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9/11 WIDOW SAYS GEORGE W. BUSH (THE ASSASSIN) LET 9/11 HAPPEN ...

04.30.04 (5:04 pm) [edit]

[b]9/11 widow speaks in Rockland[/b]

Ellen Mariani was flying to California for her daughter's wedding on Sept. 11, 2001.

Her husband, Neil, was on a flight two hours after her. That flight was United Airlines 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center.

Ellen was at her stopover in Chicago when she found out her husband's plane had been hijacked. She didn't find out until the following morning that he was dead.

Mariani, from Derry, N.H., spoke in Rockland Tuesday at St. Peter's Episcopal Church about her fight to gain truth from her government about what happened before and after 9/11.

She believes President George W. Bush "intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen to gather public support for a war on terrorism," a statement she made in an open letter to the president.

"I never wrote in my life," said Mariani. "My heart is broken but my hand isn't."

Mariani has sued the president and members of his administration under the civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. She filed the action on Nov. 26.

The RICO act was passed in 1968 as a way of combating organized crime, specifically the Mafia.

In her speech, Mariani used red flags to signify all the times that she felt misled, lied to, or treated unfairly or unkindly. She raised a red flag at United Airlines because of its poor treatment of her and the handling of her vulnerable situation.

"I put the lawsuit in because I wanted to face United Airlines in court because of my husband's death," said Mariani. "I want answers; I want to know why he didn't get to his destination safely. I was treated unfairly and rudely."

She raised a red flag at her past lawyers who wanted a cut from her victim compensation fund eligiibility. Mariani signed papers with her first attorney soon after the 9/11 attacks.

"I went back to look at what I signed," said Mariani. "My attorney took my power of attorney over me."

Finally, she raised several red flags at the government for the following list, all stated in her open letter to the president:

. Why were 29 pages of the 9/11 committee report personally censored at your request?

. Where are the "black boxes" from Flight 11 and Flight 175?

. Where are the "voice recorders" from Flight 11 and Flight 175?

. Why can't we gain access to the complete air traffic control records for Flight 11 and Flight 175?

. Where are the airport surveillance tapes that show the passengers boarding the doomed flights?

. When will the complete passenger lists for all flights be released?

Mariani's husband didn't have a will, and was unemployed at the time of his death and lacked health insurance. She is living off social security and had to sell her house, but declined to take any money from the 9/11 victims' compensation fund.

"I have reported to the world that I am going to eat dirt before I take that fund," said Mariani, who is originally from Maine. "I'm from Maine and I mean business." - http://rockland.villagesoup.c...

THE JESUS FACTOR: SUBVERSION OF RELIGION BY AN EVANGELICAL KOOK DUBYA

04.30.04 (8:35 am) [edit]

[b]VISIT [u]'THE JESUS FACTOR'[/u] WEBSITE ON [/b] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages...

[b]THE KOOK DUBYA IS AN EVANGELICAL NUTJOB WHO MISQUOTES FROM THE BIBLE USING RELIGIOUS RHETORIC INCORRECTLY TO SUBVERT THE TEACHINGS OF RELIGION AND TAKE US INTO ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL NEO-CON WARS [i]AND[/i] UNDERMINE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION & BILL OF RIGHTS[/b].

BUNGLING BUSH'S HEAVY-HANDED RAID ON FALLUJAH BACKFIRES!!!

04.30.04 (8:29 am) [edit]

[b]Heavy-Handed Raid on Fallujah Backfires [/b]

The 26 April explosions at a chemical warehouse being raided by the U.S. military constitute yet another example of heavy-handed tactics gone awry. US officials say they had reason to believe the facility was being used to manufacture chemical munitions. Rather than use other means to investigate, such as better human intelligence or a more discreet method of entry, the military used its preferred reconnaissance approach: a cadre of soldiers, armored vehicles and a blowtorch. Troops stormed their way into the facility, with horrendous consequences.

The US military reports two soldiers died and fifteen were wounded in two massive explosions that immediately followed troops' attempt to access the building.

When I arrived at the scene, a witness told me, "People were jumping and dancing on the burning Humvees because of the hatred towards the Americans due to their dealings with Iraqis. People were cheering for Fallujah." Images of the aftermath were broadcast and printed throughout the Western media.

In order for Western observers to understand why the deaths of people presented to Western audiences as liberators would be cheered by those supposedly being liberated, the media would need to present the hundreds of raids that result in Iraqi suffering. Monday's perfume factory calamity was certainly not the first time a military raid in occupied Iraq has backfired on the soldiers carrying it out.

But botched raids typically go unnoticed by the international media because officials are loathe to point them out and reporters rarely follow the numerous leads that circulate around Baghdad and beyond.

Earlier in this month, for instance, the Army conducted an early morning raid searching for weapons in the Abu Hanifa Mosque in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad. The fruits for crashing through two gates with tanks, for driving a Humvee over and destroying three tons of food-aid stockpiled for Fallujah, for holding 210 people inside the mosque at gunpoint, for smashing through classroom doors and for shooting up walls and ceilings? Not one bullet. The raid wasn't entirely without results for occupation forces, though. The US military gained even more resentment, distrust and rage from the Iraqis in Baghdad.

Troops conduct home raids throughout Iraq on a daily basis. At times these do produce weapons, and sometimes even a person engaged in the increasingly popular resistance to the US-UK occupation. However, a great number of them yield nothing but anguish.

In one case I reported on last winter, a late night raid on a house found soldiers breaking the door to the home of two Baghdad University professors, even though they were offered free access. The home was destroyed, furniture broken and torn apart, bags of rice dumped on the kitchen floor, and the husband and son detained.

The next day soldiers revisited the home, I was told, excusing themselves for having had poor information. The husband and son remain in detention, whereabouts unknown to the family.

