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Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Ask not for whom the Iguana stalks, the Iguana stalks for you...
War, politics, religion... & other stuff you shouldn't talk about over dinner...
Dedicated to the proposition that GW Bush and Saddam Hussein are figments of our unconscious minds
Cost of the War in Iraq
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According to Amnesty International, Iraq executes "scores" of political prisoners every year, at least 31 confirmed last year. How
long would it have taken Saddam to execute the 6000+ Iraqi civilians we've killed this year? Figure it out.
Cosmic Iguana UPDATED Highlights!
Bush Deified!
Governor Arnold?
Uday & Qusay Get Medals
Aliens Find WMDs!
Republican Affective Disorder
Iraqi Looter's Festival
Ashcroft Eats Babies!
Crypto-Fascists on Parade
The Manchurian President
Tatu Terrorist Organization?
Why They Hate Us
Psychic Bubba?
Shock'N'Awe
My Inner Saddam
America as SUV
Don't Watch TV
Iraqi Baseball
Survivor: Iraq
France Attacks!
Links
NEW! Focus on Intelligence The Spy Game by manis2society
The Manis Wire
The Agonist
American Empire
Atrios
Back To Iraq
Counterspin
Cowboy Kahlil
Daily Kos
DDjangoWIrE
Dem Vets
Dear Raed
Digby's Blog
Interesting Times
Intl-News
Jihad Unspun
Kevin Sites
Ruminate This!
Saddam Hussein's Blog
South Knox Bubba
UggaBugga
The Wacky Iraqi
HOME
Contact Me?
Our Leader
Co-Conspirators:
*Bill "Morpheus" Bojangles
*Unnamed Iraqi Civilians
*Renegade Civil Libertarians
LEAGUE OF LIBERALS
SADDAM CAUGHT..... WAR OVER..... LET'S GO HOME!
Note: Comments (sigh) working again...
Saturday, April 26, 2003
More War Justifications Shown to Be Lies
Militants' Camp Casts Doubt on U.S. Claims
LA TIMES
Ansar al Islam's bases show that the Al Qaeda surrogate posed no serious threat beyond its mountain borders, despite what Powell asserted before the war. LINK
Well, that means that NOT ONE of the administration's arguments have been proven valid. And you know that they knew it, too.
Nuke Dump "Kills the Messenger"
Yucca auditors removed
Examiners issued 'stop work' order
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Three examiners were removed from their audit positions after they uncovered new quality control flaws in the Yucca Mountain Project last month, according to one of the examiners and other sources. ...
...A 14-year Navarro employee, Harris said he was told April 9 he was being removed from verification activities "because I made grievance statements about DOE in a meeting" March 18 involving the auditors and a Bechtel team discussing the stop work order. MORE
Of course, as we are always being assured, it is "perfectly safe."
US Forces Make Iraqis Strip and Walk Naked in Public
On 25 April 2003, the newspaper Dagbladet (Norway) published photos of armed US soldiers forcing Iraqi men to walk naked through a park.
On the chests of the men had been scrawled an Arabic phrase that translates as "Ali Baba - Thief."
A military officer states that the men are thieves, and that this technique will be used again.
No word yet from the newly liberated Iraqi people about some of them being summarily found guilty of theft, forced at gunpoint to strip, having a racist phrase written on their bodies, and then made to walk naked in public. No doubt the Arab/Muslim world is impressed by this display of "democracy," "freedom," "due process," and "no cruel or unusual punishment." LINK SOURCE
2 More GIs die in Afghanistan
Brings the total to 14 already this year, compared to 4 all last year. LINK
Just showin' off or LYING?
Reason for War?
White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything
By John Cochran, ABCNEWS.com
W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 ? To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war ? a global show of American power and democracy. (italics mine)
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." LINK
It depends on what you think LYING is.
Friday, April 25, 2003
Does the Punishment Fit the Crime? Who Knows?
THE DAILY OUTRAGE, THE NATION
Citigroup stands judged of financing terrorism. The penalty: $2,925. ChevronTexaco violated sanctions against Iraq. The penalty: $9,000. The North Carolina-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry broke U.S. laws that prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It was fined $500, the same as the penalty for littering in Kentucky.
Sometimes a light rebuke is appropriate. Perhaps, despite the weighty topics of terrorism and mass destruction, these were misdemeanors at heart, and it was totally proper for lawyers on both sides to quietly settle on the gentlest of punishments. But it's hard to say for sure, because in each of the 59 cases of trading with the enemy tersely reported by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control [OFAC], no details are provided beyond the country involved and the penalty assessed -- no dates, no specifics, no nothing... link
Many conservatives don't believe individuals have a constitutionally protected right of privacy,
but apparently they believe corporations do.
SOMETHING IS TELLING ME ITS NOT ALL OVER IN IRAQ:
The Turks Enter Iraq
A Turkish Special Forces team is caught by U.S. troops in Kurdistan LINK
US accuses Iran of stirring up protests
America's interim administrator admits that the strength of opposition by Shias was not expected LINK
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Man on Dog?
From Daily Kos:
There's something that has been really bugging me about the Santorum scandal: In the now-famous interview, Santorum says:
In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.
Tell me, what kind of person walks around talking about "man on dog" sex? I can confidently say that the thought never enters my mind unbidden. Yet Santorum, in the course of a conversation with a reporter, casually mentions bestiality. The AP reporter was naturally taken aback:
I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.I would be freaked out if anyone started talking to me about "man on dog" sex. It's not normal. For a Senator to bring the topic up to a reporter is, well, beyond belief.
So Republicans -- this is your number three guy in the Senate. Aren't you even the least bit embarrassed? LINK
Couldn't 'ave said it better...
A Tale of Two Taxes
I.R.S. to Ask Working Poor for Proof on Tax Credits
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, NY TIMES
The Internal Revenue Service is planning to ask more than four million of the working poor who now claim a special tax credit to provide the most exhaustive proof of eligibility ever demanded of any class of taxpayers....
...But some tax experts criticize the higher burden of proof as unfair and a wasteful allocation of scarce I.R.S. enforcement dollars. They say that corporations, business owners, investors and partnerships deprive the government of many times what the working poor ever could — through both illegal means and legal shelters — yet these taxpayers face no demands to prove the validity of their claims in advance with certified records and sworn affidavits....
... Only a few types of evidence will be acceptable to the I.R.S., and some are documents that will be difficult or impossible for people to get within the six-month deadline....
....An I.R.S. briefing paper on the new rules states that in 1999 the Treasury lost $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion by paying earned-income tax credits to filers who should not have received them. A separate analysis, by two Treasury Department specialists, says subsequent measures may have reduced these erroneous payments by $2 billion.
By comparison, corporations managed to sidestep as much as $54 billion in 1998, by hiding about $155 billion in profits in tax shelters, according to a study by a Harvard economist, Mihir A. Desai. link
Another example that the US lives by the Golden Rule - he who has the Gold makes the Rules.
