Today in Iraq

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR TUESDAY, November 14, 2006 Photo: A man cries over the coffin of his brother who was killed in what Iraqi officials said was an overnight raid by U.S. forces in Baghdad November 14, 2006. Chanting slogans in support of a radical, anti-American, Shi'ite cleric, mourners carried coffins on Tuesday through a Baghdad district where Iraqi officials said U.S. forces killed six people in an overnight raid. The U.S. military declined to confirm any operation in Shula, a Shi'ite enclave in mostly Sunni west Baghdad. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ) (See below "Six people were killed in fighting…") Iraqi medical officials said at least 30 people were killed in violence overnight in Ramadi in what local police described on Tuesday as a U.S. military raid. The U.S. military said its troops killed 11 insurgents using tank rounds in three separate incidents, and said there were no reports of civilian casualties. (…) An Iraqi police source, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said U.S. forces raided the al-Dhubat district late on Monday and several houses were destroyed. In one part of the district, a Reuters reporter saw several bodies of adult men lying in a street, some being placed in coffins by relatives, and a number of body parts. One small structure was burnt out in that street. The U.S. military said five insurgents trying to place a roadside bomb were killed on Monday night. Another four were killed some hours later after a roadside bomb hit a U.S. armoured vehicle, and in a third incident on Tuesday two more insurgents were killed while trying to set a roadside bomb. "There were no reports of civilian casualties as a result of the events," a U.S. statement said. Local residents, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said U.S. tanks had fired into the area and that those who died were not militants. They criticised the U.S. forces and Shi'ite-led Iraqi government. Several said young men gathered to play a traditional street game had been attacked. Abdullah Salih, a doctor at Ramadi's main hospital, told Reuters 35 dead had been brought in and that he believed other bodies had still not been retrieved because access to the area was limited by continuing military operations. Earlier, another doctor, Kamal al-Ani, said 30 bodies were brought in from the district, along with 17 wounded.

Ali al-Obaidi, a medic at Ramadi Hospital, said those killed were civilians who died in shelling by U.S. tanks.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff and visitors in a lightning raid on a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the largest mass abduction since the start of the U.S. occupation. Iraq's higher education minister instantly ordered all universities closed until security improvements are made, saying he was "not ready to see more professors get killed. Makki said the gunmen had a list of names of those to be taken and claimed to be on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body. Those kidnapped included the institute's deputy general directors, employees, and visitors, he said.

Hours later, the Interior Ministry said three of the kidnap victims were apparently set free and found unharmed along eastern Baghdad's Palestine Street. Some were later freed but up to 50 hostages were still unaccounted for, the government said, renewing assurances that its new, U.S.-trained security forces can bring order. Five senior police officers — including the neighborhood police chief — were arrested, the government said.

Six people were killed in fighting overnight between Shiite gunmen and American forces in Shula, northwest Baghdad, police spokesman Mohammed Kheyoun said. Residents said U.S. warplanes had fired rockets at homes in the area and put the death toll as high as nine. The U.S. military has not commented on the reports.

Earlier, Iraqi security officials reported of another U.S. air strike into the Shi'ite neighborhood of Shula that killed at least five people.

OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS Baghdad: One person was killed when a car bomb detonated near a restaurant in west Baghdad. A car bomb wounded three people in the northwestern Hurriya district of Baghdad. Ten people were killed and 25 others wounded when a car bomb went off in a central Baghdad commercial area, an Interior Ministry source said. "A car parked in the al-Amin Intersection near Shourjah market detonated at about 1:45 p.m. (1045 GMT)," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. A civilian was killed and ten others wounded when a homemade bomb went off at a busy parking lot in eastern Baghdad. The blast damaged several cars and nearby buildings. Gunmen killed a security guard for former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on his way home in the western Ghazaliya district of Baghdad, Allawis's Iraqi National List said. A bomb inside a bus station in eastern Baghdad killed two people and wounded 10. Mortars killed four people and wounded six in al-Zuhur, in Baghdad's northern outskirts. A suicide car bomber struck Tuesday near a mosque in Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite slum, killing at least three people and wounding 17, police said. The blast was triggered near the Shiite al-Rasoul Mosque, according to police Lt. Col. Thamer al-Gharrawi. Baqubah: Gunmen attacked a police patrol killing three policemen and wounding another in the city of Baquba. Iraqi police, backed by U.S. forces, discovered the bodies of 10 kidnap victims, bound, blindfolded and with gunshot wounds, inside a house in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said. They arrived at the house after a shooting involving gunmen and police acting on a tip from neighbours. Youssifiyah: The U.S. military said an airstrike killed three insurgents suspected of being part of a bomb-making ring in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad. Mandali: Assailants killed seven passengers aboard a minivan ambushed near Mandali on the Iranian border, Diyala provincial police said. Basra: Three doctors were kidnapped on a road near the southern port city of Basra. Kut: Gunmen attacked an Iraqi army patrol, killing two soldiers, in the central city of Kut, southeast of the capital. Tikrit: A car parking near a gas station in central Tikrit detonated near a passing police patrol, wounding a policeman and four civilians nearby. The blast damaged several civilian cars which were lining up near the gas station

