Microsoft sells its software in foreign countries from an affiliate in Ireland – after making small changes in the software so they can avoid US taxes. There, it pays only a 10 percent tax on its corporate profits, rather than the 38 percent corporate rate in the US.
Other US corporations set up affiliates in such tax havens as Barbados, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. US firms are "quite aggressive" in taking advantage of such tax havens,
30 October, 2007
standard of living going down w/ republicans
If you look at the current account of the US balance of payments, which measures primarily the balance of trade, and also flows of interest and dividends, foreign aid, and other international transfers, the US should be far deeper in hock – $2.9 trillion more over the years from 1990 through 2006 than the official $2.6 trillion.
Our country under the Republicans is now by far the world's biggest debtor nation. A quarter century ago, the US was the world's largest creditor nation. The result will be a much lower standard of living.
Our country under the Republicans is now by far the world's biggest debtor nation. A quarter century ago, the US was the world's largest creditor nation. The result will be a much lower standard of living.
on to a police state
EARLIER this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the White House agreed to allow the executive branch to conduct dragnet interceptions of the electronic communications of people in the United States.
rumsfeld flees
read today:
War Criminals Beware, Justice Ahead : In Paris last week, Rumsfeld left a prestigious speaking event in haste, slipping out a side door to avoid the human rights lawyers and journalists waiting to confront him with criminal charges of torture.
He reportedly avoided the confrontation by sneaking out a door that attached the conference venue to, of all places, the United States Embassy. Have you seen this article in the mainstream media?
War Criminals Beware, Justice Ahead : In Paris last week, Rumsfeld left a prestigious speaking event in haste, slipping out a side door to avoid the human rights lawyers and journalists waiting to confront him with criminal charges of torture.
He reportedly avoided the confrontation by sneaking out a door that attached the conference venue to, of all places, the United States Embassy. Have you seen this article in the mainstream media?
Update on Wars on Iraq and Iran
The US is secretly upgrading special stealth bomber hangars on the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to military sources.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday he had no evidence Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons and expressed concern that escalating rhetoric from the U.S. could bring disaster. It sounds like Iraq all over again.
The Republicans are trying to get out of Iraq, saving face by blaming Iran and will enlarge the war to include a war on Iran.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday he had no evidence Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons and expressed concern that escalating rhetoric from the U.S. could bring disaster. It sounds like Iraq all over again.
The Republicans are trying to get out of Iraq, saving face by blaming Iran and will enlarge the war to include a war on Iran.
28 October, 2007
is US supporting terroists?
"Escalation of terrorism in the region is one of the direct results of the presence of occupiers in Iraq, particularly America," Jalili, an ally of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said according to the country's state broadcaster. "And there are documents and information available proving America's support for terrorist groups in the region."
27 October, 2007
Cheney republicans against tax reform
The Democratic proposal, unveiled on Thursday, would cut taxes on married couples with annual incomes below $200,000 but raise taxes of most people earning more. It would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which was created to prevent the rich from avoiding paying any taxes but could this year affect millions of families with incomes as low as $50,000.
It would replace the lost revenue with a 4 percent to 4.6 percent surcharge on the top 10 percent of taxpayers. Of course, the Cheney led Republicans are against making the tax code fair to the middle class.
It would replace the lost revenue with a 4 percent to 4.6 percent surcharge on the top 10 percent of taxpayers. Of course, the Cheney led Republicans are against making the tax code fair to the middle class.
another republican ATT General for torture
At his senate hearing, Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee
for attorney general, was plainly asked if the president is required
to obey federal statutes.
Not only did he refuse to answer that question with an unqualified
"Yes", the basis for his refusal was basically that a war president
can do whatever he likes, the catchall Constitution buster of the
current administration.
for attorney general, was plainly asked if the president is required
to obey federal statutes.
Not only did he refuse to answer that question with an unqualified
"Yes", the basis for his refusal was basically that a war president
can do whatever he likes, the catchall Constitution buster of the
current administration.
truth about the surge in Iraq
."This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman (in Sadiyah,Iraq), a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."
The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.
"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground." I guess that includes General "betray us."
The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.
"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground." I guess that includes General "betray us."
Iraq the quagmire
The State Department will order as many as 50 U.S. diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.
The union representing U.S. diplomats has officially objected to the Iraq call-up. "We believe, and we have told the secretary of state, that directing unarmed civilians who are untrained for combat into a war zone should be done on a voluntary basis," said Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association. "Directed assignments, we fear, can be detrimental to the individual, to the post, and to the Foreign Service as a whole."
The union representing U.S. diplomats has officially objected to the Iraq call-up. "We believe, and we have told the secretary of state, that directing unarmed civilians who are untrained for combat into a war zone should be done on a voluntary basis," said Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association. "Directed assignments, we fear, can be detrimental to the individual, to the post, and to the Foreign Service as a whole."
25 October, 2007
Republicans muzzle global warning threats
White House officials eliminated several successive pages of
CDC's testimony, beginning with a section in which it planned to say that many organizations are working to address climate change but that, "despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed," and that the "CDC considers climate change a serious public concern."
In another deleted part of the original testimony, the CDC director predicted that areas in the northern United States "will likely bear the brunt of increases in ground-level ozone and associated airborne pollutants.
Populations in mid-western and northeastern cities are expected to experience more heat-related illnesses as heat waves increase in frequency, severity and duration."
CDC's testimony, beginning with a section in which it planned to say that many organizations are working to address climate change but that, "despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed," and that the "CDC considers climate change a serious public concern."
In another deleted part of the original testimony, the CDC director predicted that areas in the northern United States "will likely bear the brunt of increases in ground-level ozone and associated airborne pollutants.
Populations in mid-western and northeastern cities are expected to experience more heat-related illnesses as heat waves increase in frequency, severity and duration."
23 October, 2007
republicans, against other health care
Along with rejecting the SCHIP health insurance for US children with no health insurance, the Republicans are opposed US Senate legislation to fund health care for the nuclear-test-affected Marshallese. Sixty-seven US nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.
republicns wanted war on Iran for years
Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise.
In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice.
They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years.
That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say. "The hard-liners are upping the pressure on the State Department," says Leverett.
In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice.
They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years.
That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say. "The hard-liners are upping the pressure on the State Department," says Leverett.
real reason for Iraq
The Hunt Oil deal with the Kurds(Ray Hunt of Hunt Oil, one of George W. Bush's Texas chums), one of several pending oil contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, may have put the last nail in the coffin of the US effort to force Iraq to rewrite its oil laws.
Like the Biden resolution and the Blackwater shooting, the Hunt deal unleashed pent-up anger among Iraqi Arab leaders, who called the deal illegal, since under current Iraqi law only the central government in Baghdad, not the Kurds, can approve oil deals.
The nationalization of Iraq's oil in 1972 by Saddam Hussein, after a decades-long struggle between Iraq and the Anglo-American oil cartel, was a landmark event, the first major oil nationalization in the region since the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh took over the British oil interests there and, for his efforts, was toppled in 1953 by a CIA-engineered coup inspired by that cartel.
In Arab Iraq, if not in Kurdistan, the national oil industry is sacrosanct. If the United States intended to confirm Iraqis' belief that the invasion was about grabbing their country's oil, the US effort to open up the industry to foreign investors is perfectly designed to do so.
The real reason the US is in Iraq is about getting the republican oil barons to control and benefit from Iraq's oil, pure and simple.
Like the Biden resolution and the Blackwater shooting, the Hunt deal unleashed pent-up anger among Iraqi Arab leaders, who called the deal illegal, since under current Iraqi law only the central government in Baghdad, not the Kurds, can approve oil deals.
The nationalization of Iraq's oil in 1972 by Saddam Hussein, after a decades-long struggle between Iraq and the Anglo-American oil cartel, was a landmark event, the first major oil nationalization in the region since the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh took over the British oil interests there and, for his efforts, was toppled in 1953 by a CIA-engineered coup inspired by that cartel.
In Arab Iraq, if not in Kurdistan, the national oil industry is sacrosanct. If the United States intended to confirm Iraqis' belief that the invasion was about grabbing their country's oil, the US effort to open up the industry to foreign investors is perfectly designed to do so.
The real reason the US is in Iraq is about getting the republican oil barons to control and benefit from Iraq's oil, pure and simple.
Republicans want to stay in Iraq forever
Iraqi nationalism is the only political force capable of uniting Sunni and Shiite Arabs and ending the sectarian civil war, but for the past four years the United States has systematically worked to suppress it.
Do you wonder why? Wouldn't promoting nationalism bind them together? Well then the republicans would have to get out of Iraq, wouldn't they?
Do you wonder why? Wouldn't promoting nationalism bind them together? Well then the republicans would have to get out of Iraq, wouldn't they?
warning to Guard and Army Recruits
The U.S. Army will continue to rely on an unpopular program that forces some National Guad and Army soldiers to stay on beyond their retirement or re-enlistment dates, Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, deputy chief of staff for personnel, said Thursday that the number of soldiers kept on duty past their retirement or re-enlistment dates has actually increased in recent months as a result of President Bush's orders to increase troop levels in Iraq.
Republican Blackwater
Written by an army officer: "Every time one of those Blackwater convoys drives an Iraqi civilian off the road because the most important thing in the world is the protection of their'principal,' they make a new enemy for the United States. Every time they ram another car to clear the way (and, yes, I've seen them do that), so that they could maintain their own speed and thereby minimize their exposure to "improvised explosive devices," they make another enemy. Every time they kill innocent civilians, or wound them, they make whole families of new enemies."
"What employees of the private security firm care about, and I have heard this from the Blackwaters with whom I interacted in Iraq, is their paycheck. They care about their huge compensation packages, and about getting home alive to spend them."
"Blackwater USA has already taken in more than $1 billion from the public coffers. All in all, that's not a bad take for Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and a Naval Academy dropout who served less time under the colors of the nation, in uniform, than my most recent pair of boots."
"What employees of the private security firm care about, and I have heard this from the Blackwaters with whom I interacted in Iraq, is their paycheck. They care about their huge compensation packages, and about getting home alive to spend them."
"Blackwater USA has already taken in more than $1 billion from the public coffers. All in all, that's not a bad take for Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and a Naval Academy dropout who served less time under the colors of the nation, in uniform, than my most recent pair of boots."
winning hearts and minds in Iraq
Associated Press photos showed the bodies of two toddlers, one with a gouged face, swaddled in blankets on a morgue floor. Their shirts were pulled up, exposing their abdomens, and a diaper showed above the waistband of one boy's shorts. Relatives said the children were killed when the US helicopter gunfire hit their house as they slept.
Immigrants and republicans
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has granted US citizenship to 32,500 foreign soldiers. In July 2002, US President George W. Bush issued an executive order to expand existing legislation to offer a fast track to citizenship to foreigners who agree to fight for the US Armed Forces.
