Rove aide Taylor could face subpoena

Key Rove aide fingered in US Attorney investigation to step down; Could face subpoena
Multiple sources reported today that a top aide to President George W. Bush's key adviser Karl Rove will soon step down from her job in the White House. The aide, Sara M. Taylor, was identified in yesterday's testimony by a former top Justice Department official as having sought the resignation of a US Attorney in Arkansas. She could still face a subpoena. Last week, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees authorized subpoenas of Scott Jennings, a deputy to Taylor, who is a top aide to Karl Rove.
"The people for whom subpoenas were authorized were a result of the document review, and it could be could be that Jennings' name was more prevalent," said a House Judiciary Committee aide. "Other subpoenas can be authorized or issued should any other names come up."
Taylor and Jennings were both fingered yesterday by Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as playing key roles in the elevation of Tim Griffin, a top staffer in the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign and an Army Judge Advocate General, as the interim US Attorney for Arkansas in place of Bud Cummins.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asked Sampson in yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing why he believed the appointment of Griffin was important to Rove.
"That e-mail was based on an assumption," Sampson answered. "I knew that Sara Taylor and Scott Jennings had expressed interest in promoting Mr. Griffin for appointment to be U.S. attorney, and I assumed, because they reported to Karl Rove, that he was interested in that."
Both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog reported today that Sara Taylor, the White House political director, is set to resign soon.
"White House political director Sara M. Taylor, who has worked with Bush since April 1999, when he was starting his first presidential run, told Rove in December that she plans to leave in the spring, according to friends," wrote the Post's Peter Baker.
The Wall Street Journal's John D. McKinnon also stated that "persons familiar with the situation" said Taylor would exit soon.
Taylor's name had earlier been raised as a potential subject for House and Senate Judiciary Committee off the record interviews that White House Counsel Fred Fielding said could be permitted.
"Bush said that Fielding told lawmakers they could interview Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to political director Sara Taylor -- who in turn works for Rove," wrote the AP's Laurie Kellman on March 21.

Former Director of Office of US Attorneys to take Fifth Amendment

The former Director of the Office of US Attorneys Monica Goodling sent a letter late Friday to Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) through her attorney stating that she intends to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights if called to testify in the ongoing investigation into the firing of numerous US Attorneys by the Justice Department.

House Dems to Question DoJ Officials in Private
The House Judiciary Committee has worked out an agreement to have transcribed interviews with at least eight current and former employees of the Justice Department behind closed doors. The committee said that the deal followed a series of phone and written negotiations.
The first interview will be today with Michael Elston, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's chief of staff.
Following will be interviews with McNulty, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis; the former director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys Michael Battle; Monica Goodling, the DOJ's liaison to the White House (now on leave); acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer; and Assistant Attorney General William Moschella. Goodling, of course, has already said that she'd plead the Fifth. Congressional interviews are typically not under oath, but false statements are prosecutable (just ask David Safavian and Steven Griles).
Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and the other leaders have agreed that "investigators would keep the content of the interviews confidential pending consultation with Department officials." It's not clear when or if such a release might come, or if the interviews will be followed by open hearings.

HOW IRAN TREATS PRISONERS	HOW THE US TREATS PRISONERS

Is UK-Iran marine incident part of larger war provocation plan?

It is unlikely that evidence provided by either side, or even a diplomatic exchange or settlement, will defuse the larger confrontation already underway. The incident, and the resulting political tensions, are clearly part of a larger international agenda, similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident that set up the Vietnam War that the US government was hell-bent to start. If an overt act of war against Iran occurs around the marine incident, is it conceivable that London will lead the charge and be joined immediately by the Bush administration and Israel.

Ex-Partner Of Giuliani May Face Charges

Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.

This Is Your Disaster Plan...

Congress tells Bush: Get us out of Iraq

Olmert Fights Publication Of War Probe Findings
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert established the Winograd Commission to probe the government's execution of last year's war with Lebanon's Hezbollah, but now he is intent on making sure its findings never see the light of day.
Earlier in the week, Israel's High Court ordered the commission to make public the testimonies of Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Dan Halutz. But despite the fact that the court provided for the testimonies to be screened by a team of censors, Olmert's office insisted that their publication would harm national security.
Publishing the testimonies will "damage the security of the state, its foreign relations and its relations with various individuals and groups that were involved (in the war), and continue to be involved, [and management of] the state's security issues," read a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem.

Violations Force Feinstein Military Committee Resignation

A veteran California senator has resigned as chair of a powerful military construction committee after reports that for years she abused her position to award her husband’s companies billions of dollars in government contracts. During her six years as chair and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Dianne Feinstein annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars for specific military construction projects. The San Francisco lawmaker supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects.
She wielded quite a bit of power and succeeded in steering hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts to companies partially owned by her wealthy husband, Richard Blum. One company alone earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by Feinstein’s committee and another $759 million.
The blatant ethics violation and obvious conflict of interest was first exposed earlier this year by a weekly Northern California publication. The story details how Feinstein voted over the years for appropriations that enriched her husband’s firms and that her top legal advisor also happens to be one of her husband’s longtime business partners; in other words, a financial beneficiary of the senator’s decisions.
No wonder Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, is among the wealthiest members of congress. Last year she ranked eighth with a net worth of $42.6 million, boosted by assets she holds with her husband. Most of them are companies that have made their fortune from the very government contracts she has granted them.
Perhaps Feinstein quit her coveted military construction committee position because she is taking her new role as the senate ethics police quite seriously. As the new chair of the Senate Rules Committee Feinstein, for years an ethics violator, is actually in charge of regulating her colleagues’ ethical behavior.


O'Donnell 9/11 Rant Reaches 30 Million Viewers
Promises to feature physics professor on The View to discuss WTC collapse
Rosie O'Donnell is certainly not backing away from her public stance about 9/11, and this morning on The View went on a rant about the many questions surrounding the collapse of Building 7, reaching around 30 million viewers in the process. This is the largest single exposure 9/11 truth has enjoyed to date and it represents a watershed moment in the quest to bring the truth to the masses.
O'Donnell and her co-panelists debate the situation concerning Iran's seizure of the British marines before O'Donnell states, "Historically, have governments ever faked incidents or incited incidents in order to get them into wars?"
The discussion then moves on to the level of trust one can place in the Bush administration before O'Donnell asks, "What do you have to do to get an impeachment in this country?" The debate moves on to the "propaganda of the war on terror," with O'Donnell stating, "In America we are fed propaganda and if you want to know what's happening in the world go outside of the U.S. media because it's owned by four corporations, one of them is this one (ABC). Go outside of the country to find out what's going on in our own country because it's frightening...I think Democracy is threatened in a way it hasn't been in 200 years and if America doesn't stand up we're in big trouble," says O'Donnell.
Neo-Con panelist Elizabeth Hasselbeck tries to make an argument that thinking Iraq was involved in 9/11 was justifiable at the time, before asking O'Donnell if she believed the U.S. government had anything to do with 9/11.
"No, but I do believe it's the first time in history that fire has melted steel - I do believe that it defies physics for the World Trade Center Building 7, which collapsed in on itself, it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved - World Trade Center 7. One and two got hit by planes, 7 miraculously the first time in history, steel was melted by fire - it is physically impossible," states O'Donnell. "I don't know but to say we don't know and it was imploded in a demolition is beyond ignorant, look at the films get a physics expert here from Yale, from Harvard, pick the school, it defies reason."

Kucinich: 'Impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran'

Kucinich: 'Impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran'
During a speech on the House floor on Thursday, March 15, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) declared that "impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran." The 2004 presidential candidate, who is running again in 2008, told RAW STORY that his House floor statement "speaks for itself."
"This House cannot avoid its constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power," Kucinich said on the floor today. "The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies."
Kucinich noted that since the US "is a signatory to the U.N. Charter, a constituent treaty among the nations of the world," and Article II states that "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state," then "even the threat of a war of aggression is illegal."
"Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes such treaties the Supreme Law of the Land," Kucinich continued. "This Administration, has openly threatened aggression against Iran in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the U.N. Charter."
Kucinich added, "This week the House Appropriations Committee removed language from the Iraq war funding bill requiring the Administration, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, to seek permission before it launched an attack against Iran."
According to the Associated Press, "Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy."
"The Iran-related proposal stemmed from a desire to make sure Bush did not launch an attack without going to Congress for approval, but drew opposition from numerous members of the rank and file in a series of closed-door sessions last week," David Espo reported for the AP. "Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state."
"It would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran," Berkley told the AP, while Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) added, "I didn't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize it in a civilized way."
The AP article continued, "Several officials said there was widespread opposition to the proposal at a closed-door meeting last week of conservative and moderate Democrats, who said they feared tying the hands of the administration when dealing with an unpredictable and potentially hostile regime in Tehran. "
With the language on Iran removed from the Iraq funding bill, Kucinich now believes that impeaching Bush may be the "only remedy" left to prevent him from mounting an aggressive military campaign against Iran.
"Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran," Kucinich said today.
A press release by Kucinich's office notes that the Congressman "has consistently spoken out on the House floor and been an advocate for bringing to light the war this Administration is appearing to prepare against Iran," but this is the first time that he's raised the specter of "impeachment" there. Many Democrats insisted before and after last year's midterm elections that impeachment was "off the table."
In January, RAW STORY first reported that while making an unannounced appearance at a media reform conference, Kucinich was pressed by bloggers in attendance about impeachment.
"Telling the crowd that while he didn't think immediate action was wise, due to fears that Bush might 'accelerate the war even more,' the congressman warned that 'if Bush attacks Iran, all bets are off,'" Miriam Raftery reported. "'The President is clearly trying to provoke Iran,'" he said, adding that the Bush administration is 'treading on the thinnest ice it has ever been on.'"

Bush fully backs Britain in Crisis with Iran

TOP STORY Brits in the Gulf and a Doctored British Map?
"The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker. The BBC for instance has already interviewed a supposed expert regarding the map, who vouched for its authenticity. But the point is, as Craig Murray, points out, how can such a map exist if the subject of boundaries has never been settled between Iraq and Iran? Turns out the expert had been referred to the BBC by the British Ministry of Defense--who also turned out the plan.

Iran pursues Britons' case through diplomacy
"It surprises us that the British government kicked up a media storm by announcing a freeze in relations with Tehran, and said they might take up the matter to the Security Council instead of sending a team of experts to examine the problem," he said, adding, "That will not resolve the problem. They have miscalculated."

British troops surround Iranian consulate in Basra

Britain denies troops surrounded Iranian consulate in Basra and fired shots
At a critical period in the crisis over Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines, the Iranian consul in Basra charged that British soldiers on Thursday had surrounded his office in the southern city and fired shots into the air. Britain denied the allegation. The Ministry of Defense in London said the shooting was an exchange of gunfire after British troops on a foot patrol near the Iranian consulate were ambushed.

Britain rejects admission over captured sailors
Britain today rejected a demand by Iran's foreign minister that it admit its 15 sailors and marines entered Iranian waters in order to resolve a standoff over their capture.

Blair: Britain Won't Negotiate With Iran

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that Britain would not negotiate over British sailors and marines held hostage by Iran. In an interview with ITV News, Blair again called for the unconditional return of the 15 Royal Navy personnel who were seized by Iranian authorities last week.
It sounds as though Blair is reading from carefully choreographed script, with one very specific objective: to use this incident as the basis for some kind of military attack on Iran.

Britain Takes Case Against Iran to U.N.

Britain took its case to free its 15 sailors and marines held by Iran to the United Nations on Thursday, asking the Security Council to support a statement that would "deplore" Tehran's action and demand their immediate release. But Security Council diplomats said the brief press statement circulated by Britain's U.N. Mission is likely to face problems from Russia and others because it says the Britons were "operating in Iraqi waters" -- a point that Iran contests. It added that the British crew was "operating in Iraqi waters as part of the Multinational Force-Iraq under a mandate from the Security Council under resolution 1723 and at the request of the government of Iraq" and it called for their "immediate release."

Britain freezes ties with Iran, Tehran says woman to be freed

Britain froze official contacts with Iran on Wednesday in an escalating dispute over 15 detained naval personnel, as Tehran said it would soon release the only woman among the captives. Iran again rejected this and played down Britain's decision to freeze contacts with Tehran, saying ties were already "cold and inactive," the official news agency IRNA quoted a foreign ministry source as saying.

An exclusive interview with Faye Turney, hours before she was seized
How fortunate and a massive stroke of luck that the Independent grabbed this exclusive interview with this soldier.... It's as almost if someone "knew" what was coming and used this great empathy evoking token to full extent. Kinda reminds me of how lucky the BBC was to report the collapse of WTC-7 22 minutes before it actually happened.

Schumer: Rove, Miers subpoenas authorized, ready to be issued
A source from the office of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) tells the New York Observer that subpoenas to compel White House adviser Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers to testify before the Judiciary Committee regarding their roles in the dismissals of eight US Attorneys have been authorized and are ready to be issued.
"Senator Charles Schumer finds it 'hard to believe' that embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can continue in office for much longer," Jason Horowitz reports for the Observer. "At the same time, Mr. Schumer believes that the practical consequences for the Republican Party resulting from Mr. Gonzales’ actions -- the culling of eight U.S. Attorneys -- will be lasting."
Schumer tells the paper, "Clearly, it will affect 2008, because the credibility of the President and the people close to him is lower now today than it was a month ago, and that’s going to hurt." The Senate Judiciary Committee member called the White House's offer to allow "behind doors" testimony by White House officials "ridiculous."
"The terms that they proposed for Rove and Miers were so ridiculous -- that’s why they haven’t had any traction," Schumer said. "I haven’t seen one Republican who has justified doing it with no transcript. You can argue whether it should be public or private, or you can even argue about whether it should be sworn testimony. You cannot argue that there should be no transcript. The fact that they had to say ‘no transcript’ says something. Doesn’t it? It means that they want no accountability."
This year, the House breaks between the 2nd and 13th of April, the Senate between the 2nd and 9th of April. What a perfect time for some kind of "staged event" to occur, right when Congress is out of session!


Cryptic thank-you note may link Rove to US Attorney scandal
A previously overlooked e-mail from the Department of Justice document dump may turn out to be a smoking gun, of sorts, that links White House Adviser Karl Rove to the US Attorney firing scandal, reports Newsweek. Though it is unknown why Rove was being thanked, Iglesias is convinced that the e-mail implicates Rove.
"New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici's chief of staff sent a cryptic thank-you note to Karl Rove just as the senator was recommending replacements for David Iglesias, the fired U.S. attorney in New Mexico, according to internal White House and Justice Department documents," writes Michael Isikoff.
"Thanks for everything," read the e-mail, dated January 8th, 2007, which included the name of a replacement candidate for Iglesias' position.
The email, which was sent to Rove and two other White House officials, may have been initially overlooked because it was sent to a more obscure e-mail account of Rove's.
Though it is unknown why Rove was being thanked, Iglesias is convinced that the e-mail implicates Rove.
"This absolutely corroborates what I’ve been saying all along -- this is a political matter, not a performance matter," Iglesias told Newsweek after being read the e-mail. "What is he thanking him [Rove] for? It's thanking him for getting Dave out of the picture."
Domenici's press secretary refused to comment on the email.

GOP freezes 'Attorneygate' hearing in the middle of Republican's statement
The second half of the hearing on the firing of 8 US Attorneys with D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, screeched to a sudden halt today when Republican senators objected that the hearing violated Senate rules. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced that the hearing would need to be frozen while Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) was reading a statement.
"Does that apply to Republicans?" Grassley asked.
"It's the Republicans who want it to stop," Leahy answered.
But the cause of the delay was not clear. A spokeswoman for Senator Arlen Specter, Ranking Republican on the Committee, said the hearing would resume.
A live broadcast on MSNBC explained that Senate rules state that hearings can only occur for a certain number of hours before they must be concluded so that Members will pay attention to activities on the Senate floor.
"Whatever objection there was on the Republican side has been withdrawn," Senator Leahy then explained around 2:37 PM. "I've been here 33 years and I've never seen it happen before," he added, referring to the rules objection.
He added that the hearings cannot be stopped, and he'd hold them on nights and weekends if he needed to.

Ex-Aide Says Gonzales Statement on Firings Was Wrong
Alberto Gonzales's ex-chief of staff contradicted his former boss, asserting that the attorney general was wrong in saying he wasn't involved in discussions on firing eight U.S. prosecutors. Kyle Sampson, testifying today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he and Gonzales spoke at least five times over two years about plans to dismiss some federal prosecutors. Gonzales and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers signed off on the final decision, Sampson said.
"I don't think the attorney general's statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals was accurate,'' Sampson told the committee in Washington. "The attorney general was aware of this process from the beginning in early 2005.''
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, said today the Bush administration had given "shifting explanations'' for the dismissals. Sampson, 37, told the committee the firings were based on legitimate policy issues, not to interfere with criminal cases.
Sampson quit as Gonzales's chief of staff on March 12. The next day, Gonzales told reporters he "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on'' with the firings. The attorney general said he delegated the project to Sampson, who he said didn't keep senior agency officials properly informed about the terminations. Sampson worked for Gonzales during most of the past six years and became the attorney general's chief of staff in September 2005.
Sampson said today that he and Gonzales discussed the dismissals "during the thinking phase'' and at "the more final'' part of the process at the end of 2006. "Then, ultimately, he approved the list,'' as did Miers, Sampson said.
Gonzales attended a meeting on the firings on Nov. 27, less than two weeks before most of the prosecutors were fired, Sampson said. The Justice Department released a document last week that showed the attorney general was at the meeting. Gonzales didn't mention the meeting when he spoke to the media on March 13.
Sampson told lawmakers he agreed with Gonzales that the firings were appropriate.
Sampson told the senators that ex-U.S. Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego was asked to leave partly because of her poor record prosecuting immigration cases, not because she led a political corruption probe in which ex-Representative Randall "Duke'' Cunningham, a Republican, was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.
David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico whose office was investigating Democrats in a local corruption matter, also wasn't pushed out because of his cases, Sampson testified.
At one point, Sampson said, he suggested putting Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who was prosecuting ex- vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter'' Libby on perjury charges, on the list of prosecutors to be fired. Sampson said he made the suggestion to Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.
"They looked at me as if I had said something totally inappropriate, and I had,'' Sampson said.

'We were torturing people for no reason'

The results of the hangings, shacklings and prolonged stress positions - sometimes for hours - were devastating.
"You take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple, at least for a period of time," Lagouranis told me. "I don't care what Alberto Gonzales says. That's torture."

Rumsfeld torture suit dismissed
A US court has dismissed a lawsuit against former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld over claims prisoners were tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The court accepted that the nine men who sued had been tortured - and detailed the torture in its ruling. But Judge Thomas Hogan ruled the five Iraqis and four Afghans did not have US constitutional rights, and also that Mr Rumsfeld was immune from such suits. Two human rights groups brought the suit against him and three officers. Judge Hogan threw out the claims against retired Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of US military forces in Iraq, Col Thomas Pappas and former Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, both former commanders at Abu Ghraib prison. In a ruling stretching to nearly 60 pages, the chief judge of the US district court for the District of Columbia said the allegations of torture were "horrifying". The nine men suffered abuse including being:

• hung upside-down and slapped until they lost consciousness
• stabbed with knives
• subjected to electric shocks
• deprived of sleep by loud noises and bright lights
• grabbed by aggressive dogs

They also were subjected to sexual humiliation. None was ever charged with a crime. All were released after detentions of one month to one year. Some were detained multiple times.
The complaint alleged that the three officers knew torture and abuse were occurring and were present when officers under their command were committing torture and abuse. The complaint against Mr Rumsfeld - brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First - focused on an order he signed in December 2002 authorising new methods for interrogating prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Both groups say he later ignored overwhelming evidence that the policies resulted in prisoner abuse. Mr Rumsfeld has apologised for the abuse scandals. He was removed as defense secretary following the defeat of President Bush's Republican party in elections last year.

Military Advisor Issues Blistering Iraq Report
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a widely respected advisor to the U.S. military, has released a blistering report on the current situation in Iraq. McCaffrey's findings are based on interviews with dozens of officials during a March, 2007, trip to the war-torn region and Kuwait.

Iraq diggers 'contaminated with radiation'
TWO Australian soldiers who served in the first Iraq war have tested positive to depleted uranium (DU) contamination despite assurances from the Federal Government they had not been exposed, an anti-nuclear group said today.
Any such admission from the Government would leave it open to millions of dollars in compensation, said Pauline Rigby, project coordinator for the group Depleted Uranium Silent Killer (DUSK).
The results, now being evaluated for publication next month in two scientific journals, showed both men had tested positive to depleted uranium contamination more than 15 years after their return from the first Gulf War.

Iraq reaches out to Baathists with law overturning Bush’s 'biggest mistake'
A law banning tens of thousands of Baath Party members from holding government and military jobs is to be revised this week, allowing them to return to their jobs or receive pensions.

The War of Terror and the US "National Interest"

The Bush-Cheney regime’s focus is on violence. "The first priority is to remember that we are a nation at war . . ." So in Iraq, there is a push for a troop build-up, and in Afghanistan the US and NATO forces prepare for further violence. It is easy to demonize the "enemy" with language, but what is clear is that the killing of one million Iraqis is a genocidal campaign. Americans and citizens of the world do have a choice: support US terrorism and the continued destruction of the cradle of civilization or stand for peace.

NYT: Income gap in America widens
Report shows top 300,000 enjoy same income as bottom 150 million.

Broken Promises and Barefaced Lies

Senate Passes Amendment for Non-Binding Iraq Withdrawal
On Capitol Hill, the Senate has narrowly voted to keep an amendment calling for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by March of 2008. Republicans had tried to remove the provision from a bill that would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but set the non-binding deadline. The final vote was fifty to forty eight. Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska voted with Democrats.

Hagel Warns of Impeachment of President

Senator Hagel, a Republican of Nebraska who is predicting that President Bush will face calls for impeachment if he ignores Congress on the war, will introduce binding legislation this week to begin the withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq.

Mr. Hagel indicated his days of voicing skepticism about the war but voting with the president had ended. "I will not accept the status quo, I will not continue to support with my vote the current policy," he said.
He went further in an interview with the April issue of Esquire magazine. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends on how this goes," he said in that interview.
When asked yesterday on ABC what he meant by his comments to the magazine about impeachment, the senator said, "Any president who says, ‘I don't care,' or ‘I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else,' or ‘I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed' — if a president really believes that, then there are —what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that."



Broken Promises and Barefaced Lies

We have observed the same song and dance so many times before it's hard to believe more didn't see it coming. The Democrats once again let down their constituents and all the other voters who ushered them in to power last November – believing, in utter stupidity, that they would somehow halt the madness of the Iraq war by challenging the Bush administration and their Republican allies in Congress.

'Trophy' Video Exposes Private Security Contractors Shooting Up Iraqi Drivers
A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. In one of the videoed attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. In the last clip, a white civilian car is raked with machine gun fire as it approaches an unidentified security company vehicle. Bullets can be seen hitting the vehicle before it comes to a slow stop.


Making a Killing: America's Private Army and the Business of War
These private companies are part of a huge surge in the outsourcing of war, which is extremely evident in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, and numerous other countries. Private contractors are the second-largest contingent of the "Coalition of the Willing" with a ratio of about one armed con- tractor for every two American soldiers. This is up from a ratio of one to sixty during the first Gulf War. The Pentagon estimates the number of contractors at around 100,000--but this is only an estimate because after four years in Iraq the military is only now beginning a survey to find the size of its contractor force.
One part of the contract under scrutiny in the lawsuit, for instance, has revealed that Blackwater was paying its soldiers $600 per day but charged its client, Regency Hotel and Hospital Co., whom the deceased men were escorting, $945 per day. Regency was in turn a subcontractor of ESS, a division of Compass, who was subcontracted by Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR. There have been no documents showing how much each of the other companies added on to these charges by the time it reached the top contractor, Halliburton, who then billed the US government. Under Halliburton’s $16 billion contract they are only allowed to rely on the US military for armed protection and not private firms. If too many documents of this nature are released, there’s a possibility it could ultimately threaten Blackwater’s ability to win contracts.

Buried Alive

Screwed up, screwed over, and just plain screwed. The brutality of this language sadly fails to approximate what is happening to our soldiers and Marines in Iraq, and afterwards. We knew that the invasion of Iraq was conducted without transparent or comprehensive planning. We knew that the fundamental objectives were hidden from the American people -- endless occupation, big permanent American military bases, and the destruction, fragmentation and American political and economic subjection of a once politically important Iraq. What we didn’t know is that the administration’s recklessness, greed, and callousness extended to the American soldiers and Marines who did the administration’s dirty work.

Marines Recalling 1,800 Reservists

The Marine Corps is recalling 1,800 reservists to active duty, citing a shortage of volunteers to fill some jobs in Iraq.

lran's arrest of sailors was legitimate, says former UK envoy

"In international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim," Murray said, who was also a previous head of Foreign Office's maritime section, carrying out negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Middle East leaders meet, hope to revive peace process
Arab and Middle East leaders and diplomats gathered here today to breathe new life into a Middle East peace process and ease unprecedented regional tensions and threats to one of the world's most volatile regions

Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq

In the past, Saudi leaders including foreign minister Prince Saud Al Faisal have often criticized US policy in Iraq but have never described its presence there as "illegitimate." If Arab leaders recover trust in each other and regain their credibility, "the winds of hope will blow on the nation, and then, we will not allow forces from outside the region to determine the future of the region, and only the flag of Arabism will be raised on Arab soil," Abdullah said.

Prince Hassan: Neocons and Israel Plan “New 100 Years of War” in the Middle East

Prince Hassan made it clear that the idea of breaking Iraq into pieces, as is circulating in some US and Israeli circles, would be a fatal mistake. The Jordanian prince warned that a possible break-up would play into the hands of Israeli ‘extremists,’ making Israel the dominant minority in a region of minorities.”

US soldiers destroyed civilians houses in Baghdad

Inspired by Israel actions against Palestinians, US occupation forces using the same methods of collective punishment against Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

Shiite Police Kill 45 in Revenge Spree for Car Bombing
In Iraq, local officials are reporting at least 45 deaths today after off-duty Shiite police went on a rampage to avenge a massive bombing in the northern town of Tal Afar. The officers are said to have roamed Sunni neighborhoods, rounded up men and shot them execution-style. The attacks follow a double-truck bombing that killed sixty people in Tal Afar on Tuesday. Another 150 were wounded. Several attacks were also reported around Baghdad.

Unidentified Baghdad resident: "We appeal to every Muslim man and to those who believe in God to find a solution for Iraq. God is greatest. We are going crazy! Our families, women and children are being killed!"

A searing assault on Iraq's intellectuals
The middle class is fleeing the violence and threats, leaving the question: Who will lead?

Retired General: US Military in “Strategic Peril”
The violence comes as a new Pentagon assessment based on interviews with senior US commanders says the US military is in “strategic peril.” The assessment is authored by Retired General Barry McCaffrey. He writes: “The population is in despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate.”

An Antiwar Tide on The Rise
Within three weeks, the United States could face a constitutional crisis over President Bush's war policy in Iraq. The president and his allies seem to want this fight. Yet insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day.

Pat Tillman: Shoddy treatment
Tillman Family Rejects Pentagon Probe into Shooting Death
Pentagon investigators are recommending disciplinary action against nine officers involved in the initial probe into the death of former football star turned soldier Pat Tillman. Tillman was killed in Afghanistan after being shot by a fellow Army Ranger. The military initially said he died from an attack by Taliban fighters. The probe found the nine officers passed along misleading and inaccurate information and delayed reporting their belief Tillman was killed by friendly fire. The officers include four generals -- Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, retired Brigadier General Gary Jones, now-Brigadier General James Nixon and Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger. McChrystal is commander of the Joint Special Operations Command while Jones led a previous military investigation into Tillman’s death. Meanwhile investigators have also ruled out criminal negligence in Tillman’s shooting. Tillman’s family has rejected the findings. In a statement, the Tillman family called the investigation “shamefully unacceptable” and called for a Congressional probe.

'NYT' Backs Congressional Probe of Pat Tillman Case

WHITE HOUSE STAFF USING OUTSIDE EMAIL SERVERS TO EVADE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT

Gonzales Aide to Invoke Fifth Amendment
Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

Lawmakers Prod White House About Rove
Lawmakers prodded the White House Wednesday for a new answer on whether President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, will testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

Nik Scott, Australia

David Hicks Becomes First Guantanamo Prisoner to Plead Guilty
The Australian citizen David Hicks has become the first Guantanamo prisoner to plead guilty under the Military Commissions Act passed last year. Hicks entered the plea as part of a deal with military prosecutors.

Pentagon spokesperson Beth Kubala: "At approximately 20:25 this evening, the military judge assembled the parties and reopened the proceedings. The military judge stated that he had been advised at an 8:02 conference that Mr. Hicks desired to enter pleas. For Mr. Hicks, Major Morey entered a plea of guilty to specification 1, not guilty to specification 2, and guilty to the charge."

Hicks has been held at Guantanamo for the past five years. The U.S. government had originally accused him of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to engage in acts of terrorism, attempted murder and aiding the enemy but only ended up charging him with one crime -- providing material support for terrorism. Pentagon officials say Hicks will likely serve his sentence in Australia.The plea came after a military judge barred two of Hicks’s lawyers from the court proceedings. One of the attorneys had refused to sign a document pledging to follow court rules that weren’t defined.

Hicks attorney Joshua Dratel: "David has been through an extraordinary ordeal for more than five years, and I don't think that one day, one evening, one situation, more or less is going to change the tide of what he has undergone for five years, and that is going to take some time. And again, as Mr. McLeod said, this is the beginning of a process that I hope will make David whole again, as soon as possible.”

Legal observers are criticizing the trial. Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch said: “Today’s antics highlighted the illegitimacy of a hastily crafted process without established precedent or established rules. It appears that Mr. Hicks was strong-armed into pleading guilty after two of his counsel were thrown off the case.”

Judge Dismisses Rumsfeld Torture Suit
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the torture of prisoners in US custody overseas. The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had brought the case on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit said Rumsfeld had tacitly or directly authorized a series of abuses including beatings, stabbings, shocks, burnings and sexual humiliation. In his dismissal ruling, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan acknowledged the men had been tortured. But he said they do not have constitutional rights to seek redress and that government officials are immune.

