Get Civilized, You Iranians

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch.

by Terry Jones, formerly of Monty Python

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are...



hostage rescue team

Falling Like A Rock In The Granite State

The New Hampshire Poll

"The New Hampshire Poll is an independent poll that has surveyed New Hampshire residents on social, political, and economic issues on a regular basis since 1976. Quarterly surveys are conducted in March, June, September, and December."

Pepe, Do You Eat Oysters, Snails?

TEOTWAWKI Update

One by one the Gulf states are saying they don't want any part of war with Iran.
"As the US carries out massive military exercise in the Persian Gulf, the United Arab Emirates became the second Gulf state to declare it would not take part in any attack on Iran. Qatar—home to 6,500 US troops and the enormous al-Udeid Air Base, headquarters of the Pentagon's Central Command—said earlier it would not permit an attack on Iran from its soil. The Gulf Cooperation Council, consisting of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Emirates, has called on all its members not to support any US action against Iran."

Israel rejected the Arab peace offer.
"This week, the nations of the Arab League revived a 2002 initiative offering Israel peace and acceptance as long as it withdraws to pre-1967 territorial boundaries, accepts an independent Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and agrees to a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants"
Israel - "No."

The US is sending another aircraft carrier and battle fleet to the Gulf to (wink wink) 'replace' one already there.
"The Nimitz carrier strike group will sail from San Diego for the Gulf on Monday, a navy spokesman said, to replace the Dwight D Eisenhower, as tensions mount between Iran and the West over captured British troops and Iran’s nuclear programme."

NATO has moved in and is prowling off the Russian coast in the Arctic Ocean.
"Moscow, Mar 29 (Prensa Latina) Amid great secrecy, NATO naval forces are trying to control the Arctic Ocean to continue the military bloc's expansion to Russia, local media reported on Thursday."
We would never have even known they were there if it weren't for the explosion aboard the HMS Tireless on 3/21 which killed two submariners.

The US really wants anti missile system in central europe, says its because of those pesky salamifascists, Russia says they'll nuke them.
"The head of the Russian strategic missile forces even warned that Russia might train its missiles on Poland and the Czech Republic if they accept the US defense system."

U.S. steps up campaign against Syria.
"WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has launched a campaign to isolate and embarrass Syrian President Bashar Assad, using parliamentary elections in late April as a lever, according to State Department officials and Syrian exiles.
The campaign, which some officials fear is aimed at destabilizing Syria, has been in the works for months.
(...)
"It's the new Cuba - no language is too tough," said one of the officials, who like others insisted on anonymity to discuss internal government planning."

Russian media reports imminent US strike on Iran.
"Al-Arabiyya reported on its Web site on Thursday that the Bush administration is preparing to launch a military operation, dubbed "The Sting," to strike 20 Iranian nuclear plants, disabling Iran's atomic program for at least five to seven years."

Drug Damaged Dwarf Calls For Rosie To Be Hanged

Last night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country Danny Bonaduce, C list celebrity and former drummer of megahit TV series "The Partridge Family" said Rosie O'Donnell should be hanged for questioning whether 9/11 was an inside job.



Bonaduce and his ilk resort to eliminationist rhetoric because they have no other way to counter the growing awareness that our government has been overthrown by fascist elements who will stop at nothing to gain complete control here and abroad. Rosie is an influential media personality who woke up to that fact and therefore has to be targeted and smeared by authoritarian obsessed fascist boot lickers.
Questioning the official fairy tale about 9/11 gets you fat jokes, gets you called a 'provocateur', a 'raving lunatic' whose 'vicious and vitriolic' words mean that you should be 'strung up for treason'.

Watch here how the brain damaged Bush Poster Boy, who likes to prominently display a cross around his neck, reacts to questions about 9/11. (Although to be fair I don't much like ambush interviews.)

It's all they have, the frothing brownshirts who worship power and their own ignorance. The Savages (nee Weiners), the Limbaciles, the Bonaduces, the Mann Coulters of the world. They'll invariably fall back on bombast and abuse and calls for violence because debate and reasoning and facts will make them question themselves, which is a scary thought indeed.

Deciderer's Reference To Those 'Iraq Bloggers'

It was a first, of sorts. Bubble Boy referred to bloggers on wednesday in a speech to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The blog is Iraq The Model, basically just another hohum propagandasphere effort notable only because it's written by Iraqis. I haven't bothered to look, frankly because it stinks up my computer and gives needless activity to them, but I would imagine the warblogs are having gushy orgasms over the fact that so much attention is being given to propaganda about how things are going swimmingly in Dune.

Of course they're hardly objective about the occupation, the two brothers were brought to america for a tour and were feted at the White House with the preznit. Of course with the neocons' penchant for coughing up pundit payola it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if these Iraqi bloggers get a little help under the table for their efforts, which seem directly aimed at americans:
"I invite them to come visit my town, see what I see, compare it with what I write and then they can say whatever they like. Now excuse me, it's Thursday and I have barbeque and cold beers waiting for me."
Of course devout muslim Mohamed Atta and the other supposed devout members of the supposed 9/11 hijacking team loved porkchops and booze too.

So here's Bubble Boy paraphrasing his new found blogging buddies:
"Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed. We hope the governments in Baghdad and America do not lose their resolve."

The shitbag should pay more attention to the reality of his soul destroying clusterfuck before making references to 'market activity':

"Five suicide bombers struck Shiite marketplaces in northeast Baghdad and a town north of the capital at nightfall Thursday in one of Iraq's deadliest days in years."

What a contemptible, delusional douche bag.

Katrina Never Happened

According to Google.

"NEW ORLEANS Google's popular map portal has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pictures taken before the storm, leaving locals feeling like they're in a time loop and even fueling suspicions of a conspiracy.
Scroll across the city and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and everything is back to normal: Marinas are filled with boats, bridges are intact and parks are filled with healthy, full-bodied trees.
"Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google, don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine."

I took a look at what Google did and yep, Everything looks pretty good now.
In other news, Iraq is a huge success story.

Chilean Jet Close To Being Brought Down By Meteor

(This report from the Sydney Morning Herald mislabels the space object as a meteorite when in actuality a space rock is a meteor until it reaches the earth's surface. Still, it's wild.)

It was a meteorite, not a satellite, says Russia

"A Chilean jetliner approaching New Zealand came within 20 seconds of being hit by blazing objects hurtling down to Earth, New Zealand aviation officials say.
US space officials said today it was most likely a close encounter with a disintegrating meteor, denying assertions from New Zealand officials that the LAN Chile plane narrowly missed being blasted by Russian space debris that was returning to Earth ahead of schedule.
While it is not uncommon for space junk to fall into the South Pacific, "it is very uncommon to have a plane in the middle of it," said Airways New Zealand spokesman Ken Mitchell.
(...)
The Lan Chile pilot flying from Santiago, Chile, notified air traffic controllers at Auckland after spotting the flaming objects just five nautical miles (9.2 kilometres) in front of and behind his Airbus 340.
That distance would not have given the pilots much room for manoeuvre, according to World Airliner magazine editor Tony Dickson. "You're talking about 20 seconds and that's not a lot" of separation, he told National Radio Thursday."