The foreigners already represent 5 percent of all recruits. They even make up the majority of soldiers from some New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods.
The Pentagon spends $3.2 billion a year on recruitment, even sending its recruiters to high schools to persuade 17-year-olds still a year away from graduation to enlist.
Even so, four years and over 3,800 US deaths after the beginning of the Iraq campaign, fewer and fewer American citizens are willing to fight in a war opposed by a majority of the US population .
Most foreign recruits come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Latino rights groups in the United States, fearful that immigrants are being used as cannon fodder, object to the somewhat shady practice of offering citizenship in return for military service.
Also, aren't these the same people that Republicans bash at every chance to stoke fears for their political gain??????
The foreigners already represent 5 percent of all recruits. They even make up the majority of soldiers from some New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods.
The Pentagon spends $3.2 billion a year on recruitment, even sending its recruiters to high schools to persuade 17-year-olds still a year away from graduation to enlist.
Even so, four years and over 3,800 US deaths after the beginning of the Iraq campaign, fewer and fewer American citizens are willing to fight in a war opposed by a majority of the US population .
Most foreign recruits come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Latino rights groups in the United States, fearful that immigrants are being used as cannon fodder, object to the somewhat shady practice of offering citizenship in return for military service.
Also, aren't these the same people that Republicans bash at every chance to stoke fears for their political gain??????
22 October, 2007
a real right wing conspirator-Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife. Remember him? The cantankerous, reclusive 75-year-old billionaire who's spent a sizable chunk of his inherited fortune bankrolling conservative causes and trying to kneecap Democrats? He's best known for funding efforts to smear then-President Bill Clinton, but more quietly he's given in excess of $300 million to right-leaning activists, watchdogs and think tanks. Atop his list of favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such as "Restoring a Culture of Marriage."
The culture of his own marriage is apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.
Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people. No. Pre. Nup. Unfathomable but true, when Scaife (rhymes with safe) married his second wife, Margaret "Ritchie" Scaife, in 1991, he neglected to wall off a fortune that Forbes recently valued at $1.3 billion. This, to understate matters, is likely going to cost him, big time. As part of a temporary settlement, 60-year-old Ritchie Scaife is currently cashing an alimony check that at first glance will look like a typo: $725,000 a month. Or about $24,000 a day, seven days a week.
The numbers are just one of many we-kid-you-not dimensions to this tale. In late 2005, Ritchie Scaife peered through a window at one of her husband's many homes and saw him with one Tammy Sue Vasco, a woman whose colorful criminal history includes an arrest for prostitution. And this tryst was no one-afternoon stand. Ritchie Scaife describes Vasco in court filings as her husband's "mistress."
That would be Andrew Mellon, the uncle of Richard Scaife's mother, a financial wiz who built a Gilded Age fortune through banking and oil. Income from the trusts of that estate yields roughly $45 million a year for Scaife, according to a filing by his wife. That's a gross disposable income of nearly $4 million a month, apparently just for having been born. As the lawyer of his soon-to-be-ex-wife noted, "These massive streams of income are attributable to no employment, business enterprise or other effort -- intellectual, physical, creative or ministerial -- past or present."
Scaife owns a handful of newspapers and newsweeklies, including the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a conservative answer to the Post-Gazette. When he isn't tending to this modest publishing empire, he's underwriting what Hillary Clinton once called "a vast right-wing conspiracy." His highest-profile expenditure is the $2.3 million he gave the American Spectator magazine in the mid-'90s, to try to unearth prurient and embarrassing details about Bill Clinton's years as governor of Arkansas. (The magazine came up virtually empty-handed.)
t some point in late 2005, Ritchie started having suspicions about her husband and hired a private investigator named Keith Scannell, a specialist in high-end surveillance for insurance companies. In December of that year, Scannell followed Richard Scaife to nearby North Huntingdon, home of Doug's Motel, a place where the TVs are bolted to the furniture and rooms can be rented in three-hour increments, for $28. (It's now under new management and renamed the Huntingdon Inn. Head east on Route 8, then east on Route 30.) There, according to Scannell, Scaife spent a few hours with Tammy Sue Vasco.
Why a billionaire would shack up at Doug's Motel, of all places, is a mystery. Ditto his choice of companions. Vasco is a tall, blond 43-year-old mother who in 1993 was busted in a sting operation after showing up at a Sheraton hotel and offering to have sex with an undercover cop for $225, the Post-Gazette reported.
Social Register material she is not, but Vasco and Scaife seemed to have a relationship that went beyond the purely professional. The two usually met each other twice a week, for months, at the motel, says an employee of the motel. Scaife would show up in a chauffeured car, dressed in a suit, wearing cuff links, always bearing flowers. Vasco would be waiting in same room every time, Room 5 on the ground floor, facing the parking lot, said the employee. Mr. Dick, as he was known at the motel, would stay for two hours or so, then get back in the car, which had been waiting, and leave.
"He actually seemed infatuated with Tammy," says the Doug's Motel employee, who did not want to be identified because of the powerful parties in the case. "She'd talk about trips that he took her on, to California, New York City. And it was great for her. It changed her life."
Private investigator Scannell, commenting on what became a much-discussed local news story, put it this way: "Mrs. Scaife acted as any loving wife would upon finding out just days earlier that her husband had a confirmed meeting, for several hours, at a $40 motel with a woman previously arrested for prostitution."
Police would later say that Ritchie Scaife began pounding on doors and windows and refused to leave, which is why she was promptly arrested for "defiant trespass." She was handcuffed and driven downtown to the Allegheny County Jail -- near the Liberty Bridge, at 950 Second Ave. -- where a woman accustomed to traveling with a personal hairdresser spent the night in what her lawyers later called a "grim" holding cell.
Now we know that Scaife is beneficiary of nine different trusts, including one called the "1935 Trust," with an approximate value of $210 million, and another called "The Revocable Trust," valued at $655 million. Altogether, these gushers are worth about $1.4 billion.
The culture of his own marriage is apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.
Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people. No. Pre. Nup. Unfathomable but true, when Scaife (rhymes with safe) married his second wife, Margaret "Ritchie" Scaife, in 1991, he neglected to wall off a fortune that Forbes recently valued at $1.3 billion. This, to understate matters, is likely going to cost him, big time. As part of a temporary settlement, 60-year-old Ritchie Scaife is currently cashing an alimony check that at first glance will look like a typo: $725,000 a month. Or about $24,000 a day, seven days a week.
The numbers are just one of many we-kid-you-not dimensions to this tale. In late 2005, Ritchie Scaife peered through a window at one of her husband's many homes and saw him with one Tammy Sue Vasco, a woman whose colorful criminal history includes an arrest for prostitution. And this tryst was no one-afternoon stand. Ritchie Scaife describes Vasco in court filings as her husband's "mistress."
That would be Andrew Mellon, the uncle of Richard Scaife's mother, a financial wiz who built a Gilded Age fortune through banking and oil. Income from the trusts of that estate yields roughly $45 million a year for Scaife, according to a filing by his wife. That's a gross disposable income of nearly $4 million a month, apparently just for having been born. As the lawyer of his soon-to-be-ex-wife noted, "These massive streams of income are attributable to no employment, business enterprise or other effort -- intellectual, physical, creative or ministerial -- past or present."
Scaife owns a handful of newspapers and newsweeklies, including the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a conservative answer to the Post-Gazette. When he isn't tending to this modest publishing empire, he's underwriting what Hillary Clinton once called "a vast right-wing conspiracy." His highest-profile expenditure is the $2.3 million he gave the American Spectator magazine in the mid-'90s, to try to unearth prurient and embarrassing details about Bill Clinton's years as governor of Arkansas. (The magazine came up virtually empty-handed.)
t some point in late 2005, Ritchie started having suspicions about her husband and hired a private investigator named Keith Scannell, a specialist in high-end surveillance for insurance companies. In December of that year, Scannell followed Richard Scaife to nearby North Huntingdon, home of Doug's Motel, a place where the TVs are bolted to the furniture and rooms can be rented in three-hour increments, for $28. (It's now under new management and renamed the Huntingdon Inn. Head east on Route 8, then east on Route 30.) There, according to Scannell, Scaife spent a few hours with Tammy Sue Vasco.
Why a billionaire would shack up at Doug's Motel, of all places, is a mystery. Ditto his choice of companions. Vasco is a tall, blond 43-year-old mother who in 1993 was busted in a sting operation after showing up at a Sheraton hotel and offering to have sex with an undercover cop for $225, the Post-Gazette reported.
Social Register material she is not, but Vasco and Scaife seemed to have a relationship that went beyond the purely professional. The two usually met each other twice a week, for months, at the motel, says an employee of the motel. Scaife would show up in a chauffeured car, dressed in a suit, wearing cuff links, always bearing flowers. Vasco would be waiting in same room every time, Room 5 on the ground floor, facing the parking lot, said the employee. Mr. Dick, as he was known at the motel, would stay for two hours or so, then get back in the car, which had been waiting, and leave.
"He actually seemed infatuated with Tammy," says the Doug's Motel employee, who did not want to be identified because of the powerful parties in the case. "She'd talk about trips that he took her on, to California, New York City. And it was great for her. It changed her life."
Private investigator Scannell, commenting on what became a much-discussed local news story, put it this way: "Mrs. Scaife acted as any loving wife would upon finding out just days earlier that her husband had a confirmed meeting, for several hours, at a $40 motel with a woman previously arrested for prostitution."
Police would later say that Ritchie Scaife began pounding on doors and windows and refused to leave, which is why she was promptly arrested for "defiant trespass." She was handcuffed and driven downtown to the Allegheny County Jail -- near the Liberty Bridge, at 950 Second Ave. -- where a woman accustomed to traveling with a personal hairdresser spent the night in what her lawyers later called a "grim" holding cell.
Now we know that Scaife is beneficiary of nine different trusts, including one called the "1935 Trust," with an approximate value of $210 million, and another called "The Revocable Trust," valued at $655 million. Altogether, these gushers are worth about $1.4 billion.
what US policy should be in middle-east
The United States has three strategic interests in the Middle East: maintaining the flow of Persian Gulf oil to world markets, discouraging the spread of WMD, and reducing anti-American terrorism from this region.
It is also committed to Israel's survival, but on moral rather than strategic grounds. Instead of garrisoning the region with its own troops or attempting to transform the entire region, the United States should act as an "offshore balancer."
The United States does not need to control the Middle East itself; it merely needs to prevent any hostile power(s) from controlling the region. To do that, Washington should strive to maintain a balance of power in the region and intervene with its own forces only when local actors cannot uphold the balance themselves, as it did when it liberated Kuwait in 1991.
