the bush propaganda machine is in overdrive today

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Osama bin Laden is on the run with a small band of fighters, but his al-Qaida network has been paralyzed by Pakistani government forces, the country's foreign minister was quoted as saying Friday.

the guardian

i knew bush was stupid... but this takes the cake for being

the most totally ignorant son of a bitch that ever walked the face of the earth.

"I don't think a photo inspires murders. I think they (insurgents) are inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the western world to comprehend how they think," Bush told reproters at the White House when asked about the impact of the photos on the Iraqi insurgency.

YAHOO

mr bush, what's "so barbaric and backwards" is you stitting in the whitehouse conducting a war thousands of miles away on a people who never did a damn thing to you.

filed under WELL, DUH

The average American is working harder and smarter than ever.

But on payday, that's not making much difference.

U.S. wage growth isn't keeping up with rising prices for everything from gas to groceries to medical care. Strong productivity gains and an improving job market are not helping as they did in the past.

Adjusted for inflation, real weekly wages are down 0.3% vs. a year earlier. That's despite a slight monthly gain in April, Labor Department figures show.

So what gives?

YAHOO

what gives?

i'll tell you what gives: greedy ceo's.

filed under monkey see, monkey do

Iraqi security forces are committing systematic torture and other abuses against people in detention, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

USAtoday

a MUST READ

the bagram case

the poor editors at the des moines register

they haven't a clue. speaking of the downing street memos, they conclude:

Perhaps it doesn't matter. The lack of uproar in this country over the Downing Street Memo suggests that the public is more interested in completing the mission successfully than in rehashing how it began. Indeed, that's where the focus should be.

so, just because MSM fails in its mission to keep the electorate informed, hence the public knows nothing, so congress has an easy job.

Still, it's important to establish the truth of how the United States came to invade a country that posed no threat to us. It's important for the historical record and for better decision-making in the future. Congress, which authorized the invasion at the president's request, has an oversight responsibility to inquire and to report to the nation.

fuck you des moines register. you used to be good at journalism. now you're just one of the many suckers of republicon tit.

iran has until june?

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior State Department official ruled out on Thursday the possibility of providing Iran with fresh economic incentives as a means of curbing its nuclear ambitions.

``There is no reason to believe that extra incentives offered by the United States at this point would make a real difference,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.

Burns, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the normal or near normal diplomatic and trade relations that European allies have maintained with Iran over the years have had little impact on Tehran's nuclear policies.

Burns said ``it does not stand to reason'' that a U.S. ``opening of the trade gates'' would encourage Iran to give up its nuclear weapons aspirations.

the guardian

and i picked up a piece of info i didnt know before:

jpak (1000+ posts) Thu May-19-05 04:36 PM
7. The fuse was lit when the Chimp met with Sharon last month

Come June...

WARNING WARNING

Early Version of New Patriot Act Gives Administration Everything It Asks for, GOP Aides Say

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on a bill that would renew the Patriot Act and expand government powers in the name of fighting terrorism, letting the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury. Much of the debate in Congress has concerned possibly limiting some of the powers in the anti-terrorism law passed 45 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the measure being written by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would give the FBI new power to issue administrative subpoenas, which are not reviewed by a judge or grand jury, for quickly obtaining records, electronic data or other evidence in terrorism investigations, according to aides for the GOP majority on the committee who briefed reporters Wednesday. Recipients could challenge the subpoenas in court and the Bush administration would have to report to Congress twice a year exactly how it was using this investigatory power, the aides said.

The administration has sought this power for two years, but so far been rebuffed by lawmakers. It is far from certain that Congress will give the administration everything it wants this year. Roberts' planned bill also would make it easier for prosecutors to use special court-approved warrants for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies in criminal cases, the committee aides said.

Eight expiring sections of the law that deal with foreign intelligence investigations would become permanent, they said. So, too, would a provision that authorizes wiretapping of suspected terrorists who operate without clear ties to a particular terrorist network. The aides spokes on condition of anonymity because Roberts has yet to make public the bill's contents. Opponents of expanding the Patriot Act said Roberts' proposal would amount to an expansive wish list for the administration. "While we're fighting to bring provisions ... back into balance with the Bill of Rights, here we have the intelligence committee moving to give the government more power outside the judicial system to gain access to records of Americans," said former GOP Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a critic of the law.