Those Mutinous Mormons

What's up with the Latter Day Saints out in Utah?
For some reason the most unlikely people in the reddest state in the country have turned on BushCo in a very big way. Mormons were the biggest boosters in the run up to Deciderer's Babylonian catastrophe. As poll numbers tanked everywhere else, Codpiece has consistantly had the highest numbers in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, the three states with the highest numbers of Mormons respectively.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise that as a group they have had a bigger turnaround in support for our march toward fascism than ,well, anybody.

"A January poll by The Salt Lake Tribune showed a precipitous drop in support for Bush's handling of the war among Utah's Latter-day Saints. In the survey, just 44 percent of those identifying themselves as Mormon said they backed Bush's war management. That's a level considerably higher than Bush gets from Utah's non-Mormon population and the nation at large, but it's also a 21 percentage point drop from just five months earlier. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4.7 percentage points."

So Says the Tribune. What could be fueling such discontent all of a sudden? I think the casualties are starting to be felt all across the heartland and quite literally the pain is starting to be felt by people who were formerly distanced from it. The same thing happened during Vietnam, that other grinding charnel house where a steady stream of pine boxes wore away at blind support for unjust warfare. With Mormons the erosion has also been sanctioned by church elders who have had the courage to speak out against atrocities.

Nobody in Utah is as outspoken about the DC criminal cartel and it's villainy than Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. It's pretty amazing that this guy who got 72% of the vote in his last election would speak out like this:
"President Bush is a war criminal," Anderson, a Democrat, said at a rally in Salt Lake City on Monday marking the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. "Let impeachment be the first step toward national reconciliation — and toward penance for the outrages committed in our nation's name."
and:
"There's a dangerous culture of obedience throughout much of this country that's worse in Utah than anywhere."
Wow. We would be well served with more fire breathers like this guy.
Here he is throwing it down on the O'Really Factor:

Also, Brigham Young University is catching holy hell for inviting Dick Cheney to speak at it's graduation ceremonies next month. "Students, parents, alumni and faculty' are really putting the screws on the school for inviting him. A lot of people have said they won't show up if he shows up but the school doesn't seem to be backing down. Nevertheless, this sea change in attitude in the heart of religious conservatism is heaven sent.

White Woman Held By Swarthy Men

With this flap over fifteen Brits arrested by Iranians in the Persian Gulf, WRH mentions:

"How fortunate and a massive stroke of luck that the Independent grabbed this exclusive interview with this soldier.... Its as almost if someone "knew" what was coming and used this great empathy evoking token to full extent."

'This soldier' being Faye Turney, the only woman in the group. It does seem somewhat curious that just hours before she was detained, she had an in depth interview ready to hit the wires.
Well do the news reports grovel for your empathy, ? Nah, they wouldn't do that.

Telegraph - A mother's place is in the Navy
"My little girl is growing up every day. I'm missing that," Faye Turney told reporters who were on HMS Cornwall."

NY Sun - She Knew Risks of Navy Life
"I absolutely love my job because we're all so close-knit. You can't sit back just because you're a girl."

Scotsman - Humiliated and shaking, was she forced to confess?
"Wearing a black headscarf, her voice trembled as she spoke to her unseen interviewer."

Shropshire Star - Faye’s devotion to daughter
"Mr and Mrs Turney were married in 2002 at her family’s local church in Oxon, Shrewsbury. Their daughter was also christened at the church. Mrs Turney’s mother and father - former Shrewsbury Town player Alan Boswell - are both members of the church."
(Hometown paper obviously playing up the Jeebus factor)

Press TV - Faye Turney's letter to her parents
"Dear Mum & Dad, ..."

CNN - Detained 26-year-old sailor is wife and mother
"Expressionless, smoking a cigarette and wearing a black head scarf that masks her blond hair..."

-------

The ever helpful folks at Google after doing the above:

U.S. Sponsoring Kurdish Guerilla Attacks Inside Iran

Press TV

"In the case of one group, the P.K.K. or the Kurdistan Workers Party and they are along with Israel sponsoring them to carry out guerrilla raids inside Iran and its part of a much wider plan by the United States to foment discontent and actual terrorist activities by ethnic Iranians in various parts of Iran. And when I was in northern Iraq, I was able to determine that that kind of activity is going on from Iraqi soil under the Kurdish controlled areas of Iraq, into Iran."

Mossad works with Kurds in Iraq - Google Video

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched."

-------

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, on the huge naval presense off the Iranian coast:

"What it should be seen as by Iran or anyone else is that it's for regional stability and security," Aandahl said. "These ships are just another demonstration of that. If there's a destabilizing effect, it's Iran's behavior."

This Explains A Lot

Aircraft Carrier Stennis Enters Persian Gulf, Massive War Games Begin

Some postering after the British soldiers were arrested by the Iranians?

I like how this is described by U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, as a vast armada, bristling with firepower and parked just off the Iranian coast goes into heavy duty war simulation:

"What it should be seen as by Iran or anyone else is that it's for regional stability and security," Aandahl said. "These ships are just another demonstration of that. If there's a destabilizing effect, it's Iran's behavior."

Why Isn't This In MSM This Morning?

A huge earthquake in the Indian Ocean yesterday caused a tsunami that hit the coast of Africa. This apparently isn't the one from a few days earlier, and it was a stronger quake than the first, causing casualties.
This may be kept quiet by the MSM because it might have affected the war plans for Iran on Diego Garcia where the US and GB have a massive military base.

"Tsunami Hits Northeast Somalia, Three Missing
MOGADISHU, March 26 (Bernama) -- A tsunami hit the coast of the self-autonomous region of Puntland in northeast Somalia, a local official confirmed on Monday, saying three people are missing and presumed dead.Saed Waberi, the District Commissioner of Qandala said most of the fishing boats of the residents, who relied mostly on fishing for their livelihood, were swept away by the huge waves which reached half a kilometer inland on Saturday night."People have become destitute overnight and we cannot do anything for them," Waberi told Chinese news agency Xinhua by phone from his office in Qandala.Waberi said the district hall, a hotel and other houses near the coast were destroyed by the tsunami which was believed to be the result of an earthquake whose magnitude is not clear."

The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th

By Jeremy Baker

"If there were one point Robin Hordon would like to impress most upon 9/11 Truth researchers and activists it would be that the truth about the non-performance of U.S. air defenses on 9/11 lies in a careful examination of the first few minutes after the planes were known to have been hijacked.
“The first fifteen minutes are the key. I have done the math. If we had scrambled some aircraft five or six minutes after we saw this huge deviation, the fighters from Otis would have intercepted American 11 over southwestern Connecticut or just south of Albany, NY. The federal government and the military, for extremely serious reasons, are keeping the public focused on after American 11 hits the tower. But the real focus for 9/11 researchers should be what NORAD was doing five minutes after American 11 lost its transponder and went off course.”

Added - Rumsfeld "Deserted His Post" On Morning Of 9/11


Of course the traitorous scum was unconcerned. Just like the Deciderer at Booker Elementary that morning, their operation was unfolding quite well so they didn't have to do a fucking thing.

Time: We Can't Handle The Truth, Again

You remember how NewsWEAK whitewashed it's american cover last fall to protect us from the unpleasantness in Afghanistan:



Well, Time decided to continue that trend:



Jon Stewart sees the shape of things to come:




From HuffPo

That British/Iranian Flap

Since this story has enormous possibilities to turn into something ugly and considering that 'hostage crises' stir the emotions, it's important to take a closer look at what can be gleaned from the internet tubes.