The Pentagon’s Power to Jail Americans Indefinitely
Last Friday, the presiding judge in the case, Marcia Cooke, denied Padilla’s motion to dismiss. The judge held that when a person, including an American citizen, is held in custody by the Pentagon as an “enemy combatant,” the time doesn’t start running with respect to his right to a speedy trial. It begins running, she held, only when he becomes part of the federal criminal-justice system.
I wonder if the judge’s reasoning applies to the rest of the Bill of Rights as well. Maybe the First Amendment doesn’t apply if it’s the Pentagon that is suppressing speech and assembly as part of its perpetual “war on terror.” Or maybe the Second Amendment prohibits only the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), not the Pentagon, from seizing guns from the American people, as it is doing as part of the “war on terror” in Iraq.

Gulf economies to 'drop the dollar'
Gulf economies will move away from a dollar currency peg and shift foreign exchange reserves away from dollar to other currencies, including the Chinese yuan, the chief executive of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has said

Iran planning to stop using U.S. dollar to price oil, central bank governor says
Iran is planning to stop using the U.S. dollar to price oil, with less than half of its oil income now paid in the U.S. currency, Iran's central bank governor said.
This is the REAL threat from Iran.

China shifts to euros for Iran oil
China's state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the biggest buyer of Iranian crude worldwide, began paying for its oil in euros late last year as Tehran moves to diversify its foreign reserves away from U.S. dollars.
The Chinese firm, which buys more than a tenth of exports from the world's fourth-largest crude producer, has changed the payment currency for the bulk of its roughly 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) contract, Beijing-based sources said

Gulf Arabs distance themselves from U.S. threats against Iran
The president of the United Arab Emirates forbade the U.S. military from using bases in his country to attack or spy on Iran as mammoth U.S. Navy maneuvers in the Gulf entered their second day.

Russia warns US against attacking Iran
Russia's Foreign Ministry has sharply criticised the United States for what it called over-reliance on force and warned Washington against military action against Iran, The Associated Press reported.
Russia criticised what it called "the creeping American strategy of dragging the global community into a large-scale crisis around Iran," saying that Tehran helps maintain stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Britain Unveils Evidence on Sailor Capture
Britain has begun unveiling evidence today it says proves Iran’s capture of fifteen British sailors took place in Iraqi waters. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected a question of whether the seizure could be linked to the U.S. arrest of five Iranians in Iraq earlier this year.
In other news from Britain, a protester interrupted a service Tuesday to mark the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of slavery. The event came to a halt when the protester ran in front shouting “you should be ashamed” and “this is an insult.” Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth the Second were among those in attendance.

Bush's Royal Trouble
Abdullah's bowing out of the April 17 event is, in fact, one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad. Friends as well as foes see the need, or the chance, to distance themselves from the politically besieged Bush.

Reagan Budget Director Indicted for Conspiracy, Fraud
A former budget director under President Ronald Reagan has been indicted on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and fraud. Prosecutors say David Stockman misled investors in a Michigan auto parts manufacturer that he used to head.

CIA Links Colombian Army Chief to Paramilitaries, Traffickers
In news from Colombia, the CIA has reportedly obtained evidence linking the head of the Colombian army to right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers. According to the Los Angeles Times, a CIA report has concluded General Mario Montoya collaborated with the groups during a military operation on a rebel-controlled shantytown in 2002. At least fourteen people were killed and another forty-six went missing. General Montoya has worked with the Pentagon on military training and on a new hemispheric taskforce on drug trafficking.

Kissinger Focus of Uruguay Extradition Request
In Uruguay, the family of a victim of the twelve-year US-backed dictatorship has asked for the extradition of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The victim, Bernardo Arnone, was arrested in 1976 and flown to Argentina where he was presumably executed. Arnone’s family says Kissinger was a key figure behind the Condor Plan, a secret plan hatched by South American dictators in the 1970s to eliminate leftist political opponents in the region. Details of the plan have emerged over the past years in documents and court testimony. The Latin American dictatorships of the time "were mere executors" of a "plan of extermination" hatched in the United States by a group led by Kissinger, said attorney Gustavo Salle, who represents the family of Bernardo Arnone

Starwars is a reality - US Army attacked European satellite
The major Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger reported Saturday, between the 23rd and 24th of January the Eutelsat Hot Bird 8 satellite was disrupted by the US Army using very powerful radio interference signals from the ground to block all transmissions. The Swiss news organisation SDA and also the French AFP that send their news wire to media outlets over the satellite, plus a number of TV and radio stations where dead for 24 hours. They could not supply their news service to newspapers anymore. The aim of the US Army was to stop the Iraqi al-Zawraa TV channel from broadcasting insurgency videos showing attacks against US forces. But it was a mistaken identity and they targeted the wrong satellite. The US Army got the wrong channel and actually hit the similar sounding Iraqi al-Zahra TV channel. The one they wanted to get, al-Zawraa, never stopped broadcasting because it uses the Arabsat satellite. This action shows, the US military has the means to shutdown every satellite they want.

Why George Bush is Insane
I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. "If you are not with us you are against us"
President Bush has also said "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.

Report: Homeland Security falling behind in catching foreigners ordered out of country
Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave are grappling with a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can't accurately account for the fugitives' whereabouts, the government reported Monday.

FBI agent told to keep quiet over attorney firings
An FBI agent was warned to keep quiet about the dismissal of a U.S. attorney after he told a newspaper her firing would hurt the agency's ongoing investigations and speculated politics was involved, a U.S. Senate panel heard on Tuesday.
...U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who helped win the 2005 political corruption conviction of then-U.S. Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, was among seven prosecutors fired on December 7.
On January 13, the San Diego Union-Tribune quoted Dan Dzwilewski, head of FBI's San Diego office, as saying Lam was crucial to ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," he was quoted saying.

Senators blast FBI chief for failures

FBI Head Acknowledges Breaches in National Security Letters
FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Tuesday the FBI has made hundreds of errors in its use of “national security letters” to access the personal information of US citizens. Mueller was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was his first appearance at a hearing since an audit this month found numerous errors and possible breaches of the law. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said the Judiciary Committee will begin reexamining the FBI’s broad authorities granted under the Patriot Act.

Mueller Defends Need for Expanded Powers
FBI Director Robert Mueller struggled Tuesday to convince skeptical senators that - despite recent abuses - the FBI should retain Patriot Act authority to gather telephone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval.
"The statute did not cause the errors. The FBI's implementation did," the FBI chief told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

New Ohio evidence exposes apparently illegal 2004 recount activity by Hocking County's GOP Election Director, and a stinging complaint is filed in Cleveland

Wildlife at risk under US plan: environmentalists
Bears, birds and other creatures could be put at greater risk under proposed Bush administration changes to the Endangered Species Act, according to a US government document.

'NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims

Sound pretty convincing? Well, almost all the sources in the story are unnamed. It also may be worth noting that the author is Michael R. Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

Snow: Cancer Has Returned, Spread to Liver
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has announced his colon cancer has returned and spread to his liver. Snow was treated for colon cancer in 2005. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino has taken on Snow’s duties.

Cities set limits on serving food to homeless people
Cities are cracking down on charities that feed the homeless, adopting rules that restrict food giveaways to certain locations, require charities to get permits or limit the number of free meals they can provide.

More Veterans Calling The Streets Home, An Estimated 200,000 U.S. War Veterans Are Homless
One in three homeless Americans is a veteran.
Let that statistic sink in for a moment: 33% of our homeless population are Vets. Between this and the scandal at our veterans' hospitals, you have to conclude that this administration considers these people completely expendable upon their coming back home.

The Voice of the White House for March 26th 2007
So-called “subprime” mortgages were made by these companies to persons with dubious, little or no credit. The initial lenders faked credit reports and persons holding them were often able to get a house with no down payment at all! What these lenders did next was to sell the mortgages to big Wall Street houses, take the money and run with it.
The buyers had been bamboozled into thinking they had paper of value and when the time came to increase the payments, as they had every legal right to do, they quickly found out that the mortgages could barely make the small initial monthly payments and when the banks holding the paper, raised the rates, the holders were completely unable to pay (as the original mortgage brokers well knew) and the homes went into foreclosure and the Wall Street firms were stuck with billions of dollars of paper with nothing behind it but fake credit reports. Now, the small original lenders have folded up their tents, cackled with glee as they pocketed their loot and vanished into the night, leaving the respectable firms with billions in debt. This is as big a fraud as the rigged dot com frauds of the ‘90s.
... or the frauds that triggered the S&L collapse of the 80s.

Aged, Frail and Denied Care by Their Insurers
Thousands of policyholders say they have received only excuses about why insurers will not pay. Interviews by The New York Times and confidential depositions indicate that some long-term-care insurers have developed procedures that make it difficult -- if not impossible -- for policyholders to get paid. A review of more than 400 of the thousands of grievances and lawsuits filed in recent years shows elderly policyholders confronting unnecessary delays and overwhelming bureaucracies. In California alone, nearly one in every four long-term-care claims was denied in 2005, according to the state.

18,000 deaths blamed on lack of insurance
More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.
The 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," examines the plight of 30 million --one in seven -- working-age Americans whose employers don't provide insurance and who don't qualify for government medical care.

The future looks very bleak
The crash of the US economy has begun. Although the reasons for the now-accelerating economic fiasco have been in place for decades, the chickens are only now coming home to roost. The murder weapons used to kill the economy are "free trade," outsourcing, illegal immigration, special work visa programs, and unrestrained government spending, which have all contributed to the death of what was just a few decades ago the economic powerhouse of the world.

Settlement in Florida boot camp death
In Florida, authorities in Bay County have been ordered to pay $2.4 million to the family of a fourteen-year old who died at a juvenile “boot camp” last year. The teenager, Martin Lee Anderson, was initially said to have died of a complication from sickle cell blood disease. But a second autopsy later concluded he suffocated to death after guards beat him. The new fine comes on top of a five million dollar settlement from the state of Florida earlier this month.

Sex abuse of juveniles in Texas covered up
For at least two years, investigators say, boys at a juvenile prison in the West Texas desert were summoned from their dorms late at night and taken to darkened conference rooms, offices and ball fields for sex with two of the institution's top administrators.

Hundreds could be freed from TYC

Hundreds of Texas Youth Commission inmates could be released once a special panel reviews their cases, the special master overseeing the investigation of sexual and physical abuse at the agency said Friday.

Gonzales Implicated In Cover-Up Of New Pedophile Scandal

Journalist Jerome Corsi appeared on the Alex Jones Show today to discuss in depth his astounding new investigation that implicates both Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in the cover-up of a pedophilia scandal involving the Texas Youth Commission.

Gonzales Bolts Press Conference Following Attorney Questions
And finally in Chicago, a promised fifteen-minute press conference with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales turned to less than three minutes Tuesday as Gonzales ducked questions about the firing of the eight US attorneys. Gonzales left the podium after taking just three questions.

Cheney speech at BYU causes outcry
Henry said his group felt that it was not appropriate for someone of such an "inflammatory" nature to be at BYU. Henry criticized the move to have Cheney because the vice president does not meet the university's policy on speakers having "a good public reputation and a moral private life."

FLASHBACK: Bush confesses to war crimes
George W. Bush's speech on September 6 [2006] amounted to a public confession to criminal violations of the 1996 War Crimes Act. He implicitly admitted authorizing disappearances, extrajudicial imprisonment, torture, transporting prisoners between countries and denying the International Committee of the Red Cross access to prisoners.

Pentagon conducting research into adverse effects of anthrax vaccine while maintaining it is safe

While the Defense Department maintains that the anthrax vaccine is safe and poses no long-term risks to recipients, a little-known program at Walter Reed -- the National Vaccine Healthcare Center -- seems to contradict the military’s assertions.
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/37/55/
"...a recent Food and Drug Administration hire whose job includes helping with pandemic planning was nowhere in sight. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who joined the FDA as deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs, was recused from key parts of the planning effort because his past consulting work for Manning Selvage & Lee involved companies whose products would be used to combat a flu pandemic.
Gottlieb's former clients include Roche -- manufacturer of the highly sought antiviral Tamiflu -- and Sanofi-Aventis, parent company of the nation's sole flu vaccine manufacturer. Manning Selvage & Lee paid Gottlieb a $12,500 monthly retainer for nine months for business development projects that included eight companies.
Other firms regulated by the FDA he was involved with include Inamed Corp., one of two companies seeking to return silicone gel implants to the market. He also did private consulting work for VaxGen Inc., a California firm that won a $878 million federal contract to supply 75 million doses of anthrax vaccine for the nation's protective stockpile. The $9,000 he accepted from VaxGen for consulting work between May and July prevents him from doing FDA work related to that company until August 2006."

"This Isn't American Idol, We're Choosing the President of the United States"
Dennis Kucinich on Corporate Media Campaign Coverage
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D - OH) was one of eight Congressmembers to vote against the House war-spending bill last week that set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We go to Capitol Hill to speak with Kucinich about the bill, why he thinks impeachment "should be on the table," the corporate media's coverage of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and more.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, eight anti-war Democrats voted against the supplemental spending bill when it came before the house. One of those lawmakers, Congress member Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, joins us from Capitol Hill. Congress member Kucinich is also running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. First of all, as you stand overlooking the capitol, talk about your vote against the war funding bill.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, we were given false choices. We were told that we either buy into president Bush's plan, which is keep the war going indefinitely, or accept the Democratic version of the war in Iraq, which would keep the war going for another year or two. I say those choices weren't sufficient.
The Democrats could have refused to send a bill forward. We didn't have to fund this war. We're not under any obligation to keep the war going. And yet our leaders took another path. Furthermore, Amy, you may be interested to know that the 2008 budget, which is before Congress today and will be voted on tomorrow, contains another $145 billion for the war, and on top of that, they're putting another $50 billion for the war in fiscal year 2009.
So this talk about ending the war by March or by September belies the fact that the budget has money in it to keep the war going into 2009. And I think that's wrong. I think the American people will reject that type of thinking, and I’m standing strong to say get out now. I put forth a plan embodied in HR 1234. To accomplish just that.

AMY GOODMAN: But what about those that were, and what about the spending bill going way beyond funding wars?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It's a legitimate concern. I mean, if you're for peace, you vote for peace. If you're for peace, you don't vote for war because somebody's giving you a plum in a bill that's designed to keep a war going. I think the American people want new leadership which understands that if you're for peace, you vote for peace, you don't fund wars.
And so I’m moving forward with a plan, it's embodied in HR 1234 that would stop the funding and the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home, and set in motion a parallel process that would stabilize Iraq with the help of the international community, which will only help, by the way, unless, you know, if the United States takes a new course and ends the occupation.
...The Democrats' position should have been and can still be, that we refuse to fund the war, that we don't give this president a dime to keep the war going, that we use money in the pipeline to bring the troops home and set in motion a parallel process that would secure Iraq. We're under no obligation to keep this war going....But I would say, Amy, that if you look at the budget, which is facing Congress tomorrow, it provides not only $145 billion for fiscal year ‘08 for the war, for all of it, but another $50 billion for fiscal year 2009. I wonder how that squares with Democratic leaders' position that they want to bring the troops home in March or in September of next year. There's something that's contradictory here.
So I’m going to try to see if I can reconcile that today in Congress by talking to leadership and alerting my fellow members that money is in the budget to keep this war going past President Bush's term. President Bush has been very clear. He's going to keep this war going through the end of his term. I say that American should get out now, that it's not a choice between President Bush or keeping the war going another year, year and a half. We need to get out now, and we need to let the troops know we truly support them, by bringing them home.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, what would getting out now look like? I mean, do you mean, for example, today, you begin the process, and when would the soldiers be home if -- well, if you were president, Dennis Kucinich?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I crafted my plan with the help of the people at the UN, and I will tell you that they say that it would take about two months, three months to mobilize a sufficient force that would replace US Troops leaving. So I say two to three months we could have troops home and have an international force that would help stabilize Iraq. But the international community will not become involved as long as the United States intends to occupy Iraq and keep bases open. So we need to take a new direction.
My plan would be as follows: to put in place the provisions of HR 1234, which ends the occupation, closes the bases, sets in motion a plan to bring the troops home, bring in international peacekeepers, and stop the privatization of Iraq oil. One of the things in the bill that passed the House was a demand that the Iraq government pass a hydrocarbon act which sets the stage for broad privatization of trillions of dollars of Iraqi oil interests.
Now, think about it. If Democrats had told the American people last October that if you vote democrat in November, we'll not only give you enough money to keep the war going through the end of President Bush's term, but we'll also privatize the oil of Iraq and then help the US oil companies win the prize that I think the war was all about from the very beginning. I don't think the people would have voted Democrat. So Democrats have to keep faith with the American people.
My plan would do that, by returning full control of the Iraqi oil assets to the Iraqi people. Put in motion a plan for reconciliation between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, which cannot happen as long as the United States occupies. Provide for honest reconstruction, you know, none of these contractors from the US can be there. They've stolen money from the Iraqi people and also from the US taxpayers.
We have to give the Iraqi people jobs with Iraqi contractors doing the work. We have to provide for reparations so that we can pay money to the Iraqi people who have lost their homes or lost the lives of loved ones. We have to stabilize energy and food prices. And when Iraq goes to the international community, make sure that Iraq doesn't suffer from the structural readjustment provisions of the IMF or the World Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Congress member Kucinich to Halliburton saying they're moving to Dubai?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I think the honest thing would be to have a good Attorney General call Halliburton in and start the questioning of them about their conduct, and I think that they should not be immune from prosecution simply because they're moving to Dubai.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. What do you think should happen to him?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It's very clear that the Justice Department has become so politicized that it cannot function in the interests of the American people. The honorable thing would be for Mr. Gonzales to resign.

AMY GOODMAN: And if he doesn't resign, should he be fired? Should the President fire him?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I don't think that's going to happen. I think he's doing what the President has asked him to do. The question here is what's his sense of honor about his responsibility to the law and to the American people. That's going to be his decision.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of the President, what do you think should happen to President Bush? Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, said that impeachment is off the table. What are your thoughts?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I don't think that it's wise for the House and the Congress, for co-equal branches of government, to essentially give the President carte blanche in his decision making by saying no matter what you do, impeachment is off the table. I think that impeachment has to be on the table, and I also think that it's time to have a national conversation in cities, in towns all over America about the appropriate conduct for a President and a Vice President, about whether it's right for a President and Vice President to lie to the American people and take us into war. About the erosion of civil rights in America and how that's come about as a result of this administration's conduct of the war.
I think that it's time to have that kind of a discussion, and I’ve urged that from my website at www.kucinich.us, and I’m asking to hear from people about what they think, and I think that we need to make sure that this President understands that he can't do whatever he wants, that he is bound by the constitution, that he is bound by national and international law.
...I do think that accountability is a key word here. And I think the President and the Vice President must be held accountable. That's why I think it's a mistake for anyone to say impeachment is off the table. At the same time, we have to take a responsibility as members of Congress to uphold the constitution of the United States. That's our obligation as a co-equal branch of government. So I’m waiting to hear from the American people. I would ask people who are listening or watching to go to my website at: www.kucinich.us. I'd like to hear from you. What do you think? Should the House move forward with a resolution of impeachment and what do you think the dimensions of it should be? I want to hear from the American people on this.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the Center for Constitutional Rights going to Germany to file a complaint against former Congress member -- or rather, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld? It's not only against him, it's against Alberto Gonzales, it's against General Sanchez and Miller for torture, over the issue of torture.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I think that all members of this administration, including the President, the Vice President, and all the other officials you mentioned, should be held accountable under international law, and that that accountability does not expire with the expiration of the term of this President. America at some point is going to have to restore its moral equilibrium, which has been lost, because this administration took us into a war based on lies. They all have to be held accountable. They must be held accountable, not only under national, but international law.

AMY GOODMAN: When you came to the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, you talked about holding hearings around the FCC, heading up a committee that is responsible for the FCC, I think it's the Domestic Policy Subcommittee the House Oversight on Government Reform Committee. What do you plan to do?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, our committee just started its work last week. The Domestic Policy Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission. It's been 20 years since we’ve had and hearings at all on the Fairness Doctrine. It’s been a long time since Congress has held hearings on the concentration in the electronic media.
And so I want to proceed with hearings sometime in the next few months that would review the -- those animating principles of the FCC embodied in the Federal Communications Act of 1934, and that is that the electronic media shall serve in the public interest, convenience, and necessity. I want to hold that up and see if today's conditions corresponds to what it was that gave the public the inclination to cause electronic media to be licensed and if the licensees have kept faith with the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: You also just returned from New York, where you held a news conference on universal healthcare. How does your plan differ from, for example, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Senator, also Democratic hopeful – Presidential hopeful, also said she supports universal healthcare.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it differs in every way. Everyone in this campaign is for universal healthcare. But what Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, and others are talking about is having the insurance companies still in charge of healthcare, of having the government subsidize the insurance companies or forcing people to buy insurance or have the government subsidize the purchase of insurance.
Look, the President of the United States shouldn't be an insurance salesman. The President should stand for a position where everyone is covered, that's what my bill does. The Conyers-Kucinich Bill, HR 676, Medicare for all, it ends for-profit medicine, it is a single-payer system which recognizes we're spending $2.2 trillion a year on healthcare, but 31% of that, or $660 billion, goes for the activities of the for-profit system.
Take that money, put it into healthcare, and you have enough money to cover every medical need, including dental care, vision care, mental health, prescription drug, and long-term care. Healthcare is a right, it's not a privilege. Senator Clinton's plan helps the insurance companies, it keeps the for-profit system going, and my plan ends the for-profit system and uses the savings to provide healthcare for everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the media coverage of the Democratic Presidential race right now? A lot of attention on both Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Obama and Clinton. Of course, last time you also ran for president, and there was a major issue the day after you took Ted Koppel to task at ABC for asking questions about polls and money as opposed to issues on your positions. The next day, the so-called embedded reporter in your campaign was pulled, the ABC reporter. What about the coverage now?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: My concern wasn't so much whether reporters were embedded in my campaign, as much as it was the fact that mainstream media reports were embedded with the war. But as far as my own campaign, look, I’m bringing issues forth to the American people. We're organizing in places like New Hampshire, where the Democratic Party just came out in favor of single-payer healthcare, not for profit. My campaign is about organizing door-to-door and grass roots fundraising, and people who want to get involved can go to kucinich.us and help us.
I'm not going to be on my knees begging for attention from the mainstream media. They have to realize that they have a responsibility as broadcast licensees to provide coverage to all the candidates. After all, this isn't "American idol", we're choosing a President of the United States. The American people have a right to a substantive discussion about those issues that affect their lives, such as war and peace, such as poverty and prosperity, healthcare for all, or keep the insurance companies in business in healthcare.
We need a new discussion, and I appreciate the chance to be on Democracy Now!, because I know your audience is an audience of people with principle, of activism, and I’m confident that when they hear what I stand for, they'll be interested in joining this campaign.

Federal Reserve: Hiding 9-11 Evidence?
“The currency component of M1 (Federal Reserve Notes circulating outside of banks) rose especially rapidly in July and August 2001. In fact, up to and including August 2001, that month (August 2001) was one of the three fastest growing months for the currency component of M1 since 1947, on a seasonally adjusted basis, even on the heels of significantly above-average growth in July 2001. Much of the July-August surge (over $5 billion above-average) seems to have been in the $100 denomination. Among other explanations, persons aware of any imminent terrorist attacks and concerned about possible asset seizures such as those that arose after the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the 1998 embassy bombings could have been trying to liquidate their bank accounts in July and August 2001. The money trail could provide important clues about people aware of, if not responsible for, the attacks. I looked at some internal data bearing on this issue that was available to anyone within the Federal Reserve’s internal computer network; after going back to look at this important data again a week or two later, it was no longer freely available, but password protected.”

9-11 Research: Tower Blueprints
The detailed architectural drawings make clear what official reports have apparently attempted to hide: that the Twin Towers had massive core columns, and those columns ran most of the height of each Tower before transitioning to columns with smaller cross-sections.
Based on construction photographs exhibited in the Skyscraper Museum and illustrations from the Engineering News Record , 9-11 Research had established by mid-2005 that, low in the Towers, the sixteen core columns that bounded the long faces of the buildings' cores had dimensions of 54 by 22 inches. The detailed drawings show that these columns maintained these dimensions through about the 66th floor.
Both of the government-sponsored engineering studies of the Twin Towers' "collapses" -- FEMA's and NIST's -- are highly misleading about the core structures. Neither Report discloses dimensions for core columns -- dimensions that are clearly evident in the architectural drawings. Both Reports use a variety of techniques seemingly designed to minimize the strength of the cores or to conceal their structural role entirely.
So effective was FEMA at concealing the nature of the cores that the 9/11 Commission Report , citing the FEMA Report, denied the very existence of the core columns.

Independent Investigators Release Suppressed Blueprints of Destroyed World Trade Center Tower
Scans of original drawings of the North Tower of the World Trade Center have been published online by a coalition of independent 9/11 researchers and journalists.
On-line copies of the construction blueprints of the World Trade Center

Rumsfeld "Deserted His Post" On Morning Of 9/11
But according to a new book. 'Rumsfeld' by Andrew Cockburn, the then defence secretary was so unconcerned, and unsurprised, after learning that two jet airliners had crashed into the World Trade Centre towers that he continued with regular CIA briefing.
It gets weirder than that. Changes made to the rules of engagement over the United States only months before 9-11 forbid air commanders from intercepting aircraft over the US without the express permission the Secretary of Defense. But that permission was never granted by Donald Rumsfeld, who was unreachable during the critical time between the first hijacking and the impact into the World Trade Towers.

WELCOME TO THE GULAG

Dr. Charles "Tom" Sell was a member of the Army Reserves, called up to serve as an expert in forensic dentistry at the gruesome scene of carnage that was Waco. Here's where his "delusions" come in. He thinks the government is to blame for the fiery deaths. Sound like reason to call the man crazy and want to drug him?

And here is the real kicker. "Prison psychiatrists stated that Dr. Sell was delusional, partly because he believed the U.S. government engaged in a conspiracy concerning the fire at the Branch Davidian settlement in Waco, Texas, which killed 81 people. Dr. Sell produced Army records proving that he had indeed been sent to Waco in the days leading up to the fire. He believed the reason was to help identify charred remains."

Why did Gonzales' councelor leave DOJ last Monday?

What does Monica Goodling know?

The Justice Department also said yesterday that Monica Goodling, a senior counselor to Gonzales who worked closely with Sampson on the firings, took an indefinite personal leave from her job on Monday. A Justice official said that she is still employed there but that it is not clear when she will return.

Documents: Gonzales OK'd U.S. Attorney Firings

Newly released documents contradict Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' claims that he was not closely involved in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Documents released tonight by the Justice Department show Gonzales actually approved plans for the dismissals.

Two Years Later, Suffolk Soldier At Walter Reed Awaiting Surgery

Staff Sergeant Shannon's first surgery stabilized his skull after he lost that eye. A second surgery for a skull implant four months later actually came ahead of schedule. But then it took nine months for a third surgery to remove shrapnel from his shoulder. Torrey says that's because the staff at Walter Reed lost her husband's paperwork three times, meaning the Shannons had to start the process over again.
"We've always thought that when we are in need, the military and the system would support us," said Torrey. "That has not happened to our satisfaction. If you ever want to support a soldier, use your voice."
Sgt. Shannon visits his family in Suffolk on weekends. It could be another six months before he gets his final surgery, and comes home for good.
There was no response from Walter Reed Thursday, but according to the Washington Post, the hospital acknowledges the outpatient care problems, and has taken steps over the past year to improve conditions. Case workers who were in charge of 125 patients; are now down to managing 30. And officials have increased the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the disability benefit process.
Amazing what a little oversight can begin to accomplish...


How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

Instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.
Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.



Leading Psychiatrist Admits Normal Children Are Diagnosed With Mental Disorders

With increasing international concern about the large number of children labeled with so-called psychiatric disorders and prescribed mind-altering drugs, even the pioneer of psychiatry’s billing bible and “godfather of ADHD," Dr. Robert Spitzer, has now admitted that normal children are being labeled.

Bush Official Admits Guilt In Abramoff Scandal

The highest-ranking Bush Administration official to be criminally investigated in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal finally admits that he obstructed justice by concealing his unique relationship with the convicted lobbyist and repeatedly lying about it to senate investigators. Former deputy secretary of the Department of Interior Steven Griles will plead guilty to felony obstruction of justice in a Washington DC federal court today, according to a major news organization. Griles has admitted that he lied five times to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and its investigators in an effort to hide his close relationship with Abramoff, who is currently in prison.

Tom DeLay says he quit the U.S. Congress to fight for Israel
The former Republican majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives was forced to step down from his leadership post last year to face charges of breaking fund-raising laws in his home state of Texas. DeLay surprised colleagues by quitting Congress altogether and joining a conservative think tank.

Why CIA abuse is medieval madness

Today, terrorism suspects subjected to this medieval torture admit the wildest things too. Just ask 9/11 plotter, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. KSM was bound to a stiff wooden plank at a secret CIA black-site prison. Interrogators tilted one end of the platform so that his head was several inches below his feet. A rag was fixed in his mouth and cellophane was firmly wrapped over his face.




Gates sought Gitmo closure in first weeks at Defense; Cheney, Gonzales argued against

"In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay ... had become so tainted abroad," write Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger for the Times, "that legal proceedings at Guantanamo would be viewed as illegitimate."

‘IMF to urge depreciation in dollar’

The International Monetary Fund will say further depreciation by the U.S. dollar is needed to help correct global imbalances in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung said on Saturday. Quoting from a draft of the WEO, the paper said the Washington-based fund argued “extraordinarily aggressively” for a correction in exchange rates, above all so as to reduce the massive U.S. current account deficit.


US mortgage crisis forces homeowners to take refuge in their cars

THEY are victims of the United States' growing mortgage crisis - low-paid workers whose homes have been repossessed amid rising interest rates, a stagnant property market and a lax lending regime. But in Los Angeles, where having a car is as essential as owning a home, many are sleeping in their vehicles to ensure a roof over their head. The trend comes despite the fact that sleeping in a car is illegal in the Los Angeles area.

Finding fault in a mysterious tax benefit for non-U.S. companies

A 2003 tax cut that President George W. Bush promoted as a way to create jobs in the United States includes a provision that has given some foreign companies a financial advantage over their U.S. competitors by making it cheaper for them to raise capital. Foreign companies can sell securities known as hybrids, which are bonds whose interest payments are treated as dividends that are taxed at the lower rate. The option is not available to U.S. companies. The advantage under the 2003 law can be significant. It can cost a U.S. company as much as $540 million more than a foreign company to pay $1 billion to U.S. investors.