Asia Times Investigation Confirms Deal for Fall of Baghdad
As suggested here, an Asia Times investigation suggests the US made a deal with high-level Iraqis to surrender Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Much of the world was surprised. After the spirited resistance in the south of Iraq, how could Baghdad possibly have fallen in only two days?
An Asia Times Online investigation in Baghdad, Tikrit and Najaf has yielded a clear certainty among Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, as to the answer: The Pentagon and the Ba'ath Party leadership made a safqua ("secret deal" in Arabic) for the (almost) bloodless fall of Baghdad. Crucially, this safqua may have included a package of American green cards for top Republican and Special Republican Guard commanders and their families. LINK
Thursday, April 24, 2003
N. Korea: War at 'any moment'
Thursday, April 24, 2003 Posted: 4:04 AM EDT (0804 GMT)
...The stark warning came as U.S. and North Korean officials began a second day of talks in Beijing aimed at easing months of tensions over the North's alleged nuclear weapons program.
In its statement carried Thursday on the North Korean state news agency, Pyongyang said that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has shown that the only way for a country to protect itself was to have a powerful deterrent.... more
US RESTARTS WMD PRODUCTION
US back in nuclear bomb-making business
April 24 2003, LA TIMES
The United States says it has regained the capability to make nuclear weapons for the first time in 14 years and has resumed production of plutonium parts for bombs.
The Energy Department's announcement on Tuesday marks a symbolic and operational milestone in rebuilding America's nuclear weapons complex, which began a long retrenchment in the late 1980s as the Cold War ended and the toll of environmental damage from bomb production became known.
Under a Bush Administration plan, the Energy Department will begin limited production of plutonium parts for the country's stockpile of nuclear weapons and begin laying plans for a new factory that could produce parts for hundreds of weapons a year.
The Energy Department's previous Rocky Flats site in Colorado was shut down after serious violations of environmental laws and the FBI raided the plant.
Where is the UN, now that we need them?
REVOLUTION OF RISING EXPECTATIONS
Religious rivalries and political overtones in Iraq
KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) -- Bare feet slap on the dusty street. Fists beat on chests like hollow drums.
Shiite Muslim pilgrims appear slapping whips made of metal chains on their backs to the solemn clash of cymbals.
Then a group of 100 men kneel down in front of the gold-domed mosque as one of their number draws a long sword and ritually slashes their scalps. Blood oozes.
Religious chants alternate with political harangues: "No to America! No to Israel! No to the Devil!"
Then "Death to America!" -- a chant U.S. and British coalition forces, fresh from "liberating" Iraq from President Saddam Hussein, probably thought they'd never hear.
Iraq's Shiite Muslims make up two-thirds of the total 23 million population and suffered years of oppression at the hands of Saddam. Coalition war planners saw the Shiites as potentially strong and loyal allies. link
This points to the penutimate problem of occupied Iraq. The possibility of Islamic revolution culminating in a Shi'ite Islamic Republic like that of neighboring Iran.
As Crane Brinton, author of the classic Anatomy of a Revolution explains, revolutions rarely occur when a population is downtrodden. Instead, it is the bettering of circumstances, and the concomitant rising of expectations enabling a hope that revolution can succeed, which releases the revolutionary spark.
This is the danger in today's Iraq. 2/3 of the country are Shi'ites, long held down by Saddam's Sunni minority. Now that the lid is off, who will be able to keep the genie in the bottle?
Such was the case in Iran. Will history repeat itself next door?
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Now We will have to Bomb Ourselves
Bush bars UN weapons teams from Iraq
SIDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 24 2003
The United States will not permit United Nations weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, saying the US military has taken over the role of searching for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. link
Is it that we can't trust them or we want to plant something?
WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?
Russian official predicts 'catastrophic' events
April 24 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
A top Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying yesterday in Tokyo that a "catastrophic" development of events in the US-North Korean nuclear standoff was imminent and could occur within the next day. link
Afghan security deteriorates as Taliban regroup
Anthony Davis, JANE'S DEFENSE WEEKLY
After a winter punctuated by scattered attacks, March and April saw the closest to a co-ordinated offensive the anti-Kabul opposition has yet achieved. This left no doubt that the predominantly Pashtun forces aligned against the western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai had used the winter to regroup, train and achieve a far greater degree of organisational cohesion than was evident in 2002. An ad hoc alliance comprising Taliban remnants, the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) faction of former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and groups of Al-Qaeda stragglers now appears increasingly to be co-ordinating its command structures and support and logistics networks.
Politically, the opposition has displayed a new confidence and political assertiveness in recent months with various leaders publicly enunciating their goal of expelling western forces... ...Rocket attacks have gained both in frequency and intensity. Whereas last year one or two missiles was the norm, salvos are now being fired. There have also been barrages of mortar fire. LINK (thanks to agonist)
US Caves, Begins Direct Talks w/ N.Korea
After months of belligerency, the US did what it said it would not, i.e. begin direct talks with N. Korea, using China's presence as a "face saver." Why couldn't they have done this months ago? LINK
ALIENS LEAD U.S. SOLDIERS TO IRAQI WMDS
(Baghdad, April 23) General Tommy Franks announced today that US troops discovered huge stockpiles of Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the desert outside Baghdad, after being led to the site by a UFO.
"It was certainly fortuitous," Franks commented with a weary grin, "We had just about given up hope when a marine looked up in the sky, and saw a glowing, flying saucer." By following that saucer, he apparently was led to a large weapons cache that contained biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, all clearly marked "For use in the USA."
"That certainly was the 'smoking gun' we were looking for," Franks added. "Now the world knows we were justified in invading Iraq."
Franks also noted that the aliens telepathically communicated to him that Saddam Hussein had been aiding Osama Bin Ladin.
ADDENDUM: If you substitute "Unnamed Iraqi Scientist" for alien, you pretty much have Fox's TV coverage for the last couple days. Convenient that they can't name or show him. Maybe he IS an alien!
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
FREE HARRY POTTER!
Judge overrules Harry Potter ban
April 23 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
A federal judge ordered Harry Potter books back onto an Arkansas school district's library shelves, rejecting a school board's claim that tales of wizards and spells were harmful.
Ruling in favour of a fourth-grader's parents, US District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren today ordered the Cedarville School District in western Arkansas to put the four books in JK Rowling's popular series back in general circulation. LINK
More Good News
SARS mutating, becoming more virulent: new warning
April 23 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
Hong Kong: The deadly SARS virus appears to be becoming more virulent, attacking the intestines as well as the respiratory system, according to a leading Hong Kong microbiologist. more
MUST READ:
Iraqi anger boils over
An awful prediction: War of liberation from U.S. occupation is about to begin
ROBERT FISK, SPECIAL TO THE STAR
The army of "liberation" has already turned into the army of occupation. The Shiites are threatening to fight the Americans, to create their own war of liberation...