The raid on 26 April erupted into more than the two explosions reported by eyewitnesses. The warehouse incident is symbolic of so many raids the occupation forces have conducted. One witness told me he saw the warehouse's owner offer a key to the soldiers before they entered, but they refused it, preferring instead to force their way in.

Stories such as this abound on the Iraqi street. More often than not, they end in dead, beaten or detained Iraqis and personal property stolen by soldiers.

This time, because it ended in American deaths, the raid received at least some mention in the Western press.

When human rights organizations estimate that at least half of the 13,000 detainees in the horrid, overflowing Abu Ghraib prison had no affiliation with the armed resistance prior to being arrested by occupation forces, one can imagine how they, their families and friends now view the Anglo-American occupation of their country.

[b]By Dahr Jamail [/b]- http://www.antiwar.com/orig/j...

BUNGLING BUSH'S HEAVY-HANDED RAID ON FALLUJAH BACKFIRES!!!

04.30.04 (8:28 am) [edit]

FREEDOM-HATING NEO-CON'S NAZI-STYLE TORTURE: DEPRAVITY AS 'LIBERATION' ...

04.30.04 (8:25 am) [edit]

[b]Depravity as 'Liberation'

The torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison is emblematic of our crazed foreign policy [/b]

The Abu Ghraib prison was a symbol of Saddam's horrific tyranny: electrodes hanging out of the walls, floors stained with the blood of god-knows-how-many victims, bodies dangling from meat-hooks, like in some cheap Grade-B horror flick. So when the Americans came and "liberated" the place, the long-suffering Iraqi people were supposed to be grateful. After all, the sadistic torturers of the Ba'athist regime were gone, and it was a new day � or was it?

Well, not all that new, according to a shocking report broadcast by CBS the other night. 60 Minutes II showed photos taken of American soldiers guarding the prison torturing their charges. The images show the American "liberators" liberating their own perverted libidos, posed next to naked prisoners who were being forced into simulating sex with each other. In one macabre shot, a hooded prisoner stands precariously perched on a pedestal, with electrodes attached to his arms: he is reportedly told that if he falls, he'll be electrocuted. There are several photos in which naked prisoners are stacked in a pyramid, and one with a slur written on his skin in English. Photos in the possession of the military authorities show a prisoner whose genitals are attached to wires. In one, a dog is shown attacking an Iraqi prisoner. The authorities are investigating the account of an Iraqi who alleges that a translator, hired by the Americans to work at Abu Ghraib, raped a male juvenile prisoner:

"[i]They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming. ...and the female soldier was taking pictures[/i]."

Included in this photo-montage of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a picture of a badly beaten corpse.

"[i]In most of the pictures," Dan Rather reports, "the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up[/i]."

This is how we're "liberating" Iraq.

Last month, 17 American soldiers, including the brigadier general in charge of all detention facilities in occupied Iraq, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, were relieved of their duties: 6 face charges. The sickening details were kept secret, by journalists as well as the U.S. military, until the photos began to circulate independently of both. When CBS finally stopped sitting on this story, they spun it so that it was framed in terms of an apologia, as articulated by Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of coalition operations in Iraq, who avers:

"[i]So what would I tell the people of Iraq? This is wrong. This is reprehensible. But this is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here. I'd say the same thing to the American people... Don't judge your army based on the actions of a few[/i]."

We're supposed to believe that these are just a few rotten apples, that the overwhelming majority of U.S. occupation troops are regular Boy Scouts, busy building schools and helping little old ladies cross streets. To which one can only reply: Baloney!

Two competing narratives about the American occupiers are now vying for attention. One the one hand, we have Pat Tillman, the football hero who enlisted shortly after 9/11, with his square clean visage, almost a caricature of idealized American manhood, a selfless martyr who gave his all for a righteous cause. And on the other hand we have the grinning leering perverts of Abu Ghraib. Which is the real face of the American occupiers: John Wayne in "Flying Leathernecks" or John Holmes in "Freaky Leatherboys"?

Just ask the Iraqis, who, according to the latest Gallup poll, see their American occupiers as "uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect for the country's people, religion and traditions." USA Today reports:

"[i]Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll[/i]."

And that was before the Abu Ghraib outrage�.

The CBS News piece is in many ways almost as outrageous as the events it describes. To begin with, the entire story is framed by General Kimmitt's apologia: it also gives a lot of time to the craven excuses of one of the accused soldiers, who blames his disgusting behavior on a lack of "training." Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick is so typically contemporary American in his whining refusal to take responsibility that it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic:

"[i]We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things...like rules and regulations. And it just wasn't happening[/i]."

We'll have to take Frederick at his word that he required "training" in order to be restrained from acting like a mad dog. What a surprise that, in "real" life, he's a prison guard in Virginia, described by his boss as "one of the best." One supposes that's why he needs "rules and regulations" to prevent him from literally f*cking over his charges.

As contemptible as he is, Frederick is performing a great service in exposing the responsibility of his superiors, and demonstrating that this wasn't the exception that proves the rule of American beneficence. Frederick's testimony shows that his actions amounted to the implementation of an informal policy:

"[i]Frederick says Americans came into the prison: 'We had military intelligence, we had all kinds of other government agencies, FBI, CIA ... All those that I didn't even know or recognize[/i].' Frederick's letters and email messages home also offer clues to problems at the prison. He wrote that he was helping the interrogators:

"[i]'Military intelligence has encouraged and told us 'Great job.' They usually don't allow others to watch them interrogate. But since they like the way I run the prison, they have made an exception. We help getting them to talk with the way we handle them. ... We've had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours[/i].'"

The CBS report adds:

"[i]The Army found that interrogators asked reservists working in the prison to prepare the Iraqi detainees, physically and mentally, for questioning[/i]. "

Will any of these interrogators, who are civilians and supposedly not subject to military authority, face charges? Gen. Kimmitt says he hopes so, but that remains to be seen. However, whatever action is taken, or not taken, the conclusion that we are dealing here with the results of a deliberate policy, and not an exceptional case, is inescapable.