Iraq after Four Years of Constant Killing

It was not supposed to be like this. Iraq was not supposed to end up like this four years from the start of the invasion. By now, Iraq was supposed to be the most peaceful, most stable and most prosperous state in the region, if not the whole world. That is what US President Bush and the coalition of the blind followers prophesied to their respective tax-paying people as they sought their support for what can now only be called the stupid war.

Unguarded munition sites still feed Iraq violence: report

As of October 2006 US forces had still not secured all of the unguarded munition sites in Iraq, allowing thieves to keep stealing war material and stoke the country's violence, a US government report said Thursday.

The rape of Iraq's oil

The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy. The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits. The neo-cons may have lost the war, but they are still manipulating to win the most substantial chunk of the peace when and if it ever comes.

Saddam Has the Last Laugh

Yep, you did it, George—mission impossible accomplished. Unbelievably, four years of a bungled occupation have managed to make Saddam Hussein’s tyranny look good in comparison with “liberated Iraq.”

Rape fears lead women soldiers to suicide, death

U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women’s latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.

NATO forces shoot Afghan child, run over another



U.S. soldiers shooting Iraqi civilians

Top brass damned over football star's friendly-fire death

The Pat Tillman case caused an outcry in the US because the Army told his relatives the soldier had died a hero’s death fighting the Taliban. The truth came out only last year.

Hannity, Coulter "don't believe" that Tillman liked Noam Chomsky, opposed Iraq war; Tillman's mother disagrees

On the September 27 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter told co-host Alan Colmes that they "don't believe" a report that Army Ranger Pat Tillman was a fan of leftist author Noam Chomsky, opposed the Iraq war, and planned to vote for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in the 2004 presidential election. But according to a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle report that Colmes cited, Tillman's mother said that he had planned to meet privately with Chomsky and that "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war."

Suspect 'aided US embassy blast'

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani said he did not know about the attack beforehand and was sorry for his role, according to the transcript of a US hearing.

Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies

Invisible in the smoke screen of civil war in Iraq, the current US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been working feverishly on Iraq’s first post-invasion Hydrocarbon Law.


The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats

In offering this limp request, Congress is in the process of approving the appropriation of another $122 Billion in spending on the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan. This is action? They could be blocking that funding altogether, and shutting the damned war down. Why can't Democrats, who were put in their position of power in Congress by the voters, at least show the courage and principle of Republican Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex), who is opposing the funding and says, "It's amazing to me that this Congress is more intimidated by political propagandists and special interests than the American electorate, who sent a loud, clear message about the war in November."

Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years

But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. "Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?"

Robert Fisk: The crushing fear that stalks America

Thirty hours later, I flicked on the television in my Valdosta, Georgia, hotel room and there was a bejewelled lady on Fox TV telling American viewers that if "we" left Iraq, the "jihadists" would come after us. "They want a Caliphate that will take over the world," she shrieked about a report that two children had deliberately been placed in an Iraqi car bomb which then exploded. She ranted on about how Muslim "jihadists" had been doing this "since the 1970s in Lebanon". It was tosh, of course. Children were never locked into car bombs in Beirut - and there weren't any "jihadists" around in the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. But fear had been sown. Now that the House of Representatives is talking about the US withdrawal by August 2008, fear seems to drip off the trees in America.

Explosive new vote fraud developments continue to rock Ohio and Florida

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that a criminal investigation is underway which centers on the Cuyahoga BOE's conduct of the November 2006 election. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason has turned again to Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter who recently won felony convictions of two BOE workers for rigging the 2004 presidential recount for another criminal investigation. Baxter will be investigating “possible criminal wrongdoings” related to ballot security and the scanning of absentee ballots.

Last night Bill Maher took on those who question our patriotism but are the ones who really act un-American and unpatriotic.
"Traitors don't get to question my patriotism. What could be less patriotic than constantly screwing things up for America."

Shssh! Don’t Tell Americans How We Treat “Enemy Combatants”

Not surprisingly, federal officials now want to keep Americans from learning the full extent of the federal government’s post-9/11 power over them. That’s why they used their plea bargain with John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” to prohibit him from revealing what they did to him while he was in pre-trial military custody. That’s why they’re fighting fiercely in the Padilla case to keep Americans from learning what they did to Padilla. That’s why they’re claiming “national security” to prevent accused terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other CIA prisoners from describing the waterboarding and other “alternative” forms of interrogation to which they have been subjected.

US-Russian relations face ‘potential crisis’

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Russian Duma, says that President Vladimir Putin’s strongly-worded speech in Munich last month criticising US unilateralism was not a declaration of a new cold war. Instead, it was a call for the White House to return to a multilateral framework for resolving issues such as the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea, or the future of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

Calling Out Idiot America

Sadly, Congress' smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly, the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C., actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that this is this case.

Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

What may in fact happen is either a release of these British Navy personnel, as happened in 2004, or a swap for Revolutionary Guard Members captured in Iraq this year.

US and UK fail to find smoking gun

Although British and US military and diplomats often complain of Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq, there is no "smoking gun" to prove it, a senior British officer in Basra admitted yesterday. Col Justin Maciejewski said he could not prove Iranian interference in the southern Iraqi city, where UK troops come under regular mortar and rocket attack. But community leaders had told him Iranian agents were paying Iraqis $500 a month to carry out attacks.

Britons detained in Iraqi waters, says fisherman

An Iraqi fisherman who said he saw Iranian forces detain British sailors and marines on Friday in a waterway between Iraq and Iran said yesterday the ship British forces were searching was anchored in Iraqi waters.
The US and UK and Israel WANT a war with Iran, so it makes perfect sense that they would repeat the same stunt Israel pulled in Lebanon last summer where they sent soldiers into Lebanon, and once they were captured, claimed they had been "kidnapped" on the Israel side of the border.

British Uncover Operation in Basra: Agents Provocateurs?

Iran's military says Britons "confessed" entry
It will be interesting to see the same mainstream media that accepted waterboarded confessions from Khalid Sheik Mohammed without question try to spin the British admissions of guilt as unreliable because they might have been coerced.

Talk about a double standard!

They had confessed to being in Iranian waters, he said. But ex-Navy chief Admiral Sir Alan West said a confession in such circumstances meant "absolutely nothing".

White House Plays Games with Visa for Iranian President

Deputy Foreign Minister for International and Legal Affairs Abbas Araghchi expressed regret at absence of cooperation on part of the US Administration for issuing visa for the Iranian president.
"It seems the US Administration is following its unilateral approach by visa refusal for the Iranian president. It is blatant violation of the consular undertaking of the UN host country in dealing with visa requests for officials of the United Nations Member States and another indication of the US ill-intention toward Iranian nuclear program."

Ahmadinejad cancels U.N. Security Council visit

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has canceled a planned visit to the United Nations, blaming a delay in U.S. visas being issued to the crew of his airplane.

Ahmadinejad angrily abandons plans for UN visit

Ahmadinejad had asked to address the council to defend his country's position on its controversial nuclear programme, but an official in Tehran said he will not travel to New York because his visa would not arrive in time.
"President Ahmadinejad's trip has been made impossible because of the lateness in supplying a visa by the United States," the official told AFP late on Friday. "Because of this, it is not possible to get the visa to Tehran on time, and the president's trip has therefore become virtually impossible. "The United States deliberately issued the visas late to prevent the president from going, and they are responsible. Also the visas for the team members who would have accompanied him were not issued, which makes the trip impossible," the official said.

U.N. panel OKs sanctions on Iran

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to impose moderately tougher sanctions against Iran, hoping to send Tehran a strong message that it will grow more isolated by refusing to suspend nuclear enrichment.

With this vote, the United States (and others) have trashed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under the terms of the treaty, signers are legally allowed to have nuclear power plants and to make the fuel rods for them. Iran signed that treaty. So did the United States. But in the rush to find an excuse to conquer more oil fields and turn Iran into the same heaven-on-Earth the US made of Iraq, the fact that Iran is only doing that the US signed a treaty allowing them to do is apparently moot.

Iran Sanctions - A Blessing in Disguise

Sanctions allowed South Africa to launch it’s industrialisation program and it succeeded in developing the country from an import dependent colony of Britain to a fully self sufficient power house of Africa. Advances were made in Agriculture, Industry, civil infrastructure, Nuclear and academic fields. South Africa produced one of the best scientists and technologists in the world. Sanctions in effect liberated South Africa from dependency.
Iranians will do the same. Thanks to their long and rich history, culture and a strong believe in Islam they are no pushovers. Iranians have developed very high levels of both military and civil technology, have good infrastructure and enjoy certain amount of self sufficiency in food production, and unlike South Africa have black gold. Iran will defeat the sanctions and come out much stronger.


Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia

Following the US-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops, thousands of Somalis have tried to escape the violence by crossing the long, porous border with Kenya. Many of those caught on the Kenya-Somalia border were accused of belonging to the Islamic Courts and refused entry. At least 150 of those who managed to get through were detained by Kenyan police, including 17 women and 12 children, one a baby of seven months. Many needed medical attention but did not receive it, including a pregnant Tunisian woman who had a bullet lodged in her back.

GM crops cause 'breakdown' in Indian farming systems

Genetically modified crops have helped cause a "complete breakdown" in farming systems in India, an authoritative new study suggests. The study threatens to deal a fatal blow to probably the most powerful argument left in the biotech industry's armoury, that it can help to bring prosperity to the Third World.

U.S. unable to send funds to N. Korea

The Bush administration said Friday that it had been more difficult than anticipated to fulfill an agreement to return $25 million in frozen bank funds to North Korea and that a top Treasury official would fly to China to help free the money.

Israel: Lebanon Cease-Fire in Jeopardy

Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria.

TV Evangelist John Hagee Wants War With Iran, and He Wants It Now!

An even bigger obsession for dispensationalists has always been Israel. For the average dispensationalist, modern-day secular Israel is going to be the focal point in the end-times. Therefore, if the Bible really does teach in Daniel 9:27 that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is going to be torn down for a rebuilt Jewish Temple, why should any of us seek to prevent it? Sure, it very well might ignite a regional war and even ignite tensions around the world, but it's all part of God’s prophetic plan. Not to worry though, things might not get really ugly until after the "rapture," so the Christians today who are cheering for events that would bring about World War III won’t have to worry about it anyway. Unless of course, they are wrong about the whole thing.

9/11 remains possibly used on roads: court papers

Debris that may have contained bits of bone from victims of the World Trade Center attacks was used to fill potholes and pave city roads, according to court papers filed on Friday.

The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th

Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

The Canadian Action Party calls the official 9/11 story physically impossible

The justification for Canada's draconian anti terrorism laws is the official story of 9-11 - that the US was attacked by Islamic terrorists led by Osama Bin Laden. The problem with this justification is that the official story of what happened on 9-11 is physically impossible as a highly qualified team of Canadian, American and international scientists, engineers and investigators demonstrate at their website physics911.

Canadian Professor disputes official representation on 9/11

I was very surprised when I began to realize how weak the official story was. I can remember the exact moment when I felt -- my god, there’s no way those 3 towers were brought down by planes, jet fuel and fire. One tower, maybe. A structural flaw in the tower, a set of coincidences. Two towers -- we’re getting into a highly unlikely situation, even though their construction was similar, because the planes hit in different ways. Three towers (including WTC 7 now, which wasn’t hit by a plane), the odds against this are astronomical. So then I began taking a much closer look and spending more and more time looking into all this. As for the things I was reading, I found out about Scholars for 9/11 Truth and stayed largely glued to that website. Joined the organization, read all the now standard works by Griffin, Jones and others.

House panel defies Bush, votes for subpoenas

Video: Gonzales: 'I will not resign'

"I'm not going to resign, I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids," Gonzales said, and then pointed to the record of his Justice Department as evidence for why he should keep his job. Gonzales also refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of his agency or the Bush administration.

House panel defies Bush, votes for subpoenas

Members of a House Judiciary subcommittee have voted to authorize subpoenas to require Karl Rove and four other senior Bush administration officials to testify under oath in the inquiry into the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors. President Bush has vowed to fight the subpoenas if they are issued. White House Counsel Fred Fielding has said Rove and others can meet with lawmakers but only it is done behind closed doors and not under oath. This is House Judiciary Chair John Conyers.

• Rep. John Conyers: "What Fred Fielding said to us yesterday was so disconcerting and so off the mark that obviously anyone who comes before the committee would have to be under oath. we don't do anything off the record."

Gap in Justice, White House e-mails raises questions
A 16-day gap in e-mail records between the Justice Department and the White House concerning the firing of U.S. attorneys last year has attracted the attention of congressional investigators.
Earlier this week, the Justice Department released 3,000 pages of documents related to the firings but it has been revealed that there is a 16-day gap in the emails. The documents include almost no correspondence between November 15 and December 2, right before the attorneys were asked for their resignations.

Okay, enough.
The president fired US Attorneys to stymie investigations of Republicans and punish US Attorneys who didn't harass Democrats with bogus voter fraud prosecutions. In the former instance, the evidence remains circumstantial. But in the latter the evidence is clear, overwhelming and undeniable. Indeed, it is so undeniable the president himself does not deny it.
It's yet another example of how far this White House has gone in normalizing behavior that we've been raised to associate with third-world countries where democracy has never successfully taken root and the rule of law is unknown. At most points in our history the idea that an Attorney General could stay in office after having overseen such an effort would be unthinkable. The most telling part of this episode is that they're not even really denying the wrongdoing. They're ignoring the point or at least pleading 'no contest' and saying it's okay.

Take Bush To The Mat
Enough is enough. Bush has done nothing but lie to the public since he first assumed office in 2001. A task that he managed by having his political campaign demand that the Supreme Court end the vote count in Florida, without counting all the votes. The Supreme Court complied with that unconstitutional act, and the world has been heading straight into hell ever since. Now Bush wants to challenge the congress by threatening to take the current confrontation, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Tony Snow Once Criticized Clinton For Exerting Executive Privilege
Meanwhile the White House is also being questioned about its claims that it has the executive privilege to bar presidential advisers from testifying before Congress. Nearly 10 years ago White House Press Secretary Tony Snow publicly criticized President Clinton for resisting efforts to have his aides testify about Monica Lewinsky. At the time Snow wrote: "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up."

Wars will Cost Trillions to US People
The cost of the wars unleashed by President George W. Bush´s government could exceed $1 trillion by the end of his term of office, a study predicted on Wednesday.
The report published by the Center of Defense Information (CDI) said the expenses on the White House military adventures would range between $980 billion and $1.4 trillion by early 2009.

Democrat silenced on House floor for Katrina remark
Taylor was barred from speaking on the House floor around noon on Wednesday, while criticizing an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA).
"He wants to punish [towns affected by Katrina] for mistakes of the Bush administration," said Rep. Taylor. "Mr. Price, I wish you'd have the decency, if you're going to do that to the people of south Mississippi, that maybe you ought to come visit south Mississippi, and see what has happened, before you hold them to a standard you would never hold your own people to, and that you fail to hold the Bush administration to."

Ex-U.S. Attorney Accuses Justice Dept of Politicizing Prosecution
In related news, the Washington Post reports that a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies has admitted that political appointees in the Justice Department repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's case. Sharon Eubanks said she was ordered to drop a recommendation that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. The Justice Department also urged Eubanks to seek less money from the tobacco companies. The government originally sought a $130 billion settlement but at the last moment, the request was dropped to just $10 billion. Eubanks said, "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general"s office, politics is the primary consideration. . . . The rule of law goes out the window."

Reduced sentence in works for Abramoff
Former Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, sentenced to almost six years in prison for his fraudulent purchase of a South Florida gambling fleet, can receive a reduced sentence if he continues to assist prosecutors in a far-reaching Washington public corruption probe, federal officials said Wednesday.

Al Gore Testifies Before Congress On Global Warming
Former Vice President Al Gore testified before Congress on Wednesday and warned that global warming is a crisis that threatens the survival of civilization and is the most dangerous crisis in American history.

• Al Gore: "The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever you go to the doctor. If your doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem. If the cribs on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action. The planet has a fever."

Al Gore called for national freeze on new emissions of carbon dioxide, new taxes on polluters, a ban on incandescent light bulbs, an increase of fuel-efficiency standards for cars and a new global treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Al Gore: "There have been times in the past when our nation has been called upon to rise above partisanship, above political calculations, above the pressures which have always been present for two and a quarter centuries from special interests of this, that or the other kind and reach across the isle and do what history is calling upon all of us Americans to do. America is the natural leader of the world and our world faces a true planetary emergency."

Bill to Ban Regular Light Bulbs Introduced in House
A Democratic lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban the sale of traditional incandescent light bulbs - which are less energy-efficient, prompting claims that they contribute to "global warming" - one day after a colleague told a press conference that legislating a ban would be a "last choice."

Detainee abuse in CIA secret prisons documented in ICRC report
Detainees held in secret prisons operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency throughout the globe were subject to abuse and sleep deprivation, according to a confidential report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Bill offers temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants
Bipartisan legislation to be unveiled Thursday in the House of Representatives would offer temporary legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants but would require them to leave the country before they could be eligible for permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.

U.S. Releases Canadian Boy from Immigration Jail
A nine-year-old Canadian boy has been released along with his parents from an immigration jail in Texas where they were detained for six weeks. Kevin Yourdkhani and his Iranian-born parents arrived in Toronto last night. They had been held in a controversial privately-owned jail in Texas where the U.S. government is holding up to 200 immigrant children. They were detained after their flight to Canada was forced to make an emergency landing in Puerto Rico. The family was fleeing political repression in Iran and were trying to seek refugee status in Canada where their son had been born. Four weeks ago, Kevin Yourdkhani spoke to Democracy Now in his first broadcast interview.

• Kevin Yourdkhani: "I want to be free. I want to go outside, and I want to go to school. I want to be in my homeland: Canada."

Following that interview, public outcry intensified in Canada. Two weeks ago the Canadian government agreed to give Kevin"s parents a temporary residency permit. Human rights groups are now calling for the U.S. government to stop jailing immigrant children and for the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor in Texas to be shut down. We"ll have more on the story in a few minutes.

FBI Confirms Contracts with AT&T, Verizon and MCI

The FBI's general counsel, Valerie Caproni, testified today on Capitol Hill that the FBI entered into contracts with AT&T, Verizon and MCI to harvest phone records on American citizens under a national security letter program that has come under fire from Congress and the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General for circumventing privacy laws.

Pentagon Looks to Send More Arms to Middle Eastern Nations
The Boston Globe is reporting the State Department and the Pentagon are quietly seeking congressional approval for significant new military sales to US allies in the Persian Gulf region. The move is seen as part of a broader U.S. strategy to contain Iranian influence by strengthening Iran's neighbors. The arm sales could spark concerns that further military buildup in the region would bring Washington closer to a confrontation with Iran. The Bush administration is reportedly considering sales of sophisticated air and missile defense systems, advanced early warning radar aircraft that could detect low-flying missiles, and light coastal combat ships that could sweep the Gulf for mines and help gather underwater intelligence. All of the nations that might receive the new arms are Sunni-ruled countries. They include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman.

Perle's New World Order -- And Ours?
As the Iraqi war opened, Perle published a lengthy piece in the Spectator in England, followed by an edited version in The Guardian. ''Thank God for the death of the UN,'' the article announced. Perle confidently proclaimed a dual victory: the defeat of Saddam Hussein and the collapse of the United Nations -- the ''chatterbox on the Hudson.''
He mocked opponents of American policy, both at home and abroad, as soft and naive. His vision is clear: States that possess weapons of mass destruction or terrorists will be confronted by ''coalitions of the willing'' -- the best hope for ''a new world order.'' Perle rejected any pretense for collective security; the United States has the only legitimate claim to enforce the new order. If others want to sign on as active or passive members of the coalition, fine; if not, it is of no consequence.

Russians yanking key personnel from Iranian nuclear site
Russia is pulling out its technicians and engineers from Bushehr, U.S. and European government representatives said Tuesday, leaving Iran's first nuclear reactor just short of completion at a time of growing international pressure on Tehran to curb its atomic ambitions.

Iraqi forces unable to reduce levels of violence across Iraq, GAO says

U.S. Soldiers Sentenced for Abuse In Iraq
In news on Iraq, a U.S. soldier has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for his role in the raping of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her family. Private Bryan Howard was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and being an accessory after the fact. At a hearing in Iraq last year, testimony indicated Howard did not participate in the crime itself but lied to investigators in an attempt to cover up the crime. Earlier this week a US staff sergeant was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in killing three Iraqi detainees.

UAV Fooled to Hide Iraq Murder
The case is remarkable for the fact that the killers nearly got away with their alleged crime right under the eye of the military's sophisticated surveillance systems. According to testimony, at least three times the warriors took deliberate, and apparently effective, measures to trick the unmanned aerial vehicles -- UAVs in military parlance -- that watch the ground with heat-sensitive imaging by night, and high-resolution video by day.

Pentagon: Reports of Sexual Assault in Military Up 24%
The Pentagon has announced that reports of sexual assaults involving members of the US military increased by 24 percent over the last year. There were nearly 3,000 reports of alleged sexual assault cases involving members of the armed forces. 2006 marked the first year that victims were allowed to report assaults confidentially.

U.S. frees al-Sadr aide in apparent attempt to ease tensions in Iraq
The U.S. military on Wednesday released a key aide to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a sure sign that U.S. officials are working hard to keep al-Sadr's support for the Baghdad security plan.

Bolton admits Lebanon truce block
Former US envoy John Bolton says he resisted ceasefire calls in Lebanon to give Israel time to defeat Hezbollah. The US only supported a cease-fire when it became clear Israel wasn't going to win.

Bodies dragged, burned as Mogadishu battles rage
In Somalia, at least 20 people died on Wednesday in some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia three months ago. Somali militants dragged the bodies of five soldiers through the streets and set them on fire. Much of the fighting has been between militant backers of the Islamic Courts Union and Ethiopian troops. There are now near daily mortar attacks and shootouts in Mogadishu. Refugee groups say tens of thousands of Somalis have fled the country in recent months. On Wednesday the Bush administration insisted progress was being made in Somalia.
Angry residents burn bodies of soldiers in Mogadishu mayhem

Angry crowds burned and dragged the bodies of dead soldiers through the streets of the Somali capital Wednesday, where some of the heaviest fighting for months claimed as many as 14 lives.

Shaky Musharraf holds only the military card

The crisis is being compounded by other developments. According to latest reports, the Pakistani Taliban have seized control of settled areas such as Tank in North West Frontier Province, and the leader of the Awami National Party, Isfandyar Wali, revealed on television that the Taliban now control Frontier Region (FR) Kohat, just 15 kilometers from the provincial capital, Peshawar. "I am constantly saying that Taliban are very rapidly getting powerful in the North West Frontier Province, but nobody is listening to me," said Wali. FR Kohat is hardly three hours from the national capital, Islamabad, and such a development will undoubtedly bolster the anti-Musharraf forces. As it is, Islamabad itself is home to many Taliban who have been preparing for Musharraf's ouster.

U.S. Gives Pakistani Gov't Sophisticated Spy Technology
The Guardian newspaper reports the Bush administration has been providing the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, with sophisticated new spy technology to trace mobile phones, bug houses and telephone calls, and monitor large volumes of email traffic. The Guardian reports the Bush administration gave Pakistan the technology to help track members of Al Qaeda but the government has also used the technology to track political dissidents. Since 9/11, hundreds of Pakistanis with no ties to Al Qaeda have disappeared after being seized by the ISI. One former CIA official said the Pakistani government now has the ability drive vans down streets and monitor phone conversations taking place in every house they pass.
The Pakistani military has announced it has successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile with the capability to avoid radar detection. The missile reportedly has a range of over 400 miles.
In other news from Pakistan, fighting between Pakistani forces and Al-Qaeda militants has reportedly left over 100 people dead, including dozens of foreign fighters from Uzbekistan.

U.S. Lawmaker Criticizes Plan Colombia
The chair of the House Armed Services Committee said the U.S government should consider stop sending billions of dollars in aid to Colombia as part of the so-called war on drugs. Democrat Representative Ike Skelton said Plan Colombia has failed to keep illegal drugs off the streets of the United States. Skelton also raised concerns about ties between the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and right-wing paramilitary groups.

Chiquita Defends Paying Colombian Terrorist Group
The Cincinnati-based fruit company Chiquita is defending its decision to fund a Colombian right-wing paramilitary group that is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. This is Chiquita Senior Vice President James Thompson.

• James Thompson: "The payments made by the company at all times were motivated by the company's good faith and desire and concern for the safety of all of its employees. Nevertheless, we recognize the obligation to disclose the facts and circumstances of this admittedly difficult situation to the United States government and the Department of Justice."

Chiquita has agreed to pay the U.S. government a fine of $25 million for helping to fund a terrorist organization.

White House Vows to Veto Bill to Give D.C. Voting Rights
The House is preparing to vote on Friday to grant the District of Colombia a full seat in the House of Representatives. Last week two House committees approved the measure. However the White House is threatening to veto the bill if it reaches the president. The 580,000 residents of the District of Columbia do not have voting representation in the US House or the Senate. Ilir Zherka of the group DC Vote criticized the president's stance. He said "Our supporters are disappointed in this White House where you have a president who talks so much about voting rights abroad but can't do it two blocks from the White House." Thousands of supporters of DC's right to vote are preparing to march to the Capitol on April 16 in what is being billed as the largest demonstration ever for DC Voting Rights.

Is FOX News’ Foreign Affairs Analyst A Former Terrorist?
It was another War-A-Go-Go on Hannity & Colmes last night (9/1/06) with two guests with the same opinion – that every day we delay either military action against Iran or effecting regime change (or maybe both), the US comes closer to being attacked by a nuclear bomb. Just in case that didn’t get the message across, the screen read “Only one option?” and “Time to attack Iran?” throughout the discussion. One of the guests was a new-to-me FOX News foreign affairs analyst named Alireza Jafarzadeh. It turns out Mr. Jafarzadeh is the former spokesperson for what the US State Department deemed a terrorism group allied with Saddam Hussein.

Conservatives Form Campaign to Protect Civil Liberties
A coalition of prominent conservative writers and former government officials have launch a new campaign to restore checks and balances and to protect civil liberties Founding members of the American Freedom Agenda include former Republican Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who led the effort to impeach President Clinton, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, and the writer and conservative direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie. They are also calling for Congress to restore habeas corpus, end torture and extraordinary rendition, narrow the President's authority to designate "enemy combatants," prevent unconstitutional domestic spying and protect journalists from prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Six Peace Activists Arrested For Occupying Office of Rep. Welch (D-VT)
In Vermont, six peace activists were arrested on Wednesday after occupying the office of Vermont Congressman Peter Welch. The activists were urging Welch to vote against the House bill authorizing $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

1,500 Protest in Tokyo Against Iraq War
And in Japan, about fifteen hundred protesters marched in Tokyo on Wednesday calling for an end to the Iraq war. The protests occurred as U.S. General Peter Pace met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso.

Here today, Gonzales tomorrow

Capitol Hill Showdown Looms Over U.S. Attorney Scandal as Bush Refuses to Let Officials Testify Under Oath
President Bush on Tuesday rejected Democratic demands to question key White House aides under oath. The President said he would only authorize private testimony before select lawmakers and warned he would fight any subpoenas in court. We speak with Adam Cohen of the New York Times.
A showdown is set between Congress and the White House over a Congressional probe into the recent firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. On Tuesday President Bush defended Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and vowed to fight Congressional efforts to subpoena presidential advisor Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other White House officials. Congress is attempting to investigate whether the firing of the US attorneys was actually a political purge. President Bush has offered to allow Rove and other officials to meet with Congress but under extraordinary conditions -- behind closed doors, not under oath and transcripts of their testimony would not be permitted. President Bush defended the offer last night.

• President Bush: "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. The initial response by Democrats unfortunately shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts. It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials."

The chairs of both the Senate and House judiciary committees rejected the White House offer. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said "Testimony should be on the record, and under oath. That's the formula for true accountability." The House committees will vote today on whether to subpoena Karl Rove and others. The Senate Committee will vote tomorrow. The Senate has also voted 94 to two to cancel a provision of the Patriot Act that allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.

U.S. attorney's firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday. Feinstein said Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006, that she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who'd resigned two days earlier as the No. 3 official at the CIA.
On May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales' chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." The e-mail did not spell out what the "real problem" was, and it was unclear whether Kelley and Sampson talked later.
Until now, lawmakers have focused on two of Lam's other inquiries into Republicans as possible ways in which she may have chafed the administration.
Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison. On the same day last year as the Sampson e-mail, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham probe was being expanded to look at the actions of another California Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.
Feinstein did not say how she learned that Lam had notified the Justice Department about her plans to serve search warrants on Foggo, who on May 8 had resigned as the executive director of the CIA. FBI agents seized records from Foggo's CIA offices and his suburban Vienna, Va., home on May 12.
Who Lam notified about her plans was unknown. Ordinarily, information about search warrants in high-profile cases would be passed to the U.S. attorney executive office in Washington. At the time, that office was headed by Michael Battle. Battle, who notified the dismissed U.S. attorneys they were being replaced in December, resigned March 5.
Sampson, who resigned last week, declined comment through his lawyer. Feinstein's office also declined interview requests.


Gonzales’s Fall, Bush’s Impeachment?

Alberto Gonzales will soon be ejected from the Justice Department. Bush’s Attorney General has been caught in too many flagrant lies and abuses. The real question is whether Gonzo’s fall will signal the beginning of the end of the Bush reign.

Gonzales quietly appoints two new section chiefs
During a week when Albert Gonzales was very busy dealing with the firing of the eight US Attorneys, he managed to carve out enough time to finally appoint permanent chiefs for the Public Integrity Section and the Fraud section. There was no public announcement.

UNITED STATES V. NIXON (1974)

However, neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. The President's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the court. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential communications is significantly diminished by production of such material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a district court will be obliged to provide.



Congressional Study Finds Firings Of Attorneys is Unprecedented
Meanwhile the Congressional Research Service has just published a study examining the tenure of every U.S. attorney confirmed between 1981 and 2006. The study found the recent firings is unprecedented. During the 25-year period studied, the Senate confirmed 468 U.S. Attorneys. Only ten left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration prior to the firings that took place in December. This means the Bush administration pushed out almost as many U.S. Attorneys in December as had been let go over the past 25 years.

