War Criminal on TV

He's on that box of shitwaves in front of you:

"The War Criminal In The Living Room" by Paul Craig Roberts V Dare Friday Aug 31, 2007

The media is silent, Congress is absent, and Americans are distracted as George W. Bush openly prepares aggression against Iran.

• US Navy aircraft carrier strike forces are deployed off Iran.
• US Air Force jets and missile systems are deployed in bases in countries bordering or near to Iran.
• US B-2 stealth bombers have been refitted to carry 30,000 pound "bunker buster" bombs.
• The US government is financing terrorist and separatist groups within Iran.
• US Special Forces teams are conducting terrorist operations inside Iran.
• US war doctrine has been altered to permit first strike nuclear attack on Iran and other non-nuclear countries.

Bush's war threats against Iran have intensified during the course of this year. The American people are being fed a repeat of the lies used to justify naked aggression against Iraq.

Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening "the security of nations everywhere" and of the Iraqi resistance for "a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power." [President Bush Addresses the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion, August 28, 2007]. Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration. The Pew Foundation�s world polls show that despite all the American and Israeli propaganda against Iran, the US and Israel are regarded as no less threats to world stability than demonized Iran.

Now Bush wants to murder more. We have to kill Iranians "over there," Bush says, "before they come over here." There is no possibility that Iranians or any Muslims who have no air force, no navy, no modern military technology are going to "come over here," and no indication that they plan to do so. The Muslims are disunited and have been for centuries. That is what makes them vulnerable to colonial rule. If Muslims were united, the US would already have lost its army in Iraq. Indeed, it would not have been able to put an army in Iraq.

Meanwhile the US media focuses on whether Republican Senator Larry Craig is a homosexual or has offended gays by denying being one of them. The run-up for the public's attention is why a South Carolina beauty queen cannot answer a simple question about why her generation is unable to find the United States on a map.

The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact.

Lacking US troops with which to invade Iran, the Bush administration has decided to bomb Iran "back into the stone age." Punishing air and missile attacks have been designed not merely to destroy Iran's nuclear energy projects, but also to destroy the public infrastructure, the economy, and the ability of the government to function.

Encouraged by the indifference of both the American media and Christian churches to the massive casualties inflicted on Iraqi civilians, the Bush administration will not be deterred by the prospect of its air attacks inflicting massive casualties on Iranian civilians. Last summer the Bush administration demonstrated to the entire world its total disdain for Muslim life when Bush supported Israel's month-long air attack on Lebanese civilian infrastructure and civilian residences. President Bush blocked the attempt by the rest of the world to halt the gratuitous murder of Lebanese civilians and infrastructure destruction. Clearly, turning the Muslim Middle East into a wasteland is the Bush policy. For Bush, civilian casualties are a non-issue. Hegemony uber alles.

The Bush administration has made its war plans for attacking Iraq and positioned its forces without any prior approval from Congress. The "unitary executive" obviously doesn't believe that an attack on Iran requires the approval of Congress. By its absence and quietude, Congress seems to agree that it has no role in the decision.

In the improbable event that Congress were to make any fuss about Bush's decision to attack yet another country, the State Department has devised legalistic cover: simply declare Iran's military to be a "terrorist organization" and go to war under the cover of the existing resolution.

The "Iran issue" has been created by the Bush administration, not by Iran. Iran, like many other countries, has a nuclear energy program to which it is entitled as a signatory to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran.

The Bush administration has brushed away this fact, which should be determining, just as the Bush administration brushed away the fact that weapons inspectors reported, prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Bush administration managed to disrupt the work of the pesky IAEA weapons inspectors in Iran. Iran has been working successfully with the IAEA and has achieved what a senior IAEA official recently described as a milestone agreement. The Bush administration instantly went to work to discredit the agreement and unleashed its new lapdog, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to threaten "the bombing of Iran." [Iran risks attack over atomic push, French president says By Elaine Sciolino, International Herald-Tribune, August 27, 2007]

The Bush administration's position is legally untenable and is really nothing but a contrived excuse to start another war. Bush claims that Iran, alone among all the signatories of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, must be denied its right under the pact to develop nuclear energy, because Iran, along among all the other signatories, will be the only country able to deceive the IAEA inspectors and develop nuclear weapons. Therefore, Iran must be denied its rights under the agreement.

Bush's position on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is as legally untenable as his position on every other issue--the Geneva Conventions, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, habeas corpus, the constitutional separation of powers, and presidential signing statements that he cavalierly attaches to new laws in order to override the legislative power of Congress. Bush's position is that the meaning of laws and treaties varies with his needs of the moment.

Bush has declared himself to be the "decider." The "decider" decides whether Americans have any rights under the Constitution and whether Iran has any rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As the "decider" has decided that Iran has no such rights, the "decider" decides whether to attack Iran.

No one else has any say about it. The people's representatives are just so much chaff in the wind.

Whatever form of government Bush is operating under, it is far outside an accountable constitutional democratic government. Bush has transitioned America to Caesarism, and even if Bush leaves office in January 2009, the powers he has accumulated in the executive will remain.

Unless Bush and Cheney are impeached and convicted, there is no prospect of the US Congress and federal judiciary ever again being co-equal branches of government."

[Bye, bye, U.S.A. Sig Heil!!]

Story Iraq: The Files of Police Squad

More "success."

Riven with alleged sectarianism, which if true, is one more failure to chalk up for Bush and the gang.

"Panel Will Urge Broad Overhaul of Iraqi Police" by DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An independent commission established by Congress to assess Iraq’s security forces will recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force. The commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes... that its current units “be scrapped” and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that “we should start over,” the official said.

[WE SHOULD START OVER?

After FIVE FUCKING YEARS?

GOOD LORD, WE WILL NEVER LEAVE!]

The report, which will be presented to Congress next week, is among a number of new Iraq assessments — including a national intelligence estimate and a Government Accountability Office report — that await lawmakers when they return from summer recess. But the Jones commission’s assessment is likely to receive particular attention as the work of a highly regarded team that was alone in focusing directly on the worthiness of Iraq’s army and police force.

A new attempt to disband an Iraqi force would also be risky, given the armed backlash that followed the American decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army soon after the invasion of 2003.

Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said that an American effort to retrain the Iraqi police forces was under way. Mr. Morrell said that Pentagon officials believed that such an effort could succeed... without requiring a complete overhaul of the Iraqi force.

“We’re not giving up on the Iraqi National Police,” Mr. Morrell said, adding that the United States and Mr. Maliki’s government were “both committed to seeing it through.”

[As we work behind the scenes to dump him!

Frikkin' lying American military again.]

According to several administration officials, the Jones commission also reached largely positive conclusions about the Iraqi Army’s performance since the start of the new security strategy in Iraq — a sign, several officials said, that a determined American effort to remake Iraqi institutions holds some promise of success.

[Promises, promises!]

The officials who agreed to discuss the commission recommendations did so in some cases because they believed that disclosing them publicly would help diffuse their impact.

[So the WHITE HOUSE LEAKED THIS!

And the MSM had you believing it was some disgruntled GAO guy!]

The Jones commission, which has 14 members, including former or retired military officers, Defense Department officials and law enforcement officers, was created this year by Congress to study the Iraqi security forces and report its findings this fall. Members of the commission made three trips to Iraq and met with senior American commanders and Iraqi officials.

National police units were designated earlier this year to play a major role securing neighborhoods after United States and Iraqi Army units cleared the areas of insurgents. But the police have proven to be a tenuous element of that strategy... supply and equipment problems have led to frequent complaints by the American military that the national police have been ineffective.