The role played by CBS in all this is far from admirable. True, they exposed it, and broadcast a very few of the horrific photos. They also covered it up for at least a month, and might have done so indefinitely if not for the fact that the story was beginning to leak out:

"[i]Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes II received an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast � given the danger and tension on the ground in Iraq[/i]."

One wonders if the "danger and tension on the ground in Iraq" was the Defense Department's main concern: after all, the Iraqis surely know what is happening to them. Abused detainees have families, and friends, and word travels fast. More likely it is the "danger and tension" on the ground in this country, the growing outcry on the home front against a futile and increasingly ugly war, that worries not only the Pentagon bureaucrats but their bosses in the White House. If they succeed in riding out the storm, it will be with the invaluable help of the American media:

"[i]60 Minutes II decided to honor that request, while pressing for the Defense Department to add its perspective to the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison. This week, with the photos beginning to circulate elsewhere, and with other journalists about to publish their versions of the story, the Defense Department agreed to cooperate in our report[/i]."

If the truth was going to come out anyway, then better it should be as seen through the prism of the American commander, a whiney spineless automaton who needs "rules and regulations" to tell him how to act like a human being, and Frederick's lawyer, one Gary Myers, who declares:

"[i]The elixir of power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA, for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating. And so, good guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance and helping a just cause. ... And helping people they view as important[/i]."

Okay, let's see if I get this straight: the inhabitants of small towns in Virginia are entirely bereft of any moral sensibility. Rural life, we are supposed to believe, leads to a blatant disregard for human dignity and decency. Such rubes as Sgt. Frederick are so easily intoxicated by power, or proximity to it, that they cannot contain their inherent animality, and cannot be held responsible for their actions � any more than a cougar can be accused of murder for hunting its prey.

Them city slicker lawyers, what'll they think of next? It's an interesting theory, not because it's clever but because it is profoundly and offensively stupid. I doubt it will hold up in a court of law � especially not an Iraqi one. You can bet your bottom dollar, however, that the Iraqis will never be allowed to sit in judgement of Sgt. Frederick and his fellow sadists. Not even when they are handed back their "sovereignty" on June 30.

Mr. Myers has a point about "the elixir of power," however, although not in the way he intended. This poisonous brew is what we have quaffed in Iraq, a potent mixture of high-sounding hubris and militant megalomania. Is it any wonder that its effects are to inspire a kind of madness?

Our policy of perpetual war is not so much a foreign policy as a form of collective insanity.

We went in to "liberate" the people of Iraq, and wound up torturing them. If supporters of this disastrous war have some kind of explanation for that, I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, a note to the "mainstream" media: let's start interviewing the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of these heinous acts, to get some idea of what really happened. It is also necessary to start naming names. Unless we want to encourage more such incidents in the future, public shaming can act as a deterrent.

[b]Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996). He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, in Auburn, Alabama, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Libertarian Studies, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/justin...

FREEDOM-HATING NEO-CON'S NAZI-STYLE TORTURE: DEPRAVITY AS 'LIBERATION' ...

04.30.04 (8:23 am) [edit]

IRAQIS SAY: 'U.S. OUT NOW!' - DOES DUBYA/CHENEY (HALLIBURTON) LISTEN? - NO!

04.30.04 (8:12 am) [edit]

[b]Iraqis Say: 'US Out Now!' [/b]

From March 22 to April 2, 60 trained Iraqi pollsters interviewed 3,444 randomly selected Iraqis for USA Today. This is one of the first polls in Iraq that seems to me well weighted statistically, though to be sure we'd have to know more than USA Today told us.

The numbers are negative for the US, and are much more negative than previous such polls. Moreover, the polling ended by April 2, just before the Shiite uprising and the worst of the Fallujah fighting, so that it is highly likely that the present attitudes of the Iraqi public toward the US are much more negative.

Amazingly, 57% of Iraqis say that US troops should leave Iraq immediately. If one subtracted the Kurds, a much higher percentage of Arabic speaking Iraqis say this. And, they say it with their eyes open. About 57% also admit that life would get harder (i.e. there would be a lot of instability) if the US suddenly withdrew. They want the US gone anyway, and will take their chances.

Over half say there are circumstances under which it is all right to attack US troops! A February poll I discussed here had said that only 10% of Iraqi Shiites held that attacks on US troops were ever justified, and 30% of Sunni Arabs felt that way. The number in al-Anbar province (think Fallujah) was 70%, but it was high for Iraq at that time. Again, if the earlier polling was correct, there was a massive shift in opinion on this matter. We went from having about 3 million Iraqis think it was all right to attack US troops to more than 13 million.

[My earlier comment on the Feb. poll: "That is, the poll actually shows that in absolute numbers, there are more Shiites who approve of attacks on Americans than there are Sunni Arabs. The numbers bring into question the official line that there are no problems in the South, only in the Sunni Arab heartland. The other problem is that attitudes change, and sometimes they change rapidly. The US cannot count on the percentage of Shiites who approve of attacks on its troops remaining at 10% if it is strafing Sadr City in Baghdad. Every 1% increase in the number of Shiites who approve of attacks equals 160,000 new enemies.").

For the question, "Has the Coalition invasion of Iraq done more harm than good?", in the USA Today poll 46% say "more harm," whereas only 33% say "more good." But the ethnic breakdown here is startling. Only 2% of Kurds say the invasion did more harm. 56% of Sunni Arabs say it did more harm, and so do 59% of Baghdadis (Baghdad is about 2/5s Shiite but the Shiites there are probably Sadrists in the majority, who agree with most Sunnis about the undesirability of the US presence). Among Shiites, 47% say it did more harm, 28% say it did more good.