Lisa Graves, the American Civil Liberties Union's senior counsel for legislative strategy, said the new subpoena power would "be a dramatic expansion of secret search powers."

APWire

Joke of the Day

Porn star and former gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey will be joining her boss, Kick Ass Pictures president Mark Kulkis, in attending a dinner with President Bush in Washington, D.C. on June 14.

“I’m honored to be invited to this event,” Kulkis said.

Kulkis serves as an Honorary Chairman on the NRCC’s Business Advisory Council, a group of business people who advocate a progressive, pro-business agenda. His company produces hardcore adult videos with a guarantee of “No Fake Boobs & No Condoms.” Carey ran for Governor in the 2003 California Recall Election, while Kulkis served as her campaign manager.

http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Articles&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=227238

WARNING: adult material at above link

just so you know

abusing prisoners against the geneva convention is not only prevalent, but widespread, and illegal.

(New York, May 19, 2005)-U.S. interrogators have repeatedly sought to offend the religious beliefs of Muslim detainees as part of their interrogation strategy, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch said that the dispute over the retracted allegations in Newsweek that U.S. interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has overshadowed the fact that religious humiliation of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere has been widespread.

"In detention centers around the world, the United States has been humiliating Muslim prisoners by offending their religious beliefs," said Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch.

On December 2, 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized a list of techniques for interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo, which included "removal of all comfort items (including religious items)," "forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.)," and "removal of clothing." Each of these practices is considered offensive to many Muslims. These techniques were later applied in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.

The purpose of these techniques, Human Rights Watch said, is to inflict humiliation on detainees, which is strictly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

alertnet

to require newsweek to recant a story that we all know to be true, is the hallmark of what this dictatorship is all about.

HYPOCRISY ALERT

thanks to this letter writer for catching it:

In his May 11 column on airport security, Cal Thomas is upset with his treatment by the airlines because his name is on the terrorist list. He's being inconvenienced and doesn't like it.

When my 90-year-old Norwegian mother was being searched repeatedly and had to remove her shoes repeatedly so they could be searched for bombs, Thomas said that's the price we must pay to be safe from terrorists.

How does the shoe fit when it's on your foot, Mr. Thomas?
-Cecil S. Murphy,
Des Moines.

attribution

Letter Of The Day

The White House blaming Newsweek for the riots in Afghanistan and elsewhere following the story about the desecration of the Quran is a little like blaming the guy who flips a light switch for blowing up a house full of leaking natural gas. If the situation had not been so inflammatory because of Americans abusing and torturing Afghanis and Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, then the U.S. government's denial would have been plausible and not much would have happened.

I do, however, agree with the White House that more needs to be done to repair the damage. But my ideas relating to that have more to do with repairing the gas leak than punishing the guy who flipped the switch.
-Rick Whitten,
Madrid.

attribution

if 9/11 had never happened

do you think the republicans would (still) be controlling our government?

so the right wishes to 'reform' the judiciary huh?

well, i'm inclined to go along.

so long as those at the highest positions in government and industry
are held to the same standards as the man on welfare.

from the rollingstone blog

... military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
attribution

and as one observer put it:

To review: Bush was pre-determined to go to war. The case that Saddam posed any danger was "thin." The administration had taken it upon itself to "fix" the intelligence to justify an invasion. The lack of post-war planning had already begun.

BINGO!! GIVE THAT GUY A CIGAR!

dont cry for me argentina

when both the left and the right agree, we know, there must be something true in its base.

With startling unanimity, they agreed that without some combination of big tax increases and major cuts in Medicare, Social Security and most other spending, the country will fall victim to the huge debt and soaring interest rates that collapsed Argentina's economy and caused riots in its streets a few years ago.

attribution

uzbek watch

just so nobody forgets:

The United States has also transported suspected terrorists to Uzbekistan as part of its "rendition" program, despite documented torture by the government.

attribution

and speaking of ehics in journalism

the register has the audacity to come out and speak against newsweek as if they're the lone culprit in this matter.