Here's the official story. "An Iranian naval patrol seized 15 British marines and sailors who had boarded a vessel suspected of smuggling cars off the coast of Iraq, military officials said.
The British government immediately demanded the safe return of its troops and summoned Tehran's London ambassador to explain the incident."
Iran says the British were in Iranian waters, The British maintain they were in Iraqi waters. It's only speculation where the Brits are and whether they'll be charged for anything.

OK, they were arrested at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway leading up to Basra. The 7000 or so British in Iraq occupy the southern part of the country and are mandated by the UN to patrol the waterway for arms smugglers.

On thursday the Brits took off from the HMS Cornwall, a 450' long frigate with anti missile weapons, anti aircraft guns, anti ship guns and torpedo tubes.



The 15 troops left in rigid hull inflatable boats (rhibs).



They approached a barge to inspect it's cargo which turned out to be the aformentioned Toyota Corollas. As they were leaving some laughter among the arabs "irked the British crew", so they decided to go back the next day to presumably teach them a lesson. Accompanying them was a Lynx Mk 8 helicopter flying overhead. They made a beeline to the smugglers which was when they were surrounded by machine gun armed IRGCN patrol boats, and they were escorted away at gunpoint at about 10:30 in the morning.

At this point the story gets muddled because the parties involved all claim differing things. Of course we won't get any reporting from independent sources because all reporters were flown off the Cornwall to Bahrain on Saturday.

I initially thought that it would have been obvious that the action took place in Iranian waters which is why the British ship didn't come to their aid when they were arrested. But then I realised it all went down so fast that the much larger and slower frigate was helpless to do anything but stand by as they lost communication with the patrol. The Iranians say that navigational equipment onboard the patrol craft indicate the Brits knew they were in Iranian waters. And the Iraqi military doesn't think the Brits were in Iraqi territory:

“We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra."

Regardless of whether this was a provocation by the British in a long list of inducements to violence, a simple miscalculation or a dangerous statement made by the Iranians, this is just the sort of minor situation that could flare into a horrible conflagration. The Persian Gulf is bristling with american firepower, and the fascists are chomping at the bit for any excuse to use it. Add this incident to the phony accusations of Iranian armaments in Iraq killing GIs and the fig leaf of UN sanctions and they just might get their wish.

Ever Wonder If Your Name Is In There?

Terror list 'ballooning in size'

"A US database compiling the names of Americans and foreigners on one terrorism watchlist has ballooned from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000 files now, it was reported today.
The database, called TIDE for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, now is so large that it threatens to overwhelm its managers, and its massive size has heightened concerns about privacy and errors, The Washington Post reported.
Critics say the bar for inclusion on the watchlist managed by the National Counterterrorism Centre is far too low, and complain that once an individual is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it."

We all know what the scumbags are up to. This bogus 'global war on terror' is a cover for a massive power grab incorporating war on countries and resource rape abroad coupled with repression at home.
The names on that list are people opposed to this fascist takover and are identified by snoop agencies.
Almost a half million names, and that's the number they tell us about. What a load of horseshit.

Help Give DC A New Catchphrase

Washington wants a new slogan

"Tourism officials are hiring marketers, conducting surveys and convening focus groups in search of a few words or images that capture Washington's essence.
The current slogan, used for nearly a decade, never electrified anybody. It appears in every D.C. taxicab and on the sleeve of every D.C. police officer, but even longtime residents are hard-pressed to recall it: "Washington, D.C.: The American Experience." Another catchphrase, "Celebrate and Discover," which appeared for a time on D.C. license plates, also was a snoozer.
Civic leaders say they are looking for more than just a snappy line. Tourism accounts for $5 billion in direct spending each year (and $550 million a year into the city's general fund.) The District needs a new brand, as they call it, as distinctive as that of Nike or Apple, that will get to the heart of what's appealing about the area."

A suggestion in the comments section:

*Zimbabwe Without the Passport

Operation Bite - April 6 Iran Bombing?

If this is true, it has to be the most insanely telegraphed war in human history. With the american armada off the Iranian coast it's not like the Iranians haven't been alarmed and preparing for something like this. But how could there be an attack after such intimate foreknowledge, and what will the retaliation be like? We live in sick, sick times.

"General Ivashov Calls For Emergency Session Of UN Security Council To Ward Off Looming US Aggression

WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.
The attack is slated to last for twelve hours, according to Uglanov, lasting from 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is a holiday in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.
The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.
The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran's nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was re-issued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites."

But as remarked on before, there is this:

"European, U.S. officials say workers pulled from nuclear reactor project

VIENNA, AUSTRIA - Russia is bringing home its technicians and engineers from Iran's unfinished nuclear reactor site at a time of growing international pressure on Tehran to curb its atomic ambitions, U.S. and European representatives said Tuesday."

Green Comet On It's Way

"Perhaps it's a comet." Still frowning, Bob Star swung back toward the observatory. "It looked like one - it was a short streak of that queer, misty green, instead of the point a star would show..."
Inside the chilly gloom of the observatory, Bob sat down at the telescope. Its mechanisms whirred softly, in swift response to his touch. The great barrel swung to search space with its photoelectric eyes, and the pale beam of the projector flashed across to the concave screen.
...He stepped up the electronic magnification. Vindemiatrix and the fainter stars slipped out of the field. The comet hung alone, and swiftly grew. Its shape was puzzling - a strangely perfect ellipsoid. A greenish football, he thought, kicked at the System out of the night of space - by what?"

In the 1936 novel "The Cometeers" by Jack Williamson (The Legion of Space takes a mad gamble to save the solar system from an inhuman, invincible invader!) it's not a very happy day for earth as the 'comet' turns out to be "an alien force field millions of miles in extent, containing worlds enslaved by the Cometeers, an alien race of energy beings." Yikes!

But we have a new comet discovered by a guy named Lovejoy in Australia, and the visitor is a nice green color caused by cyanogen and diatomic carbon in the coma. It's coming in almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, meaning it's coming into the solar system from below and will be visible to people in the northern hemisphere early next month. By late April it will be 40 million miles away and is expected to brighten.

Target Countries

You know, most of us here in the United States don't get a lot of our understanding and news about the world around us from the media you're using right now. If you're reading this you're probably in a small minority of folks who are pro active in searching for information as opposed to the much larger percentage of the population who basically absorb their world view by gradual absorption, or osmosis, mostly from TV.

A majority of people are too busy, distracted or just plain stupid to really study situations and come to their own conclusions. They just can't or won't take the time.

Our overlords understand this very, very well.

They count on this to manipulate how we view ourselves and the world and use very effective methods to shape our opinions without us even knowing what they're doing. So if something is in our face constantly that's what we're going to talk and fret about around the water cooler.

When some country is on the fascist agenda, say if the government isn't toeing the line or it has some resources that need to be exploited, that country is going to be in the news 24/7.
A good example out of many is Nicaragua in the 80's. A poor little country about the size of Alabama and the population of Arizona, it was unremarkable except for one thing - it was the threat of a good example. The people there had risen up to overthrow a brutal dictator named Somoza who happened to be the darling of US business interests.