As part of this strategy, the United States would begin to treat Israel like a normal state, rather than as the 51st state. Israel is nearly 60 years old, increasingly prosperous, and now officially recognized by the vast majority of the world's nations.
The United States should deal with it as it does with other democracies: backing Israel when its policies are consistent with U.S. interests, but opposing it when they are not.
It is also committed to Israel's survival, but on moral rather than strategic grounds. Instead of garrisoning the region with its own troops or attempting to transform the entire region, the United States should act as an "offshore balancer."
The United States does not need to control the Middle East itself; it merely needs to prevent any hostile power(s) from controlling the region. To do that, Washington should strive to maintain a balance of power in the region and intervene with its own forces only when local actors cannot uphold the balance themselves, as it did when it liberated Kuwait in 1991.
As part of this strategy, the United States would begin to treat Israel like a normal state, rather than as the 51st state. Israel is nearly 60 years old, increasingly prosperous, and now officially recognized by the vast majority of the world's nations.
The United States should deal with it as it does with other democracies: backing Israel when its policies are consistent with U.S. interests, but opposing it when they are not.
how the Israeli lobby hurts the US
Backing Israel's harsh treatment of the Palestinians has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world and almost certainly helped terrorists recruit new followers. U.S. and Israeli policy also led directly to Hamas' growing popularity and its victory in the Palestinian elections, which made a difficult situation worse and a long-term peace settlement even more elusive.
The Iraq war is a strategic disaster that has damaged America's standing and strengthened Iran's regional position, and now provides other terrorists with an ideal training ground. The Lebanon war enhanced Hezbollah's position, weakened the pro-American Siniora government in Beirut, and further tarnished America's image throughout the region.
A hard-line approach to Iran helped bring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power but failed to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, and threatening Syria led Damascus to stop helping the United States against al Qaeda. None of these developments has been good for the United States.
The Iraq war is a strategic disaster that has damaged America's standing and strengthened Iran's regional position, and now provides other terrorists with an ideal training ground. The Lebanon war enhanced Hezbollah's position, weakened the pro-American Siniora government in Beirut, and further tarnished America's image throughout the region.
A hard-line approach to Iran helped bring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power but failed to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, and threatening Syria led Damascus to stop helping the United States against al Qaeda. None of these developments has been good for the United States.
Israeli lobby for mid-east wars
The lobby has encouraged the United States to take Israel's side in its long struggle with the Palestinians, and made it more difficult for the United States to help bring this conflict to a close.
The lobby -- and especially the neoconservatives within it -- also played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, although other factors (such as the September 11 attacks) were also critical in making the decision for war.
The lobby has successfully pressed the Bush administration to adopt a more confrontational stance toward Syria and Iran, and encouraged it to back Israel to the hilt during the 2006 war in Lebanon.
The lobby -- and especially the neoconservatives within it -- also played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, although other factors (such as the September 11 attacks) were also critical in making the decision for war.
The lobby has successfully pressed the Bush administration to adopt a more confrontational stance toward Syria and Iran, and encouraged it to back Israel to the hilt during the 2006 war in Lebanon.
using anti-semitism to smear others
Although most of the lobby's tactics are legitimate forms of political participation, some groups and individuals in the lobby also try to silence or marginalize opponents and critics by smearing them as anti-Semites or self-hating Jews.
This sort of response was evident in the personal attacks directed at Jimmy Carter for writing a controversial book about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and in the efforts of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to prevent the historian Tony Judt from giving a lecture on the Israel lobby to a group in New York City.
True anti-Semitism is loathsome and should be firmly opposed, but using this sort of accusation to silence or marginalize critics is antithetical to the principles of free speech and open debate on which democracy depends.
This sort of response was evident in the personal attacks directed at Jimmy Carter for writing a controversial book about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and in the efforts of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to prevent the historian Tony Judt from giving a lecture on the Israel lobby to a group in New York City.
True anti-Semitism is loathsome and should be firmly opposed, but using this sort of accusation to silence or marginalize critics is antithetical to the principles of free speech and open debate on which democracy depends.
the Israeli lobby, how it works
The Israel lobby uses the same basic strategies that other interest groups employ. It pushes its agenda in Congress by supporting friendly candidates and legislators with votes and campaign money and by helping to frame legislation; by getting sympathetic individuals appointed to key policy positions in the executive branch; by monitoring the media and pressuring news organizations to offer favorable coverage; and by writing articles, books, and op-eds designed to move public opinion in directions they favor.
These various strategies are as American as apple pie, and there is nothing illegitimate about them. Yet it ought to be equally legitimate to examine and discuss how the Israel lobby works to push its agenda in government, and to debate whether its influence is beneficial?
These various strategies are as American as apple pie, and there is nothing illegitimate about them. Yet it ought to be equally legitimate to examine and discuss how the Israel lobby works to push its agenda in government, and to debate whether its influence is beneficial?
understanding the Jewish lobby
Prominent groups in the lobby include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and pro-Israel think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Leading individuals in the lobby include the heads of these various organizations, as well as neoconservatives who served in the Bush administration like Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Wurmser, some of whom are closely associated with hard-line pro-Israel think tanks and conservative politicians in Israel, or Christian Zionists like John Hagee of CUFI and ... Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Religious and ethnic identity does not define who is part of the lobby, as it includes gentiles as well as Jewish-Americans. It is the political agenda of an individual or a group, not ethnicity or religion, that determines whether they are part of the lobby.
Thus, the Israel lobby is not synonymous with American Jewry, and "Jewish lobby" is not an appropriate term for describing the various groups and individuals that work to foster U.S. support for Israel. These groups and individuals sometimes disagree on particular issues but they are united in their belief that the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel should not be substantively questioned.
They form a powerful special interest group, which over time has acquired considerable influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Leading individuals in the lobby include the heads of these various organizations, as well as neoconservatives who served in the Bush administration like Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Wurmser, some of whom are closely associated with hard-line pro-Israel think tanks and conservative politicians in Israel, or Christian Zionists like John Hagee of CUFI and ... Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Religious and ethnic identity does not define who is part of the lobby, as it includes gentiles as well as Jewish-Americans. It is the political agenda of an individual or a group, not ethnicity or religion, that determines whether they are part of the lobby.
Thus, the Israel lobby is not synonymous with American Jewry, and "Jewish lobby" is not an appropriate term for describing the various groups and individuals that work to foster U.S. support for Israel. These groups and individuals sometimes disagree on particular issues but they are united in their belief that the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel should not be substantively questioned.
They form a powerful special interest group, which over time has acquired considerable influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East.
truth about US and Israel
Israel is not the strategic asset to the United States that many claim. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War, but it has become a growing liability now that the Cold War is over. Unconditional support for Israel has reinforced anti-Americanism around the world, helped fuel America's terrorism problem, and strained relations with other key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The United States derives some tangible strategic benefits from its close security partnership with Israel, but it pays a high price for them. On balance, it is more of a liability than an asset.
The United States derives some tangible strategic benefits from its close security partnership with Israel, but it pays a high price for them. On balance, it is more of a liability than an asset.
why Iran
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. economic and military assistance, having received more than $154 billion in U.S. aid since its creation in 1948, and it currently receives roughly $3 billion in direct U.S. assistance every year, even though it is now a prosperous country. The United States also consistently gives Israel diplomatic support, and consistently comes to its aid in wartime, as it did during the 2006 war in Lebanon.
Most important, U.S. support for Israel is largely unconditional: Israel receives generous American assistance even when it takes actions that the U.S. government believes are wrong, such as building settlements in the Occupied Territories. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once remarked, U.S. backing for Israel is "beyond compare in modern history."
Most important, U.S. support for Israel is largely unconditional: Israel receives generous American assistance even when it takes actions that the U.S. government believes are wrong, such as building settlements in the Occupied Territories. As former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once remarked, U.S. backing for Israel is "beyond compare in modern history."
killing more Iraqi women and children
American air strikes on Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City killed 49 people including women and children, Iraqi officials said on Sunday.
Iraqi officials said that bombardment of Sadr City turned residential area into rubble killing civilians indiscriminately including women and children.
Reporters gave gloomy picture from massacre of civilians and innocent people in Baghdad district.
A reporter said that in a house where one of the children lived, a man pointed to bloodstained mattresses and blood-splattered pillows, choking back tears as he held up a photo of one of the dead.
Eyewitnesses said that most of those killed and wounded were women, children and elderly men which shows the indiscriminate bombardment of the city.
"We were waking in the morning and all of a sudden rockets landed in the house and the children were screaming," said a woman outside the house.
Iraqi officials said that bombardment of Sadr City turned residential area into rubble killing civilians indiscriminately including women and children.
Reporters gave gloomy picture from massacre of civilians and innocent people in Baghdad district.
A reporter said that in a house where one of the children lived, a man pointed to bloodstained mattresses and blood-splattered pillows, choking back tears as he held up a photo of one of the dead.
Eyewitnesses said that most of those killed and wounded were women, children and elderly men which shows the indiscriminate bombardment of the city.
"We were waking in the morning and all of a sudden rockets landed in the house and the children were screaming," said a woman outside the house.
more on why Iraq and now Iran
Freedom's Watch made its first current public splash just prior to the appearance of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Congress, testifying about the situation in Iraq. In late-August, FW launched a $15 million radio and television advertising campaign aimed at maintaining Congressional support for President Bush's surge and the occupation of Iraq.
"If you look at how Iraq was sold to the American public, a number of pro-war groups and committees of the same ilk and backing had meetings at the White House, embarked on policy discussion tours around the country with media, and appeared as experts on news shows," Stauber pointed out. It's happening again with Iran.
"If you look at how Iraq was sold to the American public, a number of pro-war groups and committees of the same ilk and backing had meetings at the White House, embarked on policy discussion tours around the country with media, and appeared as experts on news shows," Stauber pointed out. It's happening again with Iran.
why Iraq and now Iran
The idea for Freedom's Watch (FW) first surfaced in March of this year at the winter meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) in Manalapan, Florida, where Vice President Dick Cheney accused House Democrats of not supporting the troops in Iraq. The RJC, which is credited with shepherding then-Texas Governor George W. Bush on his first tour of Israel in November 1998, is a big-money pro-Israel lobby group that networks Jewish-American neoconservatives, Christian Right leaders and conservatives in Israel.
The Freedom's Watch "inner circle of strategists and donors are close to Vice President Dick Cheney or held high posts at the White House," the Associated Press's Jim Kuhnhenn pointed out in late September.
