terrorism came in a National Intelligence Estimate that represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, an intelligence official said Sunday. The official, confirming accounts first published in Sunday's New York Times and Washington Post, spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is classified.

The report found that the war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

republicans,dirty politics

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire".

Against some less experienced and little-known opponents, said Matt Keelen, a Republican lobbyist heavily involved in House campaigns, "It will take one or two punches to fold them up like a cheap suit."

republicans, torture

As the dust begins to settle on the latest round of George Bush vs. American Values, it's important to emphasize just how little support this man has for the torturous way he operates. While Senate Republicans now say that that they have reached some sort of Geneva Conventions-friendly "agreement" with the White House, the vehement backlash against Bush by the military this past week is well worth revisiting.

Five former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff actually had to publicly stand up against a sitting President of the United States! Yeah, it's really gotten that bad.

These men were joined by dozens of other Generals, Admirals, intelligence officers and the entire JAG Corp, plus, the FBI (who refuse to be present while interrogations are taking place because they are too gruesome).

What about those "rendition" sites in foreign countries?

islamofascists, religiousfundamentalists

I do not care to erode our constitution to become like the terroists, that's the difference between followers who will give up the Bill of Rights and independent thinkers that love our country.

It happened to blind followers in Nazi Germany in the 30's. I stand with Rep.Lindsey Graham, and Senators John Warner and John McCain on the tortue issue (all republicans, thank you, who right-wingers call appeasers).

Islamo-religiousfundamentalists is the correct term unless one parrots the Bush/Cheney propaganda,
and we have them without the "islamo" in our own country.

Republicans are always trying to redefine the language to their advantage: my dictionary says, "Democratic Party" not democrat party. Democrats need to teach those republicans the proper language usage.

bush,torture,rendition program

Sept. 18 - Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday.
The report, released in Ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the United States' "extraordinary rendition" program, which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries for interrogation by often brutal methods.

Iraq civil war update

More than 130 people were slain in two days — either killed in attacks or tortured and dumped in rivers or on the city's streets.The average number of weekly attacks increased 15% and Iraqi casualties increased by 51%, compared with the previous three months.

A U.S. Marine was killed in Anbar province. A U.S. soldier was declared missing after a suicide truck bombing a day earlier killed two other soldiers and wounded 30 west of Baghdad. There were six American deaths Thursday and Friday, raising the toll of U.S. service members killed in Iraq since 2003 to 2,678.

another Republican caught

Rep. Bob Ney, Republican, agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal criminal charges he made false statements and conspired to commit fraud and violate federal lobbying laws in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In exchange for the improper gifts, Ney offered legislation on three occasions in 2002 to benefit Abramoff's lobbying clients and helped another client win a multi-million-dollar government contract for wireless communications, court papers said.

Ney had consistently denied any wrongdoing, even after his former chief of staff pleaded guilty in May.

islamofascism,Iraq, republicans

The problem is, almost everything that President Bush understands about his own war on terrorism is wrong. According to nearly a dozen former high-ranking officials who have been on the front lines of the administration's counterterrorism effort, the president is not only fighting the wrong war -- he is fighting it in a way that has actually made the threat worse. The war on terrorism, they say, has been mismanaged and misdirected almost from the start, in no small part because the president simply does not understand the nature of the enemy he is fighting.

"I hate the term 'global war on terrorism,' " says John O. Brennan, a CIA veteran who served as the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the primary organization set up by Bush to analyze all intelligence about terrorism and coordinate strategic operational planning. "I hate the tough talk, you know, the 'we're gonna kill these guys' stuff."

Brennan is not alone. In a survey conducted this summer, more than 100 top foreign-policy experts -- including former secretaries of state, CIA directors and high-ranking Pentagon officials -- were asked if the president is "winning the War on Terror." Eighty-four percent said no.

If the president had kept his focus on capturing bin Laden, top officials say, he might have been able to declare a swift victory. Instead, Bush shifted from going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to going after Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- a decision with fateful consequences for U.S. security. "Iraq broke our back in the War on Terror," says Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Al Qaeda unit until 2004.

By failing to "smoke out" bin Laden as promised, the president has given hope to a new generation of freelance terrorist cells, Islamist copycats and Al Qaeda wanna-be's. "We let them get away," says a retired CIA station chief. "We took a relatively centralized organization and turned it into a generalized virus. Before Afghanistan, we were facing somewhat of a unified threat.