American commanders on the ground in Shiite-controlled areas of Baghdad say that the local police actively subvert efforts to loosen the grip of militias, and in some cases, attack Americans directly. One commander in northwest Baghdad said most bomb attacks against American patrols in the area this spring occurred close to police checkpoints.

Officers involved in training the national police units... acknowledged deep problems with the police but said that they had been working methodically for months on retraining national police units to do exactly what the Jones commission was proposing.

American officers have been trying to fix the police force since before 2006, which the military labeled “the year of the police,” a slogan meant to show their determination to fix what were, even then, longstanding problems.

On Friday President Bush is scheduled to meet with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss Iraq. Pentagon officials said the meeting would offer a chance for Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and the chiefs of the military services to provide their views about Iraq, as part of a process they have said is intended to present Mr. Bush with a broad range of views about the way forward in Iraq.

Several of the chiefs are expected to press for steep reductions in the force levels in Iraq over the next year out of concern that the current level of more than 160,000 troops imposes too large a strain on the military and leaves too few troops to respond to other contingencies, officials said."

[Well, he ain't gonna listen!!

I just say Ed Henry on C(IA)NN say that Bush looks like he has made up his mind to ESCALATE the SURGE!!!!]

Story Iraq: The Sectarian Lie

It's a Times' front-page feature, so I know its propaganda.

The alleged sectarian strife in Iraq just so happened to begin when we arrived.

Coincidence?

"Shiite’s Tale: How Gulf With Sunnis Widened" by DAMIEN CAVE

BAGHDAD, Aug. 30 — Shatha al-Musawi, a Shiite member of Parliament, first encountered the Sunni-Shiite divide on the day the Americans captured Saddam Hussein. Hearing the news with a close Sunni friend named Sahira, Ms. Musawi erupted like a child.

“I jumped, I shouted, I came directly to Sahira and I hugged her,” Ms. Musawi said. “I was crying, and I said, ‘Sahira, this is the moment we waited for.’ ”

At least it should have been: Mr. Hussein’s henchmen killed Ms. Musawi’s father when she was only 13; Sahira, too, was a victim, losing her closest uncle to the Hussein government.

But instead of celebrating, Sahira stood stiffly. A day later, Ms. Musawi said, Sahira’s eyes were red from crying. And before long, like so many Sunnis and Shiites here, the two stopped talking.

Sectarianism, the issue Ms. Musawi said she had wanted to avoid, has instead come to haunt her. She entered politics four years ago, flush with idealism, working closely with Sunnis on Iraq’s Constitution and a draft law that would compensate victims of Mr. Hussein.

Now, even for her, one of Parliament’s most independent figures, the urge to reconcile is being blacked out by distrust, disappointment and visceral anger.

Her disillusionment helps explain why the Iraqi government has missed most of the political benchmarks laid down by Congress, as the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report to be released in coming days.

[Yeah, it is all THEIR FAULT!]

And her reasons — for defending Shiite militias as a necessary response to Sunni Arab violence, for example — are personal. As with many of Iraq’s leaders, her life has been rubbed raw. After seeing Sunni neighbors kill Shiite friends, and after being pushed out of her own home by violence, Ms. Musawi has struggled to move beyond the pain and anger.

“Many Iraqis are still living in the past, and she too is affected with this predicament,” said Mohammed Mahmoud Ahmad, chairman of the victims compensation committee, where Ms. Musawi is a deputy. For Iraqis of all sects, old offenses linger for decades. And at the simple apartment in the Green Zone that she shares with her second husband (a Sunni Kurd), Ms. Musawi, 40, described a score of abuses.

She grew up in a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, sharing a large comfortable house with six siblings, uncles, aunts and a brood of cousins.

Then one day in 1980 her father went to work and never came home. She later discovered he had been hit by a car belonging to a government official he had argued with.

Only 13, Ms. Musawi was devastated. One of her prized possessions is a photo album of faded pictures beneath sticky plastic, showing her father happy, with wavy long hair and a child in each arm.

“He was a poet, a great man,” she said. “I loved him and I was really very attached to him,” she said. “His loss made me unbalanced.”

Two years later, with the family living in a smaller house, the government struck again. On Aug. 15, 1982, the police arrested her relatives and threw them in prison because their names appeared on a list of “undesirables.”

Ms. Musawi said she ended up in a dirty cell with her relatives and other women and children. Over the next 38 days, she saw a woman give birth beside her; she heard children promising to kill Mr. Hussein. At one point, the police took Ms. Musawi’s mother away and threw ripped pieces of her son’s shirt on the floor to suggest (falsely) that he had been killed.

Captivity shook Ms. Musawi to the core. She did not want to leave when the police tried to release her because “I didn’t think life was a secure place,” she said.

Eventually, she said, she moved on through her faith and obtained a college degree after marriage, divorce and three daughters. When she and Sahira found out about Mr. Hussein’s capture, they were waiting for class at Baghdad University.

At the time, she was hopeful. “Mr. Bush promised Iraq would be a democratic and free country,” she said. “And we believed that.”

Then she laughed. It did not take long, she said, before Iraq started to fracture. In Ms. Musawi’s mixed neighborhood of Adel, Shiite mosques and religious schools closed by the Sunni-dominated government began to reopen immediately after Mr. Hussein’s fall.

Some Sunni Arabs, she said, felt threatened. Soon, Sunni customers at the tailor’s shop where she worked stopped visiting. Her own dinner guests, she acknowledged, were mostly Shiite.

Violence followed. In late 2003, Ms. Musawi said, she saw two cars of men abduct an official at a Shiite mosque near her home, tie him to a car and drag him through the streets. Some of the attackers were young men she had known as boys.

“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Have you lost your mind?”

She said she began looking to politics as a way to restore some sanity. After starting a popular women’s group, she became one of only two women elected to her neighborhood’s district council. She said she enjoyed the work — until her Shiite colleagues started to die. In 2004 and 2005, five Shiite council members were killed, most of them assassinated.

Around the same time, gunmen killed the Shiite mayor of Baghdad, Haider Ali, who lived two houses away from her. She said another neighbor, a Sunni and one of Mr. Ali’s guards, was probably responsible.

“We were shocked, really,” she said. “We used to have friends, neighbors. In every moment, when you met a person, you didn’t think: Is he Shia or Sunni? Of course you’d notice, but it didn’t matter.”

Then at some point, she said, it switched; sect became the defining characteristic for Iraqis. Her Sunni friends told her she did not understand. Being Sunni used to count for something, they said.

But what, Ms. Musawi thought, of the Shiites, who never counted before and were viciously oppressed?

Ms. Musawi said she left Adel secretly in 2005, when she joined the National Assembly, the precursor to the Parliament. One of her daughters was still in high school, and she feared an attack.

Despite such concerns, she resisted the more extreme elements in Iraqi politics. Turning down invitations from other Shiite parties, she joined a group of moderates in the Solidarity bloc and was elected to Parliament in 2005.

Only one Sunni sits with Ms. Musawi on the victims committee, Khalaf al-Maula. In an interview, he described Ms. Musawi as open-minded.

“She respects other people’s opinions and listens to them even though she has a different viewpoint,” he said.

Ms. Musawi says she shares the Sunnis’ opposition to splitting the country into autonomous sectarian regions, and understands elements of the Sunni position. “Some of it is this feeling of patriotism, and a sense of how you should act in a fight against occupation and foreign forces on your land,” she said.

But her own positions and comments are now cut with a sharper sectarian edge.

In Parliament three months ago, she shouted down her colleagues for standing by as Sunni extremists in Diyala Province killed hundreds of Shiites. When the speaker, a Sunni, smirked, she screamed: “Why are you laughing, Mr. Speaker? I want to know why you’re laughing.” (He waved her away: “Leave it to the women,” he said.)

Ms. Musawi, though loyal to the more moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also now defends some actions of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, saying that it has filled a necessary void.