More harm: Total 45%, Baghdad 59%, Shiite 47%, Sunni Arab 56%, Kurds 2%

More good: Total 33%

About the Same: Total 16%

To the question of whether coalition military forces are mainly liberators or mainly occupiers, 71% said occupiers. The percentage among Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite, who said this, was about 80%. The Kurds mostly disagreed, which brought the numbers down. (The US never put that many troops in the Kurdish north, depending on the peshmerga fighters, so the Kurds are in fact much less occupied than the Arabs).

An opinion poll done by an Iraqi institute a couple of months ago found that about 47% of Iraqis said that the US invasion was a source of humiliation, and 48% said it was a liberation. If that poll was valid, it means that there was a massive shift in opinion by late March and a big growth in anti-Americanism. Based on my close reading of the Iraqi press and reports of sermons, I believe that the Israeli murder of Hamas clerical leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on March 22 was the turning point in the big spike in anti-American feeling. There were lots of demonstrations that the Western press did not cover, and a lot of oratory.

Regarding George Bush, 55% of Iraqis have an unfavorable view of him, and if we exclude the 4 million Kurds and just look at the Arabs, his unfavorable rating is above 60% for both Sunnis and Shiites. Since Iraq is now for all practical purposes the 51st state, I say we let the Iraqis vote in the US elections in November.

Oddly, 61% of Iraqis still say that the US invasion and overthrow of Saddam was worth it (though only 28% of Sunni Arabs say it was worth it). That is, the poll does not show that Iraqis have begun regretting the US overthrow of Sadam. It shows that they have begun regretting the continued US Occupation.

And, the bad news is that despite the ballyhooed transfer of sovereignty on June 30, the actual US occupation is likely to last for a decade unless Iraqis throw the US out. And given their present mood, one should not dismiss the possibility that that is what they will do.

[b]Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan [/b]- http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?...

IRAQIS SAY: 'U.S. OUT NOW!' - DOES DUBYA/CHENEY (HALLIBURTON) LISTEN? - NO!

04.30.04 (8:10 am) [edit]

KERRY: "I REQUEST DUTY IN VIETNAM" VERSUS AWOL BUSH: "I FLIP-FLOP BETWEEN DRINKING BINGES!"

04.29.04 (9:43 pm) [edit]

[b]"I request duty in Vietnam" [/b]-- the first line in one of the documents http://www.johnkerry.com/abou... from John Kerry's service records, now posted on the Kerry website on http://www.johnkerry.com/abou... .

[b]VERSUS[/b]

So, while the news networks have sat on this explosive story for months, it's well documented that George W. Bush[b] never showed up [/b]for National Guard duty for a period of approximately one year, possibly more, in 1972-1973. Despite all the talk about "honor and dignity," Bush seems to have a problem meeting his commitments on http://www.kings.edu/twsawyer... . - http://www.awolbush.com

EVEN MORE NEO-CON DESPERATION TACTICS AD INFINITUM: EVEN MORE BUSH FLIP-FLOPS ...

04.29.04 (9:41 pm) [edit]

[b]So Bush has a site somewhere that tracks Kerry's "flip-flops". Reader TK probably spent three seconds coming up with this list of Bush flip flops. It's not like they're hard to find[/b]: - http://www.dailykos.com/story...

. Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he's for it.

. Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it.

. Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it.

. Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it.

. Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.

. Bush is against deficits; then he's for them.

. Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again.

. Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.

. Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.

. Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't.

. Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military ... then he cuts benefits

. Bush-"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush-"I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care.

. Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.

. Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.

. Bush first says the U.S. won't negotiate with North Korea. Now he will

. Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say's he shouldn't have.

. Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote

. Bush said the "mission accomplished" banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.

. Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he's against it.

NEO-CON DESPERATION TACTICS AD INFINITUM: BUSH'S FLIP-FLOPS ...

04.29.04 (9:37 pm) [edit]

[b]President Bush's decision to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly before the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks reversed earlier White House insistence that she would only appear privately[/b]. - http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO...

Some previous Bush reversals in the face of criticism:

. He argued a federal Department of Homeland Security wasn't needed, then devised a plan to create one.

. He resisted a commission to investigate Iraq intelligence failures, but then relented.

. He also initially opposed the creation of the independent commission to examine if the 2001 attacks could have been prevented, before getting behind the idea under pressure from victims' families.

. He opposed, and then supported, a two-month extension of the commission's work, after the panel said protracted disputes over access to White House documents left too little time.

. He at first said any access to the president by the commission would be limited to just one hour but relaxed the limit earlier this month.

A RETURN TO MORALITY SURE AS HELL WON'T COME FROM RIGHT-WING HYPOCRITICAL FASCISTS!!!

04.29.04 (6:17 pm) [edit]

[b]Pulp Fictions Triumph over Truth

For those who Backed Bush over War in Iraq, the Idea of Proof has shifted from Fact to Fervor[/b]

Perhaps the most important divide in the presidential campaign is between fact and fiction. There are, of course, other sharp distinctions based on region and religiosity, guns and gays, abstinence and abortion. But were the election to be decided on domestic concerns alone, George Bush would be near certain to join the ranks of one-term presidents - like his father after the aura of the Gulf war evaporated.

But one year after Bush's triumphant May Day landing on the deck of the USS Lincoln and appearance behind a "Mission Accomplished" sign, his splendid little war has entered a Stalingrad-like phase of urban siege and house-to-house combat. April has been the bloodiest month by far - 122 US soldiers killed compared with 73 last April in the supposed last month of the war. The unending war has inspired among Bush's backers a rally-round-the-flag effect, a redoubling of belief.

They believe in the cause as articulated by the vice president, Dick Cheney, this week in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill delivered his "iron curtain" oration. "You and I are living in such a time" of the "gravest of threats", said Cheney. Once again, he explained the motive for the Iraq war, implicitly conflating Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida and oblivious to the failure to discover WMD.

"His regime cultivated ties to terror," he said, "and had built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction." And Saddam "would still be in power", he continued, coming to the point of his allegory, if John Kerry, cast as Neville Chamberlain to Bush's Churchill, had had his way.