A car bomb in downtown Tikrit wounded 10 people, including three policemen. A man was killed by a car bomb in the central city of Tikrit.

Mosul: Three insurgents were blown apart trying to plant a roadside bomb Monday night in the northwestern city of Mosul. Police found 11 bodies with gunshot wounds in Mosul. 11 civilians were killed in a series of drive-by shootings in Mosul. Kirkuk: Gunmen killed a man in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad. >> NEWS Just days after his resignation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (…) Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ." BBC REOPENS KELLY CASE The BBC is risking a new confrontation with Downing Street by launching an investigation into the death of David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the storm over the “sexed up” dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. It is reopening the case less than three years after its management virtually imploded with the resignations of Greg Dyke, the director general, and Gavyn Davies, its chairman, in the wake of Lord Hutton’s report into the affair. The corporation is filming a programme about the alleged suspicious circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death in an Oxfordshire wood. It has told officials who carried out a post-mortem and toxicology tests on Kelly’s body that it “wants to quash conspiracy theories” about the death. But it has interviewed independent doctors who point to unexplained discrepancies in the results of Kelly’s post-mortem. They suggest that neither the wound to his left wrist nor the drugs found in his body was sufficient to kill him. The BBC has also spoken to legal experts who say the Hutton inquiry was a poor substitute for an inquest and that a coroner should now be asked to record a verdict on how Kelly died. The 60-minute documentary is scheduled to be screened in January, just a month after the BBC hopes to have secured an inflation-beating licence fee rise. read in full… >> REPORTS New York Times: "WHO'S RUMSFELD?" Hashim al-Menti smiled wanly at the marine sergeant beside him on his couch. The sergeant had appeared in the darkness on Wednesday night, knocking on the door of Mr. Menti's home. When Mr. Menti answered, a squad of infantrymen swiftly moved in, making him an involuntary host. Since then marines had been on his roof with rifles, watching roads where insurgents often planted bombs. Mr. Menti had passed the time watching television. Now he had news. He spoke in broken English. "Rumsfeld is gone," he told the sergeant, Michael A. McKinnon. "Democracy," he added, and made a thumbs-up sign. "Good." The marines had been on a continuous foot patrol for several days, hunting for insurgents. They were lost in the hard and isolating rhythms of infantry life. They knew nothing of the week's news. Now they were being told by an Iraqi whose house they occupied that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, one of the principal architects of the policies that had them here, had resigned. "Rumsfeld is gone?" the sergeant asked. "Really?" Mr. Menti nodded. "This is better for Iraq," he said. "Iraqi people say thank you." The sergeant went upstairs to tell his marines, just as he had informed them the day before that the Republican Party had lost control of the House of Representatives and that Congress was in the midst of sweeping change. Mr. Menti had told them that, too. "Rumsfeld's out," he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on the cold floor. Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his cigarette. "Who's Rumsfeld?" he asked. read in full… >> COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS Roads to Iraq: BAGHDAD'S NEW STATUE Still remember this story? A year ago, US or Iranian terrorists destroyed the statue of Baghdad builder, Jaafar al Mansou. Now a report that a new statue will be erected in the it's place, but guess for who?: Sistani That's confirms what an Iraqi (Shiite) writer "Saif al-Khayyat" said in his new book: (Node and creed, the story of the Shiites in Iraq)

The same Shiites who think that Saddam humiliated them, are now making a new tyrants with a Shiites names, and 1400 years old ideology.

link Left I on the News: INANE QUOTE OF THE DAY WEEK YEAR

"Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima." - George Bush, speaking at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps

Sure they will, George. And people will speak about you with the same awe and reverence that they give to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. link Joseph L. Galloway: A TIME FOR ACCOUNTING Better late than never. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is gone, but there's little time for celebration, even for those of us who long ago began calling for his removal. The damage that men do lives after them, and it's time at last for an accounting. The nation's voters have spoken, and it's reasonable to expect that the Congress finally will begin to exercise some oversight of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after five years of serving as rubber stamp and doormats. Can you spell "subpoena?" For the Democrats who will soon take charge of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate, too, here's a preliminary laundry list of some of the things that need doing: . A comprehensive investigation of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq and how it was perverted, how the mine was salted, and by whom. . . A thorough investigation of what pre-war advice was offered by senior American military commanders on troop strength, equipment requirements and strategy and tactics. Did even one general ignore the bullying from on high and ask for more troops, and how did Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld respond? . . Why did the Pentagon send American troops into battle without enough armored vests, armored vehicles, rifles, ammunition, food and water? Who's responsible for that debacle which cost so much in blood and money? . . Where did our money go? Billions of dollars of taxpayer money disappeared down various rat holes in Iraq, forked over to contractors without even so much as a handwritten receipt. Who got the money? What did they do for it? This is a fertile field that can be drilled for years, with a steady stream of indictments, trials and prison sentences. . . What about those no-bid Defense Department contracts that were parceled out to the Halliburtons and KBRs and Blackwaters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other more costly weapons and equipment contracts that went to big defense industry conglomerates accustomed to writing very generous checks to the Republicans? . . Why did an administration that was hell-bent on going to war, with the inevitable and terrible human casualties among our troops, consistently underfund the Veterans Administration, which is charged with caring for our wounded and disabled? . . What's been the effect of the grotesque politicization of the selection and promotion system for senior military commanders by the office of the Secretary of Defense? What failures have resulted from that ill-conceived action? What responsibility do those generals and admirals chosen by Donald H. Rumsfeld bear for the failure to prepare for and conduct effective action against an inevitable Iraqi insurgency? . . Who at the top bears responsibility for the torture and mistreatment of prisoners and detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo detention camp? A score of Pentagon investigations got to the bottom of the chain of command but declared that the top, in Rumsfeld's office and the White House, was innocent. . . Who's responsible for breaking our understrength Army and Marine Corps with endless combat duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who refused all suggestions that the force was too small for the mission, and that 50,000 or 100,000 more men and women were needed in uniform? Who stubbornly refused even to consider the inevitable consequences of an Army so tied down trying to man these wars that it no longer could react to an emergency anywhere else in a dangerous world? Simply put, the jig is up. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld have come to the end of their free ride. No longer can they act without thought or ignore the boundaries of the Constitution, the law and common sense. Did they really think they could get away with all of this without ever being called to answer to history and the American people? They all deserve what's about to descend on their heads. They deserve every subpoena. They deserve every indictment. Most of all, they deserve a reserved place atop the ash heap of history. read in full… Spiegel interview with Richard Haass: "IRAQ IS NOT WINNABLE" SPIEGEL: Is Iraq still winnable for the United States? Haass [president of the Council on Foreign Relations]: We've reached a point in Iraq where we've got to get real. And this is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation is not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word "winnable." So what we need to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs, try to advance on other fronts in the region and try to limit the fallout of Iraq. That's what you have to do sometimes when you're a global power. SPIEGEL: A special commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker will soon present a study on how to go forward in Iraq. Will this be the excuse for Bush to withdraw the troops? Haass: The commission gives him something of an opportunity to change course. Historically, commissions have often played an important role when the traditional body politic was unable or unwilling to come up with politically controversial but necessary proposals. We see a tipping point not only on the ground in Iraq but also in the political debate in the United States. I believe more and more people in and around the administration are coming to the conclusion that six or nine more months of the same will not bring us anywhere. The US hasn't done well handling any of the members of the "Axis of Evil." SPIEGEL: The disaster of the last years leads many Americans to doubt the military strength and moral superiority of the nation. Is this country on the verge of a new isolationist phase? Haass: The danger is an Iraq syndrome. The war is one the American people weren't quite prepared for: They had not been told it was going to be that difficult and expensive. After the military battlefield phase, they thought it was going to be easy. So this has proven shocking. Nearly 3,000 Americans have lost their lives. Maybe 15,000 - 20,000 Americans have been wounded. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. It has been disruptive on many levels. The danger is that the United States now will be weary of intervening elsewhere, like the cat that once sat on a hot stove and will never sit on any stove again. SPIEGEL: How long could such a period last? Haass: It is quite possible that this generation of Americans will be as affected by Iraq as the previous generation was by Vietnam. read in full… Blah3: CNN'S QUICK VOTE AS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL I know I shouldn't even pay attention to CNN's Quick Vote feature but their current question aggravates me: "Will Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites ever be able to live in harmony?" Gee, isn't that a question that should've been asked 4 years ago? But my problem with it doesn't end there. Should this really be posed as a simplistic yes/no question? And what about the arrogance of posing it in the first place? CNN's audience isn't the Iraqi people who are involved in this, but right now nearly 100,000 votes have been cast and 86% deliver a "no" vote. How many people who've answered even understand the different between Sunni and Shiite? Even if they can define it, can they understand what it means right now in order to make a judgment about an entire nation? Heck, I'm not blaming anyone who votes in these sort of polls--but the question seems to embody just what a callous and careless game Bush was playing when he embarked on this stupid war. link The News Blog: PHASED WITHDRAWAL It's really simple: the more troops you take out, the more the militias fill the gap. So what may start out as a phased withdrawal may soon turn into a route as the violence ramps up. The fewer the US troops, the more power the militia has. Once US troops start leaving, two things happen. First, the governors demand their national guardsmen back. The demand for more and quicker explodes. Second, public order decreases and things get worse. The only way to leave is negotiate a cease fire and allow for an orderly retreat of US forces. Anything less will lead to disaster. link