“The government couldn’t protect the people,” she said. “They couldn’t save them. The Sadrists did that.”

[That is why he must be punished!]

When asked about accusations that the Mahdi Army forced innocent Sunnis out of the Hurriya neighborhood, which borders Adel, she said Shiites had no time to sift the innocent from the guilty because Sunnis were killing Shiites.

She says the basic problem is that too many Sunnis will never accept Shiite rule. Just as galling, she said, they refuse to accept responsibility for the sins of Mr. Hussein, the Baath party or today’s extremists.

“The Sunnis never felt how much we suffered,” she said.

Sunnis say they, too, were victims of Mr. Hussein’s tyranny and are even now being pummeled by Shiite death squads or American soldiers. Asmaa al-Dulaimi, a member of Parliament and the daughter of Adnan al-Dulaimi, who leads the main Sunni bloc, said Ms. Musawi and her Shiite colleagues exaggerated their own victimhood for political gain.

“All of these claims are part of the fake oppression they pretend they endured,” she said.

[Gee, that reminds me of another strain of peoples in that region?

Why are you guys mortal enemies, anyway?

Both playing up your persecutions at the hands of others (Shi'ites have the far better case)."

Statements like these leave Ms. Musawi seething, and she says she has come close to quitting several times. When she is asked what it would take for Shiites to reconcile with Sunnis in government, a mix of anger and hurt can be heard as the current leaders suddenly seem to merge in her mind with the Baathists of old.

“I can’t stand seeing them controlling things again,” she said. “I can’t stand seeing them in power.”

If her opponents reach out a hand to shake on a deal, she said, “I think the other hand is hiding a dagger.”

[Bush's liberation. Pffffffttttt!]

Story Iraq: Yesterday's Reported Violence

I don't believe these little boys would kill each other.

I don't believe the "sectarianism" lie.

And how about the bright colors?

Who knew Muslims were so flamboyant?

"Iraq official warns there are no 'magical solutions' to woes
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press | August 31, 2007

BAGHDAD - In the south, gunmen set fire to offices of a Shi'ite political party in at least three towns as tensions remained high.... Gunmen set fire to at least three Supreme Council offices yesterday, one near Nasiriyah and two near Hillah, according to police. The attacks caused no casualties and it was unclear whether Sadr's followers were responsible."

Here is what the web cut from the printed page (hmmm!):

"As a sign of continued tension, Karbala deputy Governor Jawad al-Hasnawi said Sadr threatened to rescind the the suspension order unless the Iraqi government stops detaining his followers within the next 48 hours.

Hasnawi said the warning was a response to raids by US and Iraqi forces in the Karbala area on Sadr's offices, in which six people were killed and 30 detained."

[Gee, why would the Zionist-controlled shit media want to hid that?

The New York Times carried none of this.]

Bush on TV

That asshole is on TV saying that we shouldn't be bailing out folks in the market?

WTF? Chrysler? Corporate Welfare? All the Pentagon waste and corruption? WTF?

Why is he always blaming and stiffing the public? And he is doing it again. Yeah, refinance me, fuck you! Oh, now he is going to reach out, gonna work with Congress, blah, blah, blah, you negligent, uncaring asshole!

Oh now he wants to cut rich people's taxes again? More tax cuts?

I need MONEY, dipshit!!!!

How come Washington doesn't care about America anymore?

Some people say he don't even know what he is talking about!

I FINALLY AGREE WITH HIM!

Yeah, transparency, blah, blah.

Didn't we ALREADY GO THROUGH THIS CRAP WITH ENRON, fucker?!!!!

Listen to him, LYING ALL THE TIME!!!

Yup, gonna crack down on those lenders who blew up the stock market on HOT FART MIST!

And here he goes FARTING OUT the HOME OWNERSHIP DREAM!!

What a fucking shit-sucking scum!!!!!

Oh, no questions, and now I got some tarted whore here on C(IA)NN pimping for him?

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

NO FEDERAL BAILOUT for ME or YOU!!!!

WHAT SHIT SHILLS for this guy!

Story Iraq: Missing Weapons

Turning up in the most unlikely(?) places:

"U.S. Weapons, Given to Iraqis, Move to Turkey" by DAVID S. CLOUD and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate.

It was possible, they said, that the weapons had been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive black market for firearms. Officials gave widely varied estimates — from dozens to hundreds — of how many American-supplied weapons had been found in Turkey.

Turkish officials... had been complaining for months that American-supplied weapons were being used in murders and other violent crimes carried out, in some cases, by Kurdish militants.

Turkey’s allegations that Iraq was being used as a sanctuary to carry out attacks inside Turkey have strained relations between the Bush administration and Ankara over the past six months, with Turkey not ruling out a military intervention into northern Iraq to stop the activity.

American officials said that it appeared that the weapons found in Turkey were given to Iraqi units in 2004 and 2005 when, in the rush to build police and army units, controls on distribution of firearms had been much weaker. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was then in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces and who is now the top American commander in Iraq, has said that the imperative to provide weapons to Iraqi security forces was more important at the time than maintaining impeccable records.

By checking serial numbers, American officials confirmed that some of the recovered weapons, which included handguns made by Glock, an Austrian weapons manufacturer, had originally been bought by the Defense Department for distribution in Iraq, the officials said."

[Guns just turning up everywhere, courtesy of the U.S., huh?

Peace-loving, non-violent Amurka arming the world? Pfffftttt!]

Alex Jones Says It All

Watch and listen, as Alex describes how I feel about the American public.

"Miss Carolina - America Destroyed by Design" You Tube Friday Aug 31, 2007

Alex Jones talks about the dumbing down of the general public and how 1 out of 5 young people cannot locate the U.S. on a map.

Airport Security

Welcome to AmeriKa!

"Airport Scrutiny of Headgear Raises Bias Claims From Sikhs" by NEIL MacFARQUHAR

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — A new federal policy that subjects travelers who wear any type of head covering to possible additional screening at airport checkpoints has prompted vociferous protests from Sikh organizations, who say they are being singled out for ethnic profiling.

Muslim women who veil their hair are also expressing concern that the change — particularly because further screening is at the discretion of each screener — will single out Muslims.

Amardeep Singh, the executive director of the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for Sikhs, whose faith dictates that men wear turbans, though some women do as well:

“The federal government has equated our most precious article of faith with terrorism. To send a message that the turban is dangerous sends the wrong message to society.”

The Transportation Security Administration, which adopted and is enforcing the policy, said that it was aimed not just at turbans but at any headgear and that it was one of the periodic adjustments made to address changing threats. It addresses nonmetallic threats including some explosives.

The change allows for screeners to pat down anyone who is wearing a hat or other head covering, even if the person clears a metal detector.

Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the agency: “It is a matter of when the security officer cannot reasonably determine that the head area is free of a threat item.”

The change was part of several adjustments made on Aug. 4, including allowing passengers to carry cigarette lighters and small quantities of bottled breast milk. But the change regarding headgear was not publicized and came to light only after many Sikh passengers underwent additional screenings.

[Why wasn't the new rule publicized?

Why didn't the shit Zionist-controlled media tell us?

And so it goes. And so it goes.

A Sikh businessman, Prabhjit Singh, said he was made to leave the screening line when he balked at the secondary search before an early flight on Aug. 17 from Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Mr. Singh was not told of the new policy until after his turban was inspected by hand in a private room.

Mr. Singh, 27, a motivational speaker from Maryland:

“The supervisor made me feel like I had done something wrong. I felt for the first time in America that I had been targeted, and it was because of the way I looked.”