These misperceptions are pillars of Bush's support, according to a study by the University of Maryland: 57 % of those surveyed "believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaida", and 45% "believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaida has been found". Moreover, 65% believe that "experts" have confirmed that Iraq had WMD.

Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% for Kerry. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al-Qaida, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% for Kerry. The reason given by respondents for their views was that they had heard these claims from the Bush administration.

These political pulp fictions are believed out of faith and fear. This is a classic case study in "the will to believe", as the American philosopher William James called it. The greater insecurity would be not to believe Bush. It would mean the president had lied on issues of national security. And how could the Iraq war be seen as a pure, moral choice once good had been shown to be false? The idea of proof has shifted from fact to Fervor

The attack lines against Kerry are that he is an opponent of national security and un-American. When Kerry committed the gaffe of uttering the truth that many world leaders secretly hope for his victory, he provided the Bush campaign with an opening. The secretary of commerce, Donald Evans, has repeatedly said that Kerry "looks French". The Republican house majority leader, Tom DeLay, begins every speech: "As John Kerry would say, bonjour."

The European mission this month of Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat on the foreign relations committee, is a telling if overlooked footnote to the campaign xenophobia. After meetings with Jacques Chirac and at Downing Street, he learned first-hand of the Bush administration's almost complete lack of consultation. Chirac offered first steps toward French assistance in Iraq, and Biden wrote a letter spelling them out to Bush, who referred him to the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who in turn politely listened and never responded.

Meanwhile, the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Lugar, who has been granted just one meeting in the past year with the president, remarked to negligible press notice: "The diplomacy is deficient. By that I simply mean not many people agree with us, or like us, or are prepared to work with us. That will really have to change." A senate source told me: "The only hope for real internationalization is in regime change in the United States."

The brazen smears about Kerry's wounds and medals, his voting record on military programs as a senator, and his loyalty, have been communicated by the Bush-Cheney campaign through an estimated $50m in TV and radio advertising in less than 60 days in 17 swing states. This storm of unremitting negativity has bolstered the faith of his supporters, tested by recent events, and has managed to maintain the contest at a draw.

The attacks against Kerry are a bodyguard of lies to protect the original ones who are the praetorian guard of Bush's presidency.

� [i][b]Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President Clinton and Washington bureau chief of Salon.com [/b][/i]- http://www.commondreams.org/v...

CONDI RICE MAKES FREUDIAN SLIP & CALLS DUBYA HER "HUSBAND"! WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN THE OVAL OFFICE?

04.29.04 (5:54 pm) [edit]

[b]SAM ADAMS' COUNTERPOINT POSTED THIS GOODY - http://www.samadams.tblog.com... --

One for the record from the Condolizzard ...[/b]

Washington D.C.: There is a buzz over a comment the US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, made at an apparently off-the-record Washington power dinner with the publisher of the [i]The New York Times[/i], Arthur Ochs Sulzberger jnr, and other Times people at the home of the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Philip Taubman.

According to an account in New York magazine, Dr Rice said at one point: "[b]As I was telling my husb [/b]. . .". then stopped and said: "[b]As I was telling President Bush [/b]. . ." Eyebrows jumped; jaws dropped. There was a slight pause in the chatter. While the first phrase was correctly reported, there is a possibility the second one did not immediately follow. In which case, it is not at all clear whom or what Dr Rice, who is single, may have been talking about. Meanwhile, Mr Taubman is said to be put out by the publicity and told everyone to clam up.

What really is going on in the Oval Office??? ... Methinks it makes the Clinton/Lewinsky affair pale in comparison ... The Bush/Condolizzard affair simply makes the mind boggle ([i]and the stomach turn[/i]) ... Poor Laura ...

[b]Source:[/b]

[b]The Washington Post[/b], http://www.smh.com.au/article...

KERRY: "I REQUEST DUTY IN VIETNAM" VERSUS AWOL BUSH: "LET ME DRINK 'TIL I'M SLOSHED!"

04.29.04 (12:40 pm) [edit]

HEY REDUCTO ASSHOLE: DOES DUBYA HAVE THE RIGHT TO MASSACRE TENS OF THOUSANDS IN IRAQ???

04.29.04 (12:29 pm) [edit]

[b]REDUCTO-ASSHOLE HAS HIS HEAD BURIED SO FAR UP RUSH LIMBAUGH'S FAT ASS AND IS EATING HIS SHIT AND DRINKING DUBYA'S PISS BY THE GALLON, THAT HE CAN'T RECOGNIZE THE INSANITY OF HIS NEO-ORWELLIAN IRRATIONALITY!!![/b]

Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 19, 2003: [b]724[/b]

Number killed since George W. Bush declared an end to "major combat" on May 1, 2003: [b]586[/b]

Number killed this month: [b]128[/b]

[b]Source: [/b]U.S. Department of Defense http://www.defenselink.mil/ne...

[b]Support for War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes [/b] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM LOGIC: DRINK DUBYA'S PISS & EVERYONE ELSE IS WRONG!!!!

04.29.04 (12:25 pm) [edit]

[b]REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM LOGIC:--

DRINK DUBYA'S PISS BY THE GALLON ...

EVERYONE ELSE IS WRONG ...

ABORTION IS KILLING, BUT MASSACRING U.S. SOLDIERS & INNOCENT IRAQI CIVILIANS IS OKAY ...

PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT IS HORRIBLE, BECAUSE EATING CHEETOS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BREATHING CLEAN AIR ...

THE MAD KING GEORGE SHOULDN'T BE ACCOUNTABLE TO 'WE THE PEOPLE' BECAUSE THE ARM-CHAIR CHICKEN-HAWK EATING CHEETOS-LUVING FUCKWIT LIKES SCRATCHING HIS FAT ASS & JERKING-OFF WHILE WATCHING OUR U.S. SOLDIERS BEING MASSACRED ...