So twenty years ago you could not escape Nicaragua. Every news broadcast, every presidential speech, most headlines were about Nicaragua. Our imperial managers gave enormous attention to this hapless little country and the corrupt, compliant media went along for the ride. Nicaragua was the greatest threat that our fragile nation had ever seen. Covert operations ensued, armies were formed illegally to battle this mortal enemy, tremendous diplomatic pressure was applied, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to counter the threat. Once the Sandanistas were ousted after a decade of punitive sanctions and military actions and the threat of a poor, abused Central American country determining it's own future was countered, Nicaragua fell back into a media black hole.

This is the template for targeted countries. It happened over and over with Korea and Vietnam and Kosovo and Panama and Iraq and now Iran. You greatly exaggerate some perceived threat even though critical analysis shows the 'threat' to be minimal or non existent. Once the place is obliterated and the 'problem' solved, whether it's smashing indigenous democracy or controlling the drug trade or just fattening some bank accounts, the media obligingly drops it from view.

But there are two main components to this propaganda process - they are always a threat, whether it's to you or some supposed ally, you're never a threat to them. Our imperial masters may even state openly they want a government to fall, may threaten war or send vast armadas to the region, but any effort by the victim to defend himself is further proof of evil intentions. And once a country gets in the fascists' crosshairs be prepared to have that country dominate the news until the fascists get what they want and the agenda is served.

Now, I wonder what Iran is going to do with those British soldiers...

Time To Say Goodnight

swiped from dudehisattva

Rasmussen Has Deciderer At 43% Approval

Survey limited to ex military republican Reader's Digest subscribing Halliburton employees.

US Acting Like a Punk, Again

Later on today the UN is set to vote on new sanctions regarding Iran. The country has every right to enrich uranium for it's electricity generating nuclear power plants because Iran signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, but that doesn't stop the US from it's belligerent posture. In fact, once a country gets put in it's sights, The US stops at nothing to crush it. Usually the favored route is through the UN fig leaf but if more immediate action is called for than even that is disregarded. Like the invasion of Panama with Operation Just Cause (we feel like it).

Iran' president Ahmadinejad wanted to attend and speechify before the vote but apparently the State Department had other priorities and didn't get the required visas to the Iranians on time. The Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, will attend instead.

"Any suggestion that visa issues are the cause of President Ahmadinejad's decision not to travel to New York is false," says State spoke flack Tom Casey.

With this cabal of serial liars you know that they were tasked with keeping Ahmadinejad out of New York before the vote, which was pushed so hard by the US that the current president of the security council got pissed:
"Also Thursday, Dumisani Kumalo, the U.N. ambassador from South Africa, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, said he felt steamrollered into a Saturday vote on the resolution.
"I feel like I was misled," he said, adding that he had been led to believe that he would have more time to consider the resolution."

So why was a high profile visit by the president of Iran so adamantly opposed by BushCo? Well maybe he was going to open his nuclear facilities like he declared he was going to do a few days ago. Not only would that have taken the wind out of the sanction's sails but also would be a barrier to all out war with Iran, something the fascists are itching to get going on.

Back to those sanctions which no doubt will be implemented:

"The draft resolution would ban Tehran from exporting arms, calling for voluntary trade sanctions and expanding a list of officials and companies targeted for financial and travel restrictions."

Hmmm, I wonder if that list of companies includes Halliburton? Nope, it sure doesn't since even though American corporations have been prohibited from doing business with supposed terrorist governments, Halliburton has been doing a bang up business in Iran since the 90s. I guess they get the same no bid contracts there like they do in Iraq since they'the only game in town.

And back to the vote again, could it be possible that incident where those British soldiers getting arrested by the Iranians was a set up to give Iran a black eye and a chance for Britain to bloviate before the UN vote? Just asking.

Two YouTubes About The Morning Of 9/11

One thing that I've come across again and again over the years is that when a blockbuster story breaks the most important information is gleaned in the first few moments. Something awful happens, say the explosion at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, and news crews rushed to the scene get raw, emotionally intense, breaking information. In that case just moments after the explosion(s) there were reports of more bombs found inside the structure and everybody quite understandably panicked. More bombs? The later official story said it was Timothy McVeigh and a Ryder truck.

On 9/11 I heard about the attacks on my car radio on my way to a grocery store. Immediately I sped home and settled in for a media marathon, mostly monitoring the internets. It took about an hour until I sensed something very wrong with the coverage. I remember yelling out to my wife who was watching TV in the living room "What's this Osama Bin Laden crap all about?" While the towers burned and ABC showed the falling bodies, they relentlessly intoned OBL's name over and over like it was a mantra.

You see our overlords know that the first moments are crucial. Especially with a lollapalooza extravaganza like Black Tuesday, a black government psy op that they wanted to blame on the designated patsies. From the very first few moments after the first plane hit the cover story needed to be rammed into our vulnerable psyches over and over by well prepared operatives using compliant media outlets. Television coverage was the most important to them, being the medium most used by americans for news and being the best way to play those shocking images over and over again while planting the official fairy tale.



But something happened to flight 93 and it needed to be blown out of the sky over Pennsylvania. The cover story wasn't prepared for a crash at Shanksville and an impact site was hurriedly dug. There was a big problem with all the debris, scattered over an eight mile area, and nothing at the 'impact' crater. Initial reports in this case weren't planted like on the streets of NYC and only later did they come up with the 'Let's Roll' idiocy.



9/11 was sloppily done. The fascists counted on 'shock and awe' which initially worked for the most part in duping Foxified americans, which is why they touted it so smugly before the Iraq invasion. But time isn't going to be so kind to the mass murdering scum. The official fairy tale was shot through with gaping holes the minute they presented it and it fares worse with each new revelation. Like me, thousands of people saw there was something wrong with the picture that day and started saving data for posterity. It's not going away.

One Way To Render Those Subpoenas Moot

There are some interesting news reports concerning the middle east which, taken together, don't look very promising.
Despite denying any bad tidings between the two countries, Russia is evacuating workers and technicians away from the Bushehr nuclear power plant. They know something we don't?
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that foreign embassies in Tehran are getting a little nervous:

"Embassies in all countries generally have evacuation plans for their staff, but foreign sources describe the general atmosphere in Iran as one of heightened preparedness. Recently, several diplomatic missions based in Teheran have begun to reassess their plans, and embassies without permanent security officers have requested them."

Yet, that's the JPost and it's filed under the header "Iranian Threat", so a grain of salt is in order.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard started a weeklong series of war games in the crowded Persian Gulf yesterday.
The US is throwing it's weight around and is now threatening companies and nations with unilateral sanctions if they do business with Iran.
After Cheney went to AIPAC and virtually promised that american soldiers would march into Tehran another world class scumbag opens his piehole to threaten war. They just won't shut up about Iran.

Of course the dreadful denouement of this drama would have a salutary effect on the bushistas' tanking political fortunes, being a war hero president and all, but that would never, ever cross their minds.

Update - Gulf of Tonkin Persia Incident this morning?

"BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - British forces said on Friday there had been "an incident" in the northern Arabian Gulf after an Iraqi sailor reported seeing up to seven British or American military personnel being seized by an Iranian ship.
(...)
The sailor said six or seven foreign military personnel were on two small boats that stopped to check two Iranian ships in the Siban area of the waterway, near the al-Faw peninsula that leads into the northern Arabian Gulf.
While they were doing this, an Iranian naval vessel pulled alongside and detained them. There was no sign of any violent confrontation, he said"

Impeach him, pussies!

Menu Foods Knew It's Product Killed Pets

But kept it on the shelves and sold it anyway for a week.

"Menu Foods told the FDA it received the first complaints of kidney failure and deaths among cats and dogs from pet owners on Feb. 20. It began new tests on Feb. 27. During those tests, the company fed its product to 40 to 50 dogs and cats and seven animals — the mix of species was not immediately known — died, Sundlof said. The contamination appeared more deadly to cats than to dogs, he said.
(...)
The new recall covers the company's "cuts and gravy" style food, which consists of chunks of meat in gravy, sold in cans and small foil pouches from Dec. 3 to March 6."

This hits home and just sickens me. I had a loving, healthy tom get sick suddenly and die from renal failure three years ago. He had a habit of rolling in the dirt next to the house. Because the landlord had an exterminator come occassionally to spray around the foundation for carpenter ants, I had assumed that he was poisoned from the spray. To think that my pal possibly sickened and died from food that I gave him brings back the grief in a very personal way. To think that a fucking corporation would deliberately leave contaminated pet food on shelves makes me livid with rage.
I hope lawsuits absolutely destroy all the scumbage involved.

Now It's Obstruction Of Justice

Sweet Jeebus, the bushistas are filthy. What is it, like a daily outrage now? This is in today's WaPo:

"The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

Blaming The Victims

So what's the real reason for the continued occupation of Iraq? We know the original reasons for invading - to dismember and eliminate a vibrant, viable Arab neighbor of Israel and attempt to steal it's oil, as well as establish a permanent foothold in the heart of the middle east as a springboard for further dominance.
Screw that WMD idiocy.
When the fascists got away with the initial invasion and learned they and their corporate cronies could make untold fortunes by keeping a US military presence in Iraq they made damn sure the US military was going to stay in the country to project suzerainty in the region and protect that cash flow. But this is certainly unpalatable for brain dead americans, who like to spread democracy and all that, and who cling to their 'good guy' self delusions at all costs. The hell with the casualties in this rape, the suffering Iraqi people who certainly know what is being done to them, how do you convince the Foxified dupes back home to put up with this sickening destruction and carnage?

Blame the victims themselves.

"The aim is to terrorise the population and force them into ethnic or sectarian enclaves, suppress the anti-Occupation voices and deprive the Iraqi Resistance of protection (by the population) and resources. The campaign is based in part on the U.S. previous terror campaigns in El Salvador in the 1980s and in the former Yugoslavia in 1990s, and on Israel’s targeted assassinations of Palestinian unarmed men, women and children. Thousands of innocent Iraqi professionals were murdered in cold blood, including scientists, prominent politicians, Iraqi intellectuals, military officers and doctors. Even religious leaders and women opposing the Occupation are not immune from U.S. terror. Remember, all of this is known to Western mainstream media, journalists, pundits and NGOs; however, they continue to propagate the myths of “sectarian violence” and “civil war”.

As resistance against the Occupation continues to grow, the U.S. resorts to refocusing the violence on Iraqis in order to deflect responsibility and justify ongoing Occupation, the U.S. and Britain – supported by a racist and violent media – instigating insurrection amongst Iraqis pushing one community against the other. Expatriate collaborators and U.S. agents are infiltrating the Resistance groups and anti-Occupation forces in order to provoke intra-communal strife using the civilian population as fodder for terrorism. At the same time they continue a reign of terror against the population. The goal is to use the violence as a pretext to continue the Occupation and at the same time mislead the public that there is no Resistance against the Occupation. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There is a massive Iraqi national Resistance movement."

Remember that civil war/no civil war debate for a few years? It wasn't that the government and military refused to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground. The 'debate' was meant to instill a belief that the Iraqis were at each others' throats because of who they were, not because the fascists were quite busy making sure there was endless violence to justify the occupation.

Is Turkey About To Invade Iraq?

The situation in Bush's meatgrinder satrapy may get somewhat more complicated as Turkey might be preparing to go to war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in nothern Iraq. (As a matter of fact, as I'm writing this, one report says it already happened.) Turkey has been moving forces to the border and all leave has been cancelled. They maintain it's for 'defence' purposes only but all options are still left open.

"The measures come amid frustration with US inactivity against the PKK and the expected infiltration of PKK militants from their mountain bases in northern Iraq with the arrival of spring.
(...)
The Office of the Chief of General Staff acknowledges extraordinary military activity in this region but adds that they are not evaluating a cross-border operation, a measure that is also opposed by the United States. However, Turkey’s decision will be shaped according to the steps the US soon takes."

America is walking a fine line with the Kurds who are spread out in several countries as the world's largest stateless ethnic minority. Turkey has been battling them for years and very much doesn't want them to control Kirkuk and it's oil riches, or form an independent state. If Turkey and the Kurds go to war it would mean a serious downturn in US - Turkey relations. This is extremely significant because The US desperately needs it's air base at Incirlik which Turkey already threatened to close if congress adopts a measure about last century's massacre of Armenians by the Turks. Planes flying out of Incirlik ship 3/4 of the air cargo into Iraq.

And if there's a move to close that base, plans for a wider war with Iran will be threatened.
Or accelerated.

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live"

projection n
in Psychology:
the tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself, or to regard external reality as embodying such feelings, thoughts, etc., in some way

Jeffrey at FRAMESHOP did us a favor and waded through Lord Cheney's speech at the AIPAC 2007 Policy Conference. He counted how many times Shooter said some key words and it's clear Cheney has a fixation all those snuff movies he keeps down in the dungeon.

"In this speech--where CNN claims the VP was only "chiding" Democrats--our NC-17 VP repeated the words "war," "terror,""enemy," "murder," "death" and "kill" enough times to make Quentin Tarantino cover his ears and switch over to the Animal Planet.
For goodness sakes. Cheney's speeches need a warning label: "**WARNING** The Vice President of the United States gives speeches peppered with violent vocabulary that may give you and your children nightmares for days."

Title quote from Norman Cousins

This Means You, Junior

Bush the Smarter at the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence, April 26, 1999

What We Can Expect From The Math

A lot has been written about yesterday being the sad fourth anniversary of the start of Iraq's catastrophe. It's a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportion. It's so ugly it defies description. Tom Dispatch just looks at a few numbers and gives us what we can expect to see.

According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes there were 180 attacks a day on US forces on average in January. Since the resistance is growing and getting ever more sophisticated, and since in all liklihood the Shiite armies will enter the fray in the not so distant future that number will likely grow. Using that figure though and extrapolating into the future the US occupation can expect at least 117, 540 attacks by the end of 2008.

Brownshirts Urged To March

Something seemed askew, it was just plain stupid, that rumor that peaceful protesters in Washington were going to vandalize the Vietnam Memorial over the weekend. I found that others felt the same way, that it was just more Rovian nonsense meant to discredit the marchers. It seemed a bit more to Chris Floyd:

"The baseless call to "defend" the Memorial was almost certainly a deliberate "psy-ops" action designed to foment rage and disrupt the protest. No doubt its designers hoped that the anti-war protestors would react with violence to the often extreme provocations they faced from the stirred-up pro-war packs. They failed in this aim, but the response they drew from the false and virulent propaganda could well serve as a template for further, larger actions along the same lines."