We now have the equivalent of a phantom that we're fighting." Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Marine colonel who served as Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, also ridicules the president's notion that the enemy is a global force made up of "Islamic fascists" who can be defeated as the Nazis were by military force. "I don't think there's a soul in the administration, except for Vice President Dick Cheney, who believes that crap about 'Islamofascism,' " he says.

Marine Col. Devlin on Iraq

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there.

The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically -- and that's where wars are won and lost."

Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair; a third said it concludes that the United States has lost in Anbar.

Devlin, as part of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) headquarters in Iraq, has been stationed there since February, so his report isn't being dismissed as the stunned assessment of a newly arrived officer.

In addition, he has the reputation of being one of the Marine Corps' best intelligence officers, with a tendency to be careful and straightforward, said another Marine intelligence officer

9/11, more lies, the pearly gates

The ABC 9/11 drama was produced by a Republican operative for Republicans to blame 9/11 on someone else. It did not state the fact that Bush had a CIA memo in early August 2001 on his desk stating that it was likely we would be attacked soon by planes and he did nothing, apparently notified noone, not even our air defense forces, and he just went on vacation.

Did they want it to happen so they could carry out their neo-con ambitions for world domination? Only God knows. Can you imagine what will happen when they get to heaven's pearly gates.

Iraq, more republican distortions

Two partially declassified reports issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that were critical of pre-war intelligence on Iraq that remains significantly overclassified, which means the public's right to know doesn't really exist in the real world.

Portions of the report which the intelligence community leaders have determined to keep from public view provide some of the most damaging evidence of this administration's falsehoods and distortions.

Also administration recent claims of progress in Baghdad are based on faulty reports of less casualties. The original report left out some and counted only certain incidents. How tacky at a minimum.

Iraq, republican war

The mishandled war in Iraq — which had nothing to with the 9/11 attacks — has proved to be a devastating blunder. Lawrence Wright, author of a new book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, says internal al-Qaeda documents show that after its rout from Afghanistan, the organization was in despair and on the ropes.

But Iraq gave al-Qaeda a new lease on life, providing a place where extremists could go and fight — and helping prove their contention that the United States wants to attack Muslims and occupy Muslim lands.

The Iraq war has undermined U.S. efforts to win hearts and minds in the moderate Muslim world. In the five predominantly Muslim countries surveyed earlier this year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, support for the U.S.-led war on terror was only 10% in Egypt, 14% in Turkey, 16% in Jordan, 30% in Pakistan and 39% in Indonesia.

republican polluters

The Bush administration proposed easing environmental rules Friday to allow oil refineries and other industries to change how they calculate whether they need pollution control equipment.

"This is a big gift to the refinery industry," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental watchdog group. "They are saying let's close our eyes and pretend pollution is not happening." "It's a way to allow industry to pollute more without cleaning up."

Bush, a wanna-be tyrant

Tyrants: The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home
A great wave of oppressive tyranny isn’t going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

(Quotations from our history, but sounds a lot like Bush.)

Iraq, al Quaeda, 9/11 lies

Air America has been playing the many times Bush said Iraq had contacts with al Aqaeda and was involved in 9/11. They also played Bush denied saying it.

Today, it came out that Iraq had no contacts or connection to al Quaeda and 9/11. Bush's spokesman didn't refute this, Tony Snow only said, "that's old news", he didn't deny it. Lies and the Liars who lie and lie in denial. Vote them out.

Rumsfeld would not listen to planners re Iraq

Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday. Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," General Scheid thought... Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today. "He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war." "In his own mind he thought we could go in and fight and take out the regime and come out".

"But a lot of us planners were having a real hard time with it because we were also thinking we can't do this",Scheid said. ".Once you tear up a country you have to stay and rebuild it. It would be very challenging." Rumsfeld wouldn't listen.

Later, Scheid said he remembers everyone thinking, "My gosh, we're in the middle of Afghanistan, how can we possibly be doing two at one time? How can we pull this off? It's just going to be too much."

CIA shows Republicans still lying about Iraq

There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.

The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."
Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

The long-awaited report, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, is "a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts" to link Saddam to al-Qaeda.

The report, two years in the making, comes out amid a series of Bush speeches stressing that pursuing the military effort in Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terrorism, and two months before that policy will be tested in midterm elections.

Bush, torture lies

Not that it should surprise anyone anymore, but yesterday's stomach-churning Bush speech defending torture contains this little number:

We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures. These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution, and our treaty obligations.

The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful. I cannot describe the specific methods used--I think you understand why--if I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country.

But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks--a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh.

