G.D. Frogsdong is urging the Illinois GOP to abandon Alan Keyes and instead run General J.C. Christian for Pimpin' Jack Ryan's abandoned Senate seat. See if you don't agree that it's a very persuasive letter he's written.
...or do what you want...you will anyway.
I found this link at another fine blog: The Fulcrum. Pay a visit. Leave a kind word.
Or else Yawir is about to become an unfortunate victim of a car bomb.
Oh! Now you've gone too far! You cannot expect me to believe he would do something like that.
But read the rest of Juan Cole's post, as he defines neconservatives and discusses the cases that the WH is allegedly pressuring the FBI to put on hold. Or stay ignorant. I don't care.
...do what you want...you will anyway.
From Sarah: "Would you say that the life of an American is worth more, less, or about the same as the life of an Iraqi?"
King asks, "How do you respond to terrorists who have said they want you to win?"
And of course...
Read the others here.
...or do what you want...you will anyway.
P.S. Over at Electrolite, someone asks if anyone knows the answer to the original "One Simple Question", and someone else answers: Not enough. Ha!
From the author who brought you...
I came across that brilliant analysis from a post at A Chicken Is Not Pillage. Excerpt:
Don’t you just love it? The people who actually fuel our economy with their hard work and attention to decisions will get a greater voice in the direction our country takes! What a concept!Yes, what an anti-Democratic, fascist corruption fueling and blatantly treason fraught concept...This is the very pit of hell suggested by Bush's "Ownership" society. Them as own make the rules for them to own. And fuck the rest. There is the right wing agenda of the Bush administration, portrayed in black and white. How conservative can you get ... harkening back to the days of male landowners having the franchise, and the rest bowing to their will.
And here's the "intriguing" part that Wulfgar left out of the ACINP post...
Oh, it most certainly does. Because then all those assholes engaging in tax loopholes and shelters would have to start actually paying taxes, instead of trying to get around it.
If they wanted to vote, that is.
Jerkwad.
But he had no idea that they were involved in anything felonious. How could you imagine he did? Like Oil Slick Dick who had no idea his companies were crooks. Paul O'Neill, the Secretary of the Treasury that BushCo fired, pushed to create laws that would make CEOs legally accountable for the activities of their companies, but as you can imagine, corporate contributors lobbied that out of existence.
The indictments accuse the men and corporations of violating a state law banning the use of corporate or labor-union donations to influence the outcome of a candidate's election. They have denied wrongdoing.
Frankly, I'm sure they don't see anything wrong with what they did.
And it's very handy for DeLay that four of the ten members of the ethics committee investigating his illegal fund-raising are recipients of thousands of dollars from ARMPAC, the parent of DeLay's political action committees, and the fifth Republican on the committee is the chairman.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Funny how they keep coming up with a record here, a record there, after insisting on numerous occasions in the past that they had provided all the documents from his service record. Ooops, found another one. Ooops, yet another one. Ooops...
Like a damned Easter egg hunt. Bunnypants (as he's sometimes known at Maru's) apparently has them hidden all over Washington.
Keep looking. I'm sure there's another there somewhere.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
I guess they'll just have to stand at attention, pay attention, and not pick their noses. It'll be tough for one of them at least.
Photo courtesy Maru
And I expect they will. It's their possible ticket into the World Trade Organization.
Need I comment?
And it was a hard won case.
My homage to courts who uphold our civil liberties is here.
I doubt it, but it's a step in the right direction. And make your celebration quick, because they're not going to give up.
These walls I refer to are not just physical. They had built up walls of smugness and pride from centuries of being the most wealthy, most cultured, most educated, most worldly, most Christian people. They felt that they were the society and empire of God on Earth, their fall could only be followed by Christ's return. After all, Constantine himself built their capital; time and hard work made it the jewel of Christianity never equalled before nor to this day. This gave them an arrogance that never faded even as the the Turks killed off all resistance and found, along side this pride, abject poverty in a society that mustered all it's resources for it's millitary protection and it's final stand.