The fact that the policy was put into effect without consulting Sikhs also rankled the Sikh Coalition, which puts the number of Sikhs in the United States at 280,000, part of about 21 million in the world. Ms. Kudwa said the Transportation Security Administration was now discussing the policy with Sikh leaders.

Neither the transportation agency nor the Department of Homeland Security would say whether the change was prompted by a specific threat.

[Maybe, maybe not, but KEEP the FEAR GOING!]

Sikh advocates say passengers should be searched randomly if the policy’s intent is to look for nonmetallic explosives.

Although Sikhism has nothing to do with Islam, its members often suffer from anti-Muslim sentiment because their turbans lend them a superficial resemblance to men like the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran and Osama bin Laden. They say law enforcement officers are often ignorant of the difference.

Being stopped at airport checkpoints has also caused concern among Muslim women who veil their hair, prompting some to wear American-looking attire — like a baseball cap — to avoid added scrutiny while traveling.

Muslim women said their main concern was that there was no uniform code.

Maha ElGenaidi, president of the Islamic Networks Group, which helps conduct cultural sensitivity classes for police groups and other organizations:

“There is the problem of abuse depending on who is in charge of a particular airport and if that individual has any bias toward Muslims."

[Yeah, Amerika welcomes you with a bunch of racist assholes.

All in the service of LIE PROMOTION!

Bullshit to PROMOTE the LIE of 9/11!!]

India and AmeriKa's Military-Industrial Complex

What it is all about folks. Kicking around the globe and our lives.

For our protection?

"Building a Modern Arsenal in India" by Heather Timmons and Somini Sengupta/New York Times August 31, 2007

NEW DELHI, Aug. 30 — India is developing a military appetite to match its growing economic power.

Over the next five years, military analysts expect the country to spend as much as $40 billion on weapons procurement alone, more than its entire annual armaments budget today — upgrading systems as diverse as jet fighters, artillery, submarines and tanks in its largely Soviet-era arsenal. As a result, India will become one of the largest military markets in the world.

For American contractors, which had been shut out of India for decades, the surge in demand comes just as relations between Washington and New Delhi reach a new level of warmth.

Richard G. Kirkland, Lockheed Martin’s president for South Asia: "[In terms of] potential for growth, India is our top market.”

But whether United States companies can turn that potential into profits will depend on more than warm relations between officials in their capitals; it will depend on how they finesse the particular challenges of the new market — especially, competition from their Russian counterparts.

The stakes of the contest were underscored this week when the Indian defense ministry called for bids to fill an order for 126 fighter jets, a contract that could be worth $10.2 billion.

[Doesn't India have a huge poverty problem?

Yet they are going to spend $10 BILLION on weapons?

Every government the same, dammit!]

Determined to build a domestic arms industry, India is requiring foreign suppliers to make a sizable portion of any military goods in this country. In the case of the jet fighter contract, the successful bidder must produce goods worth half the contract’s value in India. So, the American companies have been busily pairing up with locals.


[But we will be told by Washington that the deal protects American jobs!

How many lies you gonna take, Amurka?]

So far, most partnerships are little more than agreements to collaborate on future projects. In February, Raytheon and the electronics division of the Indian giant Tata Power signed such an agreement. The same month, Boeing signed an accord with an Indian engineering firm, Larsen & Toubro, to develop new projects. And Northrop Grumman has signed on with Bharat Electronics and Dynamatic Technologies, both of Bangalore, to investigate joint opportunities.

The Americans’ interest in India goes beyond weapons. This country has booming markets in commercial aviation, shipping and infrastructure projects, which means opportunities for the logistics and security units of the big American contractors.

[Yeah, let's build up India so we can ship more call-center jobs there!]

Walter F. Doran, the president of Raytheon Asia, and a former commander of the Navy’s Pacific fleet, predicts that:

"[India may be ] one of our largest, if not our largest, growth partner over the next decade or so.”

The hefty increase in military spending reflects the country’s changing view of itself. Adm. Sureesh Mehta, chief of staff of the Indian Navy, told thousands of white-suited officers at a naval conference in New Delhi in July: "[India, like] all aspiring nations, is seeking its place on the world’s stage.”

[And you do that through a big military, huh?

Then how is this world ever going to find peace?

It is not meant to find peace, is it?

And quit criticizing others (like North Korea or Iran) that want to be on the world stage!]

In particular, India is positioning itself as a policeman of nearby waterways, especially the Indian Ocean.

Sitanshu Kar, spokesman for the defense ministry: “If you look at the rim from west Asia to Asia-Pacific, that entire area accounts for over 70 percent of the traffic of the petroleum products for the whole world. We have a role to play to ensure that these sea lanes are secure.”

An American carrier, the Trenton, which the Indian Navy bought and renamed the Jalashva, can, for example, carry 450 soldiers and half a dozen helicopters, and be used to evacuate Indian nationals, deliver aid or intervene in conflict areas.

Yet India is virgin territory for American armaments makers. Decades of cold war-era distrust, when India aligned itself much of the time with the Soviet Union; followed by sanctions that President Clinton imposed after India tested nuclear weapons in 1998, made India a sort of no-go area for American companies.

Under the Bush administration, sanctions have been lifted and military ties have deepened. In July, the two governments announced a commercial nuclear energy agreement. Under the accord, the United States will share nuclear technology with India, including fuel. The deal requires a radical, India-specific exception to American law and underscores the Bush administration’s commitment, made two years ago, to help India become “a major world power.”

[Breaking the law AGAIN, 'eh, Georgie!]

But many arms industry analysts say that winning big orders in India will still be a challenge for Americans. In many cases, companies will be competing directly against India’s traditional supplier, Russia, which has manufacturing agreements in place and is still the largest supplier. Though relations unraveled after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, they were repaired in the late ’90s and the two countries are negotiating some $10 billion in contracts, including an Indian air defense system.

Andrew Brookes, an aerospace analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, predicted: “The Russians are going to get quite a bit of this business.”

Congress could present another hurdle for American companies; lawmakers could prohibit sale of the most advanced military equipment, Mr. Brookes said, while there is a perception that the Russians will “sell first-rate stuff.”

Nonetheless, Americans are winning some deals. Lockheed Martin is in final talks to sell six C-130J cargo planes for $1 billion. It would be the largest American military sale to India to date.

The defense ministry has asked Lockheed and Boeing to bid on the $10.2 billion jet order, as well as Saab, which makes the Gripen fighter, and the European team building the Eurofighter jet. They will all confront the MIG Russian Aircraft Corporation, which owns the developer of the MIG, the jet that the Indian Air Force now flies.

In general, the Russians have been the most discreet of suitors. At the recent naval conference here, Western companies took out booths, sponsored meals and cocktail hours, and had dozens of their name-tagged employees working the crowd. Several representatives from the United States armed services also glad-handed. But a Russian presence was hard to find.

Maj. Gen. Aleksandr A. Burov, military attaché at the Russian Embassy in New Delhi, said in a telephone interview that he could not comment on any commercial deals. He did make a point of noting that the chief of Russian land forces had recently visited India, stopping in Agra and Goa.

Several calls and a faxed message to an embassy number that General Burov said would lead to someone who could answer questions went unanswered, as did calls to the New Delhi office of MIG Russian Aircraft.

In some parts of the Indian military, officers split along generational lines, some American officers who interact regularly with the Indian military said. Older officers are likely to support purchases from Russia; younger ones may prefer buying from the United States.

The recent nuclear agreement with the United States also complicates the situation of American companies. The agreement has been strongly criticized in some corners, reflecting an undercurrent of continued distrust in this country toward the United States — which is still seen by many, mostly because of past relations, as wanting to squelch India’s rise to global prominence.

Some politicians say that India made too many concessions to Washington to get the deal and that these will restrict its nuclear testing.

To take effect, the agreement will require legislation by the United States Congress.