I've always understood one of the tactics in the fascist agenda was the tried and true divide and conquer. In this they succeeded probably far beyond their wildest dreams. I will guarantee that when the country enters The Troubles whether due to economic collapse or when BushCo expands his War on Terra or both, the fascists will call on these crazed brownshirts to be their domestic shock troops, whipping them up to frenzied bloodlust with lies and emotional cult worship.

Sadly,No shreds their inflated numbers, with pictures.

Self Appointed Globocop

WaPo today:

"Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.
More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.
The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises.."

The article goes on to wring it's hands over the fact that the US military is in desperate shape and is getting worse by the day, and it is with Deciderer's wanton adventures abroad. Tossing tens of thousands of additional soldiers into his escalation creep in Baghdad only intensified the crisis. The so called military friendly repubs are cheerily in the process of destroying our defensive capabilities, intentionally in my opinion, with desperate personnel and acute shortages of materiel. Sandstorm season is approaching in Iraq, try not to think about that.

It truly is a wonder to behold, how the criminal cabal is wasting everything across the board. Why, the cynical among us might even suggest that those criminals are next going to be rolling up their sleeves to dump even more money and resources into their enterprises because of the desperate situations they instigated, at our expense of course. Say it isn't so!

But what sticks out in the article are the comments of one General Pace. Now I think that he's a war criminal and bigot, but it's instructive to hear him blithely talk about how the machine views the world:

"You take a lap around the globe -- you could start any place: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela, Colombia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, North Korea, back around to Pakistan, and I probably missed a few. There's no dearth of challenges out there for our armed forces," Pace warned in his testimony. He said the nation faces increased risk because of shortfalls in troops, equipment and training."

No , Pace. The nation faces increased risk because of war mongering shitbag toadies such as yourself, making a career out of serving mass murdering scum who declared war on the entire world. Stooges like you make it happen; cover up artists like you are responsible for destroying the military and putting this country in terrible peril; lying hacks like you enable the fascists to get away with their vile agenda. You're an enforcer for the mob while they ruin the military as they go about forcing their twisted version of pax americana on the entire globe.

The Ultimate Stubborn Homeowner

I have a love for these guys - recalcitrant types who refuse to buckle under pressure to move because there's some huge construction going on. The work goes on around them though.
This person takes the prize.

"The villa now stands alone in a 30ft deep man-made pit in Chongqing city, reports Jinbao Daily.
The Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company wants to turn the area into a £40m 'Broadway' square, including apartments and a shopping mall.
But the owner of the villa says he won't move out unless the company pays his price - the equivalent of £1.3 million.
"The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to dig out all around it to force him to," says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company.
"He wants 20 million yuan, or he'll stay till the end of the world."

Is It Banned In China?

This site, Great Fire Wall Of China, tests any website to see if the Chinese government bans it.
I must be too kind to the totalitarian scum over there, I was chagrined to find this site gets through. You can also see how it looks on Chinese screens - all pictures are blocked and there's nobody home at YouTube.



h↑t to Cosmic Iguana

Less Than 1/3 Of One Day In Iraq

53 million dollars siezed in Mexico. Those are hundreds.
The Iraq occupation costs at least 177 million dollars a day.

seen at Boing Boing

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

"Well unfortunately Mr. Hennesy I have no idea how to fake killing 4000 people, so we're just going to have to do it for real.Oh, and blame it on the muslims, naturally. Then I get my funding."

(Exits to Chopper One)

The Bush Praetorian Guard

The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are destroying america's military. The process has accelerated to the point where this sad fact can no longer be hidden in the media; you can find evidence all over the public domain. Sure, after decades of staggering technological advances and massive spending for things that go boom the US military is the best equipped force in the world but the human element is broken and getting worse by the day.

After telling us that the war won't end in our lifetime, and rest assured with the mass murderers in charge it never will, the fascists have proceeded to make sure the country's military personnel would never be up to the task. How do you 'win' the most unnecessary war of choice in america's history? How about all those reports of armor shortages and vulnerable vehicles and contractor criminality? Every decision down the line since 9/11 seemingly was meant to shatter the present concept of a standing military force, with terrible results for the troops.

This latest Walter Reed debacle is the tip of a gigantic iceberg of disdain and outright hatred of those troops. We all read horror stories of how badly the vets are treated. Ted Rall:
"The surprise is that anyone is surprised. Every generation of warriors has marched off to war based on the pledge that they would be taken care of no matter what. America has broken that promise every time."
But it's much worse this time. The soldiers are suffering in new ways unimaginable to past generations. You don't have to be hit with bullets or shrapnel to suffer, the entire field of conflict is poisoned with 'depleted' uranium and it's taking a fearsome toll.
High tech body armor that protects them from a blast or bullets is insuring far more head injury:
"It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq war."
But all this means little to the fascists. They don't mind sending soldiers back to the highly despised occupations when they're wounded and ailing. When you're strapped for warm bodies as your conquering ways stretch the military to the breaking point you do what you can. So you issue stop loss orders until your forces are spent and exhausted. It's no wonder that record numbers are going off the deep end mentally and emotionally and are killing themselves.

It's also no wonder that the troops now despise the republicans. Note to troops - the democrats have enabled this nightmare so don't stop with the GOP.

But the war criminals had alternatives when american military personnel got used up and wasted. They had backup plans to be able to keep their war on and even expand it. They're in the process of creating a new military, in part recruiting foreigners with a promise of citizenship:
"Born in Evora, Portugal, Lopes enlisted in the U.S. Marines as a Portuguese citizen, earning the nickname Euroguy in his platoon's radio transmissions when he served in Iraq as a lance corporal two years ago.This week, 23 years after his family brought him as baby to Rhode Island, Lopes finally took the naturalization oath, taking advantage of laws that speed up the citizenship process for military personnel.
Lopes, 25, is one of about 69,000 foreign-born people in the military. About 40,000 of them are not citizens."
So far the pentagon is using green card holders living in the US but rest assured they have plans to recruit foreigners in their own country:
"Indeed, some top military thinkers believe the United States should go as far as targeting foreigners in their native countries.
"It's a little dramatic," said Michael O'Hanlon , a military specialist at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution and another supporter of the proposal. "But if you don't get some new idea how to do this, we will not be able to achieve an increase" in the size of the armed forces."

Another facet of this push to completely change the face of fighting forces is how the military is increasingly outsourcing to private contractors. Nobody really knows how many are in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they get paid handsomely with our tax dollars, have zero oversight and are the new face of rampaging fascism.



Forget about honor, defending the country and all that, the war criminals are busy destroying the troops and replacing them with a handsomely rewarded force of mercenaries, willing to take up where and when the old force gets ground into dust.
A private army very likely to return back to the US and apply their skills with little regard for that quaint little document we used to think was the law of the land.

update - Balkinization ruminates on mercs and the citizen soldier.