Fox's "Business" Anchors Try to Scare Their Audience: The Alberto Gonzales "Witch Hunt" Could Cause a Stock Market "Sell Off"
Neil Cavuto, Fox's "money guy" (his words) is at times, as regular readers of this site know, very adept at creating the illusion that his show is about "business news" while simultaneously beating the propaganda drums for the Bush administration. Today he was at the top of his game. With the help of cohort Brenda Buttner, he blew out some smoke and flashed some mirrors and he put the fear of losing money into his audience due to the "witch hunt" the Democrats are conducting over the Attorney General scandal.

Attorney-gate: The SAFE DC scandal!
Why, after years of kowtowing to Bush, has Congress developed a spine over the US attorney firings? Because the scandal won't really threaten anything that matters

NY Times slams Bush's 'nasty and bumbling comments' on US Attorney firings; Calls on Congress to subpoena Rove, others
"In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that 'people just need to hear the truth' about the firing of eight United States attorneys," the Times editorial states. "That’s right. Unfortunately, the deal Mr. Bush offered Congress to make White House officials available for 'interviews' did not come close to meeting that standard."
The Times editorial continues, "Mr. Bush’s proposal was a formula for hiding the truth, and for protecting the president and his staff from a legitimate inquiry by Congress. Mr. Bush’s idea of openness involved sending White House officials to Congress to answer questions in private, without taking any oath, making a transcript or allowing any follow-up appearances. The people, in other words, would be kept in the dark."
In a statement released before Bush's remarks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called on Rove to testify under oath: "After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush Administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness.”
"The Democratic leaders were right to reject the offer, despite Mr. Bush’s threat to turn this dispute into a full-blown constitutional confrontation," the Times editorial states. "Congress has the right and the duty to fully investigate the firings, which may have been illegal, and Justice Department officials’ statements to Congress, which may have been untrue." However, the Times editors find it "no great surprise that top officials of this administration believe they do not need to testify before Congress," since "this is an administration that has shown over and over that it does not believe that the laws apply to it, and that it does not respect its co-equal branches of government." Still, the editorial adds, "Congress should subpoena Mr. Rove and the others, and question them under oath, in public. If Congress has more questions, they should be recalled."


Bush: 'Iraq withdrawal may spark 9/11 repeat'
President George W Bush used the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war yesterday to warn that US withdrawal would unleash a "contagion of violence" that could spark a repeat of the September 11 attacks.

Liberal Kingpins Help Bush War Agenda
Almost six months after the Democrats recaptured both Houses and political sleeping gas sent the "progressive" left off into dream world, establishment liberals like Nancy Pelosi and the MoveOn.org foundation continue to whore themselves in service of the Neo-Con war agenda and their Bush administration pimps.

Democratic Leadership Pressures Anti-War Caucus To Back War Funding
On Capitol Hill, the House Democratic leadership is intensely pressuring anti-war lawmakers to approve a controversial bill to give President Bush $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home. A vote is scheduled for Thursday. As of last night it appeared the House leadership did not have enough votes to get the bill passed in part because of opposition led by the leaders of the Out of Iraq Caucus, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. The House leadership has tried a number of hardball tactics to secure the needed votes.
The website Politico reports one Democratic Congressman on the fence was warned that new funding requests for his district would be blocked if he didn't support the war funding. In addition Democratic leaders have added $21 billion to fund projects unrelated to wartime spending in a bid to gain more votes. Some of the money would go to help spinach growers, to build peanut storage facilities in Georgia, to help Atlantic fishermen and to fight wildfires. The House Leadership has also gained the support of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey criticized MoveOn's decision. Woolsey said "For people who are undecided and looking for a reason to vote for the supplemental, MoveOn is going to make a difference, providing instant cover for these members."

Another damning admission from the New York Times: whitewashing Iraq war
Miller was employed as a conduit for unsubstantiated pro-war propaganda fed to her by Bush administration sources. Acting in concert, Miller, the Times editorial board and the paper’s foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, whose nauseating bully-boy columns made the case for war, played a major role in conditioning public opinion to accept military aggression against Iraq as inevitable.

Bombings triple in Afghanistan in 2006
Bomb attacks in Afghanistan rose three-fold between 2005 and 2006, figures released by the government on Monday showed.

Report: U.S. Military Spending At Highest Level Since WWII
The McClatchy newspapers is reporting military spending in the United States has reached the highest level since World War II. If Congress approves an additional $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will bring this year's total amount spent on the military to $630 billion. The U.S. now has 300,000 troops deployed around the world in 78 countries. Roughly half of the troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Iraq, Bush's God-Emboldened Narcissism and Parasitic Militarism

In essence, the professor of economics at Drake University claims that the United States is currently led by a dangerous narcissistic twit, who's been duped into accelerating the degeneration of post-World War II U.S. militarism into a "parasitic militarism," which might lead to the demise of the republic.

Toddler ill from dad's smallpox shot

A 2-year-old boy and his mother contracted a rare, life-threatening infection from his soldier father's smallpox vaccination, according to a published report. The boy developed a virulent rash over 80 percent of his body earlier this month after coming in contact with his father, who had been vaccinated before he was to be deployed overseas by the U.S. Army, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday. Doctors stressed that the boy was not suffering from smallpox, but from the related vaccinia virus which is used to convey immunity to the much deadlier disease. They said the boy, who seemed to be improving, may lose 20 percent of his outer skin layer.

Iraqi Vice President Calls For Peace Talks With Sunni Militants
In news from Iraq, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi has said the Iraqi government should engage Sunni militants in peace talks. Al-Hashemi, who is Sunni, told the BBC that the government should talk to everybody but Al Qaeda.

Baghdad Residents Criticize U.S. Actions Over Past Four Years
Residents in Baghdad marked the fourth anniversary of the war by criticizing U.S. efforts in Iraq. This is Emad Abdullah of Baghdad.

Emad Abdullah: "After the fall of (Saddam's) statue, we did not see any change. There were many promises but none of them were fulfilled. They promised us democracy, travel, freedom and reconstruction. The country needs reconstruction, needs services and electricity. We did not find any change, what we found is deterioration. We turned to an abyss, more killings, destruction and kidnappings."

Iraqi prison population soaring

The population of prisons in Iraq has soared in recent months with tens of thousands of Iraqis currently in U.S. custody without trial. U.S. troops and Iraqi government are investing heavily in the construction of prisons in the country with more than 100,000 Iraqis currently behind bars. A parliamentary investigation commission has found that U.S. troops alone now detain more than 61,000 Iraqis and the figure is expected to swell as the Americans press ahead with their military operations.

Death Toll of Journalists Reaches 187 In Iraq
Two more Iraqi journalists have been killed. The body of TV producer Hamid al-Duleimi was found yesterday in the Baghdad morgue. He had been abducted two days earlier. Autopsy reports revealed that the journalist had been tortured. The editor of the daily newspaper al-Safir, Hussein al Jaburi, died last week from his injuries suffered after being ambushed outside his Baghdad home. According to the International News Safety Institute 187 journalists and support staff have died since the war began four years ago.

EXCLUSIVE: Major New Problems At Walter Reed

A major 9NEWS NOW EXCLUSIVE -- allegations from a former inspector at Walter Reed of widespread and dangerous problems in nearly all the buildings at the Army's premier hospital.
Cordell says the worst of it may be Building 40. The old research institute has been condemned, but last week, the private contractor now responsible for maintaining Walter Reed sent workers in to fix a leak.
Cordell points to a picture showing the terrible decay inside the building and says, "The water is actually on the ground floor here. There is water halfway across the ground floor. And there's electricity too. There's high voltage that goes to this building. Two thirteen thousand volt transformers. Through the basement filled with water."
Cordell took more pictures in Building 1, the old hospital, that's now the main administration building. Water damage in the walls; holes in the ceilings next to electric cables and computer servers; hazardous waste stored between occupied floors; and leaking pipes that are rotting floor joists.

UN: World Is In Denial Over Humanitarian Situation Caused by Iraq War
The United Nations refugee agency says there has been an "abject denial" around the world of the humanitarian impact of the war in Iraq. Over two million Iraqis have fled the country and another 1.9 million Iraqis are internally displaced. The UN says many of the refugees need considerable support, and about a quarter of them are children.

Multimedia Artists Project Peace Images On Verizon Building in NYC
In New York, a group of multimedia artists engaged in an anti-war action last night near Ground Zero. The Glass Bead Collective set up a massive light projector and beamed 200-foot-tall projections of peace images on the side of the Verizon building. The projection could be seen throughout lower Manhattan.

Hubris and Obscenity: Imperial Ambitions on Naked Display

Rarely has the imperial hubris that lies at the basis of U.S. foreign policy – the unspoken, unquestioned assumption of America's right to global domination by force – been so nakedly revealed than in the recent Washington Post story decrying the degraded state of the Pentagon's military preparedness. ("Military is Ill-Prepared for Other Conflicts.") What makes the story so remarkable, and so valuable as a diagnostic tool for the health of the Republic (which could perhaps be most accurately described as "the sickness unto death") is that none of the generals or politicians quoted in the story – nor the writer herself – betray the slightest awareness of the moral obscenity upon which all their earnest concerns and diligent fact-finding are based.

Grassroots Campaigns To Fight Climate Change Flourish
Grassroots groups across the country are taking up the issue of global warming. In Washington, hundreds of environmentalists rallied in front of the Capitol on Tuesday for the first ever Climate Crisis Action Day. In Massachusetts activists are walking across the state this week to raise awareness about global warming. In New Hampshire over 134 cities and towns have passed resolutions asking the federal government to address climate change and to develop research initiatives to create innovative energy technologies. And planning is underway for the first National Day of Climate Action on April 14th. 950 events and rallies are already scheduled. Organizers are predicting April 14th will be the country's largest grassroots environmental protest since Earth Day 1970.

Colombia Seeks Extradition of Eight Chiquita Officials Over Terror Funding
In news from Latin America, Colombia's chief federal prosecutor has announced plans to demand the extradition of eight employees from the fruit company Chiquita who were allegedly involved in funding right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia. On Monday Chiquita admitted it had paid off the group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Chiquita has agreed to pay the U.S. government a fine of $25 million on the condition that it doesn't have to reveal the names of the executives involved. The Colombian prosecutor also accused Chiquita of providing arms to the right-wing paramilitary groups that were then used to push leftist rebels out of an area in northern Colombia where Chiquita had its banana plantations.

Colombian Gov't Launches Probe Into Murder of Trade Unionists
Meanwhile the Colombian government has also announced it has launched a criminal investigation into the Alabama-based coal company Drummond. The company has been accused of paying right-wing paramilitaries to murder three trade union leaders working at its coal mining operations in Colombia. Later today Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is meeting in Washington with Colombia's new foreign minister.


"The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" - Doc Traces Path to Torture of Prisoners at Infamous Iraqi Prison
"The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" - a new HBO documentary - traces the political and legal precedents that led to the torture of prisoners at the infamous Iraqi prison. It includes numerous interviews with U.S. soldiers directly involved with torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraqi torture survivors as well as experts, legal scholars and former government officials. We speak with acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy.


Inspector General: FBI Violated Law Up to 3,000 Times
The Justice Department's inspector general has revealed the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times over the past four years as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here. Inspector General Glenn Fine criticized how the FBI had used national security letters to force telephone companies, banks and credit institutions to produce the private records of citizens. In response, House Democrats and Republicans warned that it might strip the FBI of its power to demand that companies turn over customer records if the agency did not swiftly correct abuses in the system.

Activists in North Carolina Criticize Firm Connected to Torture Flights
Meanwhile in North Carolina, dozens of organizations are calling today on the state's governor to investigate the actions of Aero Contractors - the shadowy North Carolina hired by the CIA to carry out extraordinary renditions. Flight records show Aero Contractors has flown persons kidnapped by the CIA to secret locations in other countries. Grassroots organizers in North Carolina want the state to stop allowing Aero Contractors to use state-funded airports. The groups say is unconscionable that North Carolina taxpayers are asked to continue to host a company that operates torture flights.


Spanish Judge Says Bush Could Face War Crimes Charges
One of the most prominent judges in Spain has publicly said President Bush and his Iraq war allies should face war crimes charges for their actions in Iraq. Baltasar Garzon called the war in Iraq one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history. Garzon said "We should look more deeply into the possible criminal responsibility of the people who are, or were, responsible for this war and see whether there is sufficient evidence to make them answer for it." Garzon is the investigating judge for Spain's National Court. Garzon became famous in 1999 when he tried to extradite former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet from Britain and try him for crimes against humanity.

Federal Investigators Criticize Safety Record of BP
In business news, Federal investigators has strongly criticized the oil giant BP and the U.S. agency charged with worker safety over the conditions of a Texas oil refinery where 15 workers were killed in a fire two years ago. This is Carolyn Merritt, chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

• Carolyn Merritt: "In our formal recommendations, we are calling on the company to make substantial safety improvements. In addition, we found regulatory oversight of refinery workers by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA needs to be improved."

Carolyn Merritt said OSHA had not done any planned comprehensive inspection of process safety at any U.S. oil refinery between 1995 and March 2005.


Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill joins us to talk about his new book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." Scahill writes, "Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the 'global war on terror,' with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and 20,000 private contractors at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments." From Iraq to New Orleans, Blackwater has continued to pull in multi-million-dollar government contracts, mostly without accountability and in near-secrecy.
Part II - Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
We turn to the second part of our discussion with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." Scahill discusses Blackwater's role in the Caspian Sea region in Central Asia and the battle in Congress over accountability for private contractors.

Blackwater

It turns out that the United States has about 150,000 American military in Iraq. But, we also have almost 100,000 American “contractors” in Iraq as well. And, the most aggressive of these contractors are from a company called Blackwater. The men that were hanging on that bridge back in 2004 were contractors from this company.
ln Jeremy Scahill’s book we see another side of this company: Blackwater. It turns out that Blackwater isn’t under the military code of conduct. The company argues that private contractors shouldn’t be subject to military laws, because they are a private contracting firm. They are actually paid through the state department, and other government departments instead of the Pentagon which stands to bolster their argument. But, they act like a roving band of mercenaries with only Erik Prince to answer to.
It turns out that Blackwater is sparing no expense to defend its right to be above the law. They claim that they don’t need to obey the military code of conduct because they are a private firm. They also claim that they shouldn’t be prosecuted in a criminal court, because they deal with military secrets that could put our troops in jeopardy. They also claim that they can not be prosecuted for any of the actions that they have taken in Iraq under the Iraqi courts, because they are Americans. In fact they seem to have an excuse for almost every possible way they that they could be held accountable for their crimes.
Blackwater isn’t just in Iraq. In fact, they go to the places where the US hasn’t athorized troop deployment yet. Blackwater can go to these places because they are a private company. And, a private company can go wherever they please. Talk about loopholes. Blackwater has found the right combination of circumstances that they have made war a profitable enterprise once again. And the soldiers aren’t the ones getting all that cash. Blackwater charges $950 per day per soldier to the US government, and they pay the majority of their mercenaries $350 per day. The rest of that money seems to go into overhead or Erik Prince’s pocket. We don’t know for sure because that detail is a secret that might jeopardize the safety of the troops in the field, or maybe Erik Prince from his mercenary soldiers.
If you want to know more about Blackwater, then maybe you should read the book. Or, you could listen to Jeremy Scahill interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. The podcast and audio are in the archives at npr.org.

Slimy Karl Rove or White House can't get its lies straight

White House can't get its lies straight

Professional liar and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, flat out lied Tuesday when he told reporters that White House counsel Harriet Miers had suggested firing all 93 U.S. attorneys, and that it was "her idea only." Snow said Miers' idea was quickly rejected by the Department of Justice. BUT, new e-mails from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was way more involved in the scheme than the White House previously acknowledged. Oops!

Flashback: Bush removal ended Guam investigation

A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.

Statements On Firings of Prosecutors Are Key Issue

In testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys. Just a month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff, laid out a plan to do just that.

Why is a Political Operative on the Government Payroll?

What I don't understand is why the American taxpayer has to pay for a political operative to operate out of the White House. Of course, every president gets advice about policy and politics from his staff while he is in office. But Karl Rove doesn't do policy, he only does politics.

Rove, Gonzales Discussed Attorney Firings in Jan. ‘05
New evidence continues to emerge further implicating the White House in what has been called the politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys. On Thursday, ABC News revealed previously undisclosed emails showing presidential advisor Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directly engaged in the process to force out the prosecutors as early as January of 2005.
In one email, former aide Kyle Sampson says he and Gonzales spoke about replacing up to one-fifth of the ninety-three US attorneys.Sampson added they had discussed retaining “[those who] are doing a great job [and] are loyal Bushies.” In another message, Sampson wrote: “Due to the history, it would certainly send ripples through the U.S. attorney community if we told folks they got one term only... That said, if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I.”
Another email from a White House aide reveals Rove requested in-depth updates on the ongoing discussions over whether to fire the attorneys. The White House immediately backed away from its previous claim former counsel Harriet Miers initiated a plan to dismiss all 93 US attorneys. In a statement, the Justice Department said Gonzales “has no recollection” of discussing the firing of US attorneys while he was White House counsel.
The disclosures have given new momentum to calls for Gonzales’s removal. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said: “The odds are very high that he will no longer be the attorney general.”

Schumer: White House Holding ‘Active And Avid Discussion’ Over Gonzales Resignation

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held a press conference moments ago to react to new emails showing that Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales had a deeper role in the U.S. Attorney scandal than they originally acknowledged.

How TalkingPointsMemo Beat the Big Boys on the U.S. Attorney Story

If you wanted to force the issue -- and we would be surprised if some MSM-hating critic doesn't -- the episode illustrates perfectly how the Washington press corps ignores the blogosphere at its own peril.

USA Firings: Rove's Plan to Win in '08

This is Earth Shattering. According to the author, Karl Rove is obsessed with the 2006 collapse. Rove is convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the reason why republicans lost the house and senate was because of corruption. Specifically, it was because of US Attorneys who investigated and indicted republicans, such as Duke Cunningham.
Karl Rove wants two things to happen in time for the 2008 election. First, he wants to stop the US Attorney investigations of republicans. Secondly, he wants to manufacture scandals amongst democrats, and use the legitimacy of US Attorneys to do it. He wants to make it so that republicans are no longer the party of corruption, but democrats are instead. And if that means ignoring actual republican corruption, and inventing charges against democrats, then they will need the right US Attorneys to do this.

Report: Gonzales Advised Bush on Blocking Wiretap Probe
As Gonzales continues to take heat over the attorney firings, a new controversy is emerging over his role in the administration’s handling of a Justice Department probe into the warrantless domestic spy program. Investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting Gonzales advised President Bush on whether to shut down the inquiry shortly after he learnt his own behavior would likely be examined in the investigation. It is unclear what Gonzales advised, but President Bush took action to effectively sideline the case. Insiders say the blocked inquiry would have likely focused on Gonzales’s own role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he served as White House counsel.

Bush's Shadow Army
This article is adapted from Jeremy Scahill's new book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books).
To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld resigned he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine. In the Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld outlined what he called a "road map for change" at the DoD, which he said had begun to be implemented in 2001. It defined the "Department's Total Force" as "its active and reserve military components, its civil servants, and its contractors--constitut[ing] its warfighting capability and capacity. Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions."
Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with political cover, allowing the government to deploy private forces in a war zone free of public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces shrouded in secrecy. The Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress in turn have shielded the contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. Despite the presence of more than 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq, only one has been indicted for crimes or violations. "We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq and half of them aren't being counted, and the danger is that there's zero accountability," says Democrat Dennis Kucinich, one of the leading Congressional critics of war contracting.
Just a month into the new Congressional term, leading Democrats were announcing investigations of runaway war contractors. Representative John Murtha, chair of the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Defense, after returning from a trip to Iraq in late January, said, "We're going to have extensive hearings to find out exactly what's going on with contractors. They don't have a clear mission and they're falling all over each other."
Two days later, during confirmation hearings for Gen. George Casey as Army chief of staff, Senator Jim Webb declared, "This is a rent-an-army out there." Webb asked Casey, "Wouldn't it be better for this country if those tasks, particularly the quasi-military gunfighting tasks, were being performed by active-duty military soldiers in terms of cost and accountability?" Casey defended the contracting system but said armed contractors "are the ones that we have to watch very carefully." Senator Joe Biden, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has also indicated he will hold hearings on contractors. Parallel to the ongoing investigations, there are several bills gaining steam in Congress aimed at contractor oversight.
The only folks who are "winning" these wars in Arghanistan and Iraq are the defense contractors. The use of hired mercenaries is nothing new: it's just become much more highly profitable.

The Last Days of Constitutional Rule? - by Paul Craig Roberts
Our elected representatives, if not the American people, now regard as normal such heinous actions as war crimes, the rape of the Constitution, self-serving use of government office, and the constant stream of lies and propaganda from the highest offices of the executive branch. Perhaps that is what disillusioned foreigners, who once looked with hope to America, mean when they say that America does not exist anymore.

The Late, Great American Nation
The main reason we do not want the military patrolling our streets is that under martial law, the Bill of Rights becomes null and void. A standing army -- something that propelled the early colonists into revolution -- strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. Thus, if we were subject to martial law, there would be no rules, no protections, no judicial oversight and no elections. And unless these provisions are repealed, the president’s new power will be set in stone for future administrations to use -- and abuse.

General wants to add troops
The appeal -- not yet made public -- by Gen. David Petraeus for a combat aviation unit would involve between 2,500 and 3,000 more soldiers and dozens of transport helicopters and powerful gunships, said the Pentagon sources. That would bring the planned expansion of US forces so far to close to 30,000 troops. The request would put the US troop increase in Iraq at close to thirty thousand.

Mother of Ailing Iraq War Vet Confronts Rep Obey Over U.S. Troop Withdrawal
Over 1,000 protests, vigils and actions are scheduled over the coming days to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. Anti-war activists have also spent countless hours in recent months urging Democratic lawmakers to cut off funding for the war. Last week, Tina Richards, the mother of an Iraq war veteran, confronted the Chair of House Appropriations Committee Rep. David Obey in the halls of the Capitol.

Senate Rejects Iraq Withdrawal Measure
The news comes amid a new showdown over the Iraq war on Capital Hill. On Thursday, Democrats advanced an Iraq withdrawal resolution in the House but failed to pass a similar measure in the Senate. The House Appropriations Committee voted to send the military spending bill to the House floor. The vote was thirty-six to twenty-eight. The bill would link war funding in part to the withdrawal of combat troops by September of 2008. Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee of California broke party ranks to vote against the measure. Lee says the resolution doesn’t go far enough to end the war. Lee said: “I believe the American people sent a mandate to us to bring home our men and women before the end of the year.” Meanwhile, the Senate voted down a measure to withdraw troops by April of 2008. The final vote was fifty to forty-eight. Before voting, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid hailed the measure as an opportunity to change course.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "The war has gone on too long. We must change direction in Iraq. We've given the president chance after chance. We hear this things are getting better things are getting better, his own Pentagon says it's a civil war. His own Pentagon says it's getting worse."

Veteran Dies After VA Refuses Treatment For Days
As the Walter Reed scandal rocks Washington, what are the conditions at VA hospitals outside the Beltway? We look at the story of a 58-year-old Vietnam veteran named Willie Dougherty. He died in October after suffering two pelvic fractures. His family says he died because he was refused treatment by the VA. We speak with his widow, Jean Stentz, American Legion commander Harold Davis and Shay Everitt, the journalism student who first started investigating the story.

War-wounded ‘overwhelming’ army healthcare system
THE US Army's healthcare system for wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan has been "overwhelmed" by sheer numbers, according to a new government report by the service's inspector general.There are only 30 physical evaluation staff to process disability claims for the 32,000 US casualties of the two wars and almost every medical holding facility for returning veterans lacks qualified staff.

lnterview with James Yee
"It’s an obligation for everyone to do what they can to uphold the Constitution and prevent the government from breaking the law."

Dan Rather: Journalism has 'lost its guts'

Mugabe: Western Critics “Can Go Hang”
In Zimbabwe, fifty opposition activists have been released from prison after prosecutors failed to appear at their court hearing. The activists were rounded up Sunday in a police crackdown on a mass protest. Several were badly beaten. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was released from the hospital earlier today. Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe dismissed Western criticism of the protest crackdown.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe: “Now when they criticize government that is trying to prevent that violence or to punish the perpetrators of that violence, then of course we take the position that they can go hang."

Booga-booga! Meet the boogie man! What 4 years of torture can do to a guy! Or is this even the real KSM???

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses, and Wants His Fingers Back
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, admitted to those attacks and numerous others during a U.S. military hearing on Saturday. After his confession he requested that his interrogators return six missing fingers and remove the electrodes from his testicles.

FLASHBACK: A chilling inheritance of terror
Now it has emerged that Kuwaiti national Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did indeed perish in the raid, but his wife and child were taken from the apartment and handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in whose hands they remain.

FLASHBACK: CIA holds young sons of captured al-Qa'eda chief
Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.

'Al-Qaida' Man 'Admits' 9/11 Role: Torturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 'Worked'

KSM: The Ultimate Patsy "Confesses"
Go back to sleep, you can trust a press release from a heavily redacted secret military tribunal of a tortured detainee conducted by individuals representative of an oligarchy whose every deception, gross violation of U.S. law, and act of imperial bloodletting over the last six years rests on maintaining the orthodoxy of the official 9/11 myth

Huge Problem with KSM Confession

In his confession, KSM claims:
"I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the New (or Second) Wave of attacks against the following skyscrapers after 9/11: ...Plaza Bank, Washington state"
The Plaza Bank was not founded until 2006 according to their official Web site.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The Official Legend of 9/11 is a Fabricated Setup

Officials: Mohammed exaggerated claims

Matt Lauer: Can Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 'tortured' testimony be trusted?

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported for ABC's The Blotter that "new rules issued by the Pentagon today prohibit water boarding, though there was no clear acknowledgement that it was permitted previously," and that "CIA officers told ABC News that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted the longest under water boarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk."

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed "Confessed" To Attacking Bank Founded After His Arrest
After media commentators across the spectrum, from Time Magazine to Matt Lauer and even Rosie O'Donnell were openly cynical of the accuracy of KSM's testimony, officials speaking on condition of anonymity admitted that the claims were exaggerated, but still insist KSM's responsibility for 9/11, "from A to Z" is genuine.
Former CIA field officer Robert Baer also expressed his doubts, questioning "What the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession."
In September 2006, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf fingered Omar Sheikh as Pearl's assassin, adding that he was an MI6 agent working for British Intelligence. In the transcript of his alleged confession, KSM cryptically discusses CIA and Mossad involvement in the Pearl execution but the text is heavily redacted.
KSM's claim that he ran the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is also highly suspect because it also conveniently sweeps under the carpet the fact that it was the FBI who provided the terror cell with the bomb materials through their informant and ordered the bombing to go ahead.
A CNN online poll shows that a massive 74% disbelieve all of the claims made by KSM and BBC respondents were equally cynical:
Isn't torture brilliant!? Without it the Spanish Inquisition would never have found all those witches, and the US would not have got all these targets that conveniently keep the War on Terror fresh in the minds of the gullible.
I think the blacked out part must have been a confession to being Jack the Ripper!
Simon Ward, Watford, United Kingdom

How can one know whether to believe anything that comes out of these military courts. All is in secret, no one but the
military can report on the going ons and the people charged are imprisoned in concentration camps with many
allegations of troture. It seems like a trial with a venier of legality but with no mean to really know except through
blind faith. So I guess it will be OK for those who believe whatever the american govennment says and totally
debunked for those with minimum skeptisism.
Henry, Niagara Falls

Officials: Mohammed exaggerated claims

Translation. "We got caught lying our asses off, so in Bush administration manner, we're going to blame the victim. And don't forget to ignore the emails nailing fat Karl for blowing off those prosecutors so we could transfer our corrupt image over to the Democrats by pursuing false charges. And make like you don't remember our continuing Iran attack buildup, otherwise Israel wouldn't need all your taxpayer dollars to exist, because really the Cold War is over, and we don't really need their nukes anymore. And..."

The 'Confessions' Of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

KSM's confession was announced to the world by the very people who routinely torture prisoners, hold secret military trials behind closed doors, and bar all lawyers and reporters from being anywhere near the courtroom. But you do believe them, don't you?

Before Jon Stewart
Fake news arrives on doorsteps around the world every day, paid for by You, Time magazine Person of the Year, a.k.a. Joe and Jane Citizen, in one way or another. Take for instance, the U.S. government’s 2005 initiative to plant “positive news” in Iraqi newspapers, part of a $300 million U.S. effort to sway public opinion about the war.
And remember Armstrong Williams, the conservative columnist who was hired on the down low to act as a $240,000 sock puppet for the president’s No Child Left Behind program? Williams’s readers had no idea he was a paid propagandist until the Justice Department started looking into allegations of fraud in his billing practices.

Dozens in GOP Turn Against Bush's Prized 'No Child' Act
More than 50 GOP members of the House and Senate -- including the House's second-ranking Republican -- will introduce legislation today that could severely undercut President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, by allowing states to opt out of its testing mandates.

No place for the Bill of Rights in the New World Order
Something stinks, the jobs left anyway, the money went offshore and the common person was left to hard scrabble until this all comes down around our ears. Without compassion, our Republic will fail. This is not about entitlements to the poor and less fortunate in our society, it’s about the perceived entitlements to the rich, which will bring us down.

BBC Calls for Release of Kidnapped Reporter in Gaza
In the Occupied Territories, the fate of a BBC correspondent kidnapped in Gaza remains unknown. Alan Johnston was seized from his car earlier this week. On Thursday, the BBC’s Simon Wilson appealed for his release.

Simon Wilson: “It is clear from the messages that we've heard in the time we've been here that these efforts have been enormously appreciated in Gaza. So therefore we would urge everybody with influence here to continue their efforts so that Alan maybe reunited with his family and colleagues at the earliest opportunity."

Kidnapped Italian Journalist Pleads for Life
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, an audiotape of the kidnapped Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo has been released. The recording is poor quality, but Mastrogiacomo can be heard pleading for his life.

Top Cuban Official: Castro Will Stand for Re-election
In Cuba, the head of the National Assembly says the ailing President Fidel Castro will be in “perfect shape’” to run for parliamentary re-election next year. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Ricardo Alarcon said Castro is focusing on recovery and would be able to return to his job.

Riot Erupts at Opposition Rally in Hungary
Police officers and rioters clashed Thursday on the streets of Budapest after about 100,000 people rallied to demand that the Socialist prime minister resign.

Mayan Leaders Perform Purification Ritual Following Bush Visit
In Guatemala, Mayan spiritual leaders conducted a purification ritual Thursday at a pyramid President Bush visited earlier this week. The Mayans had led protests against Bush’s trip to the Iximche ruins.