According to its website, Freedom's Watch is a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit corporation; it can lobby on issues but cannot expressly advocate for specific candidates.
lAso in the mix are Kevin Moley, who served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva from September 2001 to April 2006; Howard Leach, a big-time GOP donor who served as Ambassador to France until 2005; Dr. John Templeton, Jr., the son of mutual-funds pioneer Sir John Templeton and chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation who is serving as chairman on Romney's National Faith And Values Steering Committee; Edward Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Gary Erlbaum, Vice Chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and Chairman of the Federation's Israel Emergency Campaign and the Executive Vice President of the Jewish Publishing Group which publishes the Jewish Exponent and Inside magazine; and Richard Fox, chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.
Writing in the October 8, 2007 issue of the American Conservative, Philip Weiss reported that a story titled "Pro-Surge Group Is Almost All Jewish," from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a wire service for Jewish news, noted that four out of five members of Freedom's Watch board are Jewish, and half of its donors are Jewish.
"It should be remembered that Freedom's Watch is run by a White House PR flack [Ari Fleischer] who was key to selling that last war. It is the same script, same images, same messages, and same players. And it is likely to provoke the same response from the mainstream media."
The Freedom's Watch "inner circle of strategists and donors are close to Vice President Dick Cheney or held high posts at the White House," the Associated Press's Jim Kuhnhenn pointed out in late September.
According to its website, Freedom's Watch is a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit corporation; it can lobby on issues but cannot expressly advocate for specific candidates.
lAso in the mix are Kevin Moley, who served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva from September 2001 to April 2006; Howard Leach, a big-time GOP donor who served as Ambassador to France until 2005; Dr. John Templeton, Jr., the son of mutual-funds pioneer Sir John Templeton and chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation who is serving as chairman on Romney's National Faith And Values Steering Committee; Edward Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Gary Erlbaum, Vice Chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and Chairman of the Federation's Israel Emergency Campaign and the Executive Vice President of the Jewish Publishing Group which publishes the Jewish Exponent and Inside magazine; and Richard Fox, chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.
Writing in the October 8, 2007 issue of the American Conservative, Philip Weiss reported that a story titled "Pro-Surge Group Is Almost All Jewish," from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a wire service for Jewish news, noted that four out of five members of Freedom's Watch board are Jewish, and half of its donors are Jewish.
"It should be remembered that Freedom's Watch is run by a White House PR flack [Ari Fleischer] who was key to selling that last war. It is the same script, same images, same messages, and same players. And it is likely to provoke the same response from the mainstream media."
republicans lied us into war on Iraq
The outlines of the story are familiar: In 2002, the CIA sent Valerie Plame's husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, on an unpaid, eight-day fact-finding trip to Niger. Within hours of his return, he told eager CIA debriefers (while Valerie Wilson was ordering takeout Chinese food for them) that there was no evidence that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from the African nation.
When President Bush nevertheless included the uranium allegation in a State of the Union address, Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times accusing the administration of misleading the American people. Both of the Wilsons firmly believe that she was outed, in retaliation, by White House officials who sought to discredit him by telling reporters that his trip was arranged by his wife, who worked for the CIA.
When President Bush nevertheless included the uranium allegation in a State of the Union address, Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times accusing the administration of misleading the American people. Both of the Wilsons firmly believe that she was outed, in retaliation, by White House officials who sought to discredit him by telling reporters that his trip was arranged by his wife, who worked for the CIA.
21 October, 2007
Giulianim fails 9/11 test
Rudy Giuliani is running for office on how he handled 9/11. But for seven years before 9/11 he did nothing to replace the firefighter radios that failed in the 1993 WTC bombing. Then he awarded a no-bid contract to Motorola that went from $1.4 million to $14 million (sound familiar?). Then those radios were never field tested, failed in actual use, and were removed from service - leaving firefighters with the same radios that failed in 1993!
And on 9/11, 343 firefighters died because of Giuliani's administration, most needlessly.
And on 9/11, 343 firefighters died because of Giuliani's administration, most needlessly.
Blackwater,Iraq, no-bids, accountablility?
In 2004, the State Department chose to take over the Pentagon's personal security contract with Blackwater. It was a sole-source no-bid contract worth $140 million.
Blackwater's Republican political contacts and campaign contributions influenced its selection, of course, they deny that.
When the sole-source no-bid contract expired in the summer of 2005,Blackwater formed a consortium with U.S. firms DynCorp and Triple Canopy, and the group had a multiyear, $1.2 billion agreement.
Blackwater charges State $1,221.62 a day for a "protective security specialist," according to a 2005 invoice released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Senior Dept of State official said, little thought was given to how contractors would be held legally accountable for incidents such as the Sept. 16 shootings. In other words, THEY ARE NOT ACCOUNTABLE. What happened to "winning the hearts and minds?
Blackwater's Republican political contacts and campaign contributions influenced its selection, of course, they deny that.
When the sole-source no-bid contract expired in the summer of 2005,Blackwater formed a consortium with U.S. firms DynCorp and Triple Canopy, and the group had a multiyear, $1.2 billion agreement.
Blackwater charges State $1,221.62 a day for a "protective security specialist," according to a 2005 invoice released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Senior Dept of State official said, little thought was given to how contractors would be held legally accountable for incidents such as the Sept. 16 shootings. In other words, THEY ARE NOT ACCOUNTABLE. What happened to "winning the hearts and minds?
the birth of Blackwater
A new executive order, signed in January 2004, gave State authority over all but military operations. Rumsfeld's revenge, at least in the view of many State officials, was to withdraw all but minimal assistance for diplomatic security.
"It was the view of Donald Rumsfeld and [then-Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz that this wasn't their problem," said a former senior State Department official.
Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats.
"It was the view of Donald Rumsfeld and [then-Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz that this wasn't their problem," said a former senior State Department official.
Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats.
more on Blackwater
The shootings by Blackwater have also reopened long-standing, bitter arguments between the State Department and the Pentagon, which over the years have feuded over policies including the decision to invade Iraq and the treatment of detainees.
Such broad disagreements have frequently played out over a narrow question: Who is responsible for the safety of U.S. civilians serving in Iraq?
With State Department and FBI investigations underway, the military leaked its own report on the Sept. 16 shootings, finding no evidence that the Blackwater guards fired in self-defense, as the company has maintained.
U.S. officers have publicly criticized the security contractors as out-of-control "cowboys" who alienate the same Iraqis the military is trying to cultivate.
A new, $112 million contract was signed just last month with a Blackwater that is owned by a Republican.
Such broad disagreements have frequently played out over a narrow question: Who is responsible for the safety of U.S. civilians serving in Iraq?
With State Department and FBI investigations underway, the military leaked its own report on the Sept. 16 shootings, finding no evidence that the Blackwater guards fired in self-defense, as the company has maintained.
U.S. officers have publicly criticized the security contractors as out-of-control "cowboys" who alienate the same Iraqis the military is trying to cultivate.
A new, $112 million contract was signed just last month with a Blackwater that is owned by a Republican.
19 October, 2007
republicans starting new cold war
At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred.
We blew it. We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with our "indispensable-nation" arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated Weimar Germany after Versailles.
Who restarted the Cold War? Bush and the braying hegemonists he brought with him to power. Great empires and tiny minds go ill together.
We blew it. We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with our "indispensable-nation" arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated Weimar Germany after Versailles.
Who restarted the Cold War? Bush and the braying hegemonists he brought with him to power. Great empires and tiny minds go ill together.
democrats vs. republicans
Tthere are certain things it means to be a Democrat, like supporting healthcare for kids, social security, medicare. and a good minimum wage, none of which would have been possible from republicans.
Thompson/McCain pandering to right wing
Fred D. Thompson said he would close the door in the Oval office and pray for wisdom in his “first hour” of becoming president.
Senator John McCain choked up when talking about a North Vietnamese prison guard who loosened his bonds and later drew a cross on the ground in front of him on Christmas Day.
Senator John McCain choked up when talking about a North Vietnamese prison guard who loosened his bonds and later drew a cross on the ground in front of him on Christmas Day.
18 October, 2007
US mercenaries in Iraq
Private security mercenary contractors in Iraq quickly earned a reputation as cowboys, the kind that shoot first and never have to answer any questions afterward. They went largely unnoticed outside Iraq until Sept. 16, when a Blackwater security convoy shot and killed 17 civilians at a major traffic intersection in western Baghdad.
Blackwater has more than 1,000 men under arms in Iraq, but it is just one of dozens of security companies there. The mercenary contractors — and they are almost all men — tend to be former soldiers and come from the U.S., as well as Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Nepal, Fiji, Russia, Australia, Chile and Peru.
Mercenary contractors can make up to $12,000 to $33,000 a month. Some security convoys keep a low profile, using cars and dress that blend into the bustling streets of the city. Others — especially Blackwater — "roll heavy" in large convoys of big, armored SUVs.
In crowded Baghdad streets it's not always possible to swerve out of the way. All too often, accidents turn fatal. (There are no reliable statistics on the number of Iraqis killed or hurt in such incidents.)
Some mercenary security men carry the aggression too far, treating all the Iraqis they encounter as potential enemies, using hostile body language and verbal abuse — and sometimes worse.
Many uniformed American soldiers regard the mercenary contractors with disdain, describing them as reckless and trigger-happy. Since Iraqis don't always distinguish between private and military convoys, soldiers say, bad behavior by contractors only deepens Iraqi antagonism toward the military.
They behave like Iraq is the Wild West and Iraqis are like Injuns,' to be treated any way they like," one soldir said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity.
"They're better-armed and -armored than the military, but they don't have to follow military rules, and that makes them dangerous." The men he was describing worked for Blackwater. So much for winning hearts of minds of the relatives of innocent women and children killed by these mercenaries.
Blackwater has more than 1,000 men under arms in Iraq, but it is just one of dozens of security companies there. The mercenary contractors — and they are almost all men — tend to be former soldiers and come from the U.S., as well as Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Nepal, Fiji, Russia, Australia, Chile and Peru.
Mercenary contractors can make up to $12,000 to $33,000 a month. Some security convoys keep a low profile, using cars and dress that blend into the bustling streets of the city. Others — especially Blackwater — "roll heavy" in large convoys of big, armored SUVs.
In crowded Baghdad streets it's not always possible to swerve out of the way. All too often, accidents turn fatal. (There are no reliable statistics on the number of Iraqis killed or hurt in such incidents.)
Some mercenary security men carry the aggression too far, treating all the Iraqis they encounter as potential enemies, using hostile body language and verbal abuse — and sometimes worse.
Many uniformed American soldiers regard the mercenary contractors with disdain, describing them as reckless and trigger-happy. Since Iraqis don't always distinguish between private and military convoys, soldiers say, bad behavior by contractors only deepens Iraqi antagonism toward the military.
They behave like Iraq is the Wild West and Iraqis are like Injuns,' to be treated any way they like," one soldir said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity.