[Wish Bush will ignore anyway, hello?]

The recent improvement in relations with the Pentagon has generated controversy in other ways. At the beginning of July, when the American aircraft carrier Nimitz made a port call near the southern city of Chennai, formerly Madras, it was met by fiery protests from port workers and politicians.

The defense ministry insists that economics, not politics, will guide its decisions. Mr. Kar, its spokesman, speaking of the jet fighter deal: “We’re strictly going by two considerations — the operations requirements of the air force and the best price we get.”

American manufacturers, not surprisingly, maintain that Western technology would be an improvement over the Russian planes and weapons systems that Indians use now or could buy.

Switching to Western equipment would allow the military to “bring new technology to bear faster, with more precision,” Mr. Kirkland of Lockheed said. If the Indian Air Force chose Lockheed’s fighter, he said, it would be able to conduct joint exercises with the United States Air Force and the forces of 18 other countries that fly the plane.

Still, American contractors have no illusions about their Russian competitors.

Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman: “It’s difficult to unseat an incumbent.”

[And even harder to reign in a war-mongering dictator!]

Mossad's Mexican Vacation

After all, there is a precedent for such activities:

"October 10, 2001 – The Plot to Blow up the Mexican Parliament:
Foiled terrorist bomb plot on the Mexican Parliament building, briefly mentioned for a single second by CNN, and given front-page coverage by papers such as El Diario. Two terrorists -- a Mexican Jew named Salvador Gerson Sunke and a Mr. Sar ben Zui, discovered to be a Colonel with Israeli Special Forces -- were caught red-handed inside the Mexican Parliament building with a machine gun, nine hand grenades, and a sizable cache of C-4 plastic explosives. The terrorists were deported back to Israel with a hand slap and given pardons by a Mexican official named Jorge Gutman."

Therefore, what kind of stench do you think I get from this, reader?

"Mexico: Police Find Small Bomb at Skyscraper.... About 10,800 people were evacuated from the 55-story Torre Mayor in Mexico City, after an anonymous caller warned the skyscraper’s management of a bomb. The police said they had found a small explosive device in a car on one of the parking levels of the office tower. They said the device was too small to have caused significant damage. The city’s public security secretary, Joel Ortega, said it was not known who had planted the device (New York Times August 31, 2007)."

"Explosive found, skyscraper emptied.... More than 10,000 people were evacuated from Latin America's tallest building yesterday after a bomb squad found a small handmade bomb in the parking garage. An unidentified person called one of the offices of the 740-foot Torre Mayor to warn that a bomb had been placed in a car. No one was hurt (AP)."

[This story stinks!]

Gettleman Gone?

After the "new" New York Times reduced its size and content, I noticed that it is also picking up more wire reports.

Does that mean African beat reporter Jeffrey Gettleman is out of a job?

Just another step in the fall of the great paper.

And what made the Times decide after all these months to finally print a piece -- any piece -- on Somalia?

Why now, reader?

"Somali Peace Talks Finish as President Urges Elections"

MOGADISHU, Somalia, Aug. 30 (Reuters) — Somali reconciliation talks, seen as the best hope for peace in the war-racked nation, ended Thursday with the interim president urging insurgents and militias to swap the bullet for the ballot box.

[After they took over by force! Pffftttt!]

The six-week conference, intended to settle longstanding disputes among clans, produced upbeat resolutions but had no visible impact on a raging insurgency in Mogadishu.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed: “I’m puzzled by those who are still using guns to try to achieve anything. I wish them to prepare for elections and seek the support of the people through the ballot.”

[Oh, that's why!

The unusual and strange fascination with elections and politics.

As if that is the be-all and end-all of "news."]

The Somali government and 2,000 delegates, including African diplomats and representatives of all of Somalia’s main clans, agreed to points that included terms for a clan truce, the sharing of natural resources and elections planned for 2009.

Mr. Yusuf: “The government promises to take decisive action in implementing the agreements you reached.”

The talks took place at a heavily guarded former police compound, which became the target of several mortar attacks after talks began on July 15. With Islamists and other opponents boycotting the talks, and no letup in the daily violence, analysts see achieving peace as a tall order in a country awash with guns.

[Then how come we never get reports on it?]

Hours before the closing ceremony, insurgents attacked three police bases in Mogadishu, prompting the government to flood the city with security forces as foreign delegates arrived. Violence and anarchy have been the norm in Mogadishu since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991.

But clashes have worsened since December, when an alliance of Somali and Ethiopian troops pushed out the Islamist fighters controlling Mogadishu, setting off a deadly insurgency.

[That's right!

The Islamists (with the support of women and businesspeople) ejected the CIA's murderous, raping, thieving warlords.

The Islamists ended the violence and reopened the airport.

Six months later, Ethiopia invaded at the behest of the U.S. and installed the tremendously unpopular "interim" government.

And Ethiopian occupiers remain on Somali land.

Did the Times fill that in for you, or just repeat another conventional lie?]

During the talks, there was a surge in attacks by Islamist rebels, who have been joined by some factions of the city’s dominant Hawiye clan.

Exiled opponents of the transitional government, including Islamist leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, are to hold a rival “reconciliation conference” on Saturday in Eritrea, whose government has been accused of backing the Islamists.

Mohamed Hassan Had, chairman of an antigovernment faction of the Hawiye clan, urged Somalis to oppose the government, saying it did not represent the people.

Mr. Had: “The Somali peace conference was fruitless.”

Mr. Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said all factions were invited to the reconciliation talks.

Abdullahi Sheik Elmi, who is also a member of the Hawiye clan, attended the meetings and said some Hawiye wanted to go mainstream:

“We plan to turn the Hawiye into a political party which will be open to other interested Somalis to join. Hawiye clan elders are opposed to the presence of Ethiopian troops in our country, but we still have to be engaged in peace.”

[Which is why USrael must bring war to places!]

Sarkozy the Globalist

This explains so many things:

"Sarkozy Urges French to Play ‘the Game of Globalization’ " by KATRIN BENNHOLD

PARIS, Aug. 30 — In a country that has long resisted globalization, President Nicolas Sarkozy bluntly told France on Thursday to stop kidding itself and face up to it — but in a French way.

In a major speech outlining the next phase of his economic plans, the president vowed to make good on his campaign promises to adopt business-friendly policies to allow French companies to compete better in the world, even if the changes upset those clinging to France’s generous welfare system and strong job protection.

Mr. Sarkozy broke with tradition when he chose the campus of a business school and a business audience to outline his economic program. France’s political class has preferred to be seen with philosophers and intellectuals. But under Mr. Sarkozy, money and big business are no longer taboo.

On Thursday, Mr. Sarkozy moved with visible ease among the business leaders, as if, one chief executive of a large French company remarked, “he was one of us.”

Labor unions and leftist opposition politicians, who criticized Mr. Sarkozy’s decision to give a high-profile speech on economic policy before a business federation, appeared to concur.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a Socialist senator, referring to the French stock market index: “He is the president of the CAC 40.”

Although he provided few details, Mr. Sarkozy indicated that he would push for additional cuts in payroll taxes and ways to encourage people to work beyond the statutory 35-hour workweek. Legislators last month approved his election promise to cut the maximum tax burden to 50 percent of personal income and scrap taxes on overtime pay.

He also vowed to press ahead with changes to the labor code, easing rules that make it cumbersome for companies to fire people."

[This explains the threat on Iran as well.

The Globalist-Zionist connection rears its ugly head]

Craig's Crap

The MSM spends all this time on a guy in the shitter? WTF?!

"Tape Shows a Senator Protesting After Arrest" by WILLIAM YARDLEY and DUFF WILSON

BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 30 — The tense exchanges between Mr. Craig, Republican of Idaho, and the sergeant were captured on a nine-minute audiotape made public on Thursday under the Minnesota public records law.