[some excerpts of comments from the above thread -- zig] it isnt going to be pretty for anyone this time, unless the iraqis decide to let us leave peacefully.__odds on that are running very small._Mr Brown | Homepage | 11.13.06 - 6:57 am | # What is the incentive for any Iraqi faction to negotiate with us? What could we give anyone as an incentive to stop shooting not only at us, but at one another to allow us to leave in an orderly fashion?__I seriously cannot think of anything._gb2/tx/ | 11.13.06 - 9:48 am | # Military history isn't my forte, but my impression of Iraq is that it's a house of cards for our guys. Once withdrawal starts, it had better finish in a hurry._GRT | 11.13.06 - 1:35 pm | # While I agree that phased withdrawal is really just phased disaster, negotiations will not be much better. There are three major enemies the US would have to negotiate with; the Sunnis; the nationalistic (in other words they control no oil on their home turf) Sadr Shiites; and the Iranian backed, separatist (they control lots of oil and don’t want to share it) southern Shiites. __The Sunnis will likely demand no less than the release of Saddam Hussein as the price for letting US troops escape Iraq. No mainstream US politician is willing defend that on Meet The Press. Sadr will demand arms, bases, and discreet US support in return for being a bulwark against the Iranians. The southern Iraqians (pun intended) will demand normalization of relations with Iran and support for the breakup Iraq. The Kurds are irrelevant in all this since they are not fighting the US.__As soon as the US leaves, regional powers will step in to support their client militias in the country formerly known as Iraq. __The US political elite is not ready for any of this, thousands more US troops will die before the find the wherewithal to pay the piper the huge sum we owe him for fucking up in Iraq._kevin de bruxelles | 11.13.06 - 4:01 pm | #