The generally accepted ethics of journalism allow unidentified sources to be used only in extraordinary circumstances. That's what we practice at the Register, out here in the heartland. But information supplied "on background" by government officials has become a way of life in Washington, and the use of unidentified sources has become almost routine, with hardly a second thought.

how many times do you hear of bush fed stories that are linked to unidentified sources every day in the paper? it's done every fuckn day. and now the register wants to take newsweek to task for what everybody does????

this guy really pisses me offf for even breathing....

he writes today in the des moines register, about the newsweek periscope blurb about interrogators flushing down a koran.

I turned a bit snappish and suggested he just might be interested if he had a son or daughter serving in the American military in Afghanistan. After all, the bull's-eyes on their foreheads have suddenly become more inviting targets thanks to an apparently bogus few paragraphs that showed up in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks ago.

this naive writer is under the impression that our interrogators would NEVER do something so stupid. i wonder if he thinks they didn't do it after or before they tortured them. that newsweek retracted the story is another case of how rove got the upperhand. he set it up, they took the 'bait', and now they have to act like they're the bad guys all sorry for their 'sins'.

karl rove makes me sick. the mere mention of that name turns my stomach.

HYPOCRISY ALERT

from the wikipedia

It is alleged that Posada Carriles has worked for the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), which denies any connection. The Miami Herald has recently run articles querying CANF's ties to terrorism and Operation Condor. In 2000 he was convicted with Gaspar Jiménez, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Novo Sampol of conspiring to assasinate Castro during a regional summit in Panama. The four were subsequently pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in the final days of her administration in 2004. Jiménez, Remón, and Novo were admitted into the United States.

the real test is about to begin

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Federal agents arrested notorious Cuban exile leader Luis Posada Carriles near Miami Tuesday afternoon. He is reported to have been planning to leave the country.

any bets on what will happen?

the U.N. HR resolution against US over gitmo

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States comfortably defeated a call to the U.N.'s top human rights body on Thursday to launch a probe into alleged violations at Guantanamo Bay.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights rejected by 22 votes to 8, with 23 abstentions, a resolution brought by Cuba calling for the setting up of a special U.N. investigator for the detention center at a U.S. naval base on its territory.

i am posting this rather late, and long after the event was published. - hence i have no attribution. i'm sure if you WANTed to, you could google it.

a red strategy

i see the red strategy now much clearer:

take something out of the ordainary
make it ordainary
then make it wrong
and voila! instant wrong ordainary.

Joke Of The Day

goes to karl rove, not only for being one in general, but the hypocrisy of his words is truly remarkable. from the seattle post intelligencer:

Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in a 24-hour news cycle are to blame.

"We are substituting the shrill and rapid call of the track announcer for calm judgment, fact and substance," Rove told the crowd of roughly 600 students and local residents.

Naming specific reporters and news organizations, Rove said the media unfairly created the impression that President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, introduced early in his first term, was stalled in Congress at every step before its passage.

But the legislation was passed by the House and Senate with wide margins and was signed by Bush less than a year after it was introduced, Rove said. He said the media have taken a similar approach to the current debate over Social Security.

What really gets me is how short the time horizon is for many members of the media of coming to a conclusion of whether something will pass," he said.

Another example is the "obsessive reliance" on polls to create news and political predictions, he said. He cited the media's early reliance on ultimately misleading exit polls from Election Day 2004 that appeared to show Sen. John Kerry headed for a presidential win.

"It is as if they (reporters) believe that all polls are created equal," he said. "But it ain't so."

BWAHAHAHAHA

it cost Americans $300,000,000,000.00 for italy's support

In it, the Silvio Berlusconi administration is accused of picking the Nasiriyah area to safeguard a 1997 deal signed by Italy’s largest energy producer, ENI, and former dictator Saddam Hussein.

A government report compiled months before the war broke out recommends that Italy, in case of conflict, should secure the region of Nasiriyah and the nearby area of Halfaya, south of Baghdad, so as to secure “a deal worth 300 billion dollars”.