"They're better-armed and -armored than the military, but they don't have to follow military rules, and that makes them dangerous." The men he was describing worked for Blackwater. So much for winning hearts of minds of the relatives of innocent women and children killed by these mercenaries.
how to end the war on Iraq
The occupation in Iraq will end on the day that there are enough Democrats in Congress to override the Republicans support for the demands of the Republican Administration for more money to fund their imperial endeavor along with the massive war-profiteering by administration-linked republican firms such as Halliburton and Blackwater.
Iraq like Korea
In the summer of 1950, U.S. military forces opened fire on a group of South Korean refugees at a railroad trestle near the village of No Gun Ri. Survivors said hundreds died, mostly women and children. Retreating U.S. commanders had issued orders to shoot approaching civilians to guard against North Korean infiltrators among refugee columns.
The killing of innocent women and children is happening again by our troops and our Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq.
The killing of innocent women and children is happening again by our troops and our Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq.
could it happen?
read today: If you believes that 9-11 was a “false flag” op, then you say that BushCo will engineer ANOTHER false flag op, blame Iran, declare martial law, (George can do that unilaterally now because of Presidential Directive 51) and attack Iran, possibly using “strategic” nuclear strikes on “military” targets.
Then of course, when our Homeland is in such a terrible state of emergency, it would be an awful idea to “change horses in the middle of the stream,” you know, so we must suspend elections: thereby, staging yet BushCo’s third coup in a row: the first two being the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004.
Then of course, when our Homeland is in such a terrible state of emergency, it would be an awful idea to “change horses in the middle of the stream,” you know, so we must suspend elections: thereby, staging yet BushCo’s third coup in a row: the first two being the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004.
republicans spying on your finances
The American Civil Liberties Union said Sunday that newly uncovered documents show that the Pentagon secretly sent hundreds of letters seeking the financial records of private citizens without court approval.
republican Blackwater
Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater mercenaries, has been a huge financial supporter of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. That might explain why Mister Bush's State Department worked with Prince's people to try and cover up the latest Blackwater slaughter of civilians in Iraq, and could be a big part of the reason why so many Republicans came to the chief mercenary's defense during Congressional hearings. His fondness for and belief in all things Republican probably answers too, Erik Prince's problem with honesty.
17 October, 2007
freedom under attack by republicans
Government repression in some countries has shifted from journalists to bloggers, with the vitality of the Internet triggering a more focused crackdown as blogs increasingly take the place of mainstream news media, according to Lucie Morillon, Washington director of the advocacy group Reporters without Borders.
Countries that were not sentencing journalists to prison terms anymore have been doing it these last months for bloggers. This is the case of our allies in the middle east, Egypt and Jordan.
The reason the United States did not make the top 30 in press freedom is because videographer and blogger Josh Wolf spent almost eight months in jail for not turning over video footage of a demonstration in San Francisco and because the confidentiality of press sources is under continued attack by our republican administration. We are also under attack if we differ or criticize our republican government.
Countries that were not sentencing journalists to prison terms anymore have been doing it these last months for bloggers. This is the case of our allies in the middle east, Egypt and Jordan.
The reason the United States did not make the top 30 in press freedom is because videographer and blogger Josh Wolf spent almost eight months in jail for not turning over video footage of a demonstration in San Francisco and because the confidentiality of press sources is under continued attack by our republican administration. We are also under attack if we differ or criticize our republican government.
16 October, 2007
republians spying on you
In May 2006, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had been secretly collecting the phone-call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by major telecom firms. Only Qwest, it reported, declined to participate because of fears that the program lacked legal standing.
Verizon said it had received FBI administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, requesting data that would "identify a calling circle" for subscribers' telephone numbers, including people contacted by the people contacted by the subscriber.The privacy concerns are exponential each generation you go away from the suspect's number.
The administration is seeking blanket immunity, which would extend to anyone sued for assisting the government -- not just telecom carriers -- in its post-Sept. 11 surveillance programs. What else are these republicans doing that violate our Constitution???
Verizon said it had received FBI administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, requesting data that would "identify a calling circle" for subscribers' telephone numbers, including people contacted by the people contacted by the subscriber.The privacy concerns are exponential each generation you go away from the suspect's number.
The administration is seeking blanket immunity, which would extend to anyone sued for assisting the government -- not just telecom carriers -- in its post-Sept. 11 surveillance programs. What else are these republicans doing that violate our Constitution???
republican Iraq for Blackwater
Call me cynical, but when Laura Bush spoke up last week about the human rights atrocities in Burma, it seemed less an act of selfless humanitarianism than another administration maneuver to change the subject from its own abuses.
As Mrs. Bush spoke, two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent.
That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005. There has been no accountability.
The State Department, Blackwater’s sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won’t even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal.
As Mrs. Bush spoke, two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent.
That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005. There has been no accountability.
The State Department, Blackwater’s sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won’t even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal.
Rebulicans show true nature
Republican leaders are afraid their caucus of cruelty is caving out from under them. They are afraid that the House of Representatives will join the 2/3 majority in the Senate to override the heartless White House veto of a health safety net for those just above the poverty line.
And the evidence of their mean spirited desperation is their carpet bomb smearing of a 12-year-old child with a serious brain injury, personally coordinated by an aide in the office of Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Yes, that's right, a member of the U.S. Senate actually has his dirty hand prints all over the despicable distortions about an American family whose only sin was having two of their children serious injured and hospitalized for months, and the courage to tell their story to the American people of the true value of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) program.
Since that time they have been bombarded with hate mail, made even more terrifying by having their home address published for any lunatic to act on.
Who did they think would speak out for this program, someone who did NOT need it? That's exactly what the sick minds behind this swift boat campaign want everyone else to believe.
And the evidence of their mean spirited desperation is their carpet bomb smearing of a 12-year-old child with a serious brain injury, personally coordinated by an aide in the office of Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Yes, that's right, a member of the U.S. Senate actually has his dirty hand prints all over the despicable distortions about an American family whose only sin was having two of their children serious injured and hospitalized for months, and the courage to tell their story to the American people of the true value of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) program.
Since that time they have been bombarded with hate mail, made even more terrifying by having their home address published for any lunatic to act on.
Who did they think would speak out for this program, someone who did NOT need it? That's exactly what the sick minds behind this swift boat campaign want everyone else to believe.
15 October, 2007
rebpublican middle east mess
Iraq never has been viable as a national entity, not when the British Colonial Office cobbled it together out of former Ottoman provinces in 1921, nor when Saddam Hussein ruled it by terror, and surely not under the present American occupation. As the US Senate has had the belated wisdom to recognize, it will break up. The Ottoman Empire never was viable - at its peak half of its population was Christian - and its Anatolian rump, namely modern Turkey, may break up as well. Iran, the mini-empire of the Persians who comprise only half the population, may not hold together, nor may Syria, a witches’ cauldron of ethnicities ruled by the brutal hand of the Alawite minority.
America is not responsible for chaos in the Middle East. The Middle East has known nothing but chaos for most of its history. The colonial policy of the European powers after World War I left inherently unstable structures in place that must, one day, meet their reckoning.
But America’s obsession with the surgical implant of democracy in the region forces it into a murderous game of whack-a-mole with a welter of armed ethnicities.
America is not responsible for chaos in the Middle East. The Middle East has known nothing but chaos for most of its history. The colonial policy of the European powers after World War I left inherently unstable structures in place that must, one day, meet their reckoning.
But America’s obsession with the surgical implant of democracy in the region forces it into a murderous game of whack-a-mole with a welter of armed ethnicities.
our humanity threatened by republicans
Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name
troops vs mercenaries in Iraq
We first learned of the use of contractors as mercenaries when four Blackwater employees were strung up in Falluja in March 2004, just weeks before the first torture photos emerged from Abu Ghraib. We asked few questions. When reports surfaced early this summer that our contractors in Iraq (180,000, of whom some 48,000 are believed to be security personnel) now outnumber our post-surge troop strength, we yawned. Contractor casualties and contractor-inflicted casualties are kept off the books.
Instead of taxing us for Iraq, the White House bought us off with tax cuts. Instead of mobilizing the needed troops, it kept a draft off the table by quietly purchasing its auxiliary army of contractors to finesse the overstretched military’s holes. With the war’s entire weight falling on a small voluntary force, amounting to less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of us were free to look the other way at whatever went down in Iraq.
Our national character is on the line too. The extralegal contractors are both a slap at the sovereignty of the self-governing Iraq we supposedly support and an insult to those in uniform receiving as little as one-sixth the pay. Yet it took mass death in Nisour Square to fix even our fleeting attention on this long-metastasizing cancer in our battle plan.
Instead of taxing us for Iraq, the White House bought us off with tax cuts. Instead of mobilizing the needed troops, it kept a draft off the table by quietly purchasing its auxiliary army of contractors to finesse the overstretched military’s holes. With the war’s entire weight falling on a small voluntary force, amounting to less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of us were free to look the other way at whatever went down in Iraq.
Our national character is on the line too. The extralegal contractors are both a slap at the sovereignty of the self-governing Iraq we supposedly support and an insult to those in uniform receiving as little as one-sixth the pay. Yet it took mass death in Nisour Square to fix even our fleeting attention on this long-metastasizing cancer in our battle plan.
Blackwater's war on Iraq
Two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent.
That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005.
There has been no accountability. The State Department, Blackwater’s sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won’t even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal.
That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005.
There has been no accountability. The State Department, Blackwater’s sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won’t even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal.
Giuliani's record
There is certainly not much in Giuliani's background to attract religious conservatives. A McGovern Democrat in 1972, he opposed term limits, school choice and an end to rent controls during his successful 1993 campaign for mayor. As the Republican mayor, he backed Democrat Mario Cuomo's losing fourth-term bid for governor of New York. He consistently has been pro-choice, pro-gay rights (including civil unions) and pro-gun control.
14 October, 2007
cultivated world view
The American world view has been carefully crafted: a good world (Western Civilization) and a bad world (Islamic civilization). Diplomats still take care to make a distinction between "radical Islamists" and "moderate Muslims", but that is only for appearances' sake. Between ourselves, we know of course that they are all Osama bin Ladens. They are all the same.
We have cultivated a huge part of the world, composed of manifold and very different countries, and a great religion, with many different and even opposing tendencies (like Christianity, like Judaism), which has given the world unmatched scientific and cultural treasures,and is thrown into one and the same pot. THIS WORLD VIEW is tailored for us. Indeed, the world of the clashing civilizations is, for our war lords, the best of all possible worlds.
The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it.
No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a world-wide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions. The assault of terrorist Islam on the Western world did not start because of us. Our conscience can be entirely clean - we are among the good guys of this world.