The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

First, according to Ron Suskind, Abu Zubaydah didn't clam up because he was "trained to resist interrogation," but because he has the mental capacity of a retarded child. Second, the idea that Abu Zubaydah's interrogation tipped off the U.S. to the existence of Ramzi bin Al Shibh is just an outright lie.

A Nexis search for "Ramzi Binalshibh" between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002--the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002--turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was.

Now-retired FBI Al Qaeda hunter Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002. Abu Zubaydah getting waterboarded and spouting bin Al Shibh's name did not tell us anything we did not already know.

Of course, most Americans don't have access to Nexis. And most Americans don't remember--and can't be expected to remember--newspaper coverage of Al Qaeda for a seven-month stretch between the attacks and Abu Zubaydah's capture.

Bush is exploiting that ignorance to tell the American people an outright lie in order to convince them that we need to torture people. As Bush once said in another context, if this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

Republican neo-con agenda for Middle East

An article by retired US Major Ralph Peters titled "Blood borders" published in the Armed Forces Journal last month has given Pakistan some food for thought over manipulating the geopolitical game on its own terms and conditions. Peters, formerly assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he was responsible for future warfare, argues that borders in the Middle East and Africa are "the most arbitrary and distorted" in the world and need restructuring.

Four countries - Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - are singled out for major readjustments. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are also defined as "unnatural states".Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey read much between the lines of talk of restructuring their boundaries.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz recently visited Turkey and then Lebanon, where he announced that his country would not send any peacekeeping troops to the latter.

Ankara (Turkey) then said that if peacekeeping forces tried to disarm Hezbollah, Turkey would pull out of the peace mission. These decisions are the result of back-channel diplomacy among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

This is what the Republican neo-cons are really up to and what they are causing in the Middle East.

Iraq illnesses

It was a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on a topic that Democracy Now! listeners know about: the soldiers from the New York National Guard who served in Iraq and who ended up being exposed to depleted uranium and who have been sick since coming back, they were finally -- had a beginning of a day in court.

It was a hearing over their lawsuit, they and their relatives, their families, against the United States military, over their exposure to depleted uranium. And there was a hearing over the government's motion to dismiss the case completely. And it lasted for several hours.

Gerard Matthew, who after he came back from Iraq, has been sick with illnesses that could not be diagnosed by the military. And then his wife becomes pregnant, and they have a child born with missing several fingers on one hand.

And so, he was from a separate transportation company that was transporting destroyed or damaged tanks back from Iraq into Kuwait. And so, all the soldiers, eight of them in total, are involved in the lawsuit.

Iraq, Republican war

Hubris, by investigative journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn, adds more weight to a body of evidence that the White House was determined to go to war from early 2002. Planning on Anabasis, which cost $400m (£210m), started at the end of 2001 and was approved by President Bush in February 2002. CIA agents entered Iraq to recruit volunteers two months later.

The covert CIA preparations for war have been previously reported, but this is the first time details of the plan have been made public. According to the book, the CIA flew 80 former Iraqi soldiers into the US in the summer of 2002, and trained them at an energy department nuclear test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Talking to his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, in May 2002, President Bush made clear his intentions towards Saddam when he said: "I'm going to kick his sorry ass all over the Mid East," according to another press aide, Adam Levine, who witnessed the conversation.

They rehearsed seizing an Iraqi airbase at Nukhaib, near the Saudi border, and broadcasting a call to Iraqi units to join a revolt against Saddam. The CIA expected Saddam to strike back and violate the no-fly zone, creating a pretext for US-British military intervention. "The idea was to create an incident in which Saddam lashes out," John Maguire, a CIA agent who ran the operation told the authors, adding that if the plan worked "you'd have a premise for war: we've been invited in".

9/11, Katrina, hiding the money?

The current reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) state that the U.S. isn't prepared to handle disasters like 9/11 and lacks an effective way to track $88 billion doled out to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after last year's killer hurricanes.

The government has no place to collect data on how and where 23 agencies are spending their share of the $88 billion Congress has allocated for Gulf Coast recovery. Taxpayers and hurricane victims also should be able to find out how the money's being spent, the report said.

Now who do you suppose doesn't want us to know how the money is spent and who benefits?

Malloy lives, Air America sells out

read today:
Mike Malloy's firing, supposedly for budgetary reasons, is just another example of Air America’s willingness to follow "ieAmerica" into the tar pit’s of talk show network extinction. At least "ie " stood by their more talented hosts, something Air America seems to know little about.