Lenin: "AMERICAN VALUES" This sort of racist drivel from the New York Times is supposed to be 'antiwar' criticism. Let's sample: "It is something ordinary Iraqis say with growing intensity, even as they agree on little else. Let there be a strongman, they say, not a relentless killer like Saddam Hussein but somebody who will take the hammer to the insurgents and the death squads and the kidnappers and the criminal gangs who have banished all pretense of civility from their lives. Let him ride roughshod, if he must, they say, over the niceties of due process and human rights, indeed over the panoply of democratic institutions America has tried to implant here, if only he can bring peace." And more: "Of the many hard lessons America may take from its enterprise here, the impracticality of grafting American political values onto a society as different as Iraq's, by measure of culture, religion and historical experience, will surely be one." And: "America's 150,000 troops are caught in the middle, hunting killers on both sides, but finding little partnership from the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki." Finally: "The leading candidate for strongman, among secular Iraqis, at least, would be Ayad Allawi, whom the Americans named prime minister in the first post-Hussein government, in 2004." This hateful stupidity is presumably offered as a substantive critique of the war. The war planners had high and noble ideals, intended to "graft" something called "American values" and a "panoply of democratic institutions" onto Iraq's body politic, but Iraqis are too mired in their culture and religion and history to adequately handle such delicate gifts. America, the innocent, stands between vicious warring parties, mired in the thick of it, finding no support, always amazed by the native capacity for ruthlessness. America, not at all involved with death squads and kidnappers and torturers, not at all promoting political sectarianism. And now that the US finds itself receiving "little partnership" from the man they put in power, they are considering another coup, this time to implant a "strongman" like Allawi. And, conveniently, this is what "ordinary Iraqis" desire "with growing intensity". Iraqis couldn't handle democracy - we tried to give it to them, but they keep voting in these religious weirdos (rather than Allawi whom they overwhelmingly shunned) and now they realise they shouldn't have been trusted to do any such thing, and desire only to be crushed under an iron fist sheathed in the stars n stripes. Iraqis can only aspire to a "pretense of civility", provided by an enlightened "strongman". read in full… Tom Hayden: NEW YORK TIMES STILL WANTS WAR Too bad the readers don't vote on the New York Times' editorial line. The Times' board seems to remain a last elite bastion calling for many more American deaths in an attempt to "stabilize" Iraq. To the extent that the Times represents the thinking of the Democratic Party's national security establishment, it is worth understanding why they call for greater war when the voters have issued a mandate for peace. Once again the Times is calling for "one last push to stabilize Baghdad", which thousands more American troops kicking down doors, handcuffing and proning down young men, shooting innocent people, a return to the shocking scenes of Falluja in late 2004. The purpose of this exercise, they say, is to force the Iraqis to compromise and accept the American terms for the country's future. Worse, the Times' military correspondent, John Burns, floated a Sunday opinion piece suggesting that a "strongman" might be needed in Baghdad to replace the elected government. Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria has written a more detailed recipe for Iraq culled from interviews with various military and national security elites. He wants to reduce American forces from 144,000 to 60,000 in 2007-2008, "a committment that could be maintained for several years." The American forces would be stationed on four permanent super-bases at a cost of $35 billion annually, down from the present $90 billion. Militias like the Mahdi Army somehow would be "defanged" in this scenario, the insurgents of Anbar Province woudl have to be defeated, and the US would have to engage diplomatically in security appeals towards bordering countries about the American-sponsored threat of massive refugee upheavals as a result of the bloodbath. One permanent hawk, Kenneth Pollack, is drawing up plans for "catchment basins" to control the refugee flows that are expected. This is the likely scenario the Democrats face as they come to power in Congress: an offer of partial troop withdrawals in about six months and regional diplomatic efforts if, however, they give a bipartisan stamp to the increased US crackdown and change of regime in Baghdad now. The paradigm of the Times and Newsweek is Korea, where the country was partitioned and tens of thousands of American troops remain today. But they situation they face is more like Vietnam, where the US-funded armed forces quickly disintegrated, forcing the US into a chaotic retreat. On the ground, well-connected private contractors already are working towards a change of government within the Green Zone, including efforts to forge a Shiite-Sunni coalition against forces loyal to foreign elements. In such a scenario, insurgent attacks on US forces would be ended, the US troops would remain in the country, and some ex-Baathists would be returned to the regime in a coup. [source: a completely reliable source inside the Green Zone who cannot be named.] Since these high-level plots and conspiracies are known to virtually anyone who wishes to inquire, one wonders why the mainstream media avoids such coverage. Some say they are locked down and therefore blinded inside the Green Zone. But this intrigue is occurring within the Green Zone, not in some hidden corner of Anbar Province. The failure to report is all the more remarkable. link The Carpetbagger Report: SOFT-BIGOTRY-OF-LOW-EXPECTATIONS WATCH I believe it's important that Americans appreciate the democratic process, but this seems to have "soft bigotry of low expectations" written all over it. From yesterday's presidential radio address:

One freedom that defines our way of life is the freedom to choose our leaders at the ballot box. We saw that freedom earlier this week, when millions of Americans went to the polls to cast their votes for a new Congress. Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war." (emphasis added)