Mayan leader Jorge Morales Toj: "The purpose of the ceremony is to get rid of the bad spirits, to saturate this ancestral place and to ask for better and good paths."

Plame to Testify in CIA Leak Hearing
Back in the United States, the outed CIA operative Valerie Plame is set to testify on Capitol Hill today as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opens a hearing into the scandal that blew her cover. The hearing comes just over a week since Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction in the investigation into the leaking of Plame's identity.

His Own Worst Enemy
While he is still as dangerous as any cornered animal, Cheney stands brightly revealed as the main culprit in cherry-picking the evidence to make the case for a stupid, failed war. He has been exposed as a vindictive, inflexible ideologue, who attempts to destroy all who publicly disagree with him, such as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson’s CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame Wilson. His extensive ties and loyal political service to energy and defense companies such as Halliburton (which now, in a burst of honesty, is moving its headquarters to Dubai), reveal him to be a man of deep corruption.

After Libby, All Roads Lead to Feith
Douglas Feith was the author of the orders to disband the entire Iraqi army and destroy the civilian government infrastructure. I was a student in Germany after the Second World War. Even after ousting the the Nazis, America did not dismiss every school teacher and village administrator, but that's what the U.S. government did in Iraq. Under Saddam, government officials had to join the Ba'ath Party; after his removal, all Ba'athists were fired. Critical oversight was given to Shi'ite Ahmed Chalabi, a liar promoted by the neocons, and his friends.

US Climate Agency: 2007 Warmest on Record
In environmental news, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared this winter the warmest on record in the northern hemisphere. 2007 is also on pace to become the warmest year overall. If correct, the prediction would continue a trend that has brought record annual temperatures ten of the last dozen years.

Hundreds in NYC Protest Gen. Pace”s Comments on Homosexuality
Criticism continues to mount over General Peter Pace’s recent comments calling homosexuality “immoral.” Here in New York, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the US Army recruiting center in Times Square Thursday.

March 16th Marks 180th Anniversary of Freedom’s Journal
And today is the one hundred eightieth anniversary of the founding of Freedom’s Journal -- the first African American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States.

Rachel Corrie and Palestine
On March 16, 2003, an Israeli military bulldozer crushed Corrie to death as she tried to stop the demolition of the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza town of Rafah. Eyewitnesses said Rachel was standing directly in the path of the bulldozer holding a megaphone and wearing a fluorescent jacket. She was 23 years old.
Even the US government closed ranks behind Israel and the bulldozer operator. Being an American did not protect Rachel, and four years later, the US administration still refuses to investigate her death denying her American family justice and closure.

The Problem with Barack Obama's Israel Pose
So while Obama admits that Palestinians suffer more than Israelis, he still won't do a damn thing to balance out the asymmetrical relationship. In fact, Obama has made it clear that U.S. taxpayers will continue to foot the bill for Israel's ever-growing arsenal of weapons and missiles if he is indeed elected president in 2008.

Gonzales under the gun

A Story Unravels
"PREPARE TO Withstand Political Upheaval," the attorney general's now-ousted chief of staff wrote in an e-mail to the White House as the administration prepared to fire a number of U.S. attorneys last year. About that, at least, D. Kyle Sampson was right.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure in office has served only to deepen our conviction that he should never have been confirmed, has dismissed the firings as an "overblown personnel matter" and assured lawmakers that "I would never, ever make a change in a U.S. attorney position for political reasons." It's become clear, most recently and pointedly with the release of e-mails between Mr. Sampson and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers, that Mr. Gonzales's assurances can't be trusted.
The stench of politics surrounding the firings grows daily: from the original, harebrained idea of the hapless Ms. Miers to can all 93 U.S. attorneys; to the involvement of the president's chief political adviser, Karl Rove; to the improper intervention of lawmakers and a senior congressional aide; to the misleading -- at best -- accounts from Mr. Gonzales and other top Justice Department officials.
Mr. Gonzales can make self-serving declarations about his belief in "accountability," as he did at a news conference yesterday; he can proclaim his plans to "ascertain what happened here . . . and take corrective actions." Nothing in his record gives any reason for confidence that anything will change in a department under his leadership.

Alberto Gonzales Refuses to Resign Over Political Purging of U.S. Attorneys
Newly released emails confirm the White House worked with the Justice Department to fire eight U.S. Attorneys. The decisions were made in part on whether the prosecutors "exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general." On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers said they now want to question White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has acknowledged mistakes in the firing of eight US attorneys but is refusing calls to step down. This comes as the House Judiciary Committee has released a series of emails and documents showing the White House initiated the process that led to the dismissals.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers say they want to question White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

GOP Senator Calls for Gonzales Firing
A Senate Republican has joined growing calls for the dismissal of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. In an interview with the Associated Press, Republican Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire said: “We need to have a strong, credible attorney general that has the confidence of Congress and the American people. Alberto Gonzales can’t fill that role.” Sununu’s comments came hours after President Bush defended Gonzales’ performance. Bush also tried to explain his role in the controversy. The President admitted to discussing the prosecutors with Gonzales but said he didn’t mention individual names. Meanwhile in Washington, White House counsel Fred Fielding met with lawmakers to discuss possible subpoenas of top administration officials including chief presidential adviser Karl Rove. Emails and documents released this week show the White House and the Justice Department began discussing firing the prosecutors more than two years ago.

Guam Prosecutor Dismissed Following Abramoff Probe
Meanwhile, two Democratic Congressmembers are asking Congress to investigate another attorney dismissal, this one from five years ago. Congressmembers George Miller of California and Nick Rahall of West Virginia want to look into the firing of Frederick Black of the island of Guam. Black had begun investigating the activities of the now-convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff at the time. The probe ended shortly after Black was let go.

Harvest of Shame: Report Accuses Child Labor Abuses in Guatemala
President Bush traveled to Guatemala on Monday and said free trade can spread opportunity, provide jobs, and help lift people out of poverty. But according to a new report, there is a food processing plant less than 10 miles from where Bush spoke where children as young as 13 years old are working under deplorable conditions.

Chiquita paid terrorist group
Chiquita Admits Payments to Colombian Paramilitaries
One of the world’s largest banana producers has agreed to plead guilty to paying a Colombian right-wing paramilitary group. Chiquita Brands International will pay a twenty-five million dollar fine as part of a settlement for making payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The Justice Department says Chiquita paid out more than $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004. Nearly half came after the group was designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2001. Chiquita has previously admitted to making unspecified “protection” payments following what it says were threats from militant groups. Chiquita -- formally United Fruit Company -- has seen several accusations of ties to criminal activity in its Latin America dealings.
In other Colombia-related news, a federal judge has rejected an attempt to dismiss a civil suit against the Alabama-based coal company Drummond for the killing of three Colombian union leaders. The suit says company executives directly paid assassins to commit the slayings.
United Fruit Company has been exploiting and terrorizing South & Central America for more than a century.

Squad leader Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard

US officer Raymond Girouard "upset" Iraqi suspects taken alive, court hears

A soldier who has pleaded guilty to killing those detainees told the court that he shot them because his squad leader told him to do it after having been reprimanded when he radioed back to base to say he had prisoners to transport. A US military officer sounded "pretty mad and upset" that a group of soldiers had taken suspected Iraqi insurgents alive during a raid in which they had been told to kill all military-aged males, a court was told Tuesday. Private William Hunsaker showed little remorse for his crimes, saying he had only agreed to an 18-year sentence because "I got tired of lying to everybody and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison for -- in my eyes -- killing three terrorists.
"He tells us to cut the ties, let them loose and shoot them," Hunsaker told the court before describing how he aimed his gun at the heart of one of the prisoners. After the three men were dead, "Girouard boots me over, flips open his pocketknife and said 'it's got to look good'" before cutting Hunsaker's face and arm to make it look like he was injured in a struggle as the prisoners tried to escape, Hunsaker told the court.
Another soldier who admitted to killing the detainees told the court he considered it an initiation rite.
"That's what the army is, a big gang," said Private Corey Claget who also received an 18-year sentence.
A third soldier, who said his objections to the plan were dismissed, said Girouard was nonchalant about ordering the executions.

Democrats' Resolution on Iraq Reaches Senate Floor
After weeks of delay, Democratic leaders yesterday managed to bring to the Senate floor for the first time a binding resolution that would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. But Republicans remained confident that they could kill the proposal, and the White House threatened a veto, raising constitutional concerns.

US looks at plan to oust Musharraf
THE US has indicated for the first time that it might be willing to back plans by elite echelons of the military in Islamabad to oust Pervez Musharraf from power, as the Pakistani President was beset by major new difficulties over his attempts to sack the country's chief justice.

Rahm Emanuel Tells Dems to Stay Off Colbert Report
If this doesn't prove the idiocy of DLC Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, nothing will.

Attacks in Iraq hit all-time high
The Pentagon has for the first time said some of the violence in Iraq could be described as a “civil war.” The assessment came in a quarterly report that called the last three months of 2006 the deadliest period since the US invasion. UN figures show more than six thousand Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded in December alone.

U.S. allies in Africa may have engaged in secret prisoner renditions
A network of U.S. allies in East Africa secretly have transferred to prisons in Somalia and Ethiopia at least 80 people who were captured in Kenya while fleeing the recent war in Somalia, according to human rights advocates here.

Giuliani, Clinton Battered Candidates as 9/11, OKC bomb Unravel
With the recent revelation of CNN and BBC reporting, on Sept. 11, 2001, that World Trade Center 7, also known as the Saloman Brothers Building, had collapsed before it actually fell, suspicions about Giuliani's advance knowledge of what was obviously a preplanned demolition have again come to the fore. Was it, as seems likely, the mayor's emergency management office that warned the firefighters and news agencies the building would collapse? On 9/11, WTC7 became the third, after WTC1 and WTC2, steel frame building to ever collapse

What the heck is Sibel Edmonds' Case about? And why should I care?
Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one... I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people.

Dems seek to open records; Bush threatens veto
Open-government bills sped to House passage Wednesday as Democrats pushed to make President Bush and his executive branch more forthcoming about their actions. The White House struck back with veto threats.
Aided by substantial Republican support, the Democrats approved legislation to force government agencies to be more responsive to the millions of Freedom of Information Act requests for public documents they receive every year.
Finally, lawmakers approved a bill to strengthen protection for government whistle-blowers. They cited the failure to expose faulty intelligence about prewar Iraq in expanding protections for national security officials. Employees of federal contractors, airport screeners and government scientists facing retaliation for objecting to political influences are also covered.

It Can Happen Here: Journalist Joe Conason on "Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush"
Political journalist Joe Conason joins us in our firehouse studio to discuss his new book, "It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush." Conason writes, "For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country.

Key 9/11 suspect 'admits guilt'
The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks has admitted his role in them, and 30 other plots in a hearing at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon says.
Who wouldn't "confess" after 4 years of torture? Even the BBC's headline sounds skeptical.

Experts close the lid on 'suitcase nukes'
Nuclear bombs cleverly concealed in suitcases don't exist in real life. Even so, they have long been a popular Hollywood plot point.

Prominent 9/11 Truth Debunker Admits Smear Tactics

A prominent debunker of skeptics of the official 9/11 story has broken ranks and confessed that he used underhand tactics, including fallacious attribution of holocaust denial, to smear the credibility of the 9/11 truth movement.

What's Good for Halliburton is Good for ... Dubai
We--and members of Congress, if they still remember how to do their job--ought to be asking whether Halliburton's move to Dubai has anything to do with anticipated business should Cheney get his way and the U.S. attacks Iran this spring. Since such a war would inevitably include the destruction of much of Iran's state-owned oil industry, it would represent a huge new business opportunity for Halliburton, which first and foremost is an oil-services company.

Foes and former friends want Cheney put out to pasture
So it's time to hit the road, Mr. Cheney. You can move to Dubai and again take over Halliburton, that big former Texas company that made you rich -- the company that is also in need of a hasty exit.

PEACE IS A THREAT TO AIPAC
Pro Israeli activists and friends, including Cheney, Obama and Clinton, met earlier this week at the AIPAC convention in Washington. Their true colours were exposed when the group made it known that it sent a letter to the Bush Administration urging the US to cut off all American contacts with the Palestinian Authority.

Election workers sentenced for rigging '04 recount
The supervisors had to know, and the reason is a simple one. There is one and only one reason to rig a recount and that is to protect a rigged election. This case is prima fascia proof that the Ohio election which gave Bush a second term was fraudulent. The people running and ruining our nation have no legal right to be there.

Police Kill 12 Protesting Expropriation in India
In India, at least twelve people were killed after police opened fire on villagers opposing the forced expropriation of farmland in West Bengal. The Indian government wants to use the land to create a tax-free industrial park for an Indonesian chemical firm. More than five hundred police were deployed. Authorities had not tried to enter the area since January due to local opposition.

UK Parliament Approves Nuclear Submarine Over Protest
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair has won approval for a call to renew Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines despite a revolt from nearly ninety-members of his Labour party. The program -- Trident -- has drawn widespread protest. On Wednesday, an unidentified protester spoke out at a naval base in Scotland.

UN to open permanent probe on Israel
The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
Since its inception, the 47-member body - which includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China - has continued to single out the Jewish State. It has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions on Israel.

Obama criticized for comments on Palestinians

An Iowa Democrat and member of a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group is calling on Senator Barack Obama to clarify sympathetic comments he made about Palestinians.
The Illiniois senator made the comments when he spoke Sunday to a small group of Democratic activists in Muscatine.He was quoted in The Des Moines Register as saying "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people".
Maybe he's gone some guts after all.

Palestinian Factions Agree on Cabinet in Unity Gov’t
In the Occupied Territories, rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have agreed on the makeup of a cabinet in their new coalition government. Palestinians hope the unity deal will help end the international boycott on their government. The US and Israel have rejected the Hamas platform of a long-term truce and want Hamas to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and respect previous peace agreements. Palestinians say the conditions are unfair because Israel refuses to accept the same towards Palestinians.

Cornel West on "What It Means to Be a Leftist in the 21st Century"
Professor, culture critic, and social justice advocate Cornel West addressed a panel at the 2007 Left Forum in New York last weekend. West is a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University. West says, "What I would like to see is radical reformism once more become fashionable among young people."

Ukrainians Protest US Missile Agency Head
In Ukraine, the head of the US Missile Agency was met with protest Wednesday as he defended plans for the controversial US missile shield in parts of Europe. Lt. General Henry Obering was speaking to journalists when several protesters heckled him. Demonstrators held anti-nuclear signs and chanted slogans before they were removed from the room. The Bush administration wants to install a battery of up to ten ballistic missiles in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic. Recent polls show majority opposition in both countries.

Vatican Rebukes Leading Salvadoran Dissident Priest
The Vatican has rebuked one of El Salvador’s leading dissident priests over writings advocating liberation theology. Reverend Jon Sobrino has played a key role in El Salvador’s political struggles. He escaped death in 1989 in the well-known murders of six Jesuit priests, along with their cook and her daughter, at the hands of US-backed Salvadoran troops.

Zimbabwe runs out of maize
Zimbabwe has run out of maize with the state-controlled Grain Marketing Board (GMB) last week being forced to shut down for days its biggest milling plant at the Aspindale depot in Harare.

Florida to Pay $5M Over Boot Camp Beating Death
Back in the United States, the state of Florida has agreed to pay five million dollars to the family of a fourteen-year old who died after guards at a juvenile “boot camp” beat him last year. The teenager, Martin Lee Anderson, was initially said to have died of a complication from sickle cell blood disease. But a second autopsy later concluded he suffocated to death. Video footage shows Anderson collapsing to the ground after one of the guards hit him from behind. Seven guards and one nurse have been charged with aggravated manslaughter.

Kentucky Overrun With Unwanted Horses
Kentucky, the horse capital of the world, famous for its sleek thoroughbreds, is being overrun with thousands of horses no one wants - some of them perfectly healthy, but many of them starving, broken-down nags. Other parts of the country are overwhelmed, too. The reason: growing opposition in the U.S. to the slaughter of horses for human consumption overseas.
Public backlash - and state bans or the threat of them - have led to the closure of several slaughterhouses that used to take in horses no longer suitable for racing or work. Auction houses are glutted with horses, and many rescue organizations have run out of room. There have been reports of horses chained up in eastern Kentucky and left for days without food or water. Others have been turned loose in the countryside. Some people who live near the strip mines in the mountains of impoverished eastern Kentucky say that while horses have long been left to roam free there, the number now may be in the thousands, and they are seeing herds three times bigger than they did just five years ago.
Hey, why don't people start riding them again instead of driving cars????? And enjoy them as beautiful animals with rights to live and not suffer. Why does everything have to be "controlled"?

Privatizing Walter Reed = Bad News for Veterans

Larger CIA and DoD Privatization Scandal Emerging from Walter Reed Story, US Attorneys Firing

In each case, the companies under investigation have links to prominent GOP figures, including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and several Republican Congressmen indicted for corruption involving kickbacks from defense contractors. The Republican Congressional Campaign Commitee (RCCC) has also received substantial contributions from conservative fund managers running Cerberus, a virually unregulated $30 billion hedge fund, which owns the second largest bank in Israel.

Army Secretary Who Resigned Over Walter Reed Given Lavish Farewell Ceremony
Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned last week after the neglect and squalor at Walter Reed military hospital was exposed by the Washington Post. Harvey not only oversaw these conditions, but chose to place Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley —--who had been personally aware for years about the problems and apparently done nothing -- back in control of the hospital. That decision was reversed days later by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Despite the terms of his resignation, Harvey today was given a celebratory farewell ceremony at the large Conmy Hall in Virginia, pictured below. ThinkProgress obtained a media advisory promoting the event, which states that Army chief of staff Peter Schoomaker would be hosting the “farewell ceremony in honor” of Harvey.
In the text of his “Message to the Army,” Harvey says, “I am leaving your ranks saddened,” but claims that the “well-being” of “Soldiers and their families” has “always been my highest priority.”

Killing U.S. Troops Slowly

Twenty-five years ago, March 14, 1981 Jim Hopkins, Marine veteran of Vietnam, born on the Marine Corps birthday of Nov. 10, drove his army Jeep through the glass doors and into the lobby of the multi-million dollar, showcase edifice of Wadsworth VA hospital, at Los Angeles, California. He did so to protest the gross, willfully negligent treatment given US veterans within the VA system, specifically, those veterans of the US war in Southeast Asia, aka, the Vietnam War.

Cocktail of additives found in child medicines

Children's medicines contain a cocktail of additives which are banned in food and drink aimed at under-threes, says a report out today from the Food Commission.

Hugo Chavez to George W. Bush: Gringo Go Home
As President Bush tours Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spoke before tens of thousands at an anti-imperialist rally in Argentina of Friday. Excerpts of Chavez's stinging attack on Bush who was in Uruguay, just thirty miles away across the River Plate:

PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: [translated] On the other side of the river, that is where that little gentleman of the North must be. Let's give him a big boo! Gringo, go home!
The President of the United States has the lowest level of credibility and acceptance from his own people.
It would appear that he doesn't even dare mention my name, because he was asked in Brasilia today in a press conference -- I saw it, I watched it at the hotel -- and the journalist asked him, “It is said that you are here to stop Chavez's movement in South America.” And it looked like he almost had a heart attack when he heard "Chavez," because he actually stuttered a couple of times, and he actually changed the subject. He didn't answer the question. He didn't answer the question at all. So he doesn't even dare.
And I definitely dare to say his name. The President of the United States of North America, George W. Bush, the little gentleman of the North, the political cadaver that is visiting South America, that little gentleman is the president of all the history of the United States, and in the history of the United States, he has the lowest level of approval in his own country. And if we add that to the level of approval that he has in the world, I would think he's in the red now -- negative numbers.

President Bush v. Hugo Chavez: A Discussion on the State of Politics in Latin America
We continue our look at President Bush's five-nation tour of Latin America with Greg Grandin and Steven Ellner. Grandin is a professor of Latin American history at New York University and author of the book "Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism." Ellner has taught political science at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela since 1977. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Venezuela: Hugo Chavez and the Decline of an Exceptional Democracy."

Bush looking to rally support for Colombian leader

After a relaxing day of boating and barbecue in the Uruguayan countryside, President Bush flies to Colombia today for a much more difficult chore: shoring up U.S. support for President Alvaro Uribe, a longtime ally whose government has been tainted by ties to paramilitary death squads.

On eve of visit, military activity in Colombia confirmed
On the eve of a visit by President Bush, the U.S. Embassy confirmed that U.S. and Colombian soldiers had entered a stronghold of leftist rebels who are holding three Americans hostage.


Sao Paulo demostration

120 Arrested in Anti-Bush Protests in Colombia
In Columbia, 120 were arrested on Sunday during President Bush's visit to the capital of Bogota. Protesters clashed with police as Bush met with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe during a brief seven-hour trip to the capital. Thousands of protesters took to the streets to criticize President Bush's foreign policy.

• Colombian protester: "He represents the crimes that imperialism has committed since the beginning of the 20th century and through this century, he's assassinated thousands in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Palestine, and he continues to assassinate people, trade unionists, independent farmers in Colombia, that's why we're burning this rubbish flag."

Colombia was the third stop on president Bush's five-country tour of Latin America. Today he is in Guatemala and Mexico.

Bush: America Doesn't Get Enough Credit for Improving Lives
On Friday President Bush held a press conference alongside Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

• President Bush: I don't think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people's lives. And so my trip is to explain, as clearly as I can, that our nation is generous and compassionate; that when we see poverty, we care; that when we see illiteracy, we want to do something about it; that when we find there to be a deficiency in health care, we'll help to the extent we can."

Feds tried to cut aid for nuclear weapons workers

Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show. The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site. They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers. Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them. The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the program to compensate workers whose illnesses can be tied to working with radioactive and other toxic materials at nuclear weapons plants, such as the now-defunct Rocky Flats. More than 60,000 ill atomic bomb makers, including thousands from Rocky Flats, have sought help. About 16,000 workers nationwide have received a total of $2.6 billion. Far more have been denied or still are waiting for help.
...Throughout the documents, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Labor Shelby Hallmark and other officials express grave concern that the bill for providing $150,000 per ill worker could reach $7 billion over 10 years. Coincidentally, $7 billion is what the U.S. Department of Energy spent over 10 years cleaning up just one of its sites - Rocky Flats. The department has spent $65 billion so far cleaning up 84 of its weapons sites, which were left contaminated by the drive to win the Cold War.

Cheney says U.S. 'unflinching' on Israel

Cheney called the war on terror a "battlefield of ideas" and said the United States will "stay on the offensive until the enemy is destroyed," the Houston Chronicle reported. The vice president said abandoning Iraq would cause "consequences" in the Middle East.

Only twelve years old
It was about 3 P.M. last Wednesday, when Salama suddenly noticed small objects falling on the sand and kicking up little clouds of dust. Salama told her father later that she had no idea what they were; she had never seen a volley of live bullets. A few minutes later she saw her cousin Hanan slump to the ground, a hole in her head.

UN Group Urges Israel to Stop Building West Bank Wall
A United Nations watchdog group says Israel should ease roadblocks and other restrictions on Palestinians and stop building a wall through the West Bank. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also voiced concern at an unequal distribution of water resources, a disproportionate targeting of Palestinians in house demolitions and the "denial of the right of many Palestinians" to return to their land.

The Real War - On American Democracy

Juicy deals for Bush administration insiders are just a by-product of the real and deeper war against democracy. The neoconservatives are perfectly happy for us to think they're just opportunists skirting the edges of legality and morality, but this is far more dangerous than simple government corruption.

ABC News: Halliburton's Dubai Move Makes Democrats Suspicious
Halliburton moving out of the US so they don't have to pay tax on those billions of US taxpayer dollars.

Halliburton to Move HQ to Dubai
In business news, the U.S. oil services giant Halliburton has announced it will move its corporate headquarters from Houston to the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Halliburton is the biggest U.S. contractor operating in Iraq. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said "This is an insult to the US soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years." House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said his panel will hold hearings on Halliburton's move and discuss the ramifications for the U.S. taxpayer and national security.

Legal expert: President Bush may have ordered torture of terror suspects

Turley, among many legal analysts, believes that the likelihood that torture tactics were used on the detainees has heightened the administration's state of secrecy for fear of public retribution. The law professor also suggested that President Bush not only knew about the torture program but may have ordered it.

President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says

Among a new batch of documents rights groups have forced the gov't to release, a Bureau communication refers to a presidential Executive Order endorsing some forms of torture witnessed at Iraq prison.

Columnist Hails 'Surge' In Iraq -- Paper Does Not Disclose His Brother Was One of its Architects

The Washington Post published an opinion piece on Sunday hailing the success of the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq and harshly criticizing reporters for not doing the same, or at least covering alleged major advances in that country. It failed to disclose, however, that the author of the column, Robert Kagan, is the brother of the man who has been called an architect of the "surge" idea.

Bush to Send 8,200 More Troops to Iraq & Afghanistan
President Bush has approved sending 8,200 more U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. The troop escalation comes in addition to the 21,500 troops Bush ordered to Iraq in January. On Friday night, President Bush officially asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for $3.2 billion in emergency funding to pay for the troop increases.

Bush Seeks Iraq War Funds ‘With No Strings'
President Bush on Sunday called for Congress to provide financing for the Iraq war “with no strings attached.” And he defended his decision, made formal this weekend, to send more than 8,000 more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan by saying they would be dedicated to training and support missions.

13 Nations Hold Talks in Iraq
In Baghdad, representatives from 13 nations -- including the United States, Iran and Syria – held a closed-door summit in the Green Zone on Saturday to discuss the situation in Iraq. Iran demanded a timetable for withdrawal; the U.S. accused Tehran of aiding Shiite militias. 58 Killed in Attacks in Iraq on Sunday On Sunday at least 58 people were killed in attacks across Iraq. In Baghdad 31 Shiite pilgrims died in a car bombing as they returned from a religious festival.

Up to 100 Iraqi Homes Set Ablaze
Meanwhile up to 100 Iraqi homes were burned to the ground on Sunday in the town of Muqdadiya. The houses were set on fire apparently by Sunni militants to rid the area of Shiite families and to punish non-cooperative Sunni households. Officials are fearing house burnings will become a new intimidation technique in Iraq's civil war.

A quarter of US war vets diagnosed with mental disorder: study
Imagine waking up and realizing you are the BAD GUY, that you are the INVADER, and that you have been killing people over a lie. Could you hold onto your sanity?
And if that doesn't freak you out, consider that most of these soldiers will come home to careers in law enforcement.

Report: U.S. Considers Fallback Strategy for Iraq
The Los Angeles Times is reporting American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes a gradual withdrawal of forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress. Officials say such a strategy would be based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador. During the 1980s President Reagan sent Green Berets to train the Salvadoran military. At the same time the CIA secretly backed death squads in El Salvador.

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
Meanwhile the US military is scrambling to find enough troops to send to Iraq. Salon.com reports the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
Is this an isolated incident or a trend?

Struggle to find fresh troops for Iraq buildup

Military leaders are struggling to choose Army units to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan longer or go there earlier than planned, but five years of war have made fresh troops harder to find.

Well, here is a suggestion! Send the people in favor of the war but who haven't actually fought in one. Obviously they are very fresh and rested and ready to go! You know who I mean. People like Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Joe Scarborough, Bill O'Reilly, Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbhaugh, etc. etc. etc. Don Rumsfeld and George Bush flew a few jets and looked good while doing it, but never really served in actual combat. So let's send them into Iraq for a tour or two or five and see how they feel about the war then.

U.S. doesn't hold talks with Iran, Syria at conference

While American delegates did not sit down with their Iranian and Syrian counterparts for much-anticipated bilateral talks, they did shake hands before the meetings began and spoke directly to one another, according to al-Dabbagh.

Top Gun aircraft are seized from US museums in ‘paranoia’ raids

Federal US agents have seized disabled F14 fighter jets from museums in California because of fears that parts would be sold to Iran.


Gonzales, Mueller admit FBI broke law

The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.

Calls Increase For Attorney General Gonzales to Resign
Pressure is increasing on President Bush to dismiss Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales has been at the center of a pair of recent scandals involving the political purging of eight U.S. Attorneys and the FBI's misuse of the Patriot Act to gain personal information on thousands of Americans. On Sunday New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and called for Gonzales to step down. The editors of the New York Times have also called for his resignation. This comes as more details have emerged in the scandal over the purging of the US Attorneys.

Rove Tied to Political Purging of U.S. Attorneys
The McClatchley newspapers has revealed that presidential advisor Karl Rove was urged by the chair of the New Mexico Republican party to fire the state's US Attorney David Iglesias because he had failed to indict Democratic officials ahead of the midterm election. Iglesias was fired on December 7. The White House admitted on Sunday that Rove had relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. Newsweek is also reporting Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff drew up a list of prosecutors to be fired.

Democrats to Probe FBI's Abuse of Patriot Act
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill Democrats have announced plans to hold hearings on the FBI's abuse of the Patriot Act to obtain private telephone, email and financial records on American citizens. On Friday FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. Lawmakers are now threatening to amend the USA Patriot Act and limit the FBI's powers. Last week's report from the inspector general of the Justice Department also revealed that the FBI had an unusual contract with three phone companies to provide call records and subscriber information without legal process.

23 Arrested at Port of Tacoma In Protest to Stop Shipment of Stryker Armored Vehicles to Iraq
In Tacoma, Washington peace activists are continuing campaign to prevent the military from shipping 300 Stryker armored vehicles to Iraq. On Sunday, 23 protesters were arrested including T.J. Johnson who serves in the City Council of Olympia.