Failed Diversion

Or, the rise and fall of an 'Al Qaeda' supervillain.
That sure was a bust and passed right by with a whimper. That Sheikh Mohammed fellow they dusted off after years in prison apparently was dragged into the limelight to offset a disastrous week for the fascists, and it was so transparently fake even Fox Noise has dropped it as a lead story.


ultimate multitasker

They were seriously battered with that Walter Reed scandal, so much so that the army secretary and the top general at the hospital were very publicly sacked, something that just doesn't happen with the current crop of criminals. Deciderer faced public scorn and doubt for sending more troops into his meatgrinding clusterfuck and then it got more violent and dangerous. Libby's conviction gave them another black eye, and continued to pummel them with Plames testimony today in a capitol hearing room. There even seems to be another scandal brewing over how emails were sent that may be illegal.

The Sheikh was supposed to be another potent reminder of 9/11, somewhat of a triumph for Our Friends The Fascists in their never ending fight against Those Who Hate Our Freedoms. His spotlight and confession was also supposed to put to rest questions about a number of spurious 'incidents'. But immediately they blew it big time by announcing the guy was responsible for a sweeping number of Bad Things, a list so long and phonied up that it was laughed at all across the media spectrum. The kicker today was that KSM, as he's referred to by the military, supposedly boasted a target of his was the Plaza Bank in Seattle, which didn't exist until years after his arrest.

It certainly didn't take long for this obvious ruse to die a quick death. Fully three quarters of those taking a poll at CNN think it's hogwash. A quick look at MSM finds it missing as a top story. You know it won't get flogged anymore when even Drudge moves on.

This 'Sheikh' is just another in a long line of cartoon villains presented as criminal masterminds, representing an omnipresent and all powerful Enemy that we'll be at war with, well, forever. Useful stooges to dangle in front of us as an excuse to imprison us in a hellish fascist nightmare. They'll keep doing it; they'll never stop until they're stopped, but at least this time it blew up in their faces.

"Serving At The Pleasure Of The President"

It does have a salacious ring to it, doesn't it?

Mastermind Confesses

A Suicide Note To The Leaders Of The 'Surge'

Gen. Petraeus and a High-Profile Suicide in Iraq

" Col. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note -- complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes -- was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. "surge" effort in Iraq."

The note read in part:

"Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it."

Drudge Spreads The Lie

Lots of times people who really want to disseminate a point of view are very quick to sieze on the apparent gist of an article without realizing it contains the seeds of it's own destruction. Or, as propagandists know, most people scan the headlines and the first few sentences and move on.
Either way the execrable Drudge put this on his site today:



It links to the Kuwait News Agency. Now Kuwait is in bed with the fascists and is very much a supporter of what is being done in Iraq so it's no surprise they'd like to put out good news concerning martial law in Bahgdad. They aren't an independent source. Here's the first paragraph:

"BAGHDAD, March 14 (KUNA) -- The rate of killings of US troops in Iraq has been on the decline, down by 60 percent, since the launch of the new security measures in Baghdad, according to statistics revealed by the Multi-National Force -Iraq Combined Press Information Centre."

Must be a pretty good thing what's going on in Iraq, no? Kicking doors in and rifling through households and arresting all males of fighting age seems to be working, right?
No. Second to last paragraph:

"The statistics excluded US troops killed in other governorates such as Al-Anbar, Diyala, and Salahiddin."

Lipstick on a pig, when you cherry pick your numbers.
Car bombings set a record high in Feb.

h/t to Will

More Bush Family Contributions To The Betterment Of America

New Orleans was very lucky indeed that last year's hurricane season was a mild one. The Army Corps of Engineers installed crap equipment from a company with ties to a certain Deciderer's brother.

Corps placed faulty pumps in New Orleans

"NEW ORLEANS - The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet
President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action. But the Corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment are still struggling to get the 34 heavy-duty pumps working properly.
The pumps are now being pulled out and overhauled because of excessive vibration, Corps officials said. Other problems have included overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets, according to the documents obtained by the AP.
(...)
The drainage-canal pumps were custom-designed and built under a $26.6 million contract awarded after competitive bidding to Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was founded in 1926 and supplies flood-control and irrigation pumps all over the world.
MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

Yet another brother seems to be profitting with tax payer related ventures and churning out little brownshirt bots in the process.

Neil Bush is molding little minds

"These days, Neil Bush is the chairman and CEO of Ignite Learning (website), a company devoted to developing technology-assisted curriculum. Ignite calls it COW: "Curriculum on Wheels." In an interview with Arab News' Siraj Wahab, Bush talked enthusiastically about his company's mission: "We are building a model in the United States for developing curriculum that is engaging to grade-school kids, and our model is to deploy this engaging content through a device. So it is easy for any teacher to use our device through projectors and speakers. The curriculum is loaded on the device. We use animation and video and those kinds of things .."

Take a look at this 'history lesson' from Ignite:

Aside from canned, prepackaged lessons that come ready made, making teacher - student interplay less important, could you catch the number of times there was justification for suspending the law at the whim of authority?
I knew you could.

See Bush's Family Profits from 'No Child' Act

Angry Latin Americans Burn Bush, Leave His Effigy Alone

By Don Davis

"In what figures to be a serious blow to President Bush’s Latin American tour, an angry mob of Latin American protestors today burned the real Bush, leaving his effigy entirely intact.
As one of the protestors said, “if we wanted to merely send a message; we’d use Western Union. Besides, we’re much too poor to waste our effigies on gringo scum like Bush.”
The protestors’ chief complaint, of course, was what they perceived to be the Administration’s imperialistic and militaristic policies. However, one protester said he was most threatened by “Bush’s pigeon-Spanish,” explaining that he didn’t want his native tongue butchered the way Bush mangles English.”
The incident occurred in Brazil, where the local populaton was able to showcase their newfound conversion to ethanol-based fuels, which were used for the Presidential pyre instead of old-fashioned fossil fuels.
However, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, engaged in a similar anti-Bush rally in Argentina, asserted that despite the use of sugar ethanol, the burnt Bush still smelled like sulphur."



Actually, after a quickie visit to Guatemala where 5000 special forces had to protect his ass, the Deciderer-not-a-Dividerer elicited more healing with the final stop in his bloated, rolling disaster:

"MEXICO CITY – Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Tuesday attacking riot police with concrete blocks, metal bars and firecrackers and tearing down barricades to protest the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Mexican police responded with tear gas, pepper spray, and baton charges, throwing back rocks and clubbing demonstrators down.
Several protesters were arrested or injured, one with blood pouring out his head.
The demonstrators burned U.S. flags and waved banners with slogans against the U.S. president such as one which said “Bush you are not welcome in Mexico. Go to Hell.”

Coming soon - pictures of Mayan priests purifying contaminated holy ground.

Libya Rolls Over, US Scratches It's Stomach

After renewing diplomatic relations with the US last year and basically disarming itself four years ago, Muammar Gaddafi was finally rewarded for playing puppy dog. The US will help build a nuclear plant in Libya. Apparently all is forgiven about that incident in April of 1986, when over 100 people died, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter, when american planes unloaded on a bombing run over Tripoli. The american assault was meant to assasinate him.