... And all across Baghdad, you hear the same thing, from Shiite Muslim clerics to Sunni businessmen, that the Americans have come only for oil, and that soon - very soon - a guerrilla resistance must start.
MORE
Yes, They Do Love Us
Iraqi Shi'ites Denounce U.S. 'Occupation'
By Saul Hudson
KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims swarmed through Iraq's holy city of Kerbala in a pilgrimage marked by religious fervor and slogans demanding that U.S. troops get out of the country. LINK
Did Saddam Make a Deal to Escape?
The following was reported by Debka.com last week, and verified by Reuters last weekend (link lost):
Deal with Iraqi Commander Opened Baghdad to Marines
April 13, 2003, 11:32 AM (GMT+02:00) DEBKA.COM
Saddam’s scientific adviser and liaison with the UN arms inspectors, General Amer Hammoudi Al-Saadi, was not the first Iraqi general to turn himself in to American forces. Just before closing its last edition on April 11, DEBKA-Net-Weekly received the first fragmentary reports from its intelligence sources of another general who trod the same secret path before him.
Those reports shed partial light on the ease with which the US 1st Marines Expeditionary Force was able to reach the heart of Baghdad on Wednesday, April 9, without encountering substantial Iraqi resistance. In one case, the Republican Guards supposed to defend the Diyala River bridges and keep American forces out of east Baghdad suddenly stopped shooting and deserted their posts. In general, large sections of the elite SRG divisions charged with defending Baghdad melted away without inflicting or suffering casualties.
In this sense, the keys to east Baghdad were handed over by the high commander of Iraq’s elite Special Republic guards, General Maher Safian Al-Tikriti, another of Saddam Hussein’s cousins. This was the upshot of discussions that took place between him and US special forces and CIA officers deployed undercover in the Iraqi-controlled parts of Baghdad.
General Takriti agreed to let US forces roll into central Baghdad unopposed across bridges that were not blown up in return for an American guarantee of safe exit from the city for his troops and a promise they would not be pursued.
Could that "safe exit" have included Saddam and his immediate family? Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh has alleged that that the CIA allowed Osama Bin Ladin to escape . There is also reason to believe likewise with Afganistan's Mullah Omar. The Military was looking 3,000 casualties at invading Baghdad, a cost that was probably way too high for public opinion to handle. The CIA saved them from from some difficult alternatives.
Oh and having Saddam at large? No biggie, we're used to that kind of thing.
Monday, April 21, 2003
BARF!
BUSH CIRCLE DEBATES WHETHER TO HOLD IRAQ VICTORY PARADE FOR MILITARY
As President Bush visited the nation's largest military base Sunday to attend Easter church services and meet with two helicopter pilots who were held as prisoners of war in Iraq -- a split has developed among White House advisers over whether to hold an official victory parade for the nation's military, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The president is said to favor heavily incorporating specific Iraq-war military salutes with Washington DC's official Fourth of July festivities, insiders reveal.
While insiders caution the president has not made any final decision, key Bush advisers have suggested a high-profile parade for war heroes -- to be held in the nation's capital, or New York City, or both. ... link
It will be one morally hollow victory parade, in my opinion.
New War Anyone?
Rumsfeld calls for regime change in North Korea
By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 22/04/2003)
A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked yesterday, opening a fresh foreign policy split in the Bush administration.
The classified discussion paper, circulated by the defence secretary, appears to cut directly across State Department plans to disarm Kim Jong-il, the North's dictator, through threats leavened by promises that his regime is not a target for overthrow. LINK
Amen to this:
Howard Dean via getdonkey :
Our nation should be viewed as a moral and just power, a power
that seeks to do good, one that has led by example and with a spirit
of generosity, and one that works with the world community in
advancing the ideals of human dignity and rule of law across the
globe.
The people of this country must understand that this Administration
has a far different concept of the role of America in the world. This
concept involves imposing our will on sovereign nations. This
concept involves dismantling the multilateral institutions that we
have spent decades building. And this concept involves distorting the
rule of law to suit their narrow purposes. When did we become a
nation of fear and anxiety when we were once known the world
around as a land of hope and liberty?
On day one of a Dean Presidency, I will reverse this attitude. I will
tear up the Bush Doctrine. And I will steer us back into the company
of the community of nations where we will exercise moral leadership
once again.
I'm not a Dean supporter, but I couldn't have said it better.
How the Iraqis feel about the Proposed US Bases There
"We would feel the same way as the Saudis," Mr. Abdullah said, referring to the anger in Saudi Arabia at the bases established there after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Osama bin Laden has often cited the American presence there as one reason for Al Qaeda's terror strikes. from Hesiod
Well, it took ten years for Osama to work his way up to 9-11, I guess we have that long till the next generation of terrorists is ready.
Love it Or Leave it?
Let me see if I can get this straight: Men fought and died for my right to free speech.
Therefore, I must remain silent and fall in line behind my president, even if I don't
agree with him.
My right to free speech is so precious I can't actually use it. If I do speak out, I
deserve to be deported to France or Germany.
I have a suggestion that might please those who criticize war protesters. If I go to
France with as many of my fellow peace activists as I can round up, perhaps all of
you who say, "Love it or leave it," will go to live with some of our allies in the war on
terror - Pakistan, maybe, or Uzbekistan, Qatar, Georgia, Kuwait or Colombia.
I'm sure the dictators of those countries would find your views on democracy quite in
line with their own. Perhaps you could even get a job spying on and imprisoning
dissidents. via South Knox Bubba
Quiz:
1. Who did the FBI harass for a year and a half for no reason?
2. Who did the FBI ignore despite credible warnings for years?
3. Why?
answers:
A. Wen Ho Lee
B. Katrina Leung
C. Because the FBI is corrupt and was only interested in investigating Democrats
D. Hell I don't know
Of course, the media is spinning this as another Al Gore scandal, believe it or not.
POW Rescue Was Faked!
So who really did save Private Jessica?
From Richard Lloyd Parry in al-Nasiriyah, LONDON TIMES
Doctor claims that soldiers terrorised unarmed staff
THE rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimised the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses.
Doctors at al-Nasiriyah general hospital said that the airborne assault had met no resistance and was carried out a day after all the Iraqi forces and Baath leadership had fled the city....
...“What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor — it’s a myth,” said Harith al-Houssona...
MORE(Worth Reading)
You JUST can't believe ANYTHING anymore. And you shouldn't.
Link explored between Terrorism, Serial Killing and Best Selling Book
"I don't have a problem with (government surveillance). I don't have anything to hide," Turner said. "I wish there was more government monitoring. I want to know if somebody on my block is reading a book on how to build a bomb or if there is anyone reading 'Catcher in the Rye.' They say there's a link between that book and many serial killers."...
...Is Big Brother watching the books you buy or the videos you rent?
That question cannot be answered, under the USA Patriot Act.