Protests Planned Outside AIPAC Convention
Protests are scheduled today outside the Washington Convention Center where AIPAC, the American Israel Political Action Committee is holding its annual policy conference. The protest is being organized by the D.C. Antiwar Network, the American Council on Mideast Policy, Global Exchange, National Association of Muslim American Women and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. The protesters are accusing AIPAC of bribing and bullying American lawmakers into supporting Israel, often in ways that ultimately harm Americans. Vice President Cheney is scheduled to address the AIPAC convention this morning. Top Democrats speaking at the conference include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Pentagon plans cyber-insect army
The foreign objects it suggests to be implanted are specific micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed, could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals, including those in explosives.
Darpa's previous experiments to get bees and wasps to detect the smell of explosives foundered when their "instinctive behaviours for feeding and mating... prevented them from performing reliably", it said.
Darpa was founded in 1958 to keep US military technology ahead of Cold War rivals. Its website says it has around 240 personnel and a $2bn budget. Supporters say much of its work has been successful, but it has also drawn criticism for unusable "blue-sky" projects. A former director said in 1975: "When we fail, we fail big."

some other DARPA SCHEMES:

Arpanet information processing system - a precursor to the internet
Self Healing Minefield - the mines reconfigure themselves to fill gaps when one or more are stepped on
Brain Interface Programme to wire soldiers directly into their machines
Mechanical Elephant to penetrate dense Vietnam War jungle. Unused
Policy Analysis Market - online futures market where "traders" wager on future terrorism and assassinations
Computer game, Tactical Iraqi, to teach troops how to decipher Iraqi body language

ANIMALS IN WARFARE

WWII: Attach a bomb to a cat and drop it from a dive-bomber on to Nazi ships. The cat, hating water, will "wrangle" itself on to enemy ship's deck. In tests cats became unconscious in mid-air

WWII: Attach incendiaries to bats. Induce hibernation and drop them from planes. They wake up, fly into factories etc and blow up. Failed to wake from hibernation and fell to death

Vietnam War: Dolphins trained to tear off diving gear of Vietcong divers and drag them to interrogation, sources linked to the programme say. Syringes later placed on dolphin flippers to inject carbon dioxide into divers, who explode. US Navy has always denied using mammals to harm humans.
Why can't these people do something other than invent ways to destroy????

Democrats Cancel Presidential Debate on Fox News
Nevada Democratic Party officials have canceled a presidential debate co-sponsored by Fox News. The decision was made a day after Fox News Chair Roger Ailes joked about how Senator Barack Obama's name is similar to Osama Bin Laden's. During a speech on Thursday to the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation First Amendment Dinner Ailes said: "It's true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said 'Why can't we catch this guy?" Fox News" coverage of Obama had already been widely criticized. Last week the filmmaker Robert Greenwald released a short online video featuring clips of recent Fox News coverage.

Pentagon's Spies Pushed Back?
Pentagon chief Robert Gates is considering whether to dismantle some controversial spying operations set up by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, as a way of by-passing the CIA.

U.S. Military Defends Deleting Journalists' Footage
The U.S. military is defending its decision to force two freelance journalists working in Afghanistan for the Associated Press to delete photos and video at the scene of a U.S. shooting last week. An Army spokesperson claimed that taking pictures could misrepresent what had happened in the incident. Col. Victor Petrenko said "When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were." The Associated Press disputed the assertions. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll said: "In democratic societies, legitimate journalists are allowed to work without having their equipment seized and their images deleted."

US grapples with homeless problem

A separate US government study claiming to be the most comprehensive ever found that 704,000 Americans were without shelter for at least one night between February and April 2005.

Josh Wolf Serves 200th Day in Jail
In other media news, the California videographer Josh Wolf has now spent over 200 days in jail. He is the longest-incarcerated journalist in U.S. history for refusing to comply to a subpoena. He remains in jail because he refuses to testify or turn over unpublished video to a federal grand jury investigating a protest in San Francisco.

US refuses to name men at Guantanamo Bay court
The decision to hold the hearings in private session, with the media and the men's lawyers excluded, has drawn criticism from campaigners. The Pentagon says it has taken the steps to prevent leaks of classified information and that it will publish an edited transcript of proceedings. But it refused to say which of the prisoners was to appear first or whether any had refused to participate.

Attorneys & Reporters Barred From Gitmo Hearings
At Guantanamo Bay, military hearings have begun for 14 men once held at secret CIA prisons. A panel of three military officers will decide whether the men should continue to be held as enemy combatants. Under the rules of the tribunal, the panel can base its decision on secret evidence that neither the captive nor the media is allowed to see. The detained men are not allowed to have attorneys during the hearings. Reporters have also been barred from the proceedings.

Thousands Riot in China
Thousands of Chinese farmers and laid-off workers rioted in central China, attacking police and smashing squad cars, a local official said on Monday, the latest in a string of violent demonstrations.
Nine police cars were burnt during the riot on Friday in the central province of Hunan in which 20,000 people clashed with about 1,000 police armed with guns and electric cattle prods, a local official told Reuters.

UN: Sudanese Gov't Is Orchestrating Killings in Darfur
A United Nations human rights mission has accused Sudan's government of orchestrating and taking part in international crimes in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed over the past four years. The report from the U.N. Human Rights Council said "The situation is characterized by gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law."

Zimbabwean Police Kills Activist; Detains Opposition Leader
In Zimbabwe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of his supporters were arrested on Sunday as riot police stopped a planned mass protest. Tsvangirai's lawyer said he has been badly beaten by police. Police in Zimbabwe also shot and killed one activist from the Movement for Democratic Change.

1,700 Civilians Killed in Somalia Over Past Year
In other news from Africa, a Somalian human rights group is estimating more than 1,700 civilians have been killed and another 2,000 wounded in Somalia over the past year.

Collins and Chertoff Fight to Save the National ID
Despite Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's public insistence that the Act needs to be implemented rapidly, the administration, and Mr. Chertoff himself, appear happy to avoid an immediate confrontation with the states and to go along with Ms. Collins' sales tactic. The Maine Senator introduced a bill, and pressed it as an amendment on the Senate floor, to extend the deadline for state compliance with the REAL ID Act, allowing companies in favor of the measure time to work in state capitols to calm the burgeoning rebellion.

Granny Peace Brigade Protests in Times Square
Here in New York, the Granny Peace Brigade has begun a six-day protest in Times Square. The anti-war group made up mostly of grandmothers, plans to read the names of the Americans and Iraqis that have died since the war began four years ago on March 19th.

• Molly Klopot, 88-year-old organizer: "These are wasteless, awful deaths, of young people, of children, of women, all over the world. This is just not the United States who suffered. How many thousands have been killed in Iraq? Look what we've done to that country. So it's very important, I think, that we give credence to the symbol that they represent of the useless death and destruction that this war has brought upon the world."

10 Malian Immigrants Die in Fire
And in other news from New York, the death toll from last week's house fire in the Bronx house has reached ten. All of the victims were immigrants from Mali, most were children. They are being buried today in New Jersey. It was the deadliest fire in New York – besides the attack on the World Trade Center – in nearly 20 years.

VA Scandal: resulting in "military revolt" by Army & Marines?

WAYNE MADSEN: "The scandals about the appalling conditions and poor treatment of wounded U.S. military veterans at Walter Reed Army Hospital and Veterans Administration hospitals around the country are resulting in a virtual military revolt against the Bush administration. The Bush administration is responding to military disgruntlement with courts-martial, threats of court martial, and a zero tolerance policy for military criticism of Bush and Cheney. According to our military sources, the most anti-Bush elements are found in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, the services that have suffered most from the disastrous neo-con war in Iraq. Morale in the Army and Marines has never been lower."

Ex-US Attorneys Testify over Controversial Dismissals
On Capital Hill, six former U.S. Attorneys testified Tuesday as part of an investigation into their controversial dismissals from the Justice Department. Each of the attorneys said they received improper contact from government officials or members of Congress both before and after they were asked to resign.

In new developments, former Washington state prosecutor John McKay revealed he was contacted by the chief of staff to Republican Congressmember Doc Hastings about an inquiry into voter-fraud in the state’s 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay said he ended the call because he found it inappropriate.
Another former U.S. Attorney, David Iglesias of New Mexico, revealed last week that he was fired after he resisted pressure by two Republican members of Congress to complete a corruption investigation involving Democrats ahead of the November elections. Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson have admitted calling Iglesias but denied they were pressuring or threatening him.
Senator Arlen Specter - the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- said: “If the allegations are correct, there has been serious misconduct in what has occurred.”

Feds test new data mining program
Called ADVISE -- for Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement -- the program is capable of linking and cross-matching material from websites and blogs to government records and personal data.

Israel Puts Embassies on Security Alert Following Reports It Kidnapped Iranian
Israel has issued a worldwide security alert to its embassies in the wake of reports it may have kidnapped a top Iranian general in Turkey, a senior Israeli official tells ABC News.

Pentagon closes Guantanamo Bay hearings to media
Reporters will be barred from hearings that begin Friday in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the 14 suspected terrorists who were transferred last year from secret CIA prisons, officials said Tuesday.

Big Radio Settles Payola Charges
The four broadcast conglomerates, which together own more than 1,500 stations, have agreed to pay hefty fines and to provide air time for local artists and independent record labels, government and industry officials said yesterday.

Shrub Taps Dole To Head Vet Med Probe
Are we supposed to believe Bush all of a sudden cares about moral obligation?

Ex-Cheney Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby Convicted of Perjury, Obstruction in CIA Leak Trial
Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby is facing up to 25 years in prison following his conviction on Tuesday in the CIA leak case. Jurors found Libby guilty of four felony counts of making false statements to the FBI, lying to a grand jury and obstructing a probe into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity. Libby is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal nearly two decades ago. We get reaction from investigative journalist Murray Waas and blogger and author Marcy Wheeler.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spoke after the verdict.: "The jury was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice about a serious matter. The results are actually sad. It's sad that we had a high level official, a person who worked in the office of the vice president, obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that had not happened, but it did."
Fitzgerald went on to say he will not seek new charges against other White House officials. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on President Bush to promise he won’t pardon Libby.

Wilson Statement in Response to Jury's Verdict in U.S. v. I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby

The criminal trial was about whether or not Mr. Libby obstructed justice and committed perjury by lying to FBI agents and the grand jury about the fact that he had disclosed to reporters that Valerie Wilson worked for the CIA. The civil suit, on the other hand, hinges on whether or not the defendants violated the constitutional rights of Valerie and Joe Wilson by making those disclosures in a concerted effort to retaliate against Joe Wilson for revealing the falsity of the president's rationale for the Iraq war.

Libby lied, troops died
The conviction of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on criminal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury brings only a partial conclusion to the sordid political tragedy that is the Bush presidency. Yet the judgment on this matter goes to the heart of the administration. The means and the ends of Bush's White House have received a verdict from the bar of justice.

Juror: ‘Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?’
At least one juror said the case should have gone beyond Libby. Speaking to reporters, Denis Collins said “It was said a number of times, ‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s [Karl] Rove]?’...We’re not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of, but it seemed like … he was the fall guy.”

Libby verdict deepens Bush woes
The so-called CIA leak case had kept official Washington rapt almost as long as the nation has been at war, because at its heart was the administration's efforts to discredit a vocal critic of its war rationale.
Joe Wilson wasn't just a "critic." Joe Wilson had proven that Bush was LYING us all into the war in Iraq by relying on documents Bush knew were forgeries!

Journalist and Author Andrew Cockburn on Donald Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy
ANDREW COCKBURN: He played numerous war games. When he couldn't become president himself, he decided to act the part, so he took part in secret high-level Pentagon war games, where they rehearsed what happens when there's a nuclear attack. And other parties, other players noticed that Rumsfeld, instead of getting on with what he was meant to be doing in this game, which was reconstructing the country, reconstituting the government, he was all for blowing up the world. I mean, he was all for instant massive retaliation to incinerate the eastern hemisphere, is what he really liked doing.

Walter Reed, on the cheap
SALON.COM: The Pentagon's top civilian official in charge of military healthcare wanted more money for bullets and bombs, and fewer benefits for soldiers.
It is now becoming more widely known that for years some soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered neglect and poor care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As the military health care system has become increasingly burdened with returning veterans, some patients have also been ground down by the complex bureaucracy that is supposed to pay them disability for their wounds.
"The military tried to run military health care on the cheap -- like an HMO," said Paul Sullivan, who until March 2006 was a project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs in charge of data on returning veterans. "And the consequences are the medical catastrophe and the bureaucratic nightmare that we see right now."
Dr. David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, oversees the Department of Defense pay and benefits programs. He is supposed to make sure that those outpatients are quickly and fairly compensated for their service-connected ills. But Chu shocked veterans' advocates two years ago when he said, according to the Wall Street Journal, that too much was being spent on benefits for soldiers, as opposed to bullets and bombs. "The amounts have gotten to the point where they are hurtful," Chu said about veterans' benefits in a Jan. 25, 2005, article. "They are taking away from the nation's ability to defend itself."
Other press clips suggest that the Army may have taken that attitude to heart during Chu's watch. The Army Times reported late last month that during the war, the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement decreased by more than two-thirds, from 642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005. (While most disability benefits given by the Army are subject to review in case of significant health improvements, permanent-disability cases are the worst of the worst: These are soldiers whose injuries will clearly leave them disabled for life. A decrease in their numbers is counterintuitive in wartime.)

Gen. Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal
Veterans groups told the Army surgeon general about the shockingly bad mental health treatment at Walter Reed two months before the latest expose, but there's no evidence he followed up.

The long-term wounds of Walter Reed
Despite military officials' "surprise" at recent coverage, Salon exposed inadequate care and an overwhelmed system unfriendly to vets beginning two years ago.

How Much More Harm Can Bush Do?
How did the "war on terror" become a war on the Iraqi people?
It has recently come to light that the U.S. government has imposed an oil deal on the puppet Iraqi government that turns Iraqi oil over to U.S. and British firms for exploitation. Bush-Cheney have not brought Iraqis democracy, but they have stolen their oil revenues.

Impeaching Bush, State by State

Forget bird flu, impeachment is spreading across the nation, state by state.

Vermont towns seek to impeach Bush

More than 30 Vermont towns passed resolutions on Tuesday seeking to impeach President Bush, while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

Bush Needs 30,000 More Troops for Iraq
Bush says Iraq troop boost is working

President Bush said Tuesday his decision to send more troops to Baghdad is yielding ''gradual but important'' progress in Iraq. He portrayed himself as steadfast while Democrats squabble over strategy.

War Resister Agustin Aguayo Sentenced to 8 Months in Prison
A US Army medic who refused to fight in Iraq has been sentenced to eight months in prison. Agustin Aguayo went AWOL last year just before he was to return to Iraq for a second deployment. He had made several unsuccessful requests for conscientious objector status.

Agustin Aguayo: “It's not my job to decide who's going to live or who's going to die. That's something that I’ve had to deal with morally and that I’m convinced of. Nothing is more clear in my mind that war is wrong. And I won't be a tool of war anymore. And the end result of war is the destruction of human life, and governments use that to solve problems. And I think it's a great tragedy of our lifetime, with so much technology, that we still feel that that solves problems.”

When AWOL Is The Only Way Out
As explained in a new book, Mission Rejected, the sight of U.S. troops kicking the heads of decapitated Iraqis around "like a soccer ball" made Army soldier Joshua Key desert to Canada.
The following text is an excerpt from Peter Laufer's new book, Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq (Chelsea Green, 2006):
"We was going along the Euphrates River," says Joshua Key, a 27-year-old former U.S. soldier from Oklahoma, detailing a recurring nightmare--a scene he stumbled on shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
"It's a road right in the city of Ramadi. We turned a real sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies. The heads laying over here and the bodies over here and U.S. troops in between them. I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, what in the hell happened here? What's caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?' We get out and somebody was screaming, 'We fucking lost it here!' I'm thinking, 'Oh, yes, somebody definitely lost it here.'"
He's convinced there was no firefight that led to the beheading orgy--there were no spent shells to indicate a battle. "A lot of my friends stayed on the ground, looking to see if there was any shells. There was never no shells, except for what we shot. I'm thinking, Okay, so they just did that because they wanted to do it. They got trigger happy and they did it. That's what made me mad in Iraq. You can take human lives at a fast rate and all you have to say is, say, 'Oh, I thought they threw a grenade. I thought I seen this, I thought I seen that.' You could mow down 20 people each time and nobody's going to ask you, 'Are you sure?' They're going to give you a high five and tell you that you was doing a good job."
He still cannot get the scene out of his head. "You just see heads everywhere," he says. "You wake up, you'll just be sitting there, like you're in a foxhole. I can still see Iraq just as clearly as it was the day I was there. You'll just be on the side of a little river running through the city, trash piled up, filled with dead. Heads and stuff like that. I don't sleep that much, you might say. I don't sleep that much."
His wife, Brandi, nods in agreement and says he cries in his sleep.

US Female Soldiers In Iraq Face Constant Threat of Rape - From GIs
SALON.COM: Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't trust the military to protect them.
Spc. Mickiela Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times."The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."
"I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to 10 hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and every one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection."
When you add in the high numbers of war-wrecked soldiers being redeployed, and the fact that the military is waiving criminal and violent records for more than one in 10 new Army recruits, the picture for women looks bleak indeed.
Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to 126 degrees in the summer, because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being raped by male soldiers if they walked to the latrines after dark. The Army has called her charges unsubstantiated, but Karpinski told me she sticks by them.

'Why I Fled George Bush's War'

Revolution in Baghdad's Sadr City

At Least 112 Killed in Attack on Shiite Pilgrims
In Iraq, at least 112 people were killed Tuesday in a double-suicide bombing of a Shiite procession in Hilla. Another 150 were wounded. The victims were gathering ahead of the close of a Shiite ritual period this weekend. Another 24 people were killed in related attacks across Iraq.

Poll: 60% Call Iraq War “Mistake”, Favor Withdrawal
Meanwhile in Washington, President Bush addressed Iraq at a speech before the American Legion.

President Bush: "Iraqi and U.S. forces are making gradual and important progress almost everyday, and we will remain steadfast until our objectives are achieved."

President Bush’s comments come as a new poll shows a record six out of ten Americans believe the Iraq war has been a mistake. According to the Gallup/USA Today survey, the same number want a US withdrawal within a year. Just 13% favor sending more troops.

Sick people used like laboratory rats in GM trials

Genetically modified potatoes developed by Monsanto, the multinational biotech company, have been fed to sick patients in an experiment. Rats that ate similar potatoes in the research suffered reductions in the weight of their hearts and prostate glands.
Tony Coombs from Monsanto UK said in a statement: "Potatoes genetically improved to prevent Colorado beetle destroying the crop have already been consumed, as safely as conventional or organic ones, in North America for years."

France Bans Laypeople From Reporting Violence
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

State makes big fuss over local couple's vegetable oil car fuel

Wetzel uses recycled vegetable oil, which he picks up weekly from an organization that uses it for frying food at its dining facility.
"They told me I am required to have a license and am obligated to pay a motor fuel tax," David Wetzel recalled. "Mr. May also told me the tax would be retroactive."
Since the initial visit by the agents on Jan. 4, the Wetzels have been involved in a struggle with the Illinois Department of Revenue. The couple, who live on a fixed budget, have been asked to post a $2,500 bond and threatened with felony charges.

War in Afghanistan Nears 'Tipping Point'

Afghans Protest US Strikes
In Afghanistan, protests continued Tuesday over a pair of US military attacks that killed at least twenty-five people on Sunday. At least two thousand people blocked a main road leading to the capital Kabul. The protests came as NATO forces launched a major operation against Taliban fighters.

Italian Journalist Kidnapped in Afghanistan
Meanwhile, a veteran Italian journalist has been kidnapped in southern Afghanistan. Daniele Mastrogiacomo is a correspondent for La Repubblica. He’s believed to be in the hands of Taliban captors.

Feds: Airline Worker Used Security ID To Sneak 14 Guns, Drugs On Orlando Flight
A 22-year-old airline employee from Central Florida was arrested after he used his security privileges to smuggle a bag containing 13 handguns, an M-16 type automatic weapon and marijuana on board a Delta flight at Orlando International Airport, according to federal agents. According to an arrest affidavit, Thomas Anthony Munoz, of Kissimmee, Fla., said he was recruited by another Orlando airport employee to smuggle the guns in exchange for money, Local 6 reported

Iran Offers IAEA Direct Talks
Iran has made-public a new offer to negotiate directly with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program. The Associated Press reports Iran says its ready to discuss outstanding issues without interference from the UN Security Council. The Security Council has rejected previous Iranian efforts because Iran has rejected a pre-condition to suspend uranium enrichment before talks begin.

US, North Korea in 3rd Day of Talks
Meanwhile, the United States and North Korea are in their third day of talks today. The two sides are discussing normalizing diplomatic relations for the first time in fifty years years. North Korea agreed to abandon part of its nuclear program last month.

U.S. Lags Behind Other Nations in College Graduates
U.S. colleges must increase the rate at which they graduate students by more than a third each year or fall 16 million behind the number needed to compete economically with other countries in 2025, the Lumina Foundation for Education said.

Whistleblower: L.A. Times Heeded Government Request to Quash Internet Spy Story
A whistleblower who helped reveal government spying on the internet has discovered the Los Angeles Times aborted breaking the story at the request of the Bush administration. The whisteblower, Mark Klein, is a former technician at AT&T. Last year, Klein revealed the National Security Agency had set up secret spy rooms in several AT&T offices. In an interview with ABC News, Klein says he worked with am L.A. Times reporter for two months to reveal the secret program. But Klein says editors killed the story at the request of then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and then-NSA director General Michael Hayden. He then went to the New York Times.

US refuses to join UN rights council, citing bias against Israel
The Bush administration has announced it will not seek a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the second straight year. The administration opposed the council’s formation as a replacement to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights last year. US officials say the council has lost credibility and is biased towards Israel.

Report: 1,000 Journalists Killed in Last Decade
A new report has put the number of journalists killed in the last decade at more than one thousand. The International News Safety Institute says nearly half were killed by gunfire and most died in their home countries. Iraq and Russia were the deadliest countries.

Blair’s lawyers fail to gag report on funding probe
Lawyers for British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government failed to stop the publication of a newspaper story about a possible cover-up in an investigation into political party funding

Polls: Poland, Czech Republic Oppose Missile Shield
In Europe, new polls show majority opposition to the US missile defense shield in the two countries that have been asked to host parts of it on their soil. In the Czech Republic, sixty-one per cent say they oppose construction of a US missile base. In Poland, fifty-five percent are opposed. Both governments of Poland the Czech Republic have said they’re like to approve the request to host a US missile facility.

Richard J. Sheirer Senior Vice President, Giuliani Partners LLC
Until recently, he was Commissioner of New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM). Following the September 11th World Trade Center disaster, Mr. Sheirer, in his capacity as Director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, played a key role in overseeing the City’s rescue and recovery operations.

Washington State Sues Over Medicaid Rule for Immigrant Children
The state of Washington has filed a lawsuit over a Bush administration regulation that strips automatic Medicaid coverage to children born to undocumented immigrants. Babies of undocumented workers were previously insured if the mother was covered during birth. Under the new policy, parents must file applications for the child and provide documents to prove his or her citizenship. The Washington state lawsuit says the rule increases health care costs and violates infants’ constitutional rights to the same services as all Americans.

ACLU Sues Over Child Detentions at Texas Immigration Jail
And finally, in the latest update on a story Democracy Now has been covering, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against US government officials on behalf of ten children held at an immigration jail in Texas. The ACLU says the children have been subjected to inhumane treatment as their families await immigration decisions. The suit names Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and six immigration and customs officials. Some four hundred people are detained at the Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas. Around half of them are children. Hutto is owned by the private prison company, Corrections Corporations of America.

Veterans testify to Congress about deplorable Walter Reed conditions

Army Veterans Slam Conditions At Walter Reed
Army officials apologized on Monday for the deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Army surgeon general Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley told a Congressional panel that housing conditions did not meet the Army's standards. But Henry Waxman, the chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called the situation at Walter Reed the tip of the iceberg of what is going on at Army medical facilities around the country. A group of injured veterans and relatives testified on Monday before Congress.

• Army Specialist Jeremy Duncan: "The conditions in the room, in my mind it was just unforgiveable for anybody... it wasn't fit for anybody to live like that. I know most soldiers have, they've just come out of recovery, they have weaker immune systems. Black mold can do damage to people. The holes in the walls... I wouldn't live there, even if I had to."

Washington Post excerpt: "Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses."

Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon urged Army officials to improve its treatment of soldiers who are returning from Iraq with psychological problems

• Staff Sgt. Shannon: "They have discovered that men suffer post traumatic stress disorder symptoms from concussive forces to their heads. We get mortared every day over there, depending on where we're working. Just 'cause a guys not got a visible injury, doesn't mean he doesn't have a PTSD."

Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon testified with a patch over his eye. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round in Iraq. He is now waiting for prosthetic eye surgery.

Privatization of Services at Walter Reed Criticized
Meanwhile Vermont Congressman Peter Welch said a major factor in the conditions at Walter Reed might be the result of the privatization of services. Welch cited a five-year $120 million contract given to a company called IAP Worldwide Services, which is operated by Al Neffgen, a former Halliburton executive. The Corporate Research Project is reporting IAP has close ties to the Republican Party. Ownership of the company is controlled by the giant hedge fund Cerberus, whose chair is former Bush Administration Treasury Secretary John Snow.
The IAP board of directors includes former Vice President Dan Quayle and retired Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee.
In case you forgot, Cerberus is the name of the 3-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades.

Gunmen storm Iraq jail, free 140
Dozens of gunmen stormed an Iraqi jail in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday and freed up to 140 prisoners in one of the biggest prison breaks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, police said.

Wall Street drools over prospect of capturing Iraq oil wealth
The Iraqi cabinet's adoption last week of a law creating the legal framework for turning over the country's oil wealth to American corporations has touched off a chorus of salutes from the Bush administration, congressional Democrats and the corporate-controlled American media.
Perhaps the crassest expression of money-grubbing glee came in the Wall Street Journal, which published an article March 4 celebrating the unlocking of untold riches, including "dozens of untouched oil fields loaded with proven reserves and scores of exploration blocks that may prove a magnet to international oil companies.

Libby Is Guilty on 4 of 5 Counts
Count 1 (Obstruction): GUILTY
Count 2 (Perjury): GUILTY
Count 3 (False Statement): NOT GUILTY
Count 4 (Perjury): GUILTY
Count 5 (Perjury): GUILTY

McCain Staffers Bail Off the Crazy Train
Another insider, a guru to the conservative movement, says that McCain himself is growing increasingly desperate in the wake of his downward slide in the polls -- a slip hastened by his steadfast support of the very man who savaged him and his family during the 2000 election, George W. Bush, and the president's unpopular plan for troop surge in Iraq.

After Ohio's recount rigging convictions in Cuyahoga, is Coshocton County next?
After the recent convictions of two Cuyahoga County Board of Election workers for felony recount tampering, Republican County Prosecutor Robert Batchelor is stonewalling efforts to investigate similar well-documented charges in Coshocton County, Ohio.

UN To Open Jordan Office To Handle Refugee Crisis
The United Nations has announced plans to open an office in Jordan to deal with the refugee crisis caused by the Iraq war. 1.8 million Iraqis have fled to neighboring countries – mostly Syria and Jordan.
In Washington, the White House is preparing to ask Congress for more money for the Iraq war. The Bush administration says the plan to send in over 21,000 more combat troops has been more expensive than projected.

Sen. Webb Says Congressional OK Needed Before Iran Attack
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Democratic Senator James Webb of Virginia introduced legislation Monday to prohibit the Bush administration from using funds to invade Iran without congressional authorization.

Afghan journalists say U.S. deleted images
Afghan journalists covering the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in eastern Afghanistan Sunday said U.S. troops deleted their work and warned them not to publish or broadcast images of U.S. troops or a car where three Afghans were shot to death

Afghan children die as US drops one-tonne bombs
Nine civilians, including four children, were killed in Afghanistan when US planes dropped two 2,000lb bombs on their mud home. Their deaths came after at least eight civilians were killed by US Marines a day earlier.

Iraq: 4.5 million children undernourished
According to the United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF), about one in 10 children under five in Iraq are underweight and one in five are short for their age. This means that some 4.5 million children in the country are under-nourished.

IAEA: Iran may have halted nuke program
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran seems to have at least temporarily halted its uranium-enrichment program. Mohamad ElBaradei said the pause could represent an attempt to de-escalate Iran's conflict with the UN Security Council, which is considering new sanctions against Iran.

Health issues close Hammond FEMA site
The reason for the abrupt move is because the health and safety issues at the FEMA trailer park off Old Baton Rouge Highway in Hammond have gotten so bad that FEMA doesn't believe residents should remain there another day, said FEMA spokesman Ronnie Simpson.
Simpson said that there are open ditches containing raw sewage on the property and the electricity has been shut off three times because the trailer park owners haven't paid the bills.

FEMA selling more than 46000 unusable trailers
There are currently more than 20,000 FEMA trailers being stored at the airport in this southwestern Arkansas town of 10,000 - and many have never been used. Period.
FEMA is paying the town $25,000 per month - or about $650 per year per trailer - to store them. And now, FEMA is getting ready to auction thousands of them because they are too damaged to be used.
According to FEMA, the trailers will be sold "as-is," and most include the appliances and furniture. In all, FEMA will auction 46,000 trailers off nationwide.
FEMA has to be careful, though, for flooding the market with that many trailers could kill your friendly, local travel-trailer dealer. The federal agency will continue to store more than 8,000 units at the airport for future disasters. Already, the government has auctioned 1,700 travel trailers and sold 900 mobile homes in previous auctions. The trailers were auctioned in batches of 300 through the General Service Administration's website.
The trailers normally sell for about $5,500 on average, or about a quarter of the price the government paid for them after the 2005 storm.

Fake professor in Wikipedia storm
Internet site Wikipedia has been hit by controversy after the disclosure that a prominent editor had assumed a false identity complete with fake PhD.

Wikipedia hit by identity crisis as student admits posing as professor
Wikipedia is facing one of its biggest crises after a twentysomething student from Kentucky posed as a professor of religious studies and made more than 20,000 alterations to controversial topics on the online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, asked Essjay (unmasked as Ryan Jordan, a 24-year-old) to resign his voluntary position, and now wants senior editors to reveal their identities and prove their credentials. "I have an MA in finance," Mr Wales said. "I could fax a copy of the degree to the office."

WW4 advocate Eliot Cohen (beware a man in a bow tie)

Rice Names Prominent Neoconservative Hawk to State Dept Post
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has named a prominent neoconservative who has advocated for the overthrow of the Iranian government to be the new counselor of the State Department. The official -- Eliot Cohen -- had been described as "the most influential neoconservative in academe."
Two months after the Sept. 11th attacks, Cohen advocated for going after Iran. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden." Eliot Cohen has also described the so-called war on terrorism as World War Four.

Bishops equate Israel's actions to Holocaust
During their time in Israel the bishops uniformly made moderate and balanced statements, but once in the PA they provided German reporters accompanying them with a plethora of harsh proclamations against Israel. Their criticism received widespread coverage in the German media on Monday.