In the June 11 audiotape, broadcast for the first time by MSNBC, Mr. Craig denied that he was gay, saying, “I don’t do these kinds of things,” and added that the foot contact was inadvertent.

Mr. Craig: “I’m a fairly wide guy. I tend to spread my legs when I lower my pants so they won’t slide. Did I slide them too close to yours?”

[Fucking sickening!

WE got real problems in this country, and the MSM spends hour after hour on this lurid shit?

No wars going on, huh? That gets about what, 30 seconds of mention.

Meanwhile, we are literally told to eat shit by the morbid and perverted coverage of this senator's wish to load dump!!!

Gross!]

Israel's Insult

These lying shitstinks would never apologize for anything.

What a bunch of lying, land-stealing, NaZionist weasels!

"3 Gaza children die in Israeli attack on rocket launchers" by Ibrahim Barzak/Associated Press August 30, 2007

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip -- Three young Palestinian cousins were killed yesterday in Gaza in what the Israeli Army said was an attack on rocket launchers aiming at southern Israel. The Israeli Army said it spotted figures handling rocket launchers in northern Gaza and attacked them. Witnesses confirmed rocket launchers were in the area.

[Witnesses? What witnesses?

Well, that is a bald-faced fucking NaZionists lie!

"Eyewitnesses and medical sources said that there were no gunmen or rocket launchers at the scene."

The Israeli military said it "wishes to express sorrow" for the "use of teenagers in terror attacks."

[What a bunch of disgusting liars!

We apologize for you making us kill your kids, Palestinians.

No wonder everyone despises the shitstink state now.

THIS IS FUCKING UNCONSCIONABLE!!!

Fuck that shitty little murdering stinkstate!!!!]

The army in the past has accused militants of using children to collect rocket launchers after they are fired, but it did not say the children killed yesterday were directly involved.

The area that was hit in Gaza is populated by civilians and is frequently used by Palestinian militants to launch rocket attacks on Israel. The army said 92 rockets and 118 mortar shells have fallen in Israel in the past month.

[And how much hardware has Israel laid on them, shit-spewing Zionist organ?

Fucking bias is unbelievable!!]

The three dead were identified as 10-year-old Mahmoud Ghazal, 10-year-old Sara Ghazal, and 12-year-old Yehiya Ghazal, Palestinian officials said.

[So they WERE NOT EVEN TEENAGERS!!

Another fucking NaZionists lie!!!

Aren't you sick of these money-grubbing, land-stealing, blood-sucking leeches, Amurka?

Or do you just like eating Zionist diarrhea?]
Wasfi Ghazal, a relative: "We are victims of the [Israeli] occupation and victims of the misconduct of fighters who have randomly chosen our area to target Israel."

[Except there were no fighters, and there were no rocket launchers!]

Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the killing of the children, predicting violence would breed more violence: "This will add to the complexities and feed the fire."

Taher Nunu, a spokesman for Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers, said the attack after the Olmert-Abbas meeting "reaffirms Israel's aggressive intentions," He called on Abbas to stop meeting Olmert.

[Yup!]

Many Palestinian civilians have been killed in past Israeli attacks aimed at militants. The most serious attack was Nov. 8, 2006, when 18 civilians, including eight children, were killed by Israeli shells. Israel announced a halt to shelling in Gaza after that.

At their summit on Tuesday, Olmert and Abbas tackled for the first time the core issues that have scuttled decades of peace efforts: Palestinian refugees, final borders, and the fate of Jerusalem. But both sides said they did not discuss details.

[A BULLSHIT MEETING!

Here's the plan, dumb-dumb Palestinians:

Isolate and invade Gaza, destroy Hamas and seize for a Greater Zion.

Then destroy Fatah and take the West Bank, too!

Don't you get it, Palestinians?]

Here is the New York Times take on the events (in a World Brief):

"Gaza: Israeli Gunfire Kills 3 Children.... A 10-year-old Palestinian girl and two boys, 10 and 12, were killed by Israeli fire in northern Gaza. In a statement, the Israeli Army said that it had fired at rocket launchers in the area. Separately, the Israeli deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, said that Israel had offered several months ago to release 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized in June 2006 during a Hamas-led raid inside Israel but that the Egyptian-brokered talks broke down because of disagreement over which prisoners would be released. At an event for Corporal Shalit’s 21st birthday on Monday, his father, Noam, accused Israeli leaders of “a clear and utter failure of the system” in his son’s case (New York Times August 30, 2007)."

[Nothing like hiding Israel's crimes and pushing their agenda for them!]

AmeriKa's Military Justice

You can kill and murder with impunity if you serve in AmeriKa's mass-murdering military!

"Marines’ Trials in Iraq Killings Are Withering" by Paul von Zielbauer/New York Times August 30, 2007

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Aug. 29 — Last December, when the Marine Corps charged four infantrymen with killing Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, the allegation was as dark as it was devastating: after a roadside bomb had killed their buddy, a group of marines rampaged through nearby homes, massacring 24 innocent people.

In Iraq and in the United States, the killings were viewed as cold-blooded vengeance. After a perfunctory military investigation, Haditha was brushed aside, but once the details were disclosed, the killings became an ugly symbol of a difficult, demoralizing war. After a fuller investigation, the Marines promised to punish the guilty.

But now, the prosecutions have faltered. Since May, charges against two infantrymen and a Marine officer have been dismissed, and dismissal has been recommended for murder charges against a third infantryman. Prosecutors were not able to prove even that the killings violated the American military code of justice.

[So mass-murder is not against the American MCOJ, huh?

Oh, we are WORSE than Nazi Germany!!!!]

Now their final attempt to get a murder conviction is set to begin, with a military court hearing on Thursday for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the last marine still facing that charge. He is accused of killing 18 Iraqis, including several women and children, after the attack on his convoy.

If the legal problems that have thwarted the prosecutors in other cases are repeated this time, there is a possibility that no marine will be convicted for what happened in Haditha.

[But Bush talks about how transparent and accountable or system is, compared to the barbarians!

WE ARE THE BARBARIANS!]

In a wide range of cases involving abuses by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, prosecutions have tended to focus on enlisted men and noncommissioned officers — those accused of having personally committed the acts — not on officers who commanded the units.

[Or the lying war criminals that sent them there in the first place -- or the mouthpiece media that enabled them!!!]

Experts on military law said the difficulty in prosecuting the marines for murder is understandable, given that action taken in combat is often given immunity under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

[So the U.S. soldier really is free to murder at will -- WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE!

I think calling the U.S. military a bunch of murderers is ACCURATE, reader!

Sorry, America, but they are KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE BASED ON LIES!!!

If that isn't murder, what is?]

Gary D. Solis, a former Marine judge who teaches the laws of war at Georgetown University Law Center and at West Point:

“One could view this as a case crumbling around the prosecutor’s feet, or one could see this as the unique U.C.M.J. system of justice in operation.”

Prosecuting the Haditha case was especially difficult because the killings were not thoroughly investigated when they first occurred. Months later, when the details came to light, there were no bodies to examine, no Iraqi witnesses to testify, no damning forensic evidence.

Walter B. Huffman, a former Army judge advocate general, said it was not uncommon in military criminal proceedings to see charges against troops involved in a single episode to fall away under closer examination of evidence.

Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware, the presiding officer... recommended dismissing the charges... and he has said the killings should be viewed in the context of combat against an enemy that ruthlessly employs civilians as cover. He warned that murder charges against marines could harm the morale of troops still in Iraq.

[This rationalizes murder!

HOW DARE WE ACCUSE OTHERS of "terrorism!"