THE DANGERS AND TRAGEDY OF GORGING ON CHEETOS & RUSH LIMBAUGH'S CRAP AND DRINKING BUSH'S PISS CREATES BRAIN-DEAD, MIND-NUMBING IRRATIONAL DELUSIONS!!![/b]

KERRY: "I REQUST DUTY IN VIETNAM" VS. AWOL DRUNK BUSH: "TESTS SHOW I'M MENTALLY UNSTABLE!"

04.29.04 (10:03 am) [edit]

FOR ONCE, COWARDLY BUSHY-BOY SHOULD FIGHT HIS OWN BATTLES!!!

04.29.04 (10:01 am) [edit]

[b]For once, Bush should fight his own battles[/b]

It�s really not hard to see why many Democrats just plain old hate President Bush.

Yes, I know �hate� is a strong word and underlying it is a strong emotion. But it�s not an altogether inappropriate feeling in the face of unmitigated, unapologetic and seemingly endless gall.

Last Sunday, the president�s longtime handler and current campaign adviser Karen Hughes went on the talk shows to attack Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over his military record and his subsequent work as a Vietnam war protester.

In particular, Hughes implied that Kerry had some sort of character problem because of a dispute over whether he threw back ribbons or medals during a war protest in 1971.

�He only pretended to throw his,� Hughes told CNN.

�Now, I can understand if, out of conscience, you take a principled stand, and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals. But to pretend to do so � I think that�s very revealing.�

As E.J. Dionne rightly put it in The Washington Post two days later, this campaign against Kerry is a smear, pure and simple.

As Dionne writes, the same question once put to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) � �Have you no sense of decency, sir?� � needs to be posed to these �shamelessly partisan Republicans who can�t stand the fact that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are facing off against a Democrat who fought and was wounded in Vietnam.�

But let�s not get tripped up by the shameful display on the House floor last week, when Republican after Republican all but accused Kerry of being a traitor, or even by Hughes�s temerity in questioning the service of a man who risked his life for his country in Vietnam, on behalf of a man who did everything in his power to stay out of that fight.

Let�s draw back and see the big picture. And the big picture here is Bush, who is behind all of this.

Let�s start with this. What�s the signature pattern of Bush�s life?

When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, he lets his family and friends bail him out. He has always let others do his fighting for him.

You see it in his failed businesses, where well-heeled family friends again and again came in to bail him out. It�s there in the legal scrapes. And it�s there in the whole matter of ducking service in Vietnam � first by getting his father�s and his father�s friends� help in jumping the queue to get into the Texas Air National Guard, and then again with help cleaning up the subsequent unfortunateness while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard.

(As was reported this week in Salon, despite assurances to the contrary from the White House, the president still refuses to release his complete Vietnam-era service record.)

The pattern has even come up repeatedly on the campaign trail. Since the president came onto the national political stage, he has faced three main opponents � Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), then-Vice President Al Gore and now Kerry. Each served in Vietnam, though under very different circumstances. And President Bush has had his lieutenants and surrogates attack the service of each one.

So here, with Hughes, we have the same pattern repeating itself. The president knows he�s vulnerable on this issue � after all, he says he supported the war at the time, but he did all he could to avoid the fighting himself.

So he gets Hughes to do his dirty work for him. That means that to shift attention from an earlier time when he couldn�t fight his own fights, Bush is now repeating the pattern.

So what should the Democrats do? First of all, it�s unpardonable that the party and the campaign are forcing Kerry to rebut this medals-and-ribbons ridiculousness on his own.

He shouldn�t even need to stoop to the level of addressing this stuff. Where are his surrogates? What about retired generals and other Vietnam vets?

Kerry himself shouldn�t be lowering himself to addressing the particulars of these attacks or getting mixed up on the details. He should be taking this directly to the president. He should tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward.

If the president wants to attack or question Kerry�s war record or what he did after the war, Kerry should tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Hughes. Tell the president, for once, to fight his own fights. - http://thehill.com/marshall/0...

FOR ONCE, COWARDLY IDIOT BUSHY-BOY SHOULD FIGHT HIS OWN BATTLES!!!

04.29.04 (9:58 am) [edit]

LIAR BUSH IS AMERICA'S IRRATIONAL, FANATICAL AYATOLLAH

04.29.04 (9:54 am) [edit]

[b]America's Ayatollah [/b]

The term of the moment in Washington is "the wall." This is the legal barrier that once separated the CIA and its investigators from the FBI and its investigators, and which may have contributed to the confusion that enabled the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A more interesting wall, however, was on view Tuesday evening in President Bush's prime-time news conference. It's the one between him and reality.

Never mind that even for Bush, this was a poor performance -- answers that resembled a frantic scavenger hunt for the right (or any) word or, too often, a thought. Never mind that he really had very little to say -- no exit plan for Iraq, no second thoughts about Sept. 11, no wonderment, even, at the apparent disappearance of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and how that might have happened. Like a kid who has been told otherwise, Bush persists in believing in his own version of Santa Claus. The weapons are there, somewhere -- in a North Pole of his mind.

What matters more is the phrase Bush used five times in one way or another: "We're changing the world." He used it always in reference to the war in Iraq and he used it in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson, that presidential personification of naive morality, shake his head in bemusement. In Bush's rhetoric, a war to rid Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, a war to ensure that Condoleezza Rice's "mushroom cloud" did not appear over an American city, has mutated into an effort to reorder the world.

"I also know that there's an historic opportunity here to change the world," Bush said of the effort in Iraq. But the next sentence was even more disquieting. "And it's very important for the loved ones of our troops to understand that the mission is an important, vital mission for the security of America and for the ability to change the world for the better." It is one thing to die to defend your country. It is quite another to do that for a single man's impossible dream. What Bush wants is admirable. It is not, however, attainable.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Bush used the word "crusade" to characterize his response to the attacks. The Islamic world, remembering countless crusades on behalf of Christianity, protested, and Bush quickly interred the word in the National Archives or someplace. Nonetheless, that is pretty much what Bush described in his news conference -- not a crusade for Christ and not one to oust the Muslims from Jerusalem but an American one that would eradicate terrorism and, in short, "change the world." The United States, the president said, had been "called" for that task.