The law, passed before the dust from Sept. 11 settled, lets government agents seek court orders to seize records "for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
Critics have sounded a warning because such court orders cannot be challenged. Businesses are barred from telling anyone if they get one. Not even Congress can get an answer from the Justice Department on how many people are being monitored... LINK (Modesto, CA Bee)
BTW: The IPL suggests that in excess of 10 million copies of Catcher in the Rye have been sold. That's a lot of serial killers.
PLAYING WITH DEATH
Horror mine toll as Iraq's war children invent new games
By Stephen White And Colin Wills, Apr 21 2003
THE figures are frightening, the reality is appalling. Most guns may have fallen silent but the death toll in Iraq continues to rise. In the city of Kirkuk in the past seven days, 52 people have been killed and 63 injured by mines and dangerously unstable unexploded munitions. MORE
And guess which OTHER country has refused to sign the anti-mine treaty. (it has the same letters as us)
Wellstone Crash was due to Faulty Airport Beacon?
The theory that the crash was due to weather was contested in a letter by the charter operator ...
"As a direct result of the defect in the (beacon) and the State of Minnesota's negligence, the aircraft was guided away from the runway approach to the area where the aircraft collided with the ground," the letter said. LINK
If true, this could even give some credence to conspiracy theorists, who claim the flight was downed deliberately.
US army was told to protect looted museum
The United States army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that could have stopped the looting of priceless artifacts in Baghdad, according to leaked documents seen by The Observer. LINK
We always know best...
US struggles with new rules as war turns to occupation
Under international law, an occupied nation's laws take priority, but the US doesn't understand all local codes.
By Seth Stern | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Exiled Iraqi lawyers say the US government failed to adopt - or even translate from Arabic - suggestions they provided in advance on how to prevent the kind of civil disorder, including looting and revenge killings, that has marred postwar Iraq.
Weeks before the unrest erupted, the exiles proposed imposing martial law for 24 hours. The Pentagon also shelved a recommendation to recruit and vet Iraqi traffic police and security officers, who American soldiers did eventually turn to - but without checking their backgrounds. LINK
We know best, even if we don't know anything...
Sunday, April 20, 2003
US Bombs Iranian Rebel Group in Iraq Which is Backed by 150 Congressmen
U.S. Bombs Iranian Guerrilla Forces Based in Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL, NY TIMES
American forces have bombed the bases of the main armed Iranian opposition group in Iraq, a guerrilla organization that maintained thousands of fighters with tanks and artillery along Iraq's border with Iran for more than a decade...
... The attacks could well anger the more than 150 members of Congress from both parties who have described the Iranian opposition group as an effective source of pressure against Iran's government. In a statement last November, the group urged the Bush administration to remove the organization from its terrorist list.
"We made it very clear that these folks are pro-democracy, antifundamentalism, antiterrorism, helpful to the U.S. in providing information about the activities of the Iranian regime, and advocates of a secular government in Iran," said Yleem Poblete, staff director for the House International Relations Committee's subcommittee on the Middle East and Asia.
"They are our friends, not our enemies," she said. "The fact that they are the main target of the Iranian regime says a lot about their effectiveness." LINK
Are we stupid, or did we just cut a secret deal with the government of Iran? -- Just wondering.
Ignorance is Strength
Buzzflash comments: "White House Gets Credit in Some Quarters for "Spinning" War. Isn't That Called Propaganda, Skilled Use of Lies and Deception? " LINK
US "Bumbling" Let Bio-Weapons onto Open Market
Lethal Legacy: Bioweapons for Sale
U.S. Declined South African Scientist's Offer on Man-Made Pathogens
LINK
Conspiracy Theory: Of course, it might not be bumbling at all.
Cosmic Iguana Bans Biased Media
Folks, I am just plain tired of complaining and explaining that there is no liberal media, and in fact the media has become a conservative propaganda organ (what we bloggers call the Wurlitzer). So I have started banning the offenders from my life. What I do is delete them from my bookmarks if they are on my computer, or put an X over the button on my remote. First to be banned: Most of Fox, and the Washington Post. This had already happened before the war. Then MSNBC. I am now considering banning CNN, which I consider turning in most disappointing performance of the year. I may even ban the NY Times, except for Kristoff and Krugman's editorials.
Still recommended:
LA Times, Yahoo News, antiwar.com, buzzflash.com, americanpolitics.com, bloggers dailykos, atrios, and the agonist and many others.
Still tolerated: CBS, ABC to see what the mainstream is doing
It is a funny state of affairs that started with the Trent Lott affair and continued through the war, that nearly all real news started in the blogosphere, was picked up in the opinion columnists, and only then hit the mainstream media. Think about it: news starts with commentators and only then (if ever) is picked up and reported as news. It is the world upside down.
What this indicates is that we are in a state of total disinformation. Arguing about the liberal media is almost passe. It is a fight for the survival of information against propaganda.
ADDENDA: Must Read: Free speech is under threat in the US, says actor and director Tim Robbins. In this keynote address to journalists last week, he tells of the reprisals faced by anyone, including his family, who dares to dissent link
UPDATE: Uggabugga has a schematic diagram showing how it all fits together.LINK
US LIED ABOUT WMDs?
Anthrax, chemicals and nerve gas: who is lying?
Growing evidence of deception by Washington
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles, 20 April 2003
If US and British forces are scratching their heads at their inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, perhaps they should talk to Scott Ritter, the United Nations weapons inspector who famously quit in 1998, after seven years on the job, and has been a controversial figure ever since.
For months, Mr Ritter has said Iraq's capability of producing or deploying chemical or biological weapons was 90-95 per cent destroyed on his watch and was very unlikely to have been built up again under international sanctions and the constant surveillance of spy satellites and US and British war planes.
Iraq's nuclear programme was dismantled at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, he said, and factories to produce chemical or biological agents deactivated shortly thereafter. Any leftover nerve agents would only have a shelf life of five years and would probably be useless by now. The anthrax and botulism toxin that Iraq produced was never weap-onised and, although it was put into warheads at one point, was no more than harmless sludge that "could only kill you if it landed on your head".
This is the same Scott Ritter who, when he first made these assertions last autumn, was vilified in the US media as "misguided", "disloyal", not to be taken seriously and "an apologist for and a defender of Saddam Hussein". One cable news host, Curtis Sliwa said on air he was a "sock puppet" who "ought to turn in his passport for an Iraqi one".
Perhaps it's time to give Mr Ritter another chance. It may, in fact, be time to reassess who exactly has been the deceiver and who the dupe in this whole affair. What Mr Ritter and others now allege, with increasing confidence, is a pattern of false information emanating from both Washington and London since last September – lies and distortions that launched a major war and are only now beginning to be widely exposed... LINK
This is the book 
You can buy it at Amazon:
Iraqis Believe in the Pre-Bush America
Iraqis Protest Against U.S.