...Law started and remains as a non-human entity with all the fickle preferences of a Greek God or demon. Selective enforcement may be random like some traffic tickets or intentionally biased like arresting black kids selling weed to white kids and letting the white kids drive off, or pulling over black motorists instead of white.
We're at a point where the lack of reasoning on the part of the right is useless to even look at. It is circular, void of any basis in the real world, and just plain stupid. We must instead look at their goals. Endless war, no science, no civil rights, no consumer protection, no cross-cultural understanding, no truth, no accoutability.
I'll put up a permanent link in the sidebar to Musical Hair's Musings. I am trying to keep that blog list short, because when I visit another blog and see a bajillion blog links, it sets up a psychological block: "Too much. No time for all, so where to start? Don't look." So I want my list to look manageable from first glance. It's hard to choose to leave out some blogs, but such is life. If you'd like to see more links to other good blogs and good websites (ahem, according to me), I have a more extensive list on my webpage here.
If you want more information on the topic of corporate responsibility and personhood, I have a number of articles linked on my webpage here.
If you want more commentary about fundamentalism and the single party posing as two, just stick around.
And visit Musical Hair.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Last month Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Congressman, introduced a bill that would clearly outlaw extraordinary rendition. But Markey only has 22 cosponsors, and now the House leadership is trying to legalize torture outsourcing--and hide it in the bill implementing the 9/11 Commission Report.
"Now that some schmuck, who can expect to be taken off at the knees, leaked and we got busted," he didn't add.
Amazingly enough they can just admit publicly now that they make and carry out covert plans unless they get caught and "pressured", because the public obvious doesn't give a rat's ass. Or maybe the public agrees that we should be messing in other country's politics. And definitely the public is too gullible to think that those "overt" programs provide cover for the "covert" programs.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
The man is a broken record of trite advertising jingles.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
... Reports from Iraq have made one Army staff officer question whether adequate progress is being made there.
"They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but what I hear from the ground is that they aren't working," he said. "There's a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out."
He added: "I hope I'm wrong."
Well, it doesn't matter if we're clueless - after all, great numbers of us still believe Iraq had WMD and was on the verge of annihilating us, and that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. We may be clueless, but we still know who we're gonna vote for.
I guess "assessments" is the euphemism du jour for lies.
And we thank you, whoever you are.
Very good. Very safe.
Hmmmmmm....is there an extrapolation to be made there?
Very good. Very safe.
Amen.
Read the whole post.
I've been saying now for a few years that this country needs a revival of unions - not the unions of today, but the unions of the day when unions clawed their bloody way into being - the days of Eugene Debs. It looks like Mick Arran, From the Trenches, is ready to revive them.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.
Yes, but he doesn't read.
And he doesn't listen, either.
Huh?
Remember that when it takes us much longer in Iran and Syria to claim "Mission Accomplished!"
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Jay prompts me to offer up this Daniel Ellsberg interview (click the graphic). Good timing, I think. I've linked it permanently on my webpage here with a couple other Ellsberg articles specifically relating to the present situation.
Ellsberg, labeled a traitor by many, is a true American hero. As a young man, he risked everything, including his freedom, to tell the truth to the American public. Those were the days when heroes still existed. We could have chosen to take our country in a different direction back then. Ellsberg gave us the opportunity. We turned him down.
Ah, yes. The important stuff. While the rest of the world grapples with the reality and the enormity of our insane and inhumane foreign policy, these two asshats are dickering over who looks the tallest.
Namaste.
Didn't see that one coming, did we?
...The regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in...Equatorial Guinea has accused the US of backing the plot, but the Pentagon denies supporting it. US officials say it was Mr Wales who made all the approaches to them.
Didn't see that coming either, did we?
...She added: "The US can be supportive in trying to ameliorate regional crises without necessarily having to put US troops on the ground, which is often a very difficult political decision. Sometimes we may not want to be very visible."...
The Obiang regime has complained that the US did not warn it of the coup plot, although it received intelligence from South Africa.