We have cultivated a huge part of the world, composed of manifold and very different countries, and a great religion, with many different and even opposing tendencies (like Christianity, like Judaism), which has given the world unmatched scientific and cultural treasures,and is thrown into one and the same pot. THIS WORLD VIEW is tailored for us. Indeed, the world of the clashing civilizations is, for our war lords, the best of all possible worlds.
The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it.
No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a world-wide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions. The assault of terrorist Islam on the Western world did not start because of us. Our conscience can be entirely clean - we are among the good guys of this world.
Western "culture"
A sceptic might ask: How did it happen that the wonderful Western culture gave birth to the Inquisition, the pogroms, the burning of witches, the annihilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansings and other atrocities without number - but that was in the past. Now Western culture is the embodiment of freedom and progress.
more on Blackwater
"Isn't it interesting that the same government individual, who has been reported by one investigative committee to have made the initial decision for Blackwater to get its first contract, is the brother of the current State Department Inspector General, who was found, by the same committee, to have intervened in preventing an investigation into Blackwater's illegal activity?"
mercenaries are in nine countries?
The incident in question regarding Blackwater needs to be put in a proper context. It's just one company out of 181 other private military companies operating in that space in Iraq and around the world. The incidents involving abuses of private military contractors go back to the starting of the war.
This includes the incidents at Abu Ghraib (Torture Scandal) and the private contractor Aegis Trophy's infamous video of 2005 (Aegis employees posted a video online showing them shooting at Iraqi civilians.) You also had the Triple Canopy shootings lawsuit in '06. Blackwater is just one of the companies in the game.
The United States government aspect of it is - that the unfortunate truth that the overall effect of use has of mercenary contractors actually has been the undermining rather than assisting U.S. operations and goals. It extends all the way to tactical levels on the field to the grand strategic world.
The Blackwater "Nisoor Square" shooting incident resonated negatively not only inside Iraq but throughout the Muslim world. A variety of major media out there in the Middle East like Al Jazeera reported on the Blackwater contractors as "an army that seeks fame, fortune and thrills away from all considerations and ethics of military honor. The employees are known for their roughness, they are known for shooting indiscriminately at vehicles or pedestrians."
Your research has borne many egregious example of private contractors' reckless conduct in Iraq--including the Blackwater shootings, CACI and Titan firms responsible for the notorious Abu Ghraib interrogations, and Aegis Company's "trophy video" in which they posted a video of them shooting at civilians to an Elvis song on the net. What I and others want to know is what legal repercussions do they face, if any, under international law and U.S. law?
The questions that should be asked:
"We understand that you fired the person that got into a drunken argument on Christmas Eve and killed the Iraqi Vice President's security guard. Our question is who flew him out of the country? Which entity made the decision to get that individual out of the country 36 hours after they potentially committed a murder, which in effect assured prosecution would be difficult and impede the investigation? Was Blackwater operating under its own discretion? Or, were they ordered to do so by its clients and the State Department? Who was it?"
Another one is "Why do your helicopters in Iraq not carry any identifying insignia, such as the numbers painted on U.S. Army vehicles? Is there something that sets the company aside from standard U.S. tactics?
This includes the incidents at Abu Ghraib (Torture Scandal) and the private contractor Aegis Trophy's infamous video of 2005 (Aegis employees posted a video online showing them shooting at Iraqi civilians.) You also had the Triple Canopy shootings lawsuit in '06. Blackwater is just one of the companies in the game.
The United States government aspect of it is - that the unfortunate truth that the overall effect of use has of mercenary contractors actually has been the undermining rather than assisting U.S. operations and goals. It extends all the way to tactical levels on the field to the grand strategic world.
The Blackwater "Nisoor Square" shooting incident resonated negatively not only inside Iraq but throughout the Muslim world. A variety of major media out there in the Middle East like Al Jazeera reported on the Blackwater contractors as "an army that seeks fame, fortune and thrills away from all considerations and ethics of military honor. The employees are known for their roughness, they are known for shooting indiscriminately at vehicles or pedestrians."
Your research has borne many egregious example of private contractors' reckless conduct in Iraq--including the Blackwater shootings, CACI and Titan firms responsible for the notorious Abu Ghraib interrogations, and Aegis Company's "trophy video" in which they posted a video of them shooting at civilians to an Elvis song on the net. What I and others want to know is what legal repercussions do they face, if any, under international law and U.S. law?
The questions that should be asked:
"We understand that you fired the person that got into a drunken argument on Christmas Eve and killed the Iraqi Vice President's security guard. Our question is who flew him out of the country? Which entity made the decision to get that individual out of the country 36 hours after they potentially committed a murder, which in effect assured prosecution would be difficult and impede the investigation? Was Blackwater operating under its own discretion? Or, were they ordered to do so by its clients and the State Department? Who was it?"
Another one is "Why do your helicopters in Iraq not carry any identifying insignia, such as the numbers painted on U.S. Army vehicles? Is there something that sets the company aside from standard U.S. tactics?
13 October, 2007
more Blackwater in Iraq
At least two cars, a black four-door taxi and a blue Volkswagen sedan, had their back windshields shot out, but their front windshields were intact, indicating they were shot while driving away from the square, according to the photos and soldiers.
U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing.
An Iraqi colonel walked up to Tarsa and described the Blackwater shooters as men in "tan uniforms, black helmets, and that flag," pointing at the U.S. flag on Tarsa's sleeve. The colonel added that he knew the U.S. military wasn't involved.
U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing.
An Iraqi colonel walked up to Tarsa and described the Blackwater shooters as men in "tan uniforms, black helmets, and that flag," pointing at the U.S. flag on Tarsa's sleeve. The colonel added that he knew the U.S. military wasn't involved.
Blackwater mercenaries for hire
Blackwater USA guards shot at Iraqi civilians as they tried to drive away from a Baghdad square on Sept. 16, according to a report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers to arrive at the scene, where they found no evidence that Iraqis had fired weapons.
They found no evidence to indicate that the Blackwater guards were provoked or entered into a confrontation. "I did not see anything that indicated they were fired upon," said Tarsa, 42, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. He also said it appeared that several drivers had made U-turns and were moving away from Nisoor Square when their vehicles were hit by gunfire from Blackwater guards. SHOT IN THE BACK.
This is what you get when you have a mercenary army. What happened to the goal of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people?
They found no evidence to indicate that the Blackwater guards were provoked or entered into a confrontation. "I did not see anything that indicated they were fired upon," said Tarsa, 42, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. He also said it appeared that several drivers had made U-turns and were moving away from Nisoor Square when their vehicles were hit by gunfire from Blackwater guards. SHOT IN THE BACK.
This is what you get when you have a mercenary army. What happened to the goal of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people?
contributors to the Republican Party
Federal government officials generally have declined to discuss contractual arrangements with the company. As a private corporation, Blackwater does not have to divulge such details.
Public procurement data show that over the past six years, about half of Blackwater's federal contracts were awarded with little or no competition from other companies, according to a congressional report.
In a decade, Blackwater's revenue from federal government contracts has grown exponentially, from less than $100,000 to almost $600 million last year.
The organization most people think of as Blackwater is actually a collection of companies with Prince and his McLean-based holding company, the Prince Group, at the top. Prince, a former Navy Seal and heir to an industrial fortune, owns everything. He and his family are also big contributors to the Republican Party. Are you surprised?
Public procurement data show that over the past six years, about half of Blackwater's federal contracts were awarded with little or no competition from other companies, according to a congressional report.
In a decade, Blackwater's revenue from federal government contracts has grown exponentially, from less than $100,000 to almost $600 million last year.
The organization most people think of as Blackwater is actually a collection of companies with Prince and his McLean-based holding company, the Prince Group, at the top. Prince, a former Navy Seal and heir to an industrial fortune, owns everything. He and his family are also big contributors to the Republican Party. Are you surprised?
spying before 9/11 on us?
A former Qwest Communications International executive has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records that the company thought might be illegal.
His account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.
Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program. That truly is what's going on here."
His account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts.
Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "It's inappropriate for the government to be awarding a contract conditioned upon an agreement to an illegal program. That truly is what's going on here."
12 October, 2007
a typical republican
Ann Coulter only says what true conservative republicans really think like,
"Jews need "to be perfected.
"The nation would be better off if it were all-Christian."
"It would be a lot easier for Jews if they were to become Christians." "President Bill Clinton showed some level of latent homosexuality." "Former Vice President Al Gore was a "total fag."
About 9/11 widows "I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”
Now there is a typical Republican.
"Jews need "to be perfected.
"The nation would be better off if it were all-Christian."
"It would be a lot easier for Jews if they were to become Christians." "President Bill Clinton showed some level of latent homosexuality." "Former Vice President Al Gore was a "total fag."
About 9/11 widows "I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”
Now there is a typical Republican.
reich get richer under republicans
The gap between America's richest and poorest is at its widest in at least 25 years, with the wealthiest taking home a record share of the nation's income that exceeds even the previous high in 2000.
According to recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all U.S. income earned in 2005. That is a significant increase from 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of the nation's income.
According to recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all U.S. income earned in 2005. That is a significant increase from 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of the nation's income.
republicans like to work in the dark
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives.
In his role as the agency’s inspector general since 2002, Mr. Helgerson has investigated some of the most controversial programs the C.I.A. has begun since the Sept. 11 attacks, including its secret program to detain and interrogate high value terrorist suspects
Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say. Of course, these republicans don't want anyone seeing what they are doing.
Frederick P. Hitz, who served as C.I.A. inspector general from 1990 to 1998 and now teaches at the University of Virginia says “I think it’s a terrible idea, Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”
Remember Cheney and his republicans, the most dangerous people in our country, like to "work in the dark."
In his role as the agency’s inspector general since 2002, Mr. Helgerson has investigated some of the most controversial programs the C.I.A. has begun since the Sept. 11 attacks, including its secret program to detain and interrogate high value terrorist suspects
Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say. Of course, these republicans don't want anyone seeing what they are doing.
Frederick P. Hitz, who served as C.I.A. inspector general from 1990 to 1998 and now teaches at the University of Virginia says “I think it’s a terrible idea, Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”
Remember Cheney and his republicans, the most dangerous people in our country, like to "work in the dark."
republicans want another war
"ATTENTION: Joint Chiefs of Staff and all U.S. Military Personnel: Do not attack Iran."
The initiative responds to the growing calls for an attack on Iran from the likes of Norman Podhoretz and John Bolton, and the reports of growing war momentum in Washington by reporters like Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and Joe Klein of Time.
International lawyer Scott Horton says European diplomats at the recent United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York "believe that the United States will launch an air war on Iran, and that it will occur within the next six to eight months." He puts the likelihood of conflict at 70 percent.
The initiative also responds to the recent failure of Congress to pass legislation requiring its approval before an attack on Iran and the hawk-driven resolution encouraging the President to act against the Iranian military.