By Hassan Hafidh, Reuters
..Demonstrators poured out of Friday prayers in Baghdad mosques chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an Islamic state to replace Saddam's toppled government... "Leave our country, we want peace," one banner read.
"This is not the America we know. The America we know respects international law, respects the right of people," Kubaisi said. MORE
That was the America we knew too. The America before George Bush.
Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evildoers
Ask not for whom the Iguana stalks, the Iguana stalks for you...
War, politics, religion... & other stuff you shouldn't talk about over dinner...
Dedicated to the proposition that GW Bush and Saddam Hussein are figments of our unconscious minds
Cost of the War in Iraq
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According to Amnesty International, Iraq executes "scores" of political prisoners every year, at least 31 confirmed last year. How long would it have taken Saddam to execute the 6000+ Iraqi civilians we've killed this year? Figure it out.
Cosmic Iguana UPDATED Highlights!
Bush Deified!
Governor Arnold?
Uday & Qusay Get Medals
Aliens Find WMDs!
Republican Affective Disorder
Iraqi Looter's Festival
Ashcroft Eats Babies!
Crypto-Fascists on Parade
The Manchurian President
Tatu Terrorist Organization?
Why They Hate Us
Psychic Bubba?
Shock'N'Awe
My Inner Saddam
America as SUV
Don't Watch TV
Iraqi Baseball
Survivor: Iraq
France Attacks!
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LEAGUE OF LIBERALS
SADDAM CAUGHT..... WAR OVER..... LET'S GO HOME!
Note: Comments (sigh) working again...
Saturday, April 26, 2003
More War Justifications Shown to Be Lies
Militants' Camp Casts Doubt on U.S. Claims
LA TIMES
Ansar al Islam's bases show that the Al Qaeda surrogate posed no serious threat beyond its mountain borders, despite what Powell asserted before the war. LINK
Well, that means that NOT ONE of the administration's arguments have been proven valid. And you know that they knew it, too.
Nuke Dump "Kills the Messenger"
Yucca auditors removed
Examiners issued 'stop work' order
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Three examiners were removed from their audit positions after they uncovered new quality control flaws in the Yucca Mountain Project last month, according to one of the examiners and other sources. ...
...A 14-year Navarro employee, Harris said he was told April 9 he was being removed from verification activities "because I made grievance statements about DOE in a meeting" March 18 involving the auditors and a Bechtel team discussing the stop work order. MORE
Of course, as we are always being assured, it is "perfectly safe."
US Forces Make Iraqis Strip and Walk Naked in Public
On 25 April 2003, the newspaper Dagbladet (Norway) published photos of armed US soldiers forcing Iraqi men to walk naked through a park.
On the chests of the men had been scrawled an Arabic phrase that translates as "Ali Baba - Thief."
A military officer states that the men are thieves, and that this technique will be used again.
No word yet from the newly liberated Iraqi people about some of them being summarily found guilty of theft, forced at gunpoint to strip, having a racist phrase written on their bodies, and then made to walk naked in public. No doubt the Arab/Muslim world is impressed by this display of "democracy," "freedom," "due process," and "no cruel or unusual punishment." LINK SOURCE
2 More GIs die in Afghanistan
Brings the total to 14 already this year, compared to 4 all last year. LINK
Just showin' off or LYING?
Reason for War?
White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything
By John Cochran, ABCNEWS.com
W A S H I N G T O N, April 25 ? To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war ? a global show of American power and democracy. (italics mine)
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." LINK
It depends on what you think LYING is.
Friday, April 25, 2003
Does the Punishment Fit the Crime? Who Knows?
THE DAILY OUTRAGE, THE NATION
Citigroup stands judged of financing terrorism. The penalty: $2,925. ChevronTexaco violated sanctions against Iraq. The penalty: $9,000. The North Carolina-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry broke U.S. laws that prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It was fined $500, the same as the penalty for littering in Kentucky.
Sometimes a light rebuke is appropriate. Perhaps, despite the weighty topics of terrorism and mass destruction, these were misdemeanors at heart, and it was totally proper for lawyers on both sides to quietly settle on the gentlest of punishments. But it's hard to say for sure, because in each of the 59 cases of trading with the enemy tersely reported by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control [OFAC], no details are provided beyond the country involved and the penalty assessed -- no dates, no specifics, no nothing... link
Many conservatives don't believe individuals have a constitutionally protected right of privacy,
but apparently they believe corporations do.
SOMETHING IS TELLING ME ITS NOT ALL OVER IN IRAQ:
The Turks Enter Iraq
A Turkish Special Forces team is caught by U.S. troops in Kurdistan LINK
US accuses Iran of stirring up protests
America's interim administrator admits that the strength of opposition by Shias was not expected LINK
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Man on Dog?
From Daily Kos:
There's something that has been really bugging me about the Santorum scandal: In the now-famous interview, Santorum says:
In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.
Tell me, what kind of person walks around talking about "man on dog" sex? I can confidently say that the thought never enters my mind unbidden. Yet Santorum, in the course of a conversation with a reporter, casually mentions bestiality. The AP reporter was naturally taken aback:
I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.I would be freaked out if anyone started talking to me about "man on dog" sex. It's not normal. For a Senator to bring the topic up to a reporter is, well, beyond belief.
So Republicans -- this is your number three guy in the Senate. Aren't you even the least bit embarrassed? LINK
Couldn't 'ave said it better...
A Tale of Two Taxes
I.R.S. to Ask Working Poor for Proof on Tax Credits
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, NY TIMES
The Internal Revenue Service is planning to ask more than four million of the working poor who now claim a special tax credit to provide the most exhaustive proof of eligibility ever demanded of any class of taxpayers....
...But some tax experts criticize the higher burden of proof as unfair and a wasteful allocation of scarce I.R.S. enforcement dollars. They say that corporations, business owners, investors and partnerships deprive the government of many times what the working poor ever could — through both illegal means and legal shelters — yet these taxpayers face no demands to prove the validity of their claims in advance with certified records and sworn affidavits....
... Only a few types of evidence will be acceptable to the I.R.S., and some are documents that will be difficult or impossible for people to get within the six-month deadline....
....An I.R.S. briefing paper on the new rules states that in 1999 the Treasury lost $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion by paying earned-income tax credits to filers who should not have received them. A separate analysis, by two Treasury Department specialists, says subsequent measures may have reduced these erroneous payments by $2 billion.
By comparison, corporations managed to sidestep as much as $54 billion in 1998, by hiding about $155 billion in profits in tax shelters, according to a study by a Harvard economist, Mihir A. Desai. link
Another example that the US lives by the Golden Rule - he who has the Gold makes the Rules.
Asia Times Investigation Confirms Deal for Fall of Baghdad
As suggested here, an Asia Times investigation suggests the US made a deal with high-level Iraqis to surrender Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Much of the world was surprised. After the spirited resistance in the south of Iraq, how could Baghdad possibly have fallen in only two days?