The February 19 plan is said to have been aborted after a hired aircraft broke down. The plotters then acquired an old former US Air National Guard Boeing, built to a military specification, that was flown over from Kansas with a crew from Florida for a second coup attempt. But the seller, the US firm Dodson Aviation, says there was no US government involvement in the deal.
Both the US and Britain have extensive oil interests in Equatorial Guinea which, in the words of one US official, is "the new Kuwait".
Now that surprises you, huh?
Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula "is snowballing," Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense.
He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had "no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent" because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to "eliminate" North Korea and make it "a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.''
...South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said in late April that it was estimated that eight nuclear bombs could be made if all 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were reprocessed. Before the reprocessing, South Korea said it believed the North had enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.
The State Department official said he hadn't seen Choe's comments but noted that the Bush administration has long believed that North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, asking not to be identified, said the North Koreans also have made a number of conflicting statements about how far along their weapons development programs have come.
Saddam's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano told Denmark's B.T. newspaper that Saddam decided during one of their discussions that he would declare his candidacy for the elections.
Stefano said that there was no law that prevented Saddam from appearing on the ballot. He added that Saddam hopes to regain his presidency and palaces via the democratic process.
...Stefano remarked that a recent Gallup poll indicates that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back.
Wouldn't that be a hoot? Saddam using the democractic process right out from under us while we're trying to buy the election. Ah, life's little twists.
Saddam's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano told Denmark's B.T. newspaper that Saddam decided during one of their discussions that he would declare his candidacy for the elections.
Stefano said that there was no law that prevented Saddam from appearing on the ballot. He added that Saddam hopes to regain his presidency and palaces via the democratic process.
...Stefano remarked that a recent Gallup poll indicates that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back.
Wouldn't that be a hoot? Saddam using the democractic process right out from under us while we're trying to buy the election. Ah, life's little twists.
In a U.S. visit last week, Allawi spoke of foreign insurgents "flooding" his country, and both President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, have cited these fighters as a major security problem.
But according to top U.S. military officers in Iraq, the threat posed by foreign fighters is far less significant than American and Iraqi politicians portray. Instead, commanders said, loyalists of Saddam Hussein's regime — who have swelled their ranks in recent months as ordinary Iraqis bristle at the U.S. military presence in Iraq — represent the far greater threat to the country's fragile 3-month-old government.
...U.S. military officials said the core of the insurgency in Iraq was — and always had been — Hussein's fiercest loyalists, who melted into Iraq's urban landscape when the war began in March 2003. During the succeeding months, they say, the insurgents' ranks have been bolstered by Iraqis who grew disillusioned with the U.S. failure to deliver basic services, jobs and reconstruction projects.
It is this expanding group, they say, that has given the insurgency its deadly power and which represents the biggest challenge to an Iraqi government trying to establish legitimacy countrywide.
"People try to turn this into the mujahedin, jihad war. It's not that," said one U.S. intelligence official. "How many foreign fighters have been captured and processed? Very few."
...U.S. military officials said Iraqi officials tended to exaggerate the number of foreign fighters in Iraq to obscure the fact that large numbers of their countrymen have taken up arms against U.S. troops and the American-backed interim Iraqi government.
Yes, and American polticians and media parrot it to you so that you'll think there's some hope of getting the situation under control. And so you'll think we're there to liberate the Iraqi people. Ha! Because you'll believe anything.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
It is what led me to the point at which I am able to say without any sense of restraint or caution that I would put NOTHING past them --- even a staged terrorist attack. This is because every time I think they have some limits, they prove me wrong. As the old saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...won't get fooled again....
Gore and his team knew that the Republicans would fight with everything they had, but they still maintained some faith in the legal system to require basic fairness in something this important. And, even the most cynical of us thought that the egos of the Supreme Court justices would never allow them to make a purely partisan decision because history would remember them as whores.
If I had any political idealism left it died on the day that Antonin Scalia stopped judges from counting votes in Florida.