The initiative responds to the growing calls for an attack on Iran from the likes of Norman Podhoretz and John Bolton, and the reports of growing war momentum in Washington by reporters like Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker and Joe Klein of Time.
International lawyer Scott Horton says European diplomats at the recent United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York "believe that the United States will launch an air war on Iran, and that it will occur within the next six to eight months." He puts the likelihood of conflict at 70 percent.
The initiative also responds to the recent failure of Congress to pass legislation requiring its approval before an attack on Iran and the hawk-driven resolution encouraging the President to act against the Iranian military.
09 October, 2007
our bought and paid for government
A coalition of neoconservatives, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish organizations, and, most strikingly, a richly coffered and extremely influential lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), court both Democrats and Republicans in order to promote Israel.
Among AIPAC's many lobbying activities - it has a 200-person staff and an annual budget of $47 million - are the well-known tours it organizes to Israel three or four times a year, not just for journalists but for politicians, too. Recent tours have included staff from "The Daily Show" and reporters from Spanish and African-American media. "There's hardly a journalist left in D.C. who hasn't taken this trip," one AIPAC representative told us.
Among AIPAC's many lobbying activities - it has a 200-person staff and an annual budget of $47 million - are the well-known tours it organizes to Israel three or four times a year, not just for journalists but for politicians, too. Recent tours have included staff from "The Daily Show" and reporters from Spanish and African-American media. "There's hardly a journalist left in D.C. who hasn't taken this trip," one AIPAC representative told us.
08 October, 2007
return to founders vision for USA
We have endured the fascist takeover of our nation by these neo-con right-wing republican ideologues. Now, we now have the opportunity to take our country back from these immoral fanatics. It will require enormous determination and effort to get the country back on track in 2009--as the founders envisioned. But, I believe we can do it.
throw these republicans out
American citizens should be allowed to spend their hard-earned money wherever they wish across the globe, not told that certain countries are under embargo and thus off limits. An American trade policy should encourage private American businesses to seek partners overseas and engage them in trade. The hostility toward American citizens overseas in the wake of our current foreign policy has actually made it difficult if not dangerous for Americans to travel abroad.
The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.
The test for new and old is that of wisdom and experience, or as the editors wrote "historical reality," which argues passionately now against the course of anti-Constitutional interventionism.
Our Administration should see Americans engaged overseas like never before, in business and cultural activities. But, we should never attempt to export democracy or other values at the barrel of a gun, as we have seen these republican in power do over and over again.
That is a counterproductive approach that actually leads the United States to be resented and more isolated in the world. We need to throw these republicans out of power.
The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.
The test for new and old is that of wisdom and experience, or as the editors wrote "historical reality," which argues passionately now against the course of anti-Constitutional interventionism.
Our Administration should see Americans engaged overseas like never before, in business and cultural activities. But, we should never attempt to export democracy or other values at the barrel of a gun, as we have seen these republican in power do over and over again.
That is a counterproductive approach that actually leads the United States to be resented and more isolated in the world. We need to throw these republicans out of power.
more republican lies
The acrimony among politicians has strained the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki close to the breaking point. Nearly half of the cabinet ministers have left their posts. The Shiite alliance in parliament, which once controlled 130 of the 275 seats, is disintegrating with the defection of two important parties.
Legislation to manage the oil sector, the country's most valuable natural resource, and to bring former Baath Party members back into the government have not made it through the divided parliament. The U.S. Military's latest hope for grass-roots reconciliation, the recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police force, was denounced last week in stark terms by Iraq's leading coalition of Shiite lawmakers. So much for republican lies about progress of reconciliation.
Legislation to manage the oil sector, the country's most valuable natural resource, and to bring former Baath Party members back into the government have not made it through the divided parliament. The U.S. Military's latest hope for grass-roots reconciliation, the recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police force, was denounced last week in stark terms by Iraq's leading coalition of Shiite lawmakers. So much for republican lies about progress of reconciliation.
republicans, nazis, torture
Classic torture techniques, such as waterboarding, hypothermia, beatings, excruciating stress positions, days and days of sleep deprivation, and threats to family members, were approved by Bush and inflicted on an unknown number of terror suspects by American officials, CIA agents and, in the chaos of Iraq, incompetents and sadists at Abu Ghraib.
And when the horror came to light, they denied all of it and prosecuted a few grunts at the lowest level. The official reports were barred from investigating fully up the chain of command.
They redefined torture solely as something that would be equivalent to the loss of major organs or leading to imminent death. Everything else was what was first called “coercive interrogation”, subsequently amended to “enhanced interrogation”. These terms were deployed in order for the president to be able to say that he didn’t support “torture”.
So is “enhanced interrogation” torture? One way to answer this question is to examine history. The phrase has a lineage. Verschärfte Verneh-mung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the “third degree”. It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.
The United States prosecuted it as a war crime in Norway in 1948. The victims were not in uniform – they were part of the Norwegian insurgency against the German occupation – and the Nazis argued, just as Cheney has done, that this put them outside base-line protections (subsequently formalised by the Geneva conventions).
In 1948, in other words, America rejected the semantics of the current president and his aides. The penalty for those who were found guilty was death.
All the Republican candidates, bar John McCain and Ron Paul, endorse continuing the use of torture.
And when the horror came to light, they denied all of it and prosecuted a few grunts at the lowest level. The official reports were barred from investigating fully up the chain of command.
They redefined torture solely as something that would be equivalent to the loss of major organs or leading to imminent death. Everything else was what was first called “coercive interrogation”, subsequently amended to “enhanced interrogation”. These terms were deployed in order for the president to be able to say that he didn’t support “torture”.
So is “enhanced interrogation” torture? One way to answer this question is to examine history. The phrase has a lineage. Verschärfte Verneh-mung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the “third degree”. It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.
The United States prosecuted it as a war crime in Norway in 1948. The victims were not in uniform – they were part of the Norwegian insurgency against the German occupation – and the Nazis argued, just as Cheney has done, that this put them outside base-line protections (subsequently formalised by the Geneva conventions).
In 1948, in other words, America rejected the semantics of the current president and his aides. The penalty for those who were found guilty was death.
All the Republican candidates, bar John McCain and Ron Paul, endorse continuing the use of torture.
07 October, 2007
poor,sick are funny to republicans
Today’s leading conservative republicans are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.
On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.
Republican William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.
Minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservative republicanism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.
And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: republicans And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny think your problems are funny
On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.
Republican William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.
Minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservative republicanism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.
And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: republicans And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny think your problems are funny
republican Giuliani, closet neocon
Neocons can't help but slink around Washington, D.C. The Iraq War has given the neoconservatives—who favor the assertive use of American power abroad to spread American values—something of a bad name.
But Rudy Giuliani apparently never got that memo. One of the top foreign-policy consultants to the leading GOP candidate is Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the neocon movement. Podhoretz is in favor of bombing Iran.
Among the core consultants surrounding Giuliani: Martin Kramer, who has led an attack on U.S. Middle Eastern scholars, Stephen Rosen, a hawkish professor at Harvard who advocates major new spending on defense and is close to prominent neoconservative Bill Kristol; former Wisconsin senator Bob Kasten, who often sided with the neocons during the Reagan era and was an untiring supporter of aid to Israel, and Daniel Pipes, who has advocated for the racial profiling of Muslim Americans.
They all want continuing wars.
But Rudy Giuliani apparently never got that memo. One of the top foreign-policy consultants to the leading GOP candidate is Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the neocon movement. Podhoretz is in favor of bombing Iran.
Among the core consultants surrounding Giuliani: Martin Kramer, who has led an attack on U.S. Middle Eastern scholars, Stephen Rosen, a hawkish professor at Harvard who advocates major new spending on defense and is close to prominent neoconservative Bill Kristol; former Wisconsin senator Bob Kasten, who often sided with the neocons during the Reagan era and was an untiring supporter of aid to Israel, and Daniel Pipes, who has advocated for the racial profiling of Muslim Americans.
They all want continuing wars.
candidates in lock step with Bush
The four leading Republican presidential candidates have aligned themselves with President Bush’s veto on Wednesday of an expanded health insurance program for children.
more republican lies
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales ’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency .
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales ’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency .
our money in Iraq
The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.
Two key office buildings, including the new chancery, will not be finished until early 2009, according to the document.
The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million, so now the guess is it will total $736 million.
Two key office buildings, including the new chancery, will not be finished until early 2009, according to the document.
The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million, so now the guess is it will total $736 million.
06 October, 2007
republicans
Today’s leading conservative republicans are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.
On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.
Republican William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.
Minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservative republicanism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.
And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: republicans And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny think your problems are funny
On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.
Republican William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.
Minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservative republicanism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.
And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: republicans And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if you’re poor or you’re sick or you don’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny think your problems are funny
republicans seek political gains
Colonel Davis, a career military lawyer, had been in a bitter dispute with Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who was appointed this summer to a top post in the Pentagon Office of Military Commissions, which supervises the war crimes trial system.
People involved in the prosecutions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have said that General Hartmann challenged Colonel Davis’s authority in August and pressed the prosecutors who worked for Colonel Davis to produce new charges against detainees quickly.
Hartmann pushed the prosecutors to frame cases with bold terrorism accusations that would draw public attention to the military commission process, which has been one of the central legal strategies of the Bush administration. In some cases the prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty. (Republicans seek political gains from prosecutions).
Colonel Davis filed a complaint against General Hartmann with Pentagon officials this fall saying that the general had exceeded his authority and created a conflict of interest by asserting control over the prosecutor’s office. Colonel Davis said it would be improper for General Hartmann to assess the adequacy of cases filed by prosecutors if the general had been involved in the decision to file those cases.
In a statement last week, Colonel Davis said the issue posed a threat to the integrity of the war-crimes process. “For the greater good, Brigadier General Hartmann and I should both resign and walk away or higher authority should relieve us of our duties,” the statement said.
A military official said yesterday that Pentagon officials had sided with General Hartmann in the dispute. Yesterday, Colonel Davis said he could not discuss the developments. “I’m under direct orders,” he said, “not to comment with the media about the reasons for my resignation or military commissions.”
Gregory S. McNeal, an assistant professor at the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University, said the effort to begin war-crimes trials would probably continue. But Mr. McNeal, who has been a consultant to the military prosecutors, said the questions Colonel Davis raised would be exploited by defense lawyers.
“The last thing the prosecution needs is officials influencing the prosecutions,” he said.
Critics of the administration have argued that the effort to design a military commission system for foreign terror suspects is intended to circumvent the legal protections that detainees would receive if they were charged in civilian courts.