Both areas are known for its vast oil fields.

attribution

time out

i think i'll be taking more time out
in order to further advance the text of the story.

i touched base with chris bain, when he was with metrobooks. freed and i did a job for him. and i ended up carryin on after the initial job was over.

did some work for them too, and even came up with a database for their photographers and interface it into their admin system. it was a feat. and i got it accomplished. was livin over in jersey at the time i believe.

anyway, gonna start this project once and for all. i got the pot. there's absolutely no reason for me not to be ripe. i know i have to get to the store sometime. i'm goin thru the milk rather fast.

Quote of the Day

(What is your favorite studio trick?) "Laying down drum and percussion loops live then putting them into Logic Audio and tweaking them. I think the key to a warm sound is performing as much of the music as possible live."

--D:FUSE

this is one picture that says a real loud "let me fuck you."

attribution

ok, sorry. but he's hot in both mind and soul.

oh you were lookin at his face. *giggle*

he knows, there is nothing that wins 'em over like live music.

combine that live music attribution with the gutless motorcharge of dance, sprinkled with a bit of chant, and you have all the makings of a class A party.

it wouldnt surprise me one bit if ....

george w. bush was sitting at a table with a bunch of slips of paper, each on which was written something no president has even done.

he asks his slave girl to blindfold him and let him pick one out. that becomes the talking points of the GOPhers for the next week.

george bush is a brat. he's the type of creature that will not settle for 2nd best. he has only held 2 political offices in his life. one being governor and one being president.

what will he do after 2008? there won't be any more offices to rob.

Quote of the Day

today's entry comes from a newspaper ad:

"As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."

"No single political position should be identified with God's will," says the ad, which also chastises the president for "actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor."

Christians are to be characterized by love and gentleness, it adds, but "we believe that your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees."
...
"Some think we should be honored to have the president here," religion professor David Crump said. "We're excited by the opportunity to show people that evangelical Christianity is represented by a much broader spectrum of opinion than is depicted by the religious right and the media."

from the moonie rag: washtimes

GALLOWAY SPEAKS!

AND GOD HELP US IF THE WORLD DOESN'T LISTEN.

The subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, claimed that Galloway allegedly funneled allocations through a fund he established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.

“I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf,” Galloway said. “I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.”

“I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq,” Galloway said. “And I told the world that the case for war was a pack of lies.”

and over at the BBC he was even more forthcoming:

He told committee chairman Senator Norm Coleman: "I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice."

"The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and maps - the better to target those guns. I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war," he said.

In December, Mr Galloway won £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over its separate claims he had received money from Saddam's regime.

so he's not lying. and my own neighbor's senator has the gall to stand up to the nation and call this man a liar. SHAME ON YOU NORM COLEMAN.

the chaos in uzbekistan is nothing short of frightening

the headline says it all.

No Requiem for the Dead

Eyewitnesses tell how President Karimov’s soldiers finished off the injured as they lay bleeding, and then concealed the corpses.

institute for war & peace reporting

which ends with:

Many people in Uzbekistan whom IWPR has spoken to would like there to be an official mourning period for the dead.

But since the authorities insist there were no mass killings, it follows logically that there is to be no grieving.

now, i wonder what a google search of uzbekistan+bush would reveal.

no surprise there. 1st hit: Uzbekistan: Bush's New Best Friend

so why was this datelined from cairo?

from the nytimes:

CAIRO, May 16 - Kuwait's Parliament granted full political rights to women on Monday, making way for them to vote and run for office in parliamentary and local elections for the first time in the country's history. The surprise amendment to Kuwait's election law ends a decades-long struggle by women's rights campaigners for full suffrage, and promises to redefine the city-state's political landscape.

watch, bush will wanna claim credit for 'spreading democracy'.

and why in the hell couldn't the times have had a kuwait dateline for a story about kuwait?

that's all they want

are the ones who descrated the koran.

unless there are too many of 'em, why doesn't rummy jus pony up, and shut up, and save the world a lot of needless bloodshed?

oh wait, that's all part of the plan!

KABUL, May 16 (Reuters) - Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan were sceptical on Monday about an apparent retraction by Newsweek magazine of a report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran and said U.S. pressure was behind the climb-down.

The report in Newsweek's May 9 issue sparked protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Gaza.