This article shows that fix was in from the beginning.
--Digby
I absolutely agree that at some point, anyone with eyes open will no longer be able to maintain the delusion that even the most rabid politicians would have scruples enough not to stage a terrorist attack murdering their own citizens. Read some history books. Not the ones they provide in public schools. The truth is simply that you would be wise to realize there is NOTHING these people won't do to maintain power.
Greg Palast did a great investigative job back when the 2000 vote fraud happened, but nobody in the U.S. would publish his work. If you want to read the original exposé of this American coup d'etat, get his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. As a plus, Palast's writing is entertaining and easy to comprehend.
Lots of good Palast articles about the coup are available on his website here.
Read the Vanity Fair article, if you can. It's a long read, and the .pdf files are copies of the actual magazine pages, so it's not the easiest thing to read (easier if you print it off). Also, the last bit of the conclusion is cut off (and I couldn't find a copy of it). Still, the information provided is good. It runs down the entire fiasco, concentrating on the Supreme Court's involvement and the repression of the black vote, and provides information that never made it to the light of day when the coup was going down. It also gives fair warning for what you might expect in November. It certainly won't be any more scrupulous. Nor legal.
I try to look at my formatting in Mozilla, I.E., and sometimes Netscape, but I don't understand all of the tricks of formatting (or even most of them), so I can't figure out why some browser and terminal combinations render the view one way and others another. Why the hell don't they just standardize this stuff? (Okay, I know why - Microsoft couldn't monopolize the market.) I know that if I forget to limit the size of a large graphic, it will throw off the formatting, and you'll play hell trying to read the blog. I just don't know how to code them so that they "float" with the size of the columns, and the blog view stays narrower than your full screen but floats with the size of your terminal. Some things are controlled by tblog, and some I can change. I also don't know why the IE browser doesn't render the background gold the same as the post heading gold, when I have them coded with the same number. Go figger. Of course, with my latest adjustment, you shouldn't be able to see the background gold at all (unless it's just a strip at the top of the screen - and I can't figure out why some browsers render it with that strip and some don't).
I spent hours this past weekend trying to code some pages on my website to have a "frozen" sidebar with links while you scroll the main column of the page. It worked beautifully in Mozilla, but I.E. wouldn't play along. I found a website that offers tips and gave a line of code that was supposed to make it work in I.E., but it just wouldn't. At least not on my computer.
Anyway, I apologize for all the format changing as I try to get it working as best I can. Mostly, I have to make sure Rich can read it on his computer, as Rich is probably the person who reads YWA the most faithfully and the most often. You do understand that I have to keep Rich happy, don't you?
Update 1:00pm: LaBelle takes exception. With good reason. It may be that Rich does not read YWA more often or more faithfully than she. And she does provide invaluable feedback on typos and other errors. Without pay, even!
Oh my. I may not do Windows, but I do dig holes.
Dear Mr. bin Laden, Please come out and show yourself. Otherwise, we can't get you.
There. I think that will work.
Honestly. Get off the Ambien, Colin. Any "future" leaders will gain experience as time passes. Any future American Generals are not as accomplished or experienced as the dead ones, either.
No, I'm serious, Colin. Get off the drugs. "I can't prove he's alive, but he's clearly in hiding and on the run. Clearly that's the situation. I don't know where he is, because he won't come out and show himself. But clearly, he's on the run."
But clearly, he is in hiding and on the run. And what's the point in hunting for him if he won't pop up and show himself?
Washington continues to remain clueless, period.
The report, by the department's inspector-general, found the FBI still did not have the capacity to translate all the terrorism-related material from wiretaps and other intelligence sources, and that the influx of new material had outpaced the bureau's resources.
The report comes as officials in the Bush Administration raise concerns about a terrorist attack before the November 2 presidential elections and as new intelligence indicates that Osama bin Laden is still alive and most likely hiding with other senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.
Nice going Bushman. Keeping America safe. Bring 'em on. Who cares we can't even keep up with the ones we already had to worry about?