The U.S. military is a MASS-MURDER MACHINE!]

Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, whose decisions in the Haditha prosecutions are final, has given statements expressing sympathy for the plight of other enlisted marines whom he cleared of wrongdoing in Haditha.

[That's Amerika's military justice. None at all!]

Regardless of what happened to charges against the other defendants, there is still great public pressure on the Marine Corps to investigate and punish any wrongdoing in a case in which so many civilians died.

Michael F. Noone Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer and law professor at Catholic University of America:

“We can’t say those guys didn’t commit a crime. We can only say that after an investigation, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute.”

[Which makes these all SHOW TRIALS, huh?

Like Gitmo, like ALL AMERIKA'S TRIALS!!!

That's why we have Dan Abrams and Nancy Grace, and all the other shit shows on about "American Justice."]

Story Iraq: Sadr Stand-Down

Tell me again that the Muslims and the Arabs hate us more than they love their children:

"After deadly clash, Iraq cleric orders gunmen to stand down; Move interpreted as bid to restore militia's credibility" by Carol J. Williams/Los Angeles Times August 30, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday ordered his Al Mahdi Army gunmen to halt all hostilities for six months so he can restore the militia to credibility in the eyes of Iraqis shaken by a deadly outbreak of Shi'ite-on-Shi'ite violence.

The stunning move, coupled with a vow by Sadr to cease attacks on US forces in Iraq, may also have been aimed at elevating his standing with Iraqis and their neighbors by demonstrating that he has the power to make peace or to destroy it.

Sadr, in a statement from his stronghold in Najaf:

"I direct the Mahdi Army to suspend all its activity for six months, until it is restructured in a way that helps honor the principles for which it was formed."

The announcement followed a deadly clash in the holy city of Karbala earlier this week that killed at least 52 people and injured 300. The fighting was blamed on his Mahdi militiamen and their rivals within the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the country's biggest Shi'ite political force, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Sadr denied that he had sanctioned the bloodshed and said he was halting militia operations to purge infiltrators and rogue elements engaging in attacks that discredit the populist force.

[Gee, WHO would want to discredit Moqtada? Cui Bono, reader?]

The militia has splintered into factions and needs to be "rehabilitated," a Sadr aide, Hazim al-Araji, told Iraqi state TV. The freeze in operations was being ordered "without exception," Araji said.

The decision to stand down seemed to quickly defuse fear and tension in the capital, as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims forced to leave Karbala by the fighting and a security crackdown flooded into Baghdad in a noisy convoy of overloaded trucks, buses, and cattle trailers. Flags and banners proclaiming allegiance to Sadr rippled from the teeming, horn-honking vehicles as they threaded checkpoints manned by both Mahdi and Badr gunmen.

[And they weren't fighting? WTF?

WHO would want to break up the Shi'ites party?]

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki flew to Karbala to survey the scene of the battle and to discuss security with local officials. He sacked the provincial security minister and ordered an investigation to expose the perpetrators of the bedlam.

But Maliki's suggestion that remnants of Saddam Hussein's Sunni Arab-dominated Ba'ath Party were to blame drew scorn in Baghdad as another example of his inability to properly identify and eradicate the roots of violence in Iraq.

Nassar Rubaie, head of Sadr's parliamentary faction: "Al-Maliki is only making matters worse with his interference and his visit to Karbala and Najaf."

Political analysts saw Sadr's pledge to lay down weapons as damage control after the Karbala clashes instilled terror across the country and the long-feared prospect of multifactional civil war loomed on the cusp of reality.

Vali Nasr, a Middle East studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: "Al-Sadr is likely trying to deflect criticism for the clash in Karbala by blaming the event on rogue elements in the Mahdi army."

He said that since a US troop buildup began six months ago and its counterinsurgency operations have stepped up the pressure on Sunni militants, the Mahdi militia has been expanding and becoming better armed, probably with Iranian assistance.

[Wait a minute. Is Iran arming the Badr's or the Sadr's? WTF?]

Both Mahdi and Badr gunmen have been moving south in preparation for the withdrawal of British troops from Basra and an expected battle for supremacy once the nation's most valuable oil assets are seen as up for grabs.

If the rival militias in the south continue to strengthen and become disconnected from the Maliki government, "then things may well fall apart completely," Nasr said, predicting a level of violence unseen in more than four years of conflict.

[Well, he would know!

I expect the violence will be bloody because that would be best for USrael!]

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said he had made inquiries into the clashes in Karbala and was assured by "the brothers of the al-Sadr movement" that the violence was committed by rogue elements and enemies who have infiltrated the militia with the aim of discrediting it.

[Gee, WHO (Mossad) would want to do that?]

Sadr's move might also have been encouraged by Iranian allies alarmed by the intra-Shi'ite strife.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish parliamentarian: "I think Iran might have had a say in it. Iran is keen to have unity among the Shi'ites."

Othman predicted that the divergent views held in Baghdad and Washington on Iran's position in the region was likely to bring US and Iraqi allies into confrontation."

[None of this makes sense. Then Iranians are with the Badr's?

Then why arm Sadr? Arming both? Then why they fighting?

This "sectarianism" lie really starts to stink like ANOTHER LIE after a while, folks!]

"Sadr Suspends His Militia’s Military Operations" by Stephen Farrell/New York Times August 30, 2007

BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 — American and British commanders have frequently made accusations in recent months that some Mahdi Army fighters have slipped out of Mr. Sadr’s control, operating as criminal gangs or receiving financing and training from Iran to carry out attacks on American and Iraqi security forces.

[So is Sadr with Iran or not?

And if not, quit blaming him for everything, and calling him a threat, 'kay?]

One possible impact of the freeze would be to enlist the help of American forces to weed out rogue elements for Mr. Sadr’s group. In effect, Mr. Sadr was saying, anyone who attacks Americans is by definition violating the freeze and laying himself open to retaliatory attacks.

A statement signed by Mr. Sadr said the six-month suspension of the militia’s activities was intended to “rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image.”

Ahmed al-Shaibani, the chief of Mr. Sadr's media office in Najaf, using the acronym for the Mahdi Army’s Arabic name, Jaish al-Mahdi:

“This decision will have great advantage. It will distinguish and isolate those who claim to be working for JAM and who are actually not part of it. JAM is a huge and active body in Iraq, but there are some intruders who want to create rifts. We don’t have masked men working with us.”

[But the US and Blackwater do!]

Many Iraqis said the announcement had more to do with the national backlash created by the television images of thousands of pilgrims who were celebrating the birth of the Mahdi, a revered ninth-century imam, on Tuesday being forced to flee machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenade exchanges.

Mr. Shaibani accused the security forces of causing the trouble by opening fire on pilgrims and Sadrists."

[And we know who they work for!]

Katrina Remembered

A National Shame that two years later, New Orleans is in the shape that it is.

Another in a long, long list of failures by George W. Bush!

"On 2d Katrina anniversary, prayers and disappointment" by Mary Foster/Associated Press August 30, 2007

NEW ORLEANS -- Prayers, protests, and a lingering disgust with the government's response to Hurricane Katrina marked the disaster's second anniversary yesterday, with a presidential visit seeming to do little to mollify those still displaced by the storm.

Clarence Russ, 64, took a dim view of politicians' promises as he tried to put the finishing touches on his repaired home in the city's devastated Lower Ninth Ward.

Russ, whose house was the only one restored on an otherwise desolate block:

"There was supposed to be all this money, but where'd it go? None of us got any."

Not far away, President Bush visited a school, before heading to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, also devastated by Katrina:

"We're still paying attention. We understand."

But Gina Martin, who is still living in Houston because Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, was unconvinced:

"Bush was down here again making more promises he isn't going to keep. The government has failed all of us. It's got to stop."