Newsweek said on Sunday the report might not be true.

"We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan, referring to the magazine's retraction.

"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and won't accept it."

Aman was the leader of a group of clerics who on Sunday vowed to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Koran.

alertnet

just listen to this guy

tomlinson is a shill, a republicon whore. look it up.

from the nytimes:

Top officials at NPR and member stations are upset as well about the corporation's decision to appoint two ombudsmen to judge the content of programs for balance. And managers of public radio stations criticized the corporation in a resolution offered at their annual meeting two weeks ago urging it not to interfere in NPR editorial decisions.

The corporation's chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, has also blocked NPR from broadcasting its programs on a station in Berlin owned by the United States government.

Mr. Tomlinson denied several requests last week to discuss the relationship between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR, but he issued a one-sentence statement saying that he looked forward to "working through any differences that may exist between our institutions." In a column last week in The Washington Times and in an appearance on Tucker Carlson's talk show on PBS, he repeated his belief that public broadcasting's reputation of being left-leaning was a problem.

was a problem? WAS A PROBLEM?

of course you're going to find people who agree with you

on a right leaning talk show, and in a right leaning paper. for God's sake, do these people have children??

well, THAT didnt take long

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

Nobody wants to go to war. We trust our leaders to shed blood in our name only when absolutely necessary. Two years after the start of the Iraq War, on March 20, 2003, Americans are just learning that our government was dead set on taking our nation to war, even while it claimed to be pursuing diplomacy.

The Downing Street Memo, recently leaked, reveals that President George W. Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in summer 2002 and—determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policies—"fixed" the intelligence and facts relevent to WMD.

What has come to be known as the Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002. This meeting was held a full 8 months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005. When asked about the document's validity, "British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity."

The contents of the memo are shocking. The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was manipulated to sell the case for war to the American public; and how all the talk of "war as a last resort" was mere hollow pretense.

Regardless of politics, all Americans should ask themselves: Was I misled? Did President Bush tell me the truth when he said he would not take us to war unless absolutely necessary?

what more can i say.

running linux. which means, no zoundry. oh well. i'm not so sure i wanna stick with linux, but i need to get my hands wet.

anyway, watching cbs and switching between cbs/abc/nbc evening news. wexler's got a plan for social security, and i think instead oif bashing him, the democrats need to get behind him.

or get behind SOMETHJNG. god dammit, quit being obstructionists.

and the numbers are in....

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has some new statistics available from its survey of 2,871 internet users from January 2005 through March 2005.

• 9% of internet users now say they have created blogs.

• 6% of the entire U.S. adult population have created blogs.

• 25% of internet users say they read blogs.

• The number of adult readers of blogs is about 40% of the size of the talk radio audience.

• The blog-reading audience is about 20% of the size of the newspaper-reading population.

courtesy of DU's blog box

DU's Top Ten Idiots

quite the list.

Spring is obviously in the air - it's been a surprisingly strong week for revelations of conservative sexual impropriety. John Bolton (1) is allegedly quite the swinger, David Hager (4) has apparently not been practicing what he preaches, and Neal Horsley (5) has got to be the freakiest conservative idiot ever. Elsewhere George W. Bush (2) is way out of the loop, Dennis Miller (7) and Chan Chandler (8) are looking for work, and The Robber Barons (9) are sitting pretty. This week is a special pictorial edition of the Top Ten Conservative Idiots, so enjoy, and as usual don't forget the key!

big brother is watching you

Air travelers stripped bare with X-ray machine

headline over at usatoday

defend itself AGAINST WHOM?

headline in yahoo:

Rice says U.S. will remain until Iraq `can defend itself'

outside agitators are just everywhere these days

Burma's government says rebels trained abroad by a "superpower" were behind last week's bombings at three shopping centres in the capital, Rangoon.

--BBC

battle of the headlines

over at stripes.com:

U.S. soldiers reporting steady progress in one-time insurgent stronghold
Blood, sweat and tears pave way for new day in Tal Abtha


over at the post:

Looking for Battle, Marines Find That Foes Have Fled

flushing for the truth

all this bruhaha over newsweek's report, quoted by one of those faceless American SMO (senior military official), who probably didn't want to be named for fear of retribution. that goes one a lot these days. reporters and 'officials' are afraid of speaking the truth. that's how this administration operates. the truth makes them scared. and it should.

but getting back to the story. did it happen?

my money's on the yes button.

read about it here

New Series - the Qommentary

each day, i'll grab the first paragraph from slate's today's papers, and analyze it. my comments will be in bold to italic copy from slate.