An Asia Times Online investigation in Baghdad, Tikrit and Najaf has yielded a clear certainty among Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, as to the answer: The Pentagon and the Ba'ath Party leadership made a safqua ("secret deal" in Arabic) for the (almost) bloodless fall of Baghdad. Crucially, this safqua may have included a package of American green cards for top Republican and Special Republican Guard commanders and their families. LINK
Thursday, April 24, 2003
N. Korea: War at 'any moment'
Thursday, April 24, 2003 Posted: 4:04 AM EDT (0804 GMT)
...The stark warning came as U.S. and North Korean officials began a second day of talks in Beijing aimed at easing months of tensions over the North's alleged nuclear weapons program.
In its statement carried Thursday on the North Korean state news agency, Pyongyang said that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has shown that the only way for a country to protect itself was to have a powerful deterrent.... more
US RESTARTS WMD PRODUCTION
US back in nuclear bomb-making business
April 24 2003, LA TIMES
The United States says it has regained the capability to make nuclear weapons for the first time in 14 years and has resumed production of plutonium parts for bombs.
The Energy Department's announcement on Tuesday marks a symbolic and operational milestone in rebuilding America's nuclear weapons complex, which began a long retrenchment in the late 1980s as the Cold War ended and the toll of environmental damage from bomb production became known.
Under a Bush Administration plan, the Energy Department will begin limited production of plutonium parts for the country's stockpile of nuclear weapons and begin laying plans for a new factory that could produce parts for hundreds of weapons a year.
The Energy Department's previous Rocky Flats site in Colorado was shut down after serious violations of environmental laws and the FBI raided the plant.
Where is the UN, now that we need them?
REVOLUTION OF RISING EXPECTATIONS
Religious rivalries and political overtones in Iraq
KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) -- Bare feet slap on the dusty street. Fists beat on chests like hollow drums.
Shiite Muslim pilgrims appear slapping whips made of metal chains on their backs to the solemn clash of cymbals.
Then a group of 100 men kneel down in front of the gold-domed mosque as one of their number draws a long sword and ritually slashes their scalps. Blood oozes.
Religious chants alternate with political harangues: "No to America! No to Israel! No to the Devil!"
Then "Death to America!" -- a chant U.S. and British coalition forces, fresh from "liberating" Iraq from President Saddam Hussein, probably thought they'd never hear.
Iraq's Shiite Muslims make up two-thirds of the total 23 million population and suffered years of oppression at the hands of Saddam. Coalition war planners saw the Shiites as potentially strong and loyal allies. link
This points to the penutimate problem of occupied Iraq. The possibility of Islamic revolution culminating in a Shi'ite Islamic Republic like that of neighboring Iran.
As Crane Brinton, author of the classic Anatomy of a Revolution explains, revolutions rarely occur when a population is downtrodden. Instead, it is the bettering of circumstances, and the concomitant rising of expectations enabling a hope that revolution can succeed, which releases the revolutionary spark.
This is the danger in today's Iraq. 2/3 of the country are Shi'ites, long held down by Saddam's Sunni minority. Now that the lid is off, who will be able to keep the genie in the bottle?
Such was the case in Iran. Will history repeat itself next door?
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Now We will have to Bomb Ourselves
Bush bars UN weapons teams from Iraq
SIDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 24 2003
The United States will not permit United Nations weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, saying the US military has taken over the role of searching for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. link
Is it that we can't trust them or we want to plant something?
WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?
Russian official predicts 'catastrophic' events
April 24 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
A top Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying yesterday in Tokyo that a "catastrophic" development of events in the US-North Korean nuclear standoff was imminent and could occur within the next day. link
Afghan security deteriorates as Taliban regroup
Anthony Davis, JANE'S DEFENSE WEEKLY
After a winter punctuated by scattered attacks, March and April saw the closest to a co-ordinated offensive the anti-Kabul opposition has yet achieved. This left no doubt that the predominantly Pashtun forces aligned against the western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai had used the winter to regroup, train and achieve a far greater degree of organisational cohesion than was evident in 2002. An ad hoc alliance comprising Taliban remnants, the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) faction of former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and groups of Al-Qaeda stragglers now appears increasingly to be co-ordinating its command structures and support and logistics networks.
Politically, the opposition has displayed a new confidence and political assertiveness in recent months with various leaders publicly enunciating their goal of expelling western forces... ...Rocket attacks have gained both in frequency and intensity. Whereas last year one or two missiles was the norm, salvos are now being fired. There have also been barrages of mortar fire. LINK (thanks to agonist)
US Caves, Begins Direct Talks w/ N.Korea
After months of belligerency, the US did what it said it would not, i.e. begin direct talks with N. Korea, using China's presence as a "face saver." Why couldn't they have done this months ago? LINK
ALIENS LEAD U.S. SOLDIERS TO IRAQI WMDS
(Baghdad, April 23) General Tommy Franks announced today that US troops discovered huge stockpiles of Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the desert outside Baghdad, after being led to the site by a UFO.
"It was certainly fortuitous," Franks commented with a weary grin, "We had just about given up hope when a marine looked up in the sky, and saw a glowing, flying saucer." By following that saucer, he apparently was led to a large weapons cache that contained biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, all clearly marked "For use in the USA."
"That certainly was the 'smoking gun' we were looking for," Franks added. "Now the world knows we were justified in invading Iraq."
Franks also noted that the aliens telepathically communicated to him that Saddam Hussein had been aiding Osama Bin Ladin.
ADDENDUM: If you substitute "Unnamed Iraqi Scientist" for alien, you pretty much have Fox's TV coverage for the last couple days. Convenient that they can't name or show him. Maybe he IS an alien!
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
FREE HARRY POTTER!
Judge overrules Harry Potter ban
April 23 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
A federal judge ordered Harry Potter books back onto an Arkansas school district's library shelves, rejecting a school board's claim that tales of wizards and spells were harmful.
Ruling in favour of a fourth-grader's parents, US District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren today ordered the Cedarville School District in western Arkansas to put the four books in JK Rowling's popular series back in general circulation. LINK
More Good News
SARS mutating, becoming more virulent: new warning
April 23 2003, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD
Hong Kong: The deadly SARS virus appears to be becoming more virulent, attacking the intestines as well as the respiratory system, according to a leading Hong Kong microbiologist. more
MUST READ:
Iraqi anger boils over
An awful prediction: War of liberation from U.S. occupation is about to begin
ROBERT FISK, SPECIAL TO THE STAR
The army of "liberation" has already turned into the army of occupation. The Shiites are threatening to fight the Americans, to create their own war of liberation...
... And all across Baghdad, you hear the same thing, from Shiite Muslim clerics to Sunni businessmen, that the Americans have come only for oil, and that soon - very soon - a guerrilla resistance must start.