Some people might consider this religious drivel and others might find it stirring, but whatever it is, it cannot be the basis for foreign policy, not to mention a war. Yet it explains, as nothing else can, just why Bush is so adamantly steadfast about Iraq and why he simply asserts what is not proved or just plain untrue -- the purported connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, for instance, or why Hussein was such a threat, when we have it on the word of David Kay and countless weapons inspectors that he manifestly was not. Bush talks as if only an atheist would demand proof when faith alone more than suffices. He is America's own ayatollah.

Several investigative commissions are now meeting in Washington, looking into intelligence failures -- everything from the failure to detect and intercept the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to the assertion that Iraq was armed to the teeth with all sorts of awful stuff. But what really has to be examined is how a single man, the president, took the nation and part of the world to war because, as he essentially put it Tuesday night, he was "called" to do it.

If that is the case, and it sure seems so at the moment, then this commission has to ask us all -- and I don't exclude myself -- how much of Congress and the press went to war with an air of juvenile glee. The Commission on Credulous Stupidity may call me as its first witness, but after that it has to examine how, despite our vaunted separation of powers, a barely elected president opted for a war that need not have been fought. This is Bush's cause, a noble but irrational effort much like the one that set off for Jerusalem in the year 1212. It was known as the Children's Crusade.

LIAR BUSH IS AMERICA'S IRRATIONAL, FANATICAL AYATOLLAH

04.29.04 (9:52 am) [edit]

LIAR BUSH IS AMERICA'S IRRATIONAL, FANATICAL AYATOLLAH

04.29.04 (9:51 am) [edit]

NEW POLL: MOST AMERICANS REALIZE BUSH'S ILLEGAL NEO-CON IRAQ WAR WAS A TRAGIC MISTAKE!!!

04.29.04 (9:46 am) [edit]

[b]Support for War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes[/b]

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.

The diminished public support for the war did not translate into any significant advantage for Mr. Bush's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The poll showed the two men remaining in a statistical dead heat, both in a head-to-head matchup and in a three-way race that included Ralph Nader.

Support for Mr. Bush is stronger in other areas vital to his re-election, including his handling of the threat from terrorism, which won the approval of 60 percent of respondents.

Even so, just short of a year after Mr. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last May 1 and proclaimed the end to major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," his approval rating has slid from the high levels it reached during the war.

It now stands at 46 percent, the lowest level of his presidency in The Times/CBS News Poll, down from 71 percent last March and a high of 89 percent just after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

At this point in his winning re-election race in 1996, President Bill Clinton's approval rating in The New York Times/CBS News Poll was 48 percent.

Mr. Bush's approval rating for his handling of Iraq was 41 percent, down from 49 percent last month and 59 percent in December.

The survey held hints of trouble for Mr. Kerry as he seeks to introduce himself to an electorate that knows relatively little about him. While 55 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said they strongly favored the president, only 32 percent of Mr. Kerry's supporters strongly favored their candidate.

Sixty-one percent of voters said Mr. Kerry says what he thinks people want to hear, versus 29 percent who said he says what he believes. The Bush campaign has attacked Mr. Kerry for months on that score, portraying him as a flip-flopper with no convictions.

On the same question, 43 percent said Mr. Bush says what people want to hear and 53 percent said he says what he believes.

The poll, conducted from Friday to Tuesday, came during a month that has seen more American soldiers killed in Iraq than in any other month since the invasion 13 months ago. In the days before the poll was conducted, a Web site obtained and publicly released for the first time photographs of soldiers' coffins returning to the United States from Iraq.

"The only thing I think was good was when they got Saddam," said Anna Bartlow, 67, of Tulsa, Okla., a poll respondent who identified herself as a Republican. "That's the only thing that I think they did right, but if they were going to go over there just for him, they should have gotten him and then got out."

Of the Iraqis, Ms. Bartlow said, "Let them fight it out among themselves."

The poll questioned 1,042 people. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Terry Holt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, questioned whether the poll accurately reflected public opinion. But, Mr. Holt said, the White House has all along expected the presidential race to be close until the very end.

"There will be tough times in Iraq," Mr. Holt said, "but the key to prevailing and winning the war on terror is steady, determined leadership."

Chad Clanton, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said the fact that the race remained essentially tied showed that Mr. Bush's attacks, including an aggressive advertising campaign, had failed to take down Mr. Kerry.

The poll suggested that American attitudes about the war were shifting in response to a daily barrage of disturbing images and news reports. Mr. Bush's advisers have asserted that Americans long ago made up their minds that the war was justified, and that violent flare-ups in Iraq would not hurt the president politically as long as the United States remained committed to creating a stable democracy there.

But the Times/CBS poll appeared to bolster the view of many Democrats that the intensified violence in Iraq would inevitably lead to questions about the wisdom of the war and Mr. Bush's leadership.

Asked whether the results of the war with Iraq were worth the loss of American lives and other costs, 33 percent of respondents said it was worth it. That was down from 37 percent at the beginning of April and 44 percent in December. Fifty-eight percent said it was not worth it, up from 54 percent at the start of the month and 49 percent in December.

At a time when American troops are engaged in fierce battles in Najaf and Falluja, two centers of the Iraqi insurgency, the poll found that 46 percent of Americans thought the United States military should remain in Iraq for as long as it takes to create a stable democracy, even if it takes a long time, and 46 percent said the United States should withdraw as soon as possible.

American perceptions of Iraqis haveH also shifted, the poll found. While 53 percent of Americans in a CBS News poll a year ago saw Iraqis as grateful for getting rid of Mr. Hussein, 38 percent see Iraqis feeling that way now. Forty-eight percent now view the Iraqis as resentful, up from 26 percent a year ago.