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
The report is supported by the following email I received from Europe:
. . The Najafi guy living at my house got a phone call from Najaf on Saturday. Hotel Nejef and Hotel "Imam Ali" (newly built in 2002) were flattened by American cruise missiles during these last Sadrist months. Sadrist snipers were said to be the reason . . . Rajul Street, B's childhood "hood" is rubble. Old, culturally, historically valuable buildings and surroundings like bazaar environment areas, several hundred years old, are rubble and dust.The Valley of Peace, this huge churchyard is littered with cluster bomb cans - unexploded. Someone should dig in to that fact.
In other countries we call it funding democracy, via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). I guess they're not as concerned about whitewashing anything in Iraq. After all, that's a front in the WAR. ON. TERROR! Surely you can see the need to intervene in whatever way necessary to bring democracy to Iraq.
I'm hearing more and more about Nancy Pelosi that I like. She sounds like a woman with scruples and no fear. Stay out of small planes, Nancy.
This comes from Juan Cole today. You should definitely read his commentary.
And, for whatever reason, Cole has thrown in this tidbit:
Perhaps because it is newly run at the Guardian under the title: "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power". If that story interests you, here's another: Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed.
Ten others were injured on Tuesday as US warplanes again bombed Falluja, targeting the area of al-Askari and the industrial neighbourhoods near the main highway east of the city, Iraqi journalist Husain al-Shammari told Aljazeera.
The US military said it had "conducted a precision strike", destroying a building believed to be the hideout for followers of al-Qaida-linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The army has been at pains to discredit consistent reports from doctors and residents that women and children have been killed or wounded in repeated air strikes on Falluja in the recent weeks.Aljazeera article
Who are you going to believe? The U.S. Army or your lying eyes?
I'm all out of commentary about the genocide.
It continues.
Bob quotes Riverbend, a blogger in Baghdad.
Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile.
..."What Rove does," says Joe Perkins, "is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin', tobacco-chewin', pickup-drivin' kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed, well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."
LaBelle pegged Rove right the other day when she said he is like a creepy murder novel villain. More on Mr. Roverer is on my webpage here.
"Is that the kind of thing he would do as president?," the man asked.
Heinz Kerry sharply asked the man whether he had read the legislation that was voted on.
When he said no, she told him that Kerry had supported $60 billion in military appropriations for Iraq, but would not vote for the full $87 billion because he considered it a "blank check." Kerry was one of 11 Democrats to vote against the bill.
"And we knew they'd already given Haliburton millions in no-bid contracts," she snapped, referring to the company formerly led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"If you want to say (Kerry) flip-flopped, just say so, don't try to hide," Heinz Kerry scolded.
Maybe Teresa should stand in for John in the debates.
The Carter Center often oversees elections in foreign countries where fairness is a question, with the Venezuelan recall referendum being one of its latest well-publicized missions. Some Democrats have asked for the Center's services in November in this country, prompting a good deal of huffy outrage. Jimmy decided not to hold his breath waiting for the official invitation, I guess.
The most significant of these requirements are:
• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place...
• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy...
It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.
...Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.
...Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.
It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy.
As they say, stay out of small airplanes, Jimbo.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
...For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking. George Tenet's retirement as director of Central Intelligence removed the buffer between president and agency.
And probably why Porter Goss, reputed Bush Brownie, was appointed.
Of course something "unfortunate" comes out of his trap every time he opens it.
And this may be the first president not to make use of it.
Your Freudian slippage is showing, Boob. If Krugman made that statement, he'd have to hire body guards.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Thanks to Under the Same Sun for catching that.
Thanks to a federal appeals court, maybe Floridians' constitutional rights will stand a chance.
What?!
And the whole country of Iraq doesn't need to vote, either. Boy, oh boy, democracy sure has changed since I was a kid.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
...I've watched the commercialization of this culture of dissent with growing unease. When I recently decided to take a long break from blogging, it was for a mix of personal and philosophical reasons. But the direction the blogosphere is going makes me wonder whether I'll ever go back.