Martin was among an estimated 1,000 people taking part in a protest march that started in the Lower Ninth Ward. It was a uniquely New Orleans-style protest: There were signs accusing the Bush administration of murder and angry chants about the failure of government. But marchers also danced in the street accompanied by two brass bands.

[Better than the dead protests around here!]

Katrina was a powerful Category 3 hurricane when it hit the Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, broke levees in New Orleans, and flooded 80 percent of the city.

By the time the water dried up weeks later, more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi were dead, and a shocked nation saw miles of wrecked homes, mud, and debris from one of the worst natural disasters in its history.

In New Orleans, recovery has been spotty at best. The historic French Quarter and neighborhoods close to the Mississippi River did not flood and have bounced back fairly well. The city's population has reached an estimated 277,000, about 60 percent of its prestorm level of 455,000. Sales tax revenues are approaching normal, and tourism and the port industry are recovering.

But vast stretches of the city show little or no recovery. A housing shortage and high rents have hampered business growth. The homeless population has almost doubled since the storm, and many of those people are occupying an estimated 80,000 vacant dwellings. Violent crime is also on the rise, and the National Guard and state troopers still supplement a diminished local police force.

[There's a taste of your police state right there.

Shit government that ain't gonna give a crap about you, either!

Takes all the monies for wars, and gives backs diarrhea shitshakes.

Drink up, Amurka!]

Bells pealed amid prayers, song, and tears at the groundbreaking for a Katrina memorial at a New Orleans cemetery.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who famously cursed the federal response in a radio interview days after the storm:

"We ring the bells for a city that is in recovery, that is struggling, that is performing miracles on a daily basis."

The memorial will be the final resting place for more than two dozen unclaimed bodies.

David Kopra, a volunteer from Olympia, Wash., who was holding back tears:

"The saddest thing I've seen here is that there are 30 human beings who will be buried here one day that nobody ever called about. It says something to my heart. This city needs so much care, and that's why I'm here."

Churches throughout the region held services, including historic St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. At the Claiborne Avenue bridge over the Industrial Canal, mourners tossed a wreath into the water near the spot where a levee breach led to the inundation of the Lower Ninth.

In Biloxi, Miss., about 100 people prayed and sang in the shadow of a Katrina monument.

Mayor A.J. Holloway: "God has been good to Biloxi and its people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We have a new outlook on life and a new appreciation for what's really important in life. It's . . . knowing the importance of family and friends and knowing that we all have a higher power."

In Gulfport, Miss., Governor Haley Barbour urged people to see the positive. About 13,000 of his state's uprooted families are still living in trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that's down from a peak of 48,000. Barbour said he expects they could all be out of the temporary housing in a year."

[Yeah, turns out Haley and his family made out fine on all this.

Got a that and a great lobbying firm going, too!]

"Commemorations for a City 2 Years After Storm" by Adam Nossiter/New York Times August 30, 2007

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 29 — This city remembered Hurricane Katrina’s second anniversary Wednesday with sadness, hurt and flashes of anger over a recovery that has returned it to only a portion of its former self.

President Bush stopped in, dining at a famous Creole restaurant and visiting a restored school in the Lower Ninth Ward. But his brief visit appeared to mean little to citizens still focused on day-to-day struggles and mourning the storm’s continuing losses.

There were ceremonies — marches, Masses and speeches — all over town Wednesday. But the city hardly needs an anniversary to help it recall a disaster that upended the life of virtually every resident here. The still-ruined neighborhoods and, beneath the surface, the mental scars, are merely exclamation points for what Hurricane Katrina has become for people in New Orleans: a fixed point of reference around which conversations and lives continue to revolve.

At a memorial ceremony at the Charity Hospital Cemetery, Mayor C. Ray Nagin choked up, evoking “the young who cry every time there’s a hard thunderstorm, because they’re afraid another storm is coming.”

Mr. Nagin rang a bell at the precise moment a major levee broke two years ago, and the musician Irvin Mayfield, who lost his father in the storm, played a raucous and angry dirge on his trumpet in the sweltering heat.

On a forlorn street at the edge of the Ninth Ward, Darrel Ellis, a truck driver, sat on a stoop, ignoring a nearby parade protesting the lagging recovery:

“It’s a depression going on. It’s not like the ’20s and ’30s. It’s right here,” he said, tapping his temple. “Let the world know, the depression is on.”

At the historic St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter, its cream interior brilliantly illuminated in the gloom of a summer thunderstorm, parishioners who lost homes and friends found solace in a gentle memorial Mass.

Cliff Sanders, 74, who lost his house in a fire after the storm:

“It helps a bit, to think about things in a calmer vein. Most of my good friends are not here any longer. That’s one of the things that’s wrong. The fabric of this city will never be the same.”

Earlier, and several miles away, Mr. Bush paid a quick morning visit to the gleamingly refurbished Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology, traveling past boarded-up houses and empty lots to get there. The president briefly greeted students in several classes at the school, which had been inundated with up-to-the-roof water, before pushing on to Mississippi.

Government at all levels is not popular here, viewed as having failed citizens who have been forced to rebuild largely on their own. Mr. Bush is no more and no less a target than other officials... though he showed some awareness Wednesday of an uneasy feeling common in New Orleans: that Washington, and the rest of the country, have grown weary of the city’s troubles.

Mr. Bush, referring to his visit immediately after the hurricane that has been derided as simply an orchestrated photo opportunity:

“It’s one thing to come and give a speech in Jackson Square. It’s another thing to keep paying attention to whether or not progress is being made. And I hope people understand we do; we’re still paying attention.”

[What kid glove treatment by the Times. Are you kidding me?]

Still, as the modest protest march from the Lower Ninth Ward made clear, Mr. Bush remains the favored target of the fervent activist community that has blossomed here in the wake of the storm. “George Bush, you can’t hide!” the marchers shouted, though Mr. Bush had already left town by then. Onlookers peered curiously from a fried-chicken restaurant as the protesters, led by a clownish figure on stilts, made their way up St. Claude Avenue; some along the route hung back.

[Yup, the protesters are clownish!

So sick of the disrespecting, stinkfuck elites at the Times.

Fuck that dogshit paper!]

Levon Leban, one of the marchers:

“This is a purposeful noise we’re making here. If nothing else, I hope people around the country will understand it’s not over, just because the water has receded.”

A man held a sign out of a car window that read, “The Right of Return for Everyone,” and anti-Bush slogans resounded.

Robert Goodman: “Nothing’s changed in two years. Everything the mayor and president do, that’s just for show.”

At the Industrial Canal, which obliterated the Lower Ninth Ward two years ago when its levees failed, political figures and religious leaders dropped flowers into the murky waters from the Claiborne Avenue Bridge.

Reynard Green, a waiter in the French Quarter who lost his house in the upper Ninth Ward, who showed up to be a part of it:

“It’s still a struggle. I’ve got a job, but my family’s not back yet. It’s hurting. They want to come back, but there’s no place for them to stay.”

Some scoffed at the day’s ceremonies — “It’s just another day, to God, that’s all it is,” said Mr. Ellis, the truck driver — but others suggested that they felt the intense need to memorialize the disaster that is common here.

Earl Wadsworth, after the Mass at St. Louis Cathedral: “To come down here in the pouring rain for the Katrina victims, it’s the least I could do.”

At the cemetery, officials were breaking ground on a permanent memorial that will also contain the remains of several dozen unclaimed bodies. New Orleans, Mayor Nagin said at the ceremony, is still “struggling,” a “city that is in recovery.”

In the cathedral’s vestibule, Al Bernard said it had been:

“A very spiritual trial we went through. [Wednesday was] a special day. We suffered so much, and we are still suffering.”

[No end in sight!]