Some of those critics said yesterday that the dispute underscored their concerns. “This is further evidence that the military commission process is completely unraveling,” said J. Wells Dixon, a detainees’ lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
People involved in the prosecutions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have said that General Hartmann challenged Colonel Davis’s authority in August and pressed the prosecutors who worked for Colonel Davis to produce new charges against detainees quickly.
Hartmann pushed the prosecutors to frame cases with bold terrorism accusations that would draw public attention to the military commission process, which has been one of the central legal strategies of the Bush administration. In some cases the prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty. (Republicans seek political gains from prosecutions).
Colonel Davis filed a complaint against General Hartmann with Pentagon officials this fall saying that the general had exceeded his authority and created a conflict of interest by asserting control over the prosecutor’s office. Colonel Davis said it would be improper for General Hartmann to assess the adequacy of cases filed by prosecutors if the general had been involved in the decision to file those cases.
In a statement last week, Colonel Davis said the issue posed a threat to the integrity of the war-crimes process. “For the greater good, Brigadier General Hartmann and I should both resign and walk away or higher authority should relieve us of our duties,” the statement said.
A military official said yesterday that Pentagon officials had sided with General Hartmann in the dispute. Yesterday, Colonel Davis said he could not discuss the developments. “I’m under direct orders,” he said, “not to comment with the media about the reasons for my resignation or military commissions.”
Gregory S. McNeal, an assistant professor at the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University, said the effort to begin war-crimes trials would probably continue. But Mr. McNeal, who has been a consultant to the military prosecutors, said the questions Colonel Davis raised would be exploited by defense lawyers.
“The last thing the prosecution needs is officials influencing the prosecutions,” he said.
Critics of the administration have argued that the effort to design a military commission system for foreign terror suspects is intended to circumvent the legal protections that detainees would receive if they were charged in civilian courts.
Some of those critics said yesterday that the dispute underscored their concerns. “This is further evidence that the military commission process is completely unraveling,” said J. Wells Dixon, a detainees’ lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
republicans lies to stay in power
The news broke on Aug. 27 that Mr. Craig, 62, had pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge related to the undercover sex sting, conducted at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Sept. 1, he announced that it was his “intent” to resign by Sept. 30.
But a few days later he suggested that he might stay on if he was able to withdraw his guilty plea. A judge ruled Thursday that he could not withdraw it, and a few hours later the senator said he would remain in office anyway.
But a few days later he suggested that he might stay on if he was able to withdraw his guilty plea. A judge ruled Thursday that he could not withdraw it, and a few hours later the senator said he would remain in office anyway.
05 October, 2007
Craig, another republican hypocrisy
Five weeks ago, Senator Craig announced his intent to resign Sept. 30 if he could not have his guilty plea rescinded. But Craig, who bridled at colleagues' not-so-subtle hints to leave, reneged on the deal Thursday.
He vowed not to seek a fourth term in November 2008, and the seat is likely to stay in Republican hands. Who can believe that?
Craig, 62, was arrested June 11 in a men's room in the Minneapolis airport by an undercover officer. The officer said Craig exhibited behavior consistent with seeking a sexual encounter. His arrest and guilty plea were reported Aug. 27 by Roll Call.
In Minnesota on Thursday, Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter ruled: "Because the defendant's plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence ... the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea is denied."
The republican national convention will be held about 7 miles away from the bathroom. HOW CONVENIENT.
He vowed not to seek a fourth term in November 2008, and the seat is likely to stay in Republican hands. Who can believe that?
Craig, 62, was arrested June 11 in a men's room in the Minneapolis airport by an undercover officer. The officer said Craig exhibited behavior consistent with seeking a sexual encounter. His arrest and guilty plea were reported Aug. 27 by Roll Call.
In Minnesota on Thursday, Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter ruled: "Because the defendant's plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence ... the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea is denied."
The republican national convention will be held about 7 miles away from the bathroom. HOW CONVENIENT.
republican Iraqi fiasco
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday that Blackwater should leave the country because of the mountain of evidence against the under-fire US security firm. His comments came amid growing anger among Iraqis that "above-the-law" security contractors are continuing to operate in Iraq while Blackwater is being probed over a deadly shooting 17 days ago.
"I believe the abundance of evidence against it makes it unfit to stay in Iraq," Maliki told a televised press conference in Baghdad. A New York Times report on Wednesday citing witnesses, Iraqi investigators and a US official said that as many as 17 people were killed and 24 wounded when Blackwater employees opened fire in central Baghdad on September 16.
Also, Iraq has ordered light military equipment from China worth $100 million because the United States is unable to meet Baghdad's requirements, the Washington Post reported President Jalal Talabani as saying.
"We're working hard just to supply our own troops," an administration official told the newspaper. "Our factories are working for our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."
"I believe the abundance of evidence against it makes it unfit to stay in Iraq," Maliki told a televised press conference in Baghdad. A New York Times report on Wednesday citing witnesses, Iraqi investigators and a US official said that as many as 17 people were killed and 24 wounded when Blackwater employees opened fire in central Baghdad on September 16.
Also, Iraq has ordered light military equipment from China worth $100 million because the United States is unable to meet Baghdad's requirements, the Washington Post reported President Jalal Talabani as saying.
"We're working hard just to supply our own troops," an administration official told the newspaper. "Our factories are working for our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."
02 October, 2007
people moving toward Democrats
Five years ago, the population was evenly divided -- 43% for each party. This year, Democrats had a 50% to 35% advantage.
is Blackwater our terrorist org?
State Department, which has paid Blackwater nearly $1 billion for "security" work in Iraq, allowed the company to operate with impunity. "There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed," a memorandum released by Democrats said, "that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater's actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company's high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation."
01 October, 2007
more on Blackwater
In more than 80 percent of the incidents, called “escalation of force,” Blackwater’s guards fired the first shots even though the company’s contract with the State Department calls for it to use defensive force only, it said.
“In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fired shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties,” according to the report.
The staff report paints Blackwater as a company that’s made huge sums of money despite its questionable performance in Iraq, where Blackwater guards provide protective services for U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Blackwater has earned more than $1 billion from federal contracts since 2001, when it had less than $1 million in government work. Overall, the State Department paid Blackwater more than $832 million between 2004 and 2006 for security work, according to the report.
“In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fired shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties,” according to the report.
The staff report paints Blackwater as a company that’s made huge sums of money despite its questionable performance in Iraq, where Blackwater guards provide protective services for U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Blackwater has earned more than $1 billion from federal contracts since 2001, when it had less than $1 million in government work. Overall, the State Department paid Blackwater more than $832 million between 2004 and 2006 for security work, according to the report.
censoring the war on Afghanistan
Since U.S. troops first set foot in Afghanistan in 2001, the Defense Department has gone to significant lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of war.
It banned photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of soldiers killed overseas.
It paid Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort. It invited U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but required them to submit their stories to the military for pre-publication review; according to some reports, the policy was meant to co-opt the embedded journalists and make independent and objective reporting more difficult.
It has erased journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan . And it has refused to disclose statistics on civilian casualties. "We don't do body counts,"
It banned photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of soldiers killed overseas.
It paid Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort. It invited U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but required them to submit their stories to the military for pre-publication review; according to some reports, the policy was meant to co-opt the embedded journalists and make independent and objective reporting more difficult.
It has erased journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan . And it has refused to disclose statistics on civilian casualties. "We don't do body counts,"
China smarter than US
The low-key ceremony that marked the launch of China Investment Corp. this weekend could reflect the cautious manner in which Beijing intends to unleash the largest fund in history onto the world's financial markets.
China Investment Corp. is tasked with diversifying and maximising returns on part of the country's huge forex reserves, topping 1.3 trillion dollars and growing by the second.
It is estimated that about 70 percent of this enormous amount is placed in US dollar assets, including Treasury bonds that are as low-yield as they are safe.
The worst thing China could do for the US would be to sweep into, say, the world energy markets and make a series of high-profile acquisitions of oil companies or gas fields. The US tries to conquer oil reserves by military force while the Chinese will just buy them. Who is smarter?
.
China Investment Corp. is tasked with diversifying and maximising returns on part of the country's huge forex reserves, topping 1.3 trillion dollars and growing by the second.
It is estimated that about 70 percent of this enormous amount is placed in US dollar assets, including Treasury bonds that are as low-yield as they are safe.
The worst thing China could do for the US would be to sweep into, say, the world energy markets and make a series of high-profile acquisitions of oil companies or gas fields. The US tries to conquer oil reserves by military force while the Chinese will just buy them. Who is smarter?
.
war on terror a fraud
The fraudulence of the "War on Terror," however, is clearly revealed in the pattern of subsequent facts:
In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.
In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.
Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.
The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.
A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive.
Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."
The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.
Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.
President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.
When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.
In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.
In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.
Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.
The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.
A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive.
Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."
The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.
Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.
President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.
When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.
democrats cave on 20 year war
Yesterday, Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton (NY), Chuck Schumer (NY), Bob Menendez (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (MD), and Ben Cardin (MD) all voted in favor of the "Kyl-Lieberman Iran Amendment."
This piece of legislation actually encourages the practitioner of cowboy diplomacy, George W. Bush, to be even more belligerent in his foreign policy.
The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed by a vote of 76 to 22. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it, and Barack Obama missed the vote.
This piece of legislation actually encourages the practitioner of cowboy diplomacy, George W. Bush, to be even more belligerent in his foreign policy.
The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed by a vote of 76 to 22. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it, and Barack Obama missed the vote.
another republican wants war
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
Giuliani advisor wants US in 20 year war
One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb.
Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
“I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative,” said Podhoretz, 77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement who has joined Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
“I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities and explained why I thought there was no alternative,” said Podhoretz, 77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.
hidden costs of war on Iraq
More than in past wars, many wounded troops are coming home alive from the Middle East, a triumph for military medicine. But they often return hobbled by prolonged physical and mental injuries from homemade bombs and the anxiety of fighting a hidden enemy along blurred battle lines.
These troops are just starting to seek help in large numbers, more than 185,000 so far. The cost of their benefits is already testing resources set aside by government and threatening the future of these wounded veterans for decades to come, say economists and veterans' groups.
These troops are just starting to seek help in large numbers, more than 185,000 so far. The cost of their benefits is already testing resources set aside by government and threatening the future of these wounded veterans for decades to come, say economists and veterans' groups.
downside of 20 year war
There can be little doubt that if attacked, Iran will respond as it has promised: by bombarding us with the rockets it is preparing for this precise purpose. That will not endanger Israel`s existence, but it will not be pleasant either.
If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel and our republicans.
It is no secret that the Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq.
For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel and our republicans.
It is no secret that the Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq.
For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
republicans want 20 year war
In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.
“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”
Iran would likely react to an American attack “by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.”
“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”
Iran would likely react to an American attack “by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.”
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