We should be "proud" that the federal government didn't cancel our elections? That the Bush administration didn't use the war as an excuse to interrupt the democratic process? Setting the bar a little low, aren't we? link Left I on the News: JOHN McCAIN'S VIETNAM SYNDROME There's one "Vietnam syndrome" which affects the American people - the lack of desire to see thousands of their fellow American die in vain. There's another one which affects politicians like John McCain (not to mention conservative pundits like Bill Kristol) - the desire not to blamed for a lost war. That's my explanation for people like McCain and Kristol still beating the drums for more troops to be sent to Iraq to "solve the problem" or achieve "victory." Here's McCain on Meet the Press:

I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops. (…) But I'm not interested in seeing a scene of the American Embassy on the, the roof of the American embassy in Saigon multiplied a thousandfold.

John McCain knows very well, particularly after the recent election which is being universally interpreted as a repudiation of the war, that there is no chance that more troops are going to be sent to Iraq. Zero. There's only one reason he's calling for it. So when Iraq is "lost," McCain can run for President pompously claiming he's not to blame, and if only his advice had been followed, none of this would have happened. As for the helicopters on the roof, I say, "Bring 'em on!" link Once Upon a Time…: NO WAY OUT -- BUT OUT The Perpetually Warmongering True Believers are amazed, outraged and full of damnation directed at Bush, the Iraq Study Group (such as it is), and anyone else at all who would even consider that perhaps the only conceivable way of "stabilizing" Iraq is, among other things, to engage Iran and Syria in regional talks. The True Believers are absolutely certain that if the brutal and brutalizing force we have employed thus far is insufficient, the best solution is a still more brutal campaign of lethal, murderous bombs and bullets. They are as certain of this as they have been certain of everything else over the last five years. (…) Our policy has been unforgivably, infernally wrong from the moment we chose it. When you unleash a nightmare and a hell on earth, there are no "good" choices. The only honorable, civilized and decent choice is to stop it. As things stand now, we can only stop our part in it, so we must leave. Leave, within several months at a maximum. Just leave. Anything else is not only insanity, but murderous insanity. Yet, "admitting error is almost out of the question," not only for a chief of state, but for almost the entire governing class. So we won't. And the murder and the devastation will go on. May God forgive us. read in full… BEYOND IRAQ Anwaar Hussain: LEARN TO SAY PLEASE MR. PRESIDENT Learn to say Please Mr. President but it won't hurt if you also learn to show respectful behavior toward your detractors, giving polite responses, avoiding overreacting, expecting disagreements and not having dinner with shady characters of the Karl Rove kind. Learn to say Please Mr. President and try to display deference to other world leaders. Although we understand that respect is an attitude and it is kind of late for you to let it grow on you, but only thus can you have some coming your way and God knows you need it more than any other single thing now that you are in a political swamp of your own making. All the while keep in mind the saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Learn to say Please Mr. President and try to discard the old habit of lying through your teeth from now on. Stop focusing just on your needs, making negative assumptions about others, jumping to conclusions, exerting control over others against their will, blaming others for problems and events, delivering personal insults to other world leaders etc. etc. Try some thing new like being honest, being positive, being trusting, being fair, being reliable, obeying laws of the land, being caring, and avoiding poor role models. You will find a whole new world of opportunities waiting for you if you adopt just some of what is being recommended. Learn to say Please Mr. President but most important of all, tell your Neocon masters to now lay off for a while, what with their still born vision roller coastering down toward the murky depths of eternal doom. Point out your old concentration span limitation and the new circumstances and ask to be tasked for only one thing at a time from now on. Tell them that in these remaining two years of your ignoble presidency, whenever they want to give you new instructions, they should call your name, allow time for you to turn your attention towards them, wait for an eye contact, then give you new instructions, order you about or whatever else. More than that and you are bust, tell them that. Have a great day Mr. President and learn to say please. Yours Truly, Anwaar Hussain read in full… NO HABEUS CORPUS EXTENDS TO ALL NON-CITIZENS Then they came for the immigrants and I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant.

Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.

link QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The neocon retreat from the Iraq war comes with a lesson, according to Kenneth Adelman in that Vanity Fair article: 'the idea of using our power for moral good in the world' is dead. Yes, that's it, we've been too idealistic, really just too good and kind and decent for this wicked world, and it's time to start looking out for number one. Next time we go to war, we're gettin' us some oil, baby!” -- from Whatever It Is I’m Against It