A largely overlooked story about that is the fact that Israel's Mossad tricked the US into striking Libya by planting trojan transmitters that made it seem that the Libyans were sending terror orders to their embassies in Europe. A convenient explosion in a West Berlin disco that killed an american on April 5 was blamed on Libya and it was bombs away.

But this is how it works. A head of state barks a few times, wants to turn on a few light bulbs, won't open his oil reserves up to foreign exploitation and gets menaced by formidable armadas just offshore. (Ahmenidejad)
Former public enemy #1 capitulates to demands, becomes a vassal and gets rewarded with a shiny new nuclear power station. (Gaddafi) Of course Libya's 39 billion barrels of oil and estimated 53 trillion cubic feet of natural gas have nothing to do with it at all.

Halliburton Moves Closer To The Action

Iran is going to be a big project, besides, the execs will fit right in.

Another Justification?

It's emerging in the media (at least in part) that the Iranian general who disappeared last week while in Turkey with his family is purportedly a spy. First reports had it that he was kidnapped by either the Mossad or americans, other reports had it that he defected.

The murkiness of this story suggests to me that the deliberate ambiguity is meant just to set the stage for a media driven blockbuster to emerge later on. The first ones that I know about to offer this were the folks over at Signs of the Times on March 8:



The MSM is performing it's drumroll function. Here's ABC:
"A former Iranian deputy defense minister who went missing in Turkey was giving Western intelligence agencies information on Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the group, the Washington Post reported.
Citing a senior U.S. official, the Post said in its Thursday edition that Ali Reza Asgari, who disappeared while on a trip to Turkey last month, had left his country and was willingly cooperating."

And Jerusalem Newswire:
"An Iranian defense official who reportedly defected to the West last week may be in possession of evidence that could be used justify military action against Iran."

New York Post:
"Asghari was Iran's deputy minister of defense and former top official of the notorious Revolutionary Guards. Experts said his secrets, should they fall into American or Israeli hands, could have devastating consequences for the Iranian regime."

Whichever reason for this guy to be in western hands, those "devastating consequences" are going to be the new military actions the US and Israel have been preparing for months.
These wars have to be sold to us. Last summer the terrible onslaught on Lebanon was planned well in advance then conveniently blamed on 'kidnapped' Israeli soldiers. The warmongers went the UN route with Iraq, making up a casus belli out of whole cloth and lies. That route can't be taken again with such deep dissatisfaction with the current criminal regime and the refusal of China and Russia on the Security Council to go along with punitive actions against Iran. I also credit the growing 9/11 truth movement and efforts on the web to expose false flag attacks for our overlords' reluctance blow things up.
A purported top general who has some boffo smoking gun evidence that Iran supplies weapons to Hezbollah and Shiites in Iraq to kill Israelis and americans would be trumpeted far and wide as a perfect excuse to release the dogs of war. Any phonied up information about Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program would then seal their fate. And if in the future this guy turns out to have all the credibility of the 'baby incubator girl' that helped touch off Desert Storm, well no matter, the bloodthirsty fascist/zionist cabal will have generated their greatly anticipated wider middle east conflagration.

Laughable Fox Noise

This recent flap about the democratic debate in Nevada being cancelled because it was going to be hosted by Fox News is a perfect example of the alternate universe inhabited by the Bush Cargo Cult. A certain segment of the population has spiralled down into a walking dementia due in no small part to that execrable organization.

Fox slimes opponents of the criminal cabal 24/7. They employ all the tricks in Propaganda 101, and no low blow is too slimy, no amount of shouting is too much, no filthy rumor is too out there to spread. It's all bankrolled by very powerful and wealthy men and the end result is believed and endlessly parroted by the dead-from-the-neck-up crowd.



Edwards grew some spine and decided to call Fox on their bias and was the first candidate to bail from the Fox sponsered debate. Within hours the event collapsed as the others did likewise. Here's the divide between those of us in reality based existence and deluded fools - we see that Edwards and the rest took a laudable stand against misrepresentation and lies; Bush worshippers try to sniff out weakness and try to capitalize by thereby declaring dems are pussies by not debating. A great example is a forum I sometimes frequent to mop the floor with the crazies. The title of this thread? "Frightened Dems pull out of debate"



Fox Noise is laughably crude, cartoonish, and they are even proud of their oh so evident bias. Yet I guess by endlessly droning fair and balanced they've convinced the mouthbreathers that they're even handed, fair and serious. The dolts then can't understand, or at least pretend not to grasp why the dems won't play ball in their court. Hopefully this episode won't be the last time that "news" organization gets trashed.

More screen captures can be seen at jurassicpork's place.

Something To Think About At The Pump

Iran's motorists face higher prices

" Millions of Iranian motorists face the prospect of higher fuel prices and rationing after parliament voted Wednesday to ration cheap petrol in a bid to cut costly state subsidies."

Due to budget constraints the Iranian government may force drivers to pay more for their gasoline. The price will skyrocket from 8 cents a liter to 10 cents, or about 33 cents a gallon.

High Times In Bogota

Because he speaks a smattering of spanish, the Deciderer in chief might feel a little more comfortable tomorrow in Columbia after lumbering through Brazil and Uruguay where they order their cervejas in portuguese. Of course being with fellow autocrat Alvaro Uribe in a country that sneers at human rights should make him feel right at home for a day.

The fascists in Columbia have been claiming that 'left wing guerrillas' were planning on some sort of violence during Bush's stopover, but in reality the biggest story is that Uribe's government is in meltdown because of revelations of close ties to paramilitaries, death squads and cocaine smuggling. Of course, such activity is actively promoted by the current administration as billions of dollars have poured into the country since Plan Columbia was instituted in 2000. Indeed, it's been proven over and over that Uribe is one of the top narco traffickers in Latin America.

"The release of a 13-year-old previously classified military intelligence document linking Colombia’s right-wing president Alvaro Uribe to drug traffickers has intensified the crisis of Washington’s most slavish supporter in Latin America.
A virtual “who’s who” of the Colombian cocaine trade, the report was issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1991. It was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archives, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University."

It should be pretty obvious what's going on here. Columbia is run by a fascist thug who terrorizes the population with secret police and death squads, and who oversees the biggest cocaine cartel that smuggles the drug to the US. Columbia comes in third in foreign aid money to prop this regime up, and in return it's deeply unpopular government is just another bootlicking, subservient client state. Uribe's cabal was the only SA government to sign onto the catastrophe in Iraq. Colombia's cocaine oligarchy is Bush's best buddy down there.

Next Stop: Guatemala! Pit stop on the cocaine highway!

Army Secretary Who Resigned Over Walter Reed Given Lavish Farewell Ceremony

Think Progress has the story.



"Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned last week after the neglect and squalor at Walter Reed military hospital was exposed by the Washington Post.
Harvey not only oversaw these conditions, but chose to place Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley — who had been personally aware for years about the problems and apparently done nothing — back in control of the hospital. That decision was reversed days later by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Despite the terms of his resignation, Harvey today was given a celebratory farewell ceremony at the large Conmy Hall in Virginia, pictured below. ThinkProgress obtained a media advisory promoting the event, which states that Army chief of staff Peter Schoomaker would be hosting the “farewell ceremony in honor” of Harvey."

Scumbags. They think they can get away with anything and then get handsomely rewarded for it. This is true filth, and it's just one more despicable outrage in a long list of shitting on us this week.