US Attorney David Iglesias

Six Fired U.S. Attorneys To Testify
Six former U.S. Attorneys will be testifying on Capitol Hill today in a pair of hearings as part of a Congressional investigation into why the Justice Department took the unprecedented move of purging them from their jobs.
One of the former U.S. Attorneys, David Iglesias of New Mexico, revealed last week that he was fired after he resisted pressure by two Republican members of Congress to complete a corruption investigation involving Democrats ahead of the November elections. Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson have admitted calling Iglesias but denied they were pressuring or threatening him.
On Monday Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate whether Domenici violated ethics law.
Meanwhile the McClatchy newspapers is reporting that a high-ranking Justice Department official told one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration that if any of them continued to criticize the administration for their ousters, previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired might be released.

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Americans Don't Trust Bush on Threat Intelligence
Many adults in the United States express no confidence in their federal government on the topic of intelligence, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 63 per cent of respondents say they cannot trust the Bush administration to honestly and accurately report on possible threats from other countries.

Who's Afraid of Nuclear Disarmament?
Dick Cheney is right – a nuclear-armed Iran is not a pleasant prospect, and we have to do something. But the most effective option is the hardest to swallow. Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the United States agreed to an "unequivocal undertaking" to "eliminate" its nuclear weapons arsenal. Honoring that commitment – and encouraging other declared and undeclared nuclear states to do the same – would undercut Tehran's arguments about why nuclear firepower is necessary. Oh, and by the way, it would also make the world feel a whole lot safer.

U.S. & North Korea Holds Historic Talks
Talks between the United States and North Korea have opened up in New York in an effort to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries for the first time in 50 years. The talks come just three weeks after North Korea agreed to abandon part of its nuclear program. Meanwhile IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is preparing for a landmark trip to North Korea.

Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile
Increasingly, the problem affects middle-class people like Ms. Readling, who said she made about $60,000 last year. As an independent contractor, like many real estate agents, Ms. Readling does not receive health benefits from an employer. She tried to buy a policy in the individual insurance market, but -- having had cancer -- could not obtain coverage, except at a price exceeding $27,000 a year, which was more than she could pay.

U.S. Court Allows CIA Kidnapping and Torture
This tale of horrors is essentially what happened to Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen abducted by operatives of the United States Central Intelligence Agency in Macedonia in 2003. And according to a recent U.S. federal court decision, all of it -- the kidnapping, the beating, the forced administration of drugs -- is perfectly acceptable.

Medical Researchers Challenge U.S. Definition of Torture
The authors of a new medical study on the effects of torture say the Bush administration's definition of torture is too narrow because it focuses mostly on physical abuse. The researchers said they found that aggressive interrogation techniques, humiliating treatment, verbal abuse and isolation produced as much if not more distress than some forms of physical torture. The study was based on interviews with nearly 300 prisoners held in the former Yugoslavia.

War Resister Augustin Aguayo Faces Court-Martial
U.S. Army medic and war resister Augustin Aguayo appeared before a court-martial today at an American base in Germany for refusing a second tour of duty in Iraq. He faces up to seven years in prison.

Bush spy rules OK'd
A White House privacy board has determined that two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs -- electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking -- do not violate citizens' civil liberties.
Some members were troubled by the Department of Homeland Security's no-fly lists, which critics say use subjective or inconclusive data to flag suspect travelers.

Poll: Israel, Iran, U.S., N. Korea Most Negative Influence in World
A new survey by the BBC World Service has found that Israel, Iran, United States and North Korea are perceived as having the most negative influence on the world. Japan, France, the European Union and Canada are seen as the most positive.

Anna Nicole Smith Gets 12X As Much Coverage as Walter Reed
And finally Fox News is being criticized for spending more time covering the death of Anna Nicole Smith than the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. According to the website ThinkProgress.org, Fox News devoted 12 times more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith on Friday than Walter Reed.
Even dead, she makes a great "rodeo clown".

Bush Record Of Illegalities Suggests Possible Role In 9/11 WTC, Pentagon Strikes
By Sherwood Ross
The trouble with thinking 9/11 was an inside job staged by George W. Bush & Co. is that it defies belief any U.S. president might be capable of such an iniquitous crime against his own people. Yet, subsequent Bush actions, such as lying the nation into war against Iraq, makes one wonder if the man didn't create the 9/11 massacres to justify his attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. After all, his record reveals him to be a serial liar, warmonger, tyrant, torturer, and usurper of his peoples' civil liberties. Just off the top, here are some illegal GWB actions that betray what he is really about.

Bush lied the U.S. into what former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called an "illegal" war on Iraq. This conflict has killed 650,000 civilians, wounded over a million more, drove nearly 2-million from their country, and turned life into a living hell for the rest. The death toll there is already equal to about 240 WTC massacres, yet Bush persists in waging the war.

Bush okayed $1.5-trillion for new weapons' research including grisly weapons that would thrill mad scientists, such as sound waves that crush a victim's internal organs. Another gem is "rods from god" to hurl tungsten poles down from Earth orbit down upon its victims at 7,200 miles an hour, striking with the atomic fury. He is illegally militarizing space. These are not the dreams of a humanist.

Bush has allowed illegal radioactive ammunition fired in Afghanistan and Iraq that poison civilian populations and U.S. troops, as well as cluster bombs. Does this evince concern for human life?

Bush has made himself master of the greatest spy apparatus the world has ever known at a cost to taxpayers of $50-billion annually. He authorized NSA to spy illegally on Americans, allegedly to catch terrorists. If this was the true reason, why did he also eavesdrop on UN officials?

Bush authorized CIA agents to go to foreign countries to kidnap "suspects" and dump them in distant prisons to be tortured with no warrants signed to seize them, no charges brought against them, and no lawyers to defend them. In his secret prisons there may be many thousands held illegally, and tortured, while all the time he lies to the world "we don't torture." Is this a man with empathy for others?

Bush is also funding hundreds of biotechnology labs to create deadly strains of exotic killer diseases at a cost to taxpayers of $40-billion. Many operate in secret, illegally violating transparency rules. On Bush's watch, anthrax germs from a military laboratory in Fort Detrick, Md., were mysteriously unleashed upon two of his political opponents in the U.S. Senate that killed five people and sickened 17 others and temporarily shut down the Congress.
Peculiarly, the perpetrators of the anthrax panic and the massacres at the WTC and Pentagon have not been caught. "Why not?" Is it just possible the White House doesn't want the killers apprehended?

For all these, and many other reasons, it's worth hearing out the arguments of those who claim the 9/11 events were staged by the White House to rush a frightened nation into war.

In the March/April issue of "Tikkun", a bimonthly "Jewish Critique of of Politics, Culture & Society," author Dr. David Ray Griffin asserts the Administration never proved the 9/11 attacks were made by Osama bin Laden. Griffin, a professor of philosophy and theology at Claremont Graduate College, Calif., and author of "The New Pearl Harbor" (Olive Branch Press) writes the FBI has "no hard evidence" of his culpability.
Griffin asks why WTC building 7, not struck by an airplane, collapsed upon itself in the same manner as buildings 1 and 2, why no steel remained standing? And he notes steel does not melt until it reaches 2800 degrees F. and the jet fuel used by the airliners that hit WTC burned at only 1700 F. Collapse of the three towers, he said, "manifested many standard features of the kind of controlled demolition known as implosion, such as: sudden onset; straight-down collapse; collapse at virtually free-fall speed, indicating the lower floors were offering no resistance; total collapse, indicating that the massive steel columns in the core of each building had been broken into many pieces; the production of molten metal, and the concurrence of multiple explosions."
"Dozens of people, including journalists, police officers, WTC employees, emergency medical workers, and fire-fighters reported hearing explosions in the Twin Towers," Griffin writes. One fire captain said he heard a series of explosions from the top floor down, one after another, "boom, boom, boom." And a paramedic described them as akin to a "professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop."
"Complete collapses of steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been brought about by fire plus externally caused structural damage," Griffin tells "Tikkun" readers. "Such collapses have only been caused by explosives used in controlled demolitions.
"If you wonder how saboteurs might plant explosives in the three WTC towers without being detected, Griffin notes on Web site "9.11 Truth" President Bush's brother Marvin and his cousin Wirt Walker III "were both principals in the company in charge of security for WTC." The firm, Securacom, was also responsible for electronic security at United Airlines, whose flights struck WTC.
Among Griffin's charges, the most startling may be that Osama bin Laden, who was already one of America's "most wanted" criminals, was treated in July, 2001 --- two months before 9/11 --- in the American Hospital in Dubai, and visited by the local CIA agent. Does this explain why bin Laden was not caught and likely never will be caught? Is it possible this "renegade" from a prominent Saudi Arabian family having long ties to President Bush Sr. is in fact a fall guy whose alleged crimes gave Bush an excuse to invade Afghanistan and Iraq? Congress needs to conduct a real investigation of 9/11.
It may not only uncover ample grounds for impeachment but for criminal prosecution. Given GWB's track record for criminal activity, treason cannot be ruled out.

Halliburton crony got $120,000,000 contract to run Walter Reed

Bush Administration push for privatization may have helped create Walter Reed 'disaster'
A five-year, $120 million contract awarded to a firm run by a former executive from Halliburton – a multi-national corporation where Vice President Dick Cheney once served as CEO – will be probed at a Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing scheduled for Monday.
"We have learned that in January 2006, Walter Reed awarded a five-year $120 million contract to a company called IAP Worldwide Services for base operations support services, including facilities management," Waxman continues. "IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina."
Waxman notes that IAP "is led by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official who testified before our Committee in July 2004 in defense of Halliburton's exorbitant charges for fuel delivery and troop support in Iraq.
"Before the contract, over 300 federal employees provided facilities management services at Walter Reed, according to the memorandum, but that number dropped to less than 60 the day before IAP took over. "Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel," Waxman writes.
Waxman adds that "the conditions that have been described are disgraceful," and that the Oversight Committee will "investigate what led to the breakdown in services."

Rummy's Privatized Obsession and the Walter Reed Scandal
General Weightman is scheduled to testify before Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight committee. It took the threat of a subpoena to make it happen, since the Army initially tried to block him from appearing, but now he will show up. The Army Times reports the committee wants to question Weightman about the impact of the Army's decision to award a five year, 120 million dollar contract to IAP World Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, former COO of Halliburton's KBR, and David Swindle (that's really his name), also formerly of KBR. The decision to bring in private contractors at Walter Reed led to a virtual mass exodus of experienced career staffers.

Committee subpoenas former Walter Reed chief
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday.
Read complete coverage of the Walter Reed controversy.
Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and subcommittee Chairman John Tierney asked Weightman to testify about an internal memo that showed privatization of services at Walter Reed could put “patient care services… at risk of mission failure.” But Army officials refused to allow Weightman to appear before the committee after he was relieved of command.

US war wounded scandal grows as Bush vows review
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sacked the civilian chief of the US Army Friday, saying he was "disappointed" with the service's defensive response to a scandal over the care of wounded troops at a top military hospital.Already under fire for surging more troops to Iraq, the White House announced it was forming a bipartisan presidential commission to review the care given wounded servicemembers.

Marine with Brain Injury refused treatment by VA

Immoral Lack Of Care Nine million children in the USA are without health care coverage and nearly 90% of them from working families. Nine days cost of the wars in Iraq/Afghan will pay for the cost of healthcare for all children in the USA.

Winning more hearts & minds in Afghanistan:

Afghan, U.S. reports on firefight differ
U.S. Marines fleeing a suicide bomber and militant ambush on Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 10 people were killed and 35 wounded in the chaotic violence, officials said. A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said.
As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar.
More than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest highways — a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles. Bashary said it appeared that gunfire from the U.S. soldiers caused most of the casualties.
The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle where three Afghans had been shot to death inside. An American soldier then took Gul's camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier then raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul.

16 dead in U.S.-Afghan militant violence
U.S. Marine Special Forces fleeing a militant ambush opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.

US soldier deletes AP photographer's photos, threatens violence
Following a suicide bombing and ensuing gunfight between Afghan militants and American soldiers on Sunday, a US soldier demanded that an Associated Press photographer delete his photos.

Iraq: New Martial Law Powers Threaten Basic Rights
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's new security plan for Baghdad grants military commanders sweeping powers to arrest people and restrict their basic freedoms of speech and association, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 13, al-Maliki issued martial law powers giving military commanders authority to conduct warrantless arrests, monitor private communications, and restrict civil society groups in Baghdad. General Qanbar Hashim, commander of Baghdad operations, announced the decree as part of the Iraqi government's latest plan to curb the escalating civil war in the country.
So, martial law is the "democracy" we've brought to Iraq?

France says Iraq close to partition
France vocally opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has called for Washington to announce a date by which it will withdraw its troops from the country

Sects slice up Iraq as US troops 'surge' misfire
The Iraqi government wants tens of thousands of families to return as part of the Baghdad Security Plan, but only a few hundred have done so, many of them to hide behind locked doors. So the cycle continues. Displaced Sunnis push out Shias, who in turn push out the Sunnis in the areas they relocate to. While more than a million have left Iraq, three million have been internally displaced. The displacement has been conducted with ruthless efficiency. A mosque will be attacked, a grenade thrown at a house, men kidnapped and killed, a few houses burnt - delivering the message to get out.


Bush impeachment calls gather momentum
Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, has called for the impeachment of George W. Bush before the Washington State Senate Governmental Operations Committee.
"I am honored to address you today and am pleased that you, unlike so many members of Congress and most state legislatures, have recognized your solemn responsibility to examine whether proceedings should be commenced for the impeachment of the President of the United States," the Mayor said.
"Never before has there been such a compelling case for impeachment and removal from office of the president of the United States for heinous human rights violations, breaches of trust, abuses of power injurious to the nation, war crimes, misleading Congress and the American people about threats to our nation's security and the supposed case for war, and grave violations of treaties, the Constitution, and domestic statutory law," Anderson proclaimed.


Two oil giants plunge into the wind business
Two of the world's leading oil producers have almost overnight joined some of the biggest players in wind power in the United States, accelerating a trend of large corporations investing in the rapidly growing alternative-energy field. British Petroleum and Shell executives acknowledged that their investments in wind -- and to a lesser extent solar power -- may enhance their public images, but said their primary goal is to make money and reduce their companies' carbon outputs, if only slightly.

Bolton wanted Iran to kick out Arms Inspectors, he tells AIPAC
IN a phone conversation posted in its entirety at the StopAIPAC.org website, Bolton told adoring AIPAC members that he had hoped sanctions imposed by the United Nations on Iran would be followed by a more "dramatic" response on Iran's part, such as withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which could then "produce a counter-reaction". That would be seen as "beneficial". Specifically what counter-reaction he had in mind was not specified. However, it seems clear, for this one former Administration official, is that the game is not to avoid conflict, but to escalate it.

Obama to AIPAC: Won't rule out nuking Iran
Nice work, Obama, you just lost my vote.
If you feel good about taking money and endorsements from an organization whose members commit espionage against the United States, you're not going to get a lot of votes from folks like me.

GOP House Minority Whip To Aid Group Seeking Nuclear War, Holocaust
The Holocaust also served as a divine mechanism, suggests Hagee in the book, to scare Jews into moving to Israel where he seems to feel they properly belong, as a necessary, magical human precondition that must be in place before the Rapture, that will grant Christians physical immortality in Heaven, can occur. In Hagee's view, after Christians are "Raptured" to Heaven, Israeli Jews will be mostly killed in the End-Time apocalyptic conflict the Texas pastor has also formed a lobbying group to -- apparently -- encourage.

Condi Picks Neocon Cohen to Make Her Decisions
It is interesting, in a perverse sort of way, that Condi would pick as her “counselor,” or have picked for her, the guy who coined the term “World War Four,” a “war” -- sort of the same way shooting fish in a barrel might be considered a “war” -- to be waged specifically against the Muslim world. Condi apparently cannot be trusted when it comes to making sure the State Department is on cue, especially with the all-important shock and awe of Iran campaign deadline closing in.

Saudi Arabia and Iran spoil Israel's fun

Ahmadinejad said he concurred with Abdullah during talks on Saturday that Iran and the kingdom would work together to thwart "enemy" plots seeking to divide the Islamic world.

Saudis funding insurgents in Iraq

No Agreement on UN Sanctions for Iran
The State Department put a positive gloss yesterday's discussions but they appeared to have fallen short of US hopes that the group - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States as well as Germany - would be able to agree on the elements of a resolution during the conference call.

Depleted Uranium in Hawaii
The Pentagon claims that the low levels of radiation emitted from DU weaponry pose no health risks. Many scientists disagree with the way this conclusion is drawn. The military looks only at how the trillions of healthy cells that comprise the human body are affected by exposure to low dosages when handling the munitions. They ignore the fact that as DU munitions are exploded, they burst into flames and vaporize.
According to Caldicott, up to 70% of the uranium released when DU munitions are exploded is converted into microscopic particles that can be inhaled or ingested immediately or when air, soil and water get contaminated. Once inside the human body, these particles kill or mutate the cells they come in contact with. Photographs of DU particles in living lung tissues show them as tiny sun-like, radiating objects. The half-life of this radioactive substance is 4.5 billion years.
Military Able to Draft Within 13 Days After Attack on Iran
The Selective Service System last year studied whether it should revert to a Cold War-era plan of being able to draft people within 13 days of a crisis, compared to its current goal of carrying it out within six months.
The agency defines emergency mobilization as being able to conduct a lottery of young American men and delivering 500,000 of them through the doors of military processing stations within 13 days from the start of a draft.

US Threats against Iran: War Plans and Pretexts in Place
The BBC also reports that two "triggers"--or pretexts--for a U.S. attack have also been chosen. One, any confirmation that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, and second, a "high-casualty" attack on U.S. forces in Iraq that could be blamed on Iran.

Russian Expert Shot Near D.C.-Area Home The shooting of Paul Joyal, 53, came days after he accused the Russian government of involvement in the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The FBI was assisting in the investigation.

China warns Negroponte on Taiwan arms sales
China warned visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that plans to sell American missiles to Taiwan threatened to harm Sino-US ties, a Chinese spokesman said Saturday.

Hicks lawyer faces removal from case
MAJOR MICHAEL MORI, the defence lawyer for David Hicks, could be removed from the case after threats from the chief US prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis, to charge him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The intervention may derail Hicks's trial, and possibly prompt his return to Australia. It would take months for a new lawyer to get to grips with the case and the new military commission process.The Prime Minister, John Howard, has told the US that any action leading to further delays would be unacceptable and would prompt him to demand the return of Hicks, 31, after five years in Guantanamo Bay.
Colonel Davis has accused Major Mori of breaching Article 88 of the US military code, which relates to using contemptuous language towards the president, vice-president, and secretary of defence. Penalties for breaching the code include jail and the loss of employment and entitlements.
Another "enemy combatant" released without ever being charged to his country of origin??

US Attorney David Iglesias Fired After Failing To Break The Law For Republican Lawmakers
Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator, according to two people familiar with the contacts.

White House Backed U.S. Attorney Firings, Officials Say
The White House approved the firings of seven U.S. attorneys late last year after senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms and other issues, White House and Justice Department officials said yesterday.

A New Mystery to Prosecutors: Their Lost Jobs
Mr. Bogden, who was named the top federal prosecutor in Nevada in 2001 after 11 years of working his way up at the Justice Department, asked an official at the agency’s headquarters if the firing was related to his performance or to that of his office. “That didn’t enter into the equation,” he said he was told. After several more calls, Mr. Bogden reached a senior official who offered an answer. “There is a window of opportunity to put candidates into an office like mine,” Mr. Bogden said, recalling the conversation. “They were attempting to open a slot and bring someone else in.”

The ouster of Mr. Bogden and seven other United States attorneys has set off a furor in Washington that took the Bush administration by surprise. Summoning five of the dismissed prosecutors for hearings on Tuesday, the newly empowered Congressional Democrats have charged that the mass firing is a political purge, intended to squelch corruption investigations or install less independent-minded successors.
“"t just doesn’t look right," said James S. Brady, who was United States attorney in Western Michigan during the Carter administration. "It compromises the credibility that justice is being dealt with fairly and impartially. There is a fear that politics have entered in life and death situations."

Kuwaiti court acquits 2 ex-Gitmo inmates
A criminal court on Saturday acquitted two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners of joining al-Qaida or the Taliban. Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel al-Kundari denied any terror connections at the start of their trial. Their lawyers argued there was no evidence against them and the case was "political." Defense attorneys said the accused were in Afghanistan for charity work, not to fight.

US court throws out CIA torture case
Reports have indicated that US agents confused Masri with a terror suspect with a similar name who was linked to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

I am not a state secret
Having just lost in court, a CIA kidnap victim asks why the U.S. won't admit its error.
By Khaled El-Masri, KHALED EL-MASRI, a German citizen born in Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.
"My story is well known. It has been described in literally hundreds of newspaper articles and television news programs -- many of them relying on sources within the U.S. government. It has been the subject of numerous investigations and reports by intergovernmental bodies, including the European Parliament. Most recently, prosecutors in my own country of Germany are pursuing indictments against 13 CIA agents and contractors for their role in my kidnapping, abuse and detention. Although I never could have imagined it, and certainly never wished it, I have become the public face of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. Why, then, does the American government insist that my ordeal is a state secret?"

Washington trembles as madam threatens to sell phone records
A woman accused of running a prostitution ring threatened to immerse Washington in a sex scandal yesterday by saying she was considering selling 13 years of phone records to raise funds for her legal defence. The threat by Deborah Palfrey, who was indicted on racketeering charges this week, saw lawyers claiming that the records would soon lead to a client list of 10,000, including some of Washington's most influential figures.

Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People
For months now, Ugandan army troops have been garrisoned in the northeast part of the country under orders to disarm the local populace -- pastoral, cattle-herding tribes known as the Karamojong. The army is attempting, and failing, to quash an uprising which was caused by a prior attempt to disarm the same tribes. But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees.

Internet Archive Authenticates BBC Video
I am Director of Collections at the Internet Archive, responsible for all video and audio files. This video clip is part of a collection from the TV Archive of global television coverage of the events that occurred on and shortly after September 11, 2001. This clip, among others, has drawn quite a bit of attention because it appears to show a BBC reporter in New York reporting that World Trade Center Building 7, also referred to as WTC7 or the Salomon Brothers Building, has collapsed before it actually did collapse.
Despite some confusion on the issue of time code stamping and UTC conversions to EDT, the timing on the clip appears to be correct. This particular clip was recorded between 4:54 and 5:36 PM EDT. The anchor references to the WTC7 collapsing occur at 4:58 PM and 5:01 PM and then a live reporter says the building has collapsed at 5:08 PM in what appears to be a live shot with the building still in tact behind her. The feed from the live reporter is lost at 5:15 PM and then the building does actually collapse at 5:20 PM.

FLASHBACK: New York City's anti-terrorism efforts go high-tech
The facility's command center is on the 23rd floor. Its walls are reinforced to withstand wind gusts of up to 160 miles per hour. It's also bulletproof and bomb-resistant, with its own air supply, an 11,000 gallon water supply and three backup generators.

WHO GAVE THE WARNING THAT WTC-7 WAS GOING TO COLLAPSE?
He says, “OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.” (OEM is the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, which has its headquarters in WTC 7.) Fire Chief Pete Ganci’s response is, “who the f___ told you that?”

NEW SEISMIC DATA REFUTES OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
In the basements of the collapsed towers, where the 47 central support columns connected with the bedrock, hot spots of “literally molten steel” were discovered more than a month after the collapse. Such persistent and intense residual heat, 70 feet below the surface, in an oxygen starved environment, could explain how these crucial structural supports failed.

FDA poised to approve cattle antibiotic despite warnings
The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous -- for people.

International aid agency: 80 percent of Gazans now rely on food aid
Eighty percent of Gazans receive food aid from the World Food Program or from UNRWA, WFP spokesperson Kirstie Campbell says, "and without it they are liable to starve." The dozens of laborers who used to cross into Israel every day to work also found themselves unemployed as a result of laws prohibiting them from working and the construction of the separation barrier.

U.S. urges caution on subprime loans
At least 20 U.S. subprime lenders in recent months have closed, retrenched, filed for bankruptcy, delayed earnings reports, taken financial hits, or been sold or downgraded amid a rise in delinquency rates. Worried that "subprime borrowers may not fully understand the risks" of such lending products as adjustable-rate mortgages, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and three other regulators yesterday asked lenders to carefully evaluate borrowers' ability to repay at the full rate.

'NY Times' Readers Hit Coverage of Iran/Iraq Weapons Link
Three weeks ago, E&P Online and other Web sites raised questions about The New York Times featuring prominently on its front page and Web site a report by Michael R. Gordon -- based wholly on unnamed sources -- claiming firm evidence that Iran was supplying "the most deadly" weapon used against U.S. forces in Iraq: a certain kind of roadside bomb. Gordon had produced key articles relating to alleged WMD in Iraq in the runup to the war that proved false.
Last week, the Times' public editor, Byron Calame, offered his appraisal, which raised some questions about Gordon failing to provide a little more balance in his report but praising followup articles by other reporters that did seem more skeptical.
Today he printed some letters from readers, all critical. A selection follows:

Now even The New York Times’s public editor must pick up a bucket of whitewash to try to paint over the newspaper’s boosting of the Bush administration’s propaganda for another misguided war, this one against Iran. The truly unfortunate aspect is that these articles are carried on the front pages of hundreds of local newspapers. It’s a sorry mess, to which your fingerprints have been added, even through the white gloves your column claims to wear.
DANIEL C. MURPHY
San Francisco, Feb. 25, 2007

I think very highly of Michael R. Gordon. His last book is probably the best study of the initial phase of the Iraq war. His reporting has been indispensable. But I have also been concerned about his susceptibility to spin -- not in his books, but in his day-to-day reporting, which has raised some questions. When the Feb. 10 paper appeared on my doorstep, my reaction was, “Here we go again.” The problem was not that Mr. Gordon reported what he did. It was the absence of offsetting, critical views.
In my trips last year to Iraq, I dealt with local public affairs officers. They were aggressively pushing the idea that the sophisticated roadside bombs were coming from Iran. But British military authorities and the Ministry of Defense back in London were openly expressing skepticism about it.
Your statement that it was balanced by other reporting is correct. But is this really an entirely satisfactory answer?
Mr. Gordon has done decidedly critical stories. But there are enough uncritical stories to concern many readers.
SCOTT HORTON
Pelham, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2007
The writer is chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Law.

Your analysis of the accuracy of The Times’s coverage of the Iran threats does not address the problem that arises from the paper’s reliance almost entirely on (anonymous) sources within the United States and, specifically, within the government. This occurred in the lead-up to the Iraq war and is occurring now in regard to Iran. Times writers seem to put in just enough caveats to protect themselves if the information turns out to be incorrect. The general tone of the articles still conveys the credibility of American claims.
ELWOOD ANDERSON
Las Vegas, Feb. 25, 2007

On the day that Michael R. Gordon’s Feb. 10 article appeared, I was outraged that such a poorly sourced (one might say nonsourced) piece would be allowed to appear on the front page of The Times. You insult the readers when you imply that Mr. Gordon has become the scapegoat du jour and that questioning his writing is merely sour grapes -- leftover anger from the W.M.D. debacle. This demeaning argument suggests that readers aren’t able to make cogent decisions about the validity of his writing but are, rather, too busy nursing old wounds.
DIANE H. GURIEN
Kearsarge, N.H., Feb. 26, 2007

If the Times editors were so anxious to demonstrate the tenuous nature of this story as you suggest, why was the story prominently placed on Page 1? I recognize that a journalist’s task is difficult. But we are dealing with a president with a clear track record on war and diplomacy. Times editors were enablers for the Iraq war. Have these editors learned nothing more than to insert mild caveats into administration propaganda that could potentially be used to lead us into another war?
JAMES SIMMONS

Walter Reed Commander fired

Army Fires Walter Reed Commander
The Army has fired the general in charge of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Major General George Weightman’s dismissal comes more than a week into the fallout over the disclosure the army’s top medical facility is in a state of major decay. Weightman had headed Walter Reed for only six months. The Army’s current surgeon general -- Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley -- will serve as a temporary replacement. Kiley is also a former commander of Walter Reed. His appointment has raised questions amid complaints he was made aware of the problems at Walter Reed more than three years ago but failed to make any improvements.

Kucinich introduces bill to immediately end Iraq occupation ...

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced HR 1234, a bill to immediately end the United States occupation of Iraq, in the House of Representatives today.

Ex-Rep. Ney Reports to Prison
And finally, former Republican Congressmember Bob Ney has reported to prison to begin a thirty-month sentence. Ney was convicted for lying about his dealings with convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. For years, Ney traded his political influence for gifts, vacations, campaign contributions and, in one case, fifty thousand dollars in gambling chips. He will serve his jail term in a minimum security prison in West Virginia.

Feds bust major insider trading ring
The U.S. government on Thursday charged 13 people, including employees at major Wall Street banks, with securities fraud, wire fraud, bribery and other charges in what authorities are calling one of the most pervasive insider trading rings in years. It was "one of the most pervasive Wall Street insider trading rings since the days of Ivan Boesky and Dennis Levine," said Linda Thomsen, director of enforcement with the SEC, at a joint news conference with the U.S. attorney and the FBI on Thursday.

Insider-Trading Ring Bust May Fuel Hedge-Fund Concern
The U.S. government's accusations that Morgan Stanley, UBS AG and Bear Stearns Cos. employees were central figures in an insider-trading ring illustrate why regulators and lawmakers are suspicious of Wall Street's relationship with hedge funds.

House Subpoenas Fired US Attorneys
On Capitol Hill, the House Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas to four of the eight US attorneys who lost their jobs in a wave of dismissals from the Bush administration. The subpoenas come as part of an investigation into whether the attorneys were forced out for political reasons. The House move marks the Democrats’ first major use of their new subpoena authority. The four prosecutors have been called to appear before a hearing next Tuesday.

U.S. vows to continue missile defense plans
The United States vowed on Thursday to press ahead with a plan for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe to guard against attack from Iran, with or without the approval of NATO allies.

USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes

The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods.
EWWWWWWWW!!!! No to franken-foods!!!!

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

What, Exactly, Are We Dying For?
I think it was after my first firefight in Iraq, I've forgotten the exact time and date but it was after midnight one day in April 2004, that I first asked myself, “What, exactly, did we almost die for?” It seemed to me at the time that there was never a plan. What was our mission exactly? What was our goal? What, exactly, were we there to accomplish? Why were soldiers dying?

18 Kidnapped in Iraq
In Iraq, eighteen government workers and soldiers have been kidnapped in what’s being called a retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by Iraq’s Shiite-dominated police. Meanwhile in Baghdad, US troops are continuing a series of raids in Shiite areas.