MORE
Yes, They Do Love Us
Iraqi Shi'ites Denounce U.S. 'Occupation'
By Saul Hudson
KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims swarmed through Iraq's holy city of Kerbala in a pilgrimage marked by religious fervor and slogans demanding that U.S. troops get out of the country. LINK
Did Saddam Make a Deal to Escape?
The following was reported by Debka.com last week, and verified by Reuters last weekend (link lost):
Deal with Iraqi Commander Opened Baghdad to Marines
April 13, 2003, 11:32 AM (GMT+02:00) DEBKA.COM
Saddam’s scientific adviser and liaison with the UN arms inspectors, General Amer Hammoudi Al-Saadi, was not the first Iraqi general to turn himself in to American forces. Just before closing its last edition on April 11, DEBKA-Net-Weekly received the first fragmentary reports from its intelligence sources of another general who trod the same secret path before him.
Those reports shed partial light on the ease with which the US 1st Marines Expeditionary Force was able to reach the heart of Baghdad on Wednesday, April 9, without encountering substantial Iraqi resistance. In one case, the Republican Guards supposed to defend the Diyala River bridges and keep American forces out of east Baghdad suddenly stopped shooting and deserted their posts. In general, large sections of the elite SRG divisions charged with defending Baghdad melted away without inflicting or suffering casualties.
In this sense, the keys to east Baghdad were handed over by the high commander of Iraq’s elite Special Republic guards, General Maher Safian Al-Tikriti, another of Saddam Hussein’s cousins. This was the upshot of discussions that took place between him and US special forces and CIA officers deployed undercover in the Iraqi-controlled parts of Baghdad.
General Takriti agreed to let US forces roll into central Baghdad unopposed across bridges that were not blown up in return for an American guarantee of safe exit from the city for his troops and a promise they would not be pursued.
Could that "safe exit" have included Saddam and his immediate family? Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh has alleged that that the CIA allowed Osama Bin Ladin to escape . There is also reason to believe likewise with Afganistan's Mullah Omar. The Military was looking 3,000 casualties at invading Baghdad, a cost that was probably way too high for public opinion to handle. The CIA saved them from from some difficult alternatives.
Oh and having Saddam at large? No biggie, we're used to that kind of thing.
Monday, April 21, 2003
BARF!
BUSH CIRCLE DEBATES WHETHER TO HOLD IRAQ VICTORY PARADE FOR MILITARY
As President Bush visited the nation's largest military base Sunday to attend Easter church services and meet with two helicopter pilots who were held as prisoners of war in Iraq -- a split has developed among White House advisers over whether to hold an official victory parade for the nation's military, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The president is said to favor heavily incorporating specific Iraq-war military salutes with Washington DC's official Fourth of July festivities, insiders reveal.
While insiders caution the president has not made any final decision, key Bush advisers have suggested a high-profile parade for war heroes -- to be held in the nation's capital, or New York City, or both. ... link
It will be one morally hollow victory parade, in my opinion.
New War Anyone?
Rumsfeld calls for regime change in North Korea
By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 22/04/2003)
A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked yesterday, opening a fresh foreign policy split in the Bush administration.
The classified discussion paper, circulated by the defence secretary, appears to cut directly across State Department plans to disarm Kim Jong-il, the North's dictator, through threats leavened by promises that his regime is not a target for overthrow. LINK
Amen to this:
Howard Dean via getdonkey :
Our nation should be viewed as a moral and just power, a power
that seeks to do good, one that has led by example and with a spirit
of generosity, and one that works with the world community in
advancing the ideals of human dignity and rule of law across the
globe.
The people of this country must understand that this Administration
has a far different concept of the role of America in the world. This
concept involves imposing our will on sovereign nations. This
concept involves dismantling the multilateral institutions that we
have spent decades building. And this concept involves distorting the
rule of law to suit their narrow purposes. When did we become a
nation of fear and anxiety when we were once known the world
around as a land of hope and liberty?
On day one of a Dean Presidency, I will reverse this attitude. I will
tear up the Bush Doctrine. And I will steer us back into the company
of the community of nations where we will exercise moral leadership
once again.
I'm not a Dean supporter, but I couldn't have said it better.
How the Iraqis feel about the Proposed US Bases There
"We would feel the same way as the Saudis," Mr. Abdullah said, referring to the anger in Saudi Arabia at the bases established there after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Osama bin Laden has often cited the American presence there as one reason for Al Qaeda's terror strikes. from Hesiod
Well, it took ten years for Osama to work his way up to 9-11, I guess we have that long till the next generation of terrorists is ready.
Love it Or Leave it?
Let me see if I can get this straight: Men fought and died for my right to free speech.
Therefore, I must remain silent and fall in line behind my president, even if I don't
agree with him.
My right to free speech is so precious I can't actually use it. If I do speak out, I
deserve to be deported to France or Germany.
I have a suggestion that might please those who criticize war protesters. If I go to
France with as many of my fellow peace activists as I can round up, perhaps all of
you who say, "Love it or leave it," will go to live with some of our allies in the war on
terror - Pakistan, maybe, or Uzbekistan, Qatar, Georgia, Kuwait or Colombia.
I'm sure the dictators of those countries would find your views on democracy quite in
line with their own. Perhaps you could even get a job spying on and imprisoning
dissidents. via South Knox Bubba
Quiz:
1. Who did the FBI harass for a year and a half for no reason?
2. Who did the FBI ignore despite credible warnings for years?
3. Why?
answers:
A. Wen Ho Lee
B. Katrina Leung
C. Because the FBI is corrupt and was only interested in investigating Democrats
D. Hell I don't know
Of course, the media is spinning this as another Al Gore scandal, believe it or not.
POW Rescue Was Faked!
So who really did save Private Jessica?
From Richard Lloyd Parry in al-Nasiriyah, LONDON TIMES
Doctor claims that soldiers terrorised unarmed staff
THE rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimised the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses.
Doctors at al-Nasiriyah general hospital said that the airborne assault had met no resistance and was carried out a day after all the Iraqi forces and Baath leadership had fled the city....
...“What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor — it’s a myth,” said Harith al-Houssona...
MORE(Worth Reading)
You JUST can't believe ANYTHING anymore. And you shouldn't.
Link explored between Terrorism, Serial Killing and Best Selling Book
"I don't have a problem with (government surveillance). I don't have anything to hide," Turner said. "I wish there was more government monitoring. I want to know if somebody on my block is reading a book on how to build a bomb or if there is anyone reading 'Catcher in the Rye.' They say there's a link between that book and many serial killers."...
...Is Big Brother watching the books you buy or the videos you rent?
That question cannot be answered, under the USA Patriot Act.
The law, passed before the dust from Sept. 11 settled, lets government agents seek court orders to seize records "for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
Critics have sounded a warning because such court orders cannot be challenged. Businesses are barred from telling anyone if they get one. Not even Congress can get an answer from the Justice Department on how many people are being monitored... LINK (Modesto, CA Bee)
BTW: The IPL suggests that in excess of 10 million copies of Catcher in the Rye have been sold. That's a lot of serial killers.