The New York Times leads with—and others front—Condoleezza Rice's unexpected visit to Iraq Sunday, where she urged the heavily Shiite government to increase the participation of Sunnis in writing the country's constitution.

what better proof do you need now that the insurgents are sunnis? include them in the power grab, and the violence will end. simple. but the greedy americans (notice i don't capitalize the 'a' for those who demonstrate very un-American traits) didn't what to share.

The Washington Post leads with allegations that Russian officials made millions of dollars from the U.N. oil-for-food program; the Russians allegedly sold oil that Saddam Hussein allowed them to buy at a reduced price. USA Today leads with different U.N. news: Kofi Annan's warning to the White House that the Security Council may deadlock if asked to penalize Iran for its nuclear program. In an interview with the paper, the secretary-general indicated that Russia and China—both economically tied to Iran—would veto any push to sanction the country, though the Bush administration and Britain are pushing for Iran to be brought before the council.

the lines in the sand are getting drawn. russia, china, iran vs united states & britain.

The Los Angeles Times' top nonlocal story debates whether Pakistan knew the full extent of the secret life of its top nuclear scientist, who is now thought to have masterminded the sale of nuclear equipment to Iran and North Korea.

pakistan's insistance that it had no part in khan's dealings is preposterous. that bush would call musarraf a friend of America makes me ill. but i guess, dictators like other dictators.

anyway, i would hope you'll hop on over to slate's today's papers, and find you'll do it each and every day.

DAMMIT QUIT REQUIRING TITLES

is zoundry having the 'stuck on 0% publishing' page returned too?

there are problems with blogger now, and you IE users who are not viewing my page properly are asked to get firefox. seems blogger's templates scream anti-microsoft epitaphs via the code in their pages.

where's that picture of bush holding hands with the saudi prince?

instead of defeating terrorism, bush is actually helping it along.

The account of Qahtani's death, like many other individual entries on the Web sites, cannot be verified. But independent experts and former government terrorism analysts who monitor the sites believe they are genuine mouthpieces for the al Qaeda-affiliated radicals who have made Iraq "a melting pot for jihadists from around the world, a training group and an indoctrination center," as a recent State Department report put it. The sites hail death in Iraq as the inspiration for a new generation of terrorists in much the same way that Afghanistan attracted Muslims eager to fight against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

the WaPo

WWIII is just around the corner folx

in its entirety because it's just that important.

the rumor is june.

this could blow up winth consequences that nobody is prepared for.

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave “initial authorisation” for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Tehran claims that its programme is designed for peaceful purposes but Israeli and American intelligence officials — who have met to share information in recent weeks — are convinced that it is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

The Israeli government responded cautiously yesterday to an announcement by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that America would support Britain, France and Germany in offering economic incentives for Tehran to abandon its programme.

In return, the European countries promised to back Washington in referring Iran to the United Nations security council if the latest round of talks fails to secure agreement.

Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that diplomacy was the only way to deal with the issue. But he warned: “The idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us but for the whole world.”

Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, emphasised on Friday that Iran would face “stronger action” if it failed to respond. But yesterday Iran rejected the initiative, which provides for entry to the World Trade Organisation and a supply of spare parts for airliners if it co-operates.

“No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,” said an Iranian spokesman.

US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations.

London Sunday Times

"shoot first, ask questions later"

this policy of shoot first, ask later, is insane. just think if the other side adopted the same stance.

British defence chiefs have warned United States military commanders in Iraq to change their rules for opening fire or face becoming bogged down in a terrorist war for a decade or more.

The Telegraph has learnt that the warning was issued last month in response to a series of incidents that led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians, mainly at checkpoints, after soldiers opened fire in the mistaken belief that they were being attacked by suicide bombers.