No, Air America would rather stand by Jerry Springer (still on AAR in a few markets, but gratefully pre-empted by the very talented Stephanie Miller in most markets), the borish Al Franken and hire “out of house,” Jones network mega-bore; Ed Schultz… who actually makes Mr. Franken almost sound interesting… almost, while leaving the superior Randi Rhodes Show to but a handful of few stations nation-wide.

ode to Mike Malloy

This blog is just too serious. Once in awhile, there comes an entertainer that just blows you away. Well, we lost one of those when Air America fired Mike Malloy. He was a giant among mondane midgets. He spoke with sincere conviction from the heart AND he was hilarious. Okay, here are some of his references:

MALLOY ISMS:

George W. Bush: Chuckle Nuts, the Giggling Killer, President Bunny Pants, Man-or-Monkey, Dim Son, Weak-and-Stupid, Raisin Brain(s), Too-Stupid-to-Be-President, Too-Stupid-to-Chew-a-Pretzel, Too-stupid-to-ride-a-bicycle, Dipthong, MENSA Man, the Bush Bastard, the Toy President, Guaca-Moron, Cinco de Moron, Prince Valium
Dick Cheney: Darth Cheney, Cyborg Man, Bionic Man, Deadeye Dick
Laura Bush: Pickles
Condoleezza Rice: the Schoolmarm, Condoleezza Valdeez, The Shoe Lady
Alberto Gonzales: Torquemada, Torture Boy, Bush's Tejano
Donald Rumsfeld: Rumsferatu, Field Marshal Von Rumsfeld
Scott McClellan: Scotty the Duck, The Quacking Quackaroo
Tony Snow: Snowjob, Tony the Snowman, Foxy the Snowman
Rush Limbaugh: The Oxy-Moron, The Drug Addled Freak, The Pigman
Tom Delay: The Bugman

The best to you Mike Malloy to your bride, Kathy, and Molly. Bless you whatever you do and whereever you are. We will go to White Rose Society for your archives (give us a buzz when you are back on.) Bye , Bye Air America.............we will not listen to AA again, EVER!

immigration, another view

read today: Illegal Immigration in the US
I just watched an episode of Morgan Spurlock's show, 30 Days, where a guy from the Minute Men lived 30 days with a family of illegal immigrants in LA. Now that show got me thinking and it occurs to me that it's rather strange how opposed that some Americans are to illegal immigration.

I mean it strikes me that the United States is founded upon illegal immigration.I mean, it's not like the folks on the Mayflower submitted to interviews by the INS or Homeland Security. They didn't fill out the proper forms and wait for approval from the Americans of that time.

They just hopped on a boat and sailed over. I mean they were the original boat people and they didn't just take away jobs from the Americans that were already here. They killed them.

Really, I think most Americans should appreciate illegal immigration and what it has done for them. I mean without it they'd probably be still be in Britain getting persecuted for their religious views.

republican leadership

The Iraq war was a mistake and remains one today. This dilemma that the United States created in Iraq was a "miscalculation," at best and it was not planned with realistic expectations. The United States had no business invading Iraq, not when the terrorists and Osama bin Laden were, and remain, on the loose — threatening this nation, our allies and free people everywhere.

Shame on the Republicans running for reelection, our so-called representatives of the people, for not speaking out sooner. True leaders are not the ones who speak only when they are up for re-election.. Rather, they speak the truth no matter what the consequences.

republicans

The offices of at least six Alaska legislators, including the son of Sen. Ted Stevens, were raided by federal agents searching for possible ties between the lawmakers and a large oil field services company, officials and aides said.

Among the offices searched was that of Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens, Republican, the son of the senior senator from Alaska. Ted Stevens, Republican..

VOTE REPUBLICANS OUT

Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday.

In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon said illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of security as well as basic social services.

Death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians are a growing problem. "Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife," the report said, adding that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable" even as it is overshadowed by the sect-on-sect killing.

Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, in a separate session with reporters, said the security conditions have deteriorated even as the number of trained Iraqi troops has increased.

The Republicans are only starting to change their tune because the elections are coming. VOTE THEM OUT!

republican liars, not their children

Thought for the day:

For the first time in US History, we attacked another country without them attacking us.

Bush did order the invasion that killed hundreds of thousands of women and children in a country he now admits had nothing to do with 9/11, -- plus got over 2600 of our finest young men killed SO FAR--that makes him at a minimum, a BIG LIAR..(that's a fact)

And he and Cheney are about to do it again to protect their family oil interests and their Saudi friends. IMPEACH