PLAYING WITH DEATH
Horror mine toll as Iraq's war children invent new games
By Stephen White And Colin Wills, Apr 21 2003
THE figures are frightening, the reality is appalling. Most guns may have fallen silent but the death toll in Iraq continues to rise. In the city of Kirkuk in the past seven days, 52 people have been killed and 63 injured by mines and dangerously unstable unexploded munitions. MORE
And guess which OTHER country has refused to sign the anti-mine treaty. (it has the same letters as us)
Wellstone Crash was due to Faulty Airport Beacon?
The theory that the crash was due to weather was contested in a letter by the charter operator ...
"As a direct result of the defect in the (beacon) and the State of Minnesota's negligence, the aircraft was guided away from the runway approach to the area where the aircraft collided with the ground," the letter said. LINK
If true, this could even give some credence to conspiracy theorists, who claim the flight was downed deliberately.
US army was told to protect looted museum
The United States army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that could have stopped the looting of priceless artifacts in Baghdad, according to leaked documents seen by The Observer. LINK
We always know best...
US struggles with new rules as war turns to occupation
Under international law, an occupied nation's laws take priority, but the US doesn't understand all local codes.
By Seth Stern | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Exiled Iraqi lawyers say the US government failed to adopt - or even translate from Arabic - suggestions they provided in advance on how to prevent the kind of civil disorder, including looting and revenge killings, that has marred postwar Iraq.
Weeks before the unrest erupted, the exiles proposed imposing martial law for 24 hours. The Pentagon also shelved a recommendation to recruit and vet Iraqi traffic police and security officers, who American soldiers did eventually turn to - but without checking their backgrounds. LINK
We know best, even if we don't know anything...
Sunday, April 20, 2003
US Bombs Iranian Rebel Group in Iraq Which is Backed by 150 Congressmen
U.S. Bombs Iranian Guerrilla Forces Based in Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL, NY TIMES
American forces have bombed the bases of the main armed Iranian opposition group in Iraq, a guerrilla organization that maintained thousands of fighters with tanks and artillery along Iraq's border with Iran for more than a decade...
... The attacks could well anger the more than 150 members of Congress from both parties who have described the Iranian opposition group as an effective source of pressure against Iran's government. In a statement last November, the group urged the Bush administration to remove the organization from its terrorist list.
"We made it very clear that these folks are pro-democracy, antifundamentalism, antiterrorism, helpful to the U.S. in providing information about the activities of the Iranian regime, and advocates of a secular government in Iran," said Yleem Poblete, staff director for the House International Relations Committee's subcommittee on the Middle East and Asia.
"They are our friends, not our enemies," she said. "The fact that they are the main target of the Iranian regime says a lot about their effectiveness." LINK
Are we stupid, or did we just cut a secret deal with the government of Iran? -- Just wondering.
Ignorance is Strength
Buzzflash comments: "White House Gets Credit in Some Quarters for "Spinning" War. Isn't That Called Propaganda, Skilled Use of Lies and Deception? " LINK
US "Bumbling" Let Bio-Weapons onto Open Market
Lethal Legacy: Bioweapons for Sale
U.S. Declined South African Scientist's Offer on Man-Made Pathogens
LINK
Conspiracy Theory: Of course, it might not be bumbling at all.
Cosmic Iguana Bans Biased Media
Folks, I am just plain tired of complaining and explaining that there is no liberal media, and in fact the media has become a conservative propaganda organ (what we bloggers call the Wurlitzer). So I have started banning the offenders from my life. What I do is delete them from my bookmarks if they are on my computer, or put an X over the button on my remote. First to be banned: Most of Fox, and the Washington Post. This had already happened before the war. Then MSNBC. I am now considering banning CNN, which I consider turning in most disappointing performance of the year. I may even ban the NY Times, except for Kristoff and Krugman's editorials.
Still recommended:
LA Times, Yahoo News, antiwar.com, buzzflash.com, americanpolitics.com, bloggers dailykos, atrios, and the agonist and many others.
Still tolerated: CBS, ABC to see what the mainstream is doing
It is a funny state of affairs that started with the Trent Lott affair and continued through the war, that nearly all real news started in the blogosphere, was picked up in the opinion columnists, and only then hit the mainstream media. Think about it: news starts with commentators and only then (if ever) is picked up and reported as news. It is the world upside down.
What this indicates is that we are in a state of total disinformation. Arguing about the liberal media is almost passe. It is a fight for the survival of information against propaganda.
ADDENDA: Must Read: Free speech is under threat in the US, says actor and director Tim Robbins. In this keynote address to journalists last week, he tells of the reprisals faced by anyone, including his family, who dares to dissent link
UPDATE: Uggabugga has a schematic diagram showing how it all fits together.LINK
US LIED ABOUT WMDs?
Anthrax, chemicals and nerve gas: who is lying?
Growing evidence of deception by Washington
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles, 20 April 2003
If US and British forces are scratching their heads at their inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, perhaps they should talk to Scott Ritter, the United Nations weapons inspector who famously quit in 1998, after seven years on the job, and has been a controversial figure ever since.
For months, Mr Ritter has said Iraq's capability of producing or deploying chemical or biological weapons was 90-95 per cent destroyed on his watch and was very unlikely to have been built up again under international sanctions and the constant surveillance of spy satellites and US and British war planes.
Iraq's nuclear programme was dismantled at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, he said, and factories to produce chemical or biological agents deactivated shortly thereafter. Any leftover nerve agents would only have a shelf life of five years and would probably be useless by now. The anthrax and botulism toxin that Iraq produced was never weap-onised and, although it was put into warheads at one point, was no more than harmless sludge that "could only kill you if it landed on your head".
This is the same Scott Ritter who, when he first made these assertions last autumn, was vilified in the US media as "misguided", "disloyal", not to be taken seriously and "an apologist for and a defender of Saddam Hussein". One cable news host, Curtis Sliwa said on air he was a "sock puppet" who "ought to turn in his passport for an Iraqi one".
Perhaps it's time to give Mr Ritter another chance. It may, in fact, be time to reassess who exactly has been the deceiver and who the dupe in this whole affair. What Mr Ritter and others now allege, with increasing confidence, is a pattern of false information emanating from both Washington and London since last September – lies and distortions that launched a major war and are only now beginning to be widely exposed... LINK
This is the book
Iraqis Believe in the Pre-Bush America
Iraqis Protest Against U.S.
By Hassan Hafidh, Reuters
..Demonstrators poured out of Friday prayers in Baghdad mosques chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an Islamic state to replace Saddam's toppled government... "Leave our country, we want peace," one banner read.
"This is not the America we know. The America we know respects international law, respects the right of people," Kubaisi said. MORE
That was the America we knew too. The America before George Bush.