Shiite leader Sayyid Abbas: "We will demonstrate, men, women and children, demanding the withdrawal of the occupiers from Iraq. As long as the occupiers are in Iraq, they will destroy Islam and Iraq. We will die, we will give everything we have just for the sake of letting the occupiers to withdraw from Iraq."

Save The Children, Last British Charity in Iraq, Ends Operations
Meanwhile the last major British charity in Iraq has announced its pulled out its entire staff and ended its presence there. Save the Children UK had been in Iraq since the first Gulf War. The group says the security situation has made it impossible to continue operations. Save the Children says it can’t protect staff members nor reach the Iraqi children it wants to help.

New signs of US-Syria thaw as senior official sets visit

French FM calls for all-out expansion of ties with Iran
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy here on Wednesday called for all-out expansion of ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, it was announced Thursday.

Russia suspends meat imports from five nations
Russia's veterinary watchdog suspended meat imports from the United States, France, Germany, Brazil and Uruguay over salmonella concerns, a news release said Friday. Examination of more than 200 metric tons of poultry, beef and pork from these countries in January revealed that the meat was infected with salmonella, the regulator said.

Russia wants Israel to join Nuclear Proliferation Treaty - FM Sergei Lavrov
"We believe that the practical implementation of a nuclear-free zone will become possible only when all countries in the region, including Israel, join the NPT and subject their activities to the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Syrian Arab News Agency, published Friday by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Bedouin girl shot in head; IDF suspected
A Bedouin girl in the northern Negev was shot in the head on Wednesday, apparently by a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces. The military police are investigating.

Pakistan Claims Arrested of Ex-Taliban Minister
The Pakistani government says its arrested a former Taliban defense minister and key insurgent leader. The man, Mullah Obaidullah, would be the most senior Taliban member to be captured since the US invasion of Afghanistan. The arrest comes amid new tensions over the Bush administration’s call on Pakistan to crack down on Al Qaeda fighters. On Thursday, Pakistan’s US ambassador, -- Mahmud Ali Durrani -- was asked if increasing pressure and threatened aid cuts could bring down Pakistani president General Pervaz Musharaf.

Pakistan Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani: "I don't know possibly - it could bring him down. It could destabilize the whole country. It could cause mega-problems there. That is possible."

Africa – Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be
The Pentagon does not admit that a ring of permanent US military bases is operating or under construction throughout Africa. But nobody doubts the American military buildup on the African continent is well underway. From oil rich northern Angola up to Nigeria, from the Gulf of Guinea to Morocco and Algeria, from the Horn of Africa down to Kenya and Uganda, and over the pipeline routes from Chad to Cameroon in the west, and from Sudan to the Red Sea in the east, US admirals and generals have been landing and taking off, meeting with local officials. They've conducted feasibility studies, concluded secret agreements, and spent billions from their secret budgets.

China demands US cancel planned missile sale to Taiwan
China demanded Friday the United States scrap a planned sale of hundreds of missiles to Taiwan, warning the deal would harm regional stability and bilateral ties.

The Iraq War Crash
China is hugely dependent on Iran for its energy needs, or else the rapid industrialization and modernization envisioned by the Chinese elite will come to a sputtering halt. U.S. war moves against Iran threaten China's lifeblood. Stock markets, being very future-oriented, pick up on rumors of war very quickly and the Shanghai Stock Exchange acted accordingly.
The Chinese didn't cause markets to fall: the main factor is U.S. economic and foreign policy. The elements of a global recession – or worse – have been in place for some time now.

Mortgage defaults start to spread
At issue are mortgages made to people who fall in the gray area between "prime" (borrowers considered the best credit risks) and "subprime" (borrowers considered the greatest credit risks). A record $400 billion of these midlevel loans - which are known in the industry as "Alt-A" mortgages - were originated last year, up from $85 billion in 2003, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication. Alt-A loans accounted for roughly 16 percent of mortgage originations last year and subprime loans an additional 24 percent.

House Passes Union Bill Over GOP Objection
Back in the United States, the House has passed a bill that would make it easier for workers to join unions. The Employee Free Choice Act would stop employers from demanding secret-ballot elections and require them to recognize unions if a majority of workers consented. President Bush has promised to veto the bill while Senate Republicans say they will filibuster.

Cheney's New Front in War on Reality
Remarkable as it may be for Cheney, at this point in his tenure, to raise the issue of judgment, he has in so doing provided an appropriate opening for a discussion of his own tenuous ties to reality. Were Cheney a run-of-the-mill vice president, his inability to identify the line between fact and fantasy – or is it: truth and fiction – would be the stuff of comedy sketches. But, of course, Cheney is no ordinary second in command. Indeed, when it comes to foreign policy, he has for six years now been the real "decider." Only the most delusional observer of Washington fails to recognize that the Bush White House does what it does "because," as former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill explained, "this is the way that Dick likes it."

Israelis at Abu Ghraib?
Today, most Americans agree that the name Abu Ghraib will adorn one of the more shameful pages in our history books.
Shortly after the tales of prisoner abuse gained widespread public notice, an unlikely news source, the right-wing NewsMax, broke a remarkable angle: Israeli agents appear to have participated in -- and may even have directed -- the Abu Ghraib abuses.
What the hell were Israelis doing in that place?

Israeli Top Justice Officials Check New Olmert Allegations
Israel's state comptroller said Thursday that he would check new corruption allegations against Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

US, Israel begin talks on new 10-year aid plan
Meanwhile, New Orleans is having to sue to get disaster relief.
What is wrong with this picture?

Australian to Be First Gitmo Prisoner Tried Under New Tribunal Law
The Pentagon has announced David Hicks will be the first Guantanamo prisoner tried under the new US law authorizing military trials of alleged enemy combatants. Hicks is an Australian citizen accused of helping the Taliban fight US troops in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans
The president and the Pentagon now wield the omnipotent power to arrest, torture, and execute any American they label an “enemy combatant.” It is impossible to overstate the significance of this power. It has totally upended the relationship of the military and civilian in the United States. The assumption of this particular power easily constitutes one of the most monumental revolutions of liberty and power in history. It is a revolution that every American must confront now, not later. If people wait until later to confront the expanded use of this power, it will be too late, because by that time it will be too dangerous to do so.

Prosecutors: Padilla Interrogation Video Lost
Meanwhile there is more news from the Jose Padilla hearings. Military prosecutors are claiming a video recording of Padilla’s last interrogation at a U.S. Navy brig in South Carolina -- has been lost. Defense lawyers had requested the video in an effort to prove Padilla’s harsh treatment and confinement has helped cause serious psychological damage making him unfit for trial. A judge rejected the defense argument on Wednesday. A trial is set to begin in two weeks.

National ID Card Rules Unveiled
Critics, such as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Tim Sparapani, charge that the bill increases government access to data on Americans and amplifies the risk of identity theft, without providing significant security benefits.

How Real ID will affect you
Why did these ID requirements get attached to an "emergency" military spending bill? Because it's difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops in Iraq and tsunami relief.

Poll: Universal Health Care Americans’ Top Priority
A new poll from the New York Times and CBS News shows continued support in this country for universal health care. Fifty-five percent of Americans say universal access to health insurance is the nation’s top domestic priority. Sixty-percent say they would pay more taxes if that would mean guaranteed insurance for everyone. Eighty-percent say granting universal access is more important than extending President Bush’s tax cuts.

Shortages Threaten Guard's Capability
Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated "not ready" -- largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars' worth of equipment -- jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad, according to a congressional commission that released a preliminary report yesterday on the state of U.S. military reserve forces.
The report found that heavy deployments of the National Guard and reserves since 2001 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorism missions have deepened shortages, forced the cobbling together of units and hurt recruiting.

Argentina Rejects IMF Role in Debt Payment
In Argentina, President Nestor Kirchner has announced his government will reject any involvement of the International Monetary Fund in Argentina’s debt payment. Kirchner made the comments during his state of the union address.

Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner: "In the Paris Club they tell us: 'You must have an agreement with the International (Monetary) Fund to be able to pay the debt.' We say to them: 'Sirs, we are sovereign. We want to pay the debt but no way in hell are we going to make an agreement again with the IMF."

The IMF helped push through a series of economic policies that many believe helped bring Argentina’s economy to collapse in 2001.

Admin: No Need for NATO Consent over Missile Shield
The Bush administration is vowing to continue with its controversial missile defense system in Eastern Europe regardless of approval from NATO allies. Under the plan, Poland would host a battery of up to ten ballistic missiles while the Czech Republic would host a radar facility. The proposals have set off protests across Europe.

Ex-Hostage Returns to Lebanon to Call for Cluster Ban, Israeli Reparations
In Lebanon, a Belgian physician who survived a lengthy kidnapping in Lebanon two decades ago has returned to bring attention to the effects of Israel’s use of cluster bombs. The doctor, Jan Cools, spent thirteen months in captivity beginning in 1988. On Thursday, Cools called for a cluster ban and said Israel should compensate Lebanon for dropping hundreds of thousands of cluster bomblets during its attack last year.

Ahmadinejad to Visit Saudi Arabia
The Iranian government has announced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Saudi Arabia Saturday for a rare meeting with King Abdullah. It will be Ahmadinejad’s first state visit to Saudi Arabia amid a time of increasing tensions with the US. Meanwhile in Madrid Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki renewed calls for negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki: "We should be allowed back to the negotiating table to put forward our arguments before the media and the people. The U.S. reasoning that they can have nuclear weapons and others can't have nuclear energy is not valid."

OKC 'Third Suspect' Gary Land - Fed Provocateurs Identified?

Brian Quig an independent reporter from Tempe, Arizona had this picture up on his web site DCIA.com shortly after the bombing. Brian was diligently working on gathering information on Land to show a cover-up by the Feds. Brian Quig was pushing very hard on the Gary Land issue when he was run down by a car in Phoenix and killed. His web site DCIA.com subsequently went down. A Google search for "Brian Quig" will still pull up much of Mr. Quig's work centered on exposing government corruption.

Former FBI Director Calls For New OKC Bombing Investigation

Former FBI Terrorist Task Force director Danny Coulson has called for a new grand jury investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing and for the first time names Andreas Strassmeir as an "agent," in a documentary set to air Sunday, according to lawyer Jesse Trentadue.

9/11 in Perspective – Flight 93 & WTC7

Had flight 93 actually hit WTC7, it would have served as an improbable but relatively reasonable explanation for the collapse of all three buildings. Science, witnesses, video and forensic evidence indicate that the main towers were brought down by controlled demolition and not as a result of any plane impact or raging fires. Still, the claim that the first two towers collapsed as a result of the damaging impact of aircrafts filled with jet fuel might serve as a reasonable explanation for what happened. On the other hand, the collapse of WTC7 – despite not having been hit by a plane- has caused people to reach for any explanation they could dream up and believe regardless of how implausible! These people look around frantically for scientific support for their unsupported theories, yet they ignore all of the other suspicious evidence surrounding the mystery of WTC7. They blind themselves to everything from comments by Silverstein himself to the dramatic video evidence and the revealing statements (and documentation) made by members of our government who were tasked with protecting us on that very day.

Why No One Could Have Predicted The Collapse Of WTC 7

The BBC, instead of attempting to explain how it could have reported this, has attempted to both evade and cloud the issue. The truth is that no one could have possibly predicted the building would collapse and here's why.


BBC, CNN Employ Magical Psychic News Announcers

Google is quickly deleting copies of the video, although it’s unknown who or what is requesting the clips be deleted. BBC presumably owns the copyright on the footage, and it seems BBC would want to collect and examine this footage — because the BBC now claims it lost all the 9/11 video. Because who would want to save video of the biggest news event of the last 40 years?

Media Blacklists BBC Fiasco

The crowned kings of censorship Google have "pulled" the News 24 "timestamp" video that shows the BBC reporting the collapse of Building 7 26 minutes before it happened. Meanwhile, the establishment media continues to ignore the WTC 7 farce as a whole, including the inconceivable notion that BBC World have mysteriously lost all their 9/11 footage.

The BBC's 'WTC 7 Collapsed At 4:54 p.m.' Videos
BBC is pulling out all the stops to get these videos yanked from the web. So please make local copies, burn then to CD-ROM, and hide them in a safe place. This is the proof that 9-11 was a war-starting hoax and that the mainstream media was a willing participant in the lie.

The 911 Script and the Age of Terror

But the BBC reporter is clearly seen reading from a teleprompter. Obviously, she was reading something written on it, and not making up what would have then seemed to be a wild tale. In other words, she was reading a script, and that script had been put up on her teleprompter early. Not only that, she was sitting in front of a live image of the still-intact Building 7. Somebody wrote that script and did so while Building 7 was still standing. How could they know that it would collapse, even if it was unstable, even if there was a fire in the cellars? No, the author of the script did not think the building had collapsed. He knew that it would, and the statement was read early as a miscue.

BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal

"Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people's copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC's brand."

BBC clips to be shown on YouTube

The BBC has concluded its first major internet video-sharing deal, which will allow clips of its content to be shown on YouTube.

... which explains why YouTube was so cooperative in removing the BBC's WTC-7 "Prediction".

Walter Reed to wounded troops: "Shut Up & Suffer"

Supporting the Troops: "Shut Up and Suffer"
Because some soldiers were ballsy enough to tell the press about the callous way the Bush gang treats the cannon fodder it sends off to die, kill, maim and be maimed in a useless, pointless, illegal, corrupt, immoral, murderous, mismanaged war, now all the soldiers in Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit are being subjected to a punishment regimen -- and banished to an area where they will be inaccessible to the press.
While no one could possibly expect the foul, perverted, fourth-rate minds of the Bush Administration to pay even the briefest quark of concern or attention to the hundreds of thousands of innocent people they have murdered in Iraq or the millions of American citizens they have driven into deep poverty, one might think that they would at least make a show of caring what happens to the men and women they have so cynically and criminally abused in the service of their apparently limitless greed and infinite stupidity.
The Army Times is reporting soldiers stationed at the U.S. Army’s top medical facility have been told they are no longer allowed to speak to the media. One soldier in the Medical Hold Unit said many troops believe the media ban is a form of punishment for the whistle-blowing that led to last month’s disclosure the hospital is in major decay.

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

Report: Top Officials Knew of Walter Reed Complaints
Meanwhile the Washington Post reports today top officials at Walter Reed have heard patient complaints about poor treatment for more than three years. The officials include Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the former head of Walter Reed and the current army surgeon general. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to hold hearings on the conditions at Walter Reed next week.

US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse
An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

Confusion over Iraq soccer explosion - US carried out blast - 18 children dead
The Pentagon has admitted to botching a controlled explosion in Ramadi. Flying shrapnel and glass injured thirty-one people, including several children. The announcement followed an unconfirmed report more than a dozen children were killed in a large explosion. In Baghdad, Iraqi police say they recovered least thirty-bodies on Tuesday. The Pentagon also announced the deaths of five more US troops.

Baghdad Hospital Children’s Ward
In this episode, Alive in Baghdad takes you to the children’s ward of Baghdad Hospital, to make visible the plight of some very sick children, stricken with cancer by the presence of Depleted Uranium munitions, left over from the last to US wars in Iraq.

The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War
If the Bush administration, for example, were to insist on a sure "success," then the "attack" would constitute nuclear war. The words in boldface are nuclear war, that's right, nuclear war -- a first strike nuclear war.

V-I Day is Close at Hand: New Oil Law Approved in Bushist Baghdad.
As we noted here a few weeks ago, an oil law giving Bush's crony conquistadors a dominant hold on Iraq's oil has always been the true "benchmark" of victory for the White House. And now it is within reach; the Iraqi parliament will vote on the law next month -- with 140,000 American troops parked all around the country, and American bombs falling on the capital.

New Zealand forces complain at US treatment of Afghan prisoners
New Zealand forces in Afghanistan were reported Wednesday to have complained about the treatment of prisoners they handed over to the United States. The elite SAS soldiers were so concerned they called a meeting of other special forces in Kandahar, the New Zealand Herald quoted a Danish military source saying.
The forces, also including Australia, Canada, Norway, Germany and Britain, were involved in "snatch-grabs" -- missions to round up terrorist suspects to hand over to the United States for detention and interrogation. But New Zealand soldiers were said to be concerned that some of the detainees they handed over in 2002 had not been properly registered. Instead of being identified, photographed and fingerprinted and having their weapons properly registered, they had their heads shaved, no photos or ID taken, and their belongings were thrown into a single pile, the report said.

Padilla Ruled Competent to Stand Trial
A federal judge has ruled Jose Padilla is competent to stand trial on charges of aiding al-Qaeda. Padilla’s attorneys had asked the court to order treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. A forensic psychologist had also testified Padilla may be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome in which captives identify with their captors. The Bush administration jailed Padilla without charge after initially accusing him of plotting a dirty bomb attack. Padilla was held in extreme isolation without almost any human contact for about thirteen-hundred days and denied an attorney for nearly two years. A trial is set to begin in two weeks.

Israel: Defense workers exposed to chemical agents develop cancer
Troops and officers who were exposed to chemical warfare agents have fallen ill with cancer and other diseases, but the authorities are refusing to recognize the full extent of their disabilities.
The soldiers say they have also received threatening visits from members of the Defense Ministry's security department - MALAMB - after they launched a campaign to have their disabilities recognized for compensation.
One former soldier who fell ill was warned not to tell his story to the media, while another patient's doctor and lawyer both had their computer hard disks seized.

Dems to Seek Testimony from Fired Prosecutors
On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders have announced plans to seek testimony from several prosecutors who lost their jobs in a wave of dismissals from the Bush administration. The attorney firings -- and their replacements -- have raised allegations of judicial interference. The House will vote today on whether to subpoena four former prosecutors.

Outgoing New Mexico US Attorney Links Dismissal to GOP Pressure
The move comes as the outgoing US attorney in New Mexico has spoken out on his firing. In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, David Iglesias linked his forced departure to his refusal to aggressively pursue the indictment of local Democrats before congressional elections last year. Iglesias says two lawmakers asked him to push the indictments in what he believes was an effort to create a campaign issue. He said “I believe that because I didn’t play ball, so to speak, I was asked to resign.” Iglesisas did not give names but the Washington Post reports it received denials from all New Mexico lawmakers except Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Republican Congressmember Heather Wilson.

Meet the New Congress ... same as the OLD Congress
A weekend of confusion among Democratic senators over possible action on Iraq was capped off by an announcement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada that the Senate would wait on any Iraq-related legislation.

Democrats wimp out again
House Democratic leaders are developing an antiwar proposal that would not cut off money for U.S. troops in Iraq but would require President Bush to acknowledge problems with an overburdened military.
For this we changed the Congress???????

The Bushes: Delusional, Out Of Touch Puppet Theatre
Despite what Mrs Bush may believe, the Brookings Institution Iraq Index, as of November 2006, states that there are approximately 185 insurgent and militia attacks every day. The fact that maybe only one gets reported on per day is not because there is only one bombing but due to the fact that there is not enough time to cover them all.

Chavez signs decree to nationalize foreign oil companies
The decree allows Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, (PDVSA) to take a 60 per cent stake on May 1 in four projects which process crude oil into 600,000 barrels of synthetic oil a day in the country's eastern Orinoco River basin. The companies affected by the decree are Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips from the US, Total SA from France, British Petroleum and Norway's Statoil ASA.

'Trigger happy' US worries Putin
In a televised exchange during a cabinet meeting, Vladimir Putin was told by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that "predictions that strikes will be conducted against Iran have become more common, and this causes concern"

First bank failure in years happens in Pittsburgh
After nearly 21/2 years without a bank failure, a small Pennsylvania bank collapsed this month.

FAREWELL ZENITH
Another American branded product flames out.

IRS goes after eBay, wants info on seller earnings

Census: 750,000 Homeless in US
A new census has estimated the nation’s homeless population at three-quarters of a million people. The Department of Housing and Urban Development says that’s about 300,000 more than the number of available beds in shelters and temporary housing. Around sixty-percent of the homeless population are people of color.

Gov't estimates 754,000 homeless people
The nation has three-quarters of a million homeless people, filling emergency shelters through the year and spilling into special seasonal shelters in the coldest months, the government said Wednesday.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated there were 754,000 homeless people in 2005, including those living in shelters, transitional housing and on the street. That's about 300,000 more people than available beds in shelters and transitional housing.

Central banks cutting holdings of U.S. dollar
Central banks around the world are continuing to diversify their reserves by cutting their dollar holdings, according to a survey sponsored by Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
"Central banks are open to saying they've been diversifying to improve returns and reduce exposure to any single currency," said Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking in Singapore. "There's no doubt that when they say 'diversification' they mean selling dollars."

US durable goods orders plummet
Orders for manufactured US durable goods sank 7.8 percent in January, as orders for transportation equipment fell heavily, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The sharp drop was more than double what most Wall Street analysts had forecast and suggested further weakness in the US industrial sector.

US mortgage crisis goes into meltdown
Panic has begun to sweep the sub-prime mortgage sector in the United States after the bankruptcy of 22 lenders over the past two months, setting off mass liquidation of housing loans packaged as securities. The rapid deterioration could not come at a worse time for British bank HSBC, which has set aside $10.5bn (£5.4bn) to cover bad loans in the US.
The cost of insuring against default on these loans has rocketed in recent weeks, from 50 basis points over Libor to 1,200, raising fears that a credit crunch could spread to the rest of the property market.

Part of Boston Shutdown After Suspicious Device Found
A suspicious device was blown up downtown Wednesday, shutting down parts of the Financial District.
It turned out to be a highway department traffic counter.

Americans Have Lost Their Country

In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America's moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

US: There will be no bilateral talks with Iran or Syria
The Bush administration has dismissed suggestions its presence at an international conference on Iraq could lead to direct talks with Iran and Syria. Hopes were raised after Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice confirmed the US would join a regional meeting called by the Iraqi government. But on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the administration has not dropped its pre-condition that Iran abandon nuclear activities. Iran says its weighing the Iraqi invitation.

Ahmadinejad blames U.S., Israel for wars
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "The arrival of foreign forces and the intervention of the hegemonic system in the affairs of the people of this country is the root cause of the problems in Iraq."
"Many Western governments that claim to be pioneers of democracy and standard bearers of human rights close their eyes over crimes committed by the Zionists and by remaining silent support the Zionists due to their hedonistic and materialistic tendencies," the Iranian leader said.

Obama to offer pro-Israel views at Chicago gathering
Obama at AIPAC This Friday


Poll: Attachment of U.S. Jews to Israel falls in past 2 years

The attachment of American Jews to Israel has weakened measurably in the last two years, a recent survey demonstrates, continuing a long-term trend visible during the past decade and a half.

Israel to ask U.S. for more military aid

A high-level Israeli economic delegation led by Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and Finance Ministry Director General Yarom Ariav will meet with an American team in Washington this week.The present package, which ends this year, covers $2.4 billion in annual military aid.

Israel wants their spy back

American Jewish organizations have organized a massive nationwide campaign to call the White House every afternoon for the next two months and request/demand freedom for Pollard. The campaign is to last, if it does not succeed in attaining its goal beforehand, until after Passover, the holiday of freedom.

Iraq's Superbombs: Home Made?

The Pentagon is claiming -- again -- the the Iranian government supplied the deadly "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs). But the more you study these devices -- which use an explosive charge to a convert disc-shaped metal 'lens' into a high-velocity slug capable of smashing through thick armor at an extended range -- the more likely they seem to be home-made in Iraq.

Review: 90% of US Casualties in Sunni Areas
Meanwhile a review of American casualties in Iraq has further undercut the Bush administration’s claim that Iran is supplying bombs to Shiite insurgents that have targeted US troops. McClatchy Newspapers is reporting ninety percent of US casualties have come in Sunni areas. (IRANIANS ARE SHI'ITES). Some of those deaths were caused by explosively formed projectiles -- or EFPs. The administration had suggested the EFPs were being used almost exclusively by Iranian-backed Shiite groups.

Swiss court clears suspected Al Qaeda members of all charges...
Another court case against alleged "terrorists" blows up in the face of the prosecutor. The first Swiss court case against seven alleged helpers of the Al Qaeda network ended with a not guilty verdict and the defendants where awarded up to 93'000 Swiss Francs as reimbursement of defense costs. Although the prosecutor was under heavy (political) pressure to deliver a guilty verdict for their alleged involvement in the attacks on the USS Cole 2000 and the attacks in Riad 2003, he could not prove his case in the opinion of the court. One was cleared of all charges and the others only got a minor penalty for illegal entry to Switzerland.

U.S. Warns Against EU's CIA Flight Probe
The European Parliament accused Britain, Poland, Italy and other nations in mid-February of colluding with the CIA to transport terror suspects to clandestine prisons in third countries.
In a report that concluded a yearlong investigation, the parliament identified 1,254 secret CIA flights that entered the European airspace since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

US to Reject Extradition for CIA Agents in Italy Kidnap Trial
The Bush administration has announced it will reject any Italian extradition request for CIA agents indicted in the kidnapping of the Egyptian cleric Abu Omar. Twenty-six Americans have been ordered to stand trial for Omar’s abduction on the streets of Milan more than three years ago. Omar was flown to Egypt where he says he was tortured.

State Dept.: North Korea Normalization Talks Next Week
As the Bush administration dismisses the significance of the upcoming talks alongside Iran, the State Department has announced a meeting next week with North Korea. The talks will focus on normalizing relations with North Korea under the initial nuclear deal reached last month. State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack warned against expecting a major breakthrough.

US to sell Taiwan 421 million US dollars worth of missiles
The US Department of Defense has notified Congress that it plans to sell Taiwan missiles worth 421 million US dollars, which would help boost the island's defenses against rival China.
And bolster the flagging US economy...

Report: Military Advisors See Limited Time for Iraq Goals Amid Dwindling Public Support
The Guardian of London is reporting top US military advisors are warning they have only six months to win the war before a further collapse of political and public support here in the United States. The advisors are said to be in charge of carrying out President Bush’s troop increase announced earlier this year.

8,000 gallons of toxic chemicals spill into Ohio River
So far, officials said, there's no threat to public drinking water.

Bird flu vaccine linked to 18 teenage suicides in Japan
JAPANESE health authorities are investigating a flu medicine that is also available in Australia after a teenager jumped 11 storeys to his death after taking the drug. It was the 18th juvenile fatality linked to Tamiflu in 17 months.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has asked the Japanese importer of Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug regarded as the most important shield against bird flu in humans, to collect information about the conditions of patients who take the drug.
In May of 2006, as reported at www.avianinfluenza.org, the US sent a "stockpile of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to Asia as a first defense against a possible flu pandemic." Mike Leavitt, U.S. secretary of health and human services, said Washington has shipped treatment courses of Tamiflu to a secure location in an unnamed Asian country."This is the same flu vaccine that the US has been stockpiling against pandemic influenza here in the US.

Mexican Prez Slams US Border Wall
At a meeting with a bilateral entrepreneurial organization Tuesday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized the 745-mile, 1.3 billion dollar border wall the US is building to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico.

Israel Continues Nablus Seige
In the Occupied Territories, the Israeli military siege on Nablus is in its fifth day. Earlier today Israeli forces traded gunfire with Palestinian militants in a mosque in the Faraa refugee camp. Dozens of people have been arrested while the Nablus television station has been shut down. Meanwhile in Jenin, hundreds of Palestinians gathered Wednesday for the funeral of three Palestinians killed earlier in the day. Israel says two of the dead were responsible for a failed suicide bombing attempt on Tel Aviv last week. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Israel is trying to disrupt the Palestinian unity agreement.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh: "It has become clear that this Israeli escalation, whether through the repeated incursions on Nablus or the assassination of Palestinian leaders of the resistance, is directly tied with the Israeli refusal of the Mecca agreement which cemented the national unity government on the basis of Palestinian consensus."

Sex Slavery - The Growing Trade in Israel
Human rights groups have long demanded actions against the trade in women in Israel. These women many from the former Soviet, are working as prostitutes in a condition of virtual slavery. Many of the Russian women who have ended up in Israel's brothels, some smuggled into the country from Egypt on the back of camels, expected to find jobs a cleaners and or working in childcare. There are certain places where auctions are taking place. The Israeli police well know the names. They are nightclubs or regular bars. The women are brought there, buyers come and look at their bodies and their teeth, then the bidding starts.

Lou Pearlman aka Louis J. Pearlman aka Svengali
State regulators say he owes investors $317 million. Pearlman and his Trans Continental companies owe investors more than $317 million in what state regulators say was a giant Ponzi scheme. The state says he used money from new investors to pay off old investors and transferred millions of dollars to himself and his companies. Many investors were from the Tampa Bay area, most of them older people attracted by false claims of FDIC insurance. In addition, lenders say Pearlman owes them more than $160 million.

Ex-FDA Head Sentenced to Probation, Fine
And finally, former Food and Drug Administration head Lester Crawford has been sentenced to three years of supervised probation and a ninety-thousand dollar fine. Crawford pleaded guilty last year to conflict of interest and false reporting of ownership of stock. Prosecutors say he lied about his ties to several companies regulated by the FDA.


Flight 93 - Proof of 9/11 Lies by the US Government and Media

"I know of two people - I will not mention names - that heard a missile," [Mayor Ernie Stuhl] said. "They both live very close, within a couple of hundred yards. . .This one fellow's served in Vietnam and he says he's heard them, and he heard one that day." The mayor adds that based on what he knows about that morning, military F-16 fighter jets were "very, very close."

The BBC's 9/11 Conspiracy Files: Points Which Were Ignored - includes video

The BBC's 'WTC 7 Collapsed At 4:54 p.m.' Videos
Why did the BBC report the collapse of WTC & at 4:54 when it didn't happen until 5:30???
And why are they making excuses about it?

Time Stamp Confirms BBC Reported WTC 7 Collapse 26 Minutes In Advance

BBC reports on WTC7 collapse 20 minutes before it collapsed!

So far the BBC's response has been
a) the BBC couldn't have known and therefore they couldn't have reported it. This is a patent falsehood, as the BBC very clearly DID report on it before it happened, as shown by the video,
and
b) that the BBC has lost it's archive footage from that day and so of course they can make no comment.

BBC responds to complaints about its WTC-7 "Prediction"
The viewer's comments are priceless.

Another Smoking Gun? Now CNN Jumps the Gun: On 911 CNN Announced WTC 7 "Has Either Collapsed or is Collapsing" Over an Hour Before it Fell

Both before and after 9-11, no steel-framed building had ever collapsed from a fire. The First Interstate Bank building in Los Angeles had