The warning is said to have taken the form of advice from senior officers who accompanied Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the General Staff, on a recent trip to southern Iraq and Baghdad to visit British troops.

A conversation took place between officers on the differences between British and American rules of engagement, during which British commanders expressed their concerns over the use of US tactics.

They attempted to explain that in their experience of post-war counter-insurgency operations it paid to adopt a low-key and less aggressive stance.

In the past month alone in Iraq there have been more than 130 car bombings and 67 suicide attacks that have killed more than 400 people. The attacks have led to renewed fears among coalition officials that American and Iraqi forces are losing the fight against the insurgency.

According to senior British officers, US military operations are typified by "force protection" - the protection of troops at all costs - [EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO PROVIDING ARMOUR] that allows American troops to open fire, using whatever means available, if they believe that their lives are under threat.

By contrast, the British military has a graduated response to a threat and its rules of engagement are based on the principle of minimum force. Troops also have to justify their actions in post-operation reports that are reviewed by the Royal Military Police, and any discrepancy can lead to charges including murder.

A British officer said that some of the tactics employed by American forces would not be approved by British commanders.

The officer said: "US troops have the attitude of shoot first and ask questions later. They simply won't take any risk [KINDA HARD FOR ROBOTS TO THINK].

"It has been explained to US commanders that we made mistakes in Northern Ireland, namely Bloody Sunday, and paid the price.

"I explained that their tactics were alienating the civil population and could lengthen the insurgency by a decade. Unfortunately, when we ex-plained our rules of engagement which are based around the principle of minimum force, the US troops just laughed."

the uk telegraph

AND WHO IS LAUGHING NOW?

filed under "well DUH" heading

slate's TP takes the nytimes to task (about time) for saying one thing in the headline, and groping to support the headline throughout the body.

our 'enemies' (haters of freedom, insurgents, terrorists and whatever else they have been named over the last 2 years) are actually iraqis being shut out of the political process.

The hopeful title of the NYT lead—"Some Sunnis Hint at Peace Terms in Iraq, U.S. Says,"—hasn't much to do with the article itself. Never in the 1,800-word story is the reader told what the hints at peace are, or who or where they're coming from, or how much of the insurgency they represent. Further muddling the article is that no named goverment sources are quoted on the issue, and the only quote from an anonymous source—"an American official in Baghdad"—doesn't arrive until the end of the article, perhaps because it's so vague: "What I'm seeing is a new willingness of people who used to be [opposed] to join the process." The article, it turns out, is mostly about how difficult it would be to negotiate with the insurgents, since we don't know who they are, and the only people who do are probably untrustworthy.

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Letter Of The Day

Having six siblings who completed tours of military duty, including during the Vietnam war, I understand and appreciate the service and sacrifice Ryan Heithoff has given for our country.

However, I cannot agree with his opinion, "I believe the statement, 'I support the troops . . . but not the war,' to be an ugly oxymoron. They go hand in hand." (Letter, "Support Troops and Democracy in Middle East," April 17)

It bears repeating that the war in Iraq was both unjust and illegal. We launched a war of aggression against a country that did not attack us, did not have the means to attack us and had never expressed an intention of attacking us. With our preemptive strike against Iraq, we said to the world that might makes right, and, as a result, many countries now consider the United States to be a rogue nation and a threat to world peace.

The sad part is how many American people have become sheep-like. They believed the lie about weapons of mass destruction and the claims that Iraq's tiny drone airplanes could attack the United States. When those lies were exposed, they believed that the war was justified by Saddam Hussein's cruelty, no matter that the United States has been cozy with many bloody dictators, including Saddam. And now they believe that we went there to spread democracy.

The British Broadcasting Corp. recently interviewed a number of Iraqis, and not one of them mentioned wanting democracy. What they wanted was a strong government that can end corruption and provide security.

A report to the U.N. human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam than they are now. Can we honestly believe that all Iraqis are better off now that we have dropped bombs on them, destroyed their cities and blew up their hospitals, schools and power stations?

Had it been "the troops" who initiated the Iraq war, I would not support them. But the troops in this and all wars are merely expendable cannon fodder, and so for these reasons, yes, I support the troops but not the war.

-Carolyn Reinhold,
Collins.

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