...Even as it collectively achieves celebrity status for its anti-establishment views, blogging is already being domesticated by its success. What began as a spontaneous eruption of populist creativity is on the verge of being absorbed by the media-industrial complex it claims to despise.
In the process, a charmed circle of bloggers — those glib enough and ideologically safe enough to fit within the conventional media punditocracy — is gaining larger audiences and greater influence. But the passion and energy that made blogging such a potent alternative to the corporate-owned media are in danger of being lost, or driven back to the outer fringes of the Internet.
Even as I type....the Whiskey Bar is open - no comment yet, only a graphic. Maybe he won't go back. That will be our loss. I understand getting tired, moving on, that sort of thing. I don't understand being unhappy about the state of the blogosphere and quitting because of that. Or maybe I do. Maybe that's the same way I feel about the United States of America these days. In that case, I would conclude that Billmon has accepted his own identity as a blogger to be defined by the blogosphere. I don't think that's necessary. So, Billmon, here's my advice: if you like to write and the blogging style allows you to write as you wish, get back to the blog. There's nothing wrong with being on the outer fringes of anything. It's where the best people hang out.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
I'm writing to you today to ask you unite on Monday by posting a fresh link to great news. Today, the "Bush Bounty" increased by $6000!
That's right: In addition to the now $2300 reward now offered by The World's Shortest Blog, an anonymous sponsor has stepped up to offer an additional $6000 if the question is televised and answered! That's a potential $8300 payoff!
Thanks to this new "Answer Bounty" -- we have one chance to make this One Simple Question newsworthy.
Please join in linking to The World's Shortest Blog and the $6000 Answer Bounty tomorrow, Monday, Sept. 26.
If everyone links on one day, we may propel The Question to the #1 on Blogdex -- and conceivably earn attention in the mainstream media. This is something that right-wingers coordinate very well; conservatives trumpet in unison very effectively. But thanks to your previous support for One Simple Question, we have over two hundred left-leaning bloggers who can join together in one voice -- right now, when it's needed most.
We have the power to beat the right at their own game.
Please help! We can make the question mainstream by standing united on Monday!
Thanks to all... Let's Boot Bush!
John
I hate to be materialistic, but I wish I had an anonymous sponsor with $6,000 to blow on (arguably) trivial matters.
Anyway, there's your challenge and your chance to make $8300 (or more by the time you get the question asked and answered). Go to it.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
"In dispute" must be the new euphemism for lies.
... "The framework for it (free and fair elections) hasn't even been set up. The voter registration lists aren't set. There have to be hundreds of polling places, hundreds of trained monitors and poll watchers. None of that has happened," Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State for President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, told ABC's "This Week."
He said nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are already at work, and that would rise to 125,000 by the end of this year.
...[Pentagon] documents show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.
Six Army battalions have had "initial training," while 57 National Guard battalions, 896 soldiers in each, are still being recruited or "awaiting equipment." Just eight Guard battalions have reached "initial (operating) capability," and the Pentagon acknowledged the Guard's performance has been "uneven."
Training has yet to begin for the 4,800-man civil intervention force, which will help counter a deadly insurgency. And none of the 18,000 border enforcement guards have received any centralised training to date, despite earlier claims they had, according to Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.
They estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough basic training to make them "minimally effective at their tasks," in contrast to the 100,000 figure cited by Bush.
... The White House defended its figures, and a senior administration official defined "fully trained" as having gone through "initial basic operations training."
It all depends on what your meaning of "fully trained" is.
[emphasis mine]
Residents said explosions lit up the night sky for hours before dawn. Mangled vehicles, debris and shards of glass littered the streets.
Dr. Qassem Saddam of the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City said five people were killed and 40 were wounded — including 15 women and nine children. source
Business is good.
Hey, let's get real. There's a demand for arms, and somebody's going to fill it. Right? Somebody's going to get the business, and the profit that goes with it. Why shouldn't it be American companies?
Get off the drugs, Lincoln.