But the Iraq developments do not appear to have reshaped the presidential race in any discernible way.

If the election were held today, 46 percent of registered voters would vote for Mr. Kerry and 44 percent for Mr. Bush, the poll found. With Mr. Nader in the race, Mr. Bush would get 43 percent, Mr. Kerry 41 percent and Mr. Nader 5 percent, suggesting that nearly all of Mr. Nader's support comes from voters who would otherwise back the Democrat.

Follow-up interviews with people who took part in the poll suggested that the surge in violence in the past few months had led some Americans who supported the general goal of bringing democracy to Iraq to become more skeptical.

"It appears to me that we're not welcome there, and I don't know if I would have been able to support the invasion of Iraq if I had felt that the Iraqi people didn't welcome us there," said Michael Ryan, 54, of Ashland, Ore., who identified himself as a Democrat.

"I'm under the impression now that Dick Cheney came into office with an agenda for war in Iraq, and that George Bush had the same agenda, and that they were twisting the facts to justify the invasion," he said. "And I feel angry about it because I supported the U.S. invasion."

Violet Adams, 66, of Delta, Colo., who identified herself as a Republican, said she thought the United States would have to maintain a presence in the Middle East for a decade as part of the broader effort to confront Islamic terrorism.

"We either take them in their territory, on their turf, and keep them there, or we let them scatter all over the world and start their little cells, and then we'll all be living like Israel," Ms. Adams said.

Nick Dente, 46, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who identified himself as an independent, said he had not been a supporter of Mr. Bush but was open to backing him depending on how he conducted the fight against terrorism. In going to war with Iraq, Mr. Dente said, Mr. Bush took that fight in the wrong direction.

"I believe we've gotten sidetracked from finding Al Qaeda," he said.

[b]N.Y. Times[/b], http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

NEW POLL: MOST AMERICANS REALIZE BUSH'S ILLEGAL NEO-CON IRAQ WAR WAS A TRAGIC MISTAKE!!!

04.29.04 (9:45 am) [edit]

KERRY: "I REQUEST DUTY IN VIETNAM" VERSUS BUSH: "I'LL SWILL LOTS OF BOOZE INSTEAD!"

04.28.04 (8:26 pm) [edit]

FOR DUBYA, YOUR LIFE IS VERY, VERY CHEAP ...

04.28.04 (8:19 pm) [edit]

[b]WHEN LIFE IS CHEAP[/b]

Here's a blast from the past: Dick Cheney in 2000, accepting his party's nomination as candidate for vice president:

[i]For eight years, Clinton and Gore have extended our military commitments while depleting our military power. Rarely has so much been demanded of our armed forces and so little given to them in return.

George W. Bush and I are going to change that too. I have seen our military -- I have seen our military at its finest, with the best equipment, the best training and the best leadership.

I am proud of them. I have had the responsibility for their well-being. And I can promise them now, help is on the way.

Soon our men and women in uniform will once again have a commander-in-chief they can respect ... a commander-in-chief who understands their mission and restores their morale[/i].

This "Help is on the way!" shtick was a famous Cheney talking point on the campaign trail. You'd have thought the Clinton-era military was on the verge of starvation and collapse. Never mind that it was Clinton's military that rolled up the Taliban in Afghanistan, that blew past the Republican Guard to take down Saddam Hussein.

Now, three years after Bush, Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld took up their offices, it's possible to speak of a Bush-era military. And what do we see from the "Help is on the way!" boys?

An undying determination to hand billions of our dollars over to the military-industrial complex behemoths -- while actual people, like our soldiers in the field, are stiffed.

The classic expression of these twinned agendas was in October, when the Administration opposed a plan to let Guard and Reserve members buy health coverage like other soldiers through the Pentagon because it would cost about $400 million -- even as it furiously rejected compelling evidence that Halliburton was overcharging for gasoline to the tune of about $400 million.

Now comes news that thanks to the "Help is on the way!" Administration, our soldiers in Iraq are being nickeled-and-dimed -- sometimes to death.

Newsweek reports:

... [i]many soldiers who are there [in Iraq] say the Pentagon is failing to protect them with the best technology America has to offer. Especially tanks, Bradleys and other heavy vehicles, even in some cases body armor ...

A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests that many US deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur. According to an unofficial study by a defense consultant that is now circulating through the Army, of a total of 789 Coalition deaths as of April 15 (686 of them Americans), 142 were killed by land mines or improvised explosive devices, while 48 others died in rocket-propelled-grenade attacks. Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them, the study suggested. Thousands more who were unprotected have suffered grievous wounds, such as the loss of limbs[/i].

Wow.

Think about that if you watch "Nightline" this Friday, when Ted Koppel will devote the entire show to reading the names and showing photos of every fallen soldier: Every fourth name Koppel reads might have been saved, had this Administration not tried to wage its war on the cheap.

And it's still skimping: The White House has left Iraq entirely out of its 2005 budget proposal, and has been bluntly clear that it won't ask for more money until after the November presidential election. (At which point, one hopes, a Kerry Administration will be making such decisions.)

So for now, as The Washington Post reports, "The Army has publicly identified nearly $6 billion in funding requests that did not make Bush's $402 billion defense budget for 2005 ... including $132 million for bolt-on vehicle armor; $879 million for combat helmets, silk-weight underwear, boots and other clothing; $21.5 million for M249 squad automatic weapons; and $27 million for ammunition magazines, night sights and ammo packs. ...

"The Marine Corps' unfunded budget requests include $40 million for body armor, lightweight helmets and other equipment for 'Marines engaged in the global war on terrorism,' Marine Corps documents state."

The Bush Administration -- ever-desperate to invite association with Ronald Reagan -- is unwaveringly committed to spending about $10 billion every year for the next five years on Reagan's bogus missile defense system.

So the President may have forgotten to ask for money for Iraq in 2005 -- but he sure as shootin' remembered to formally request $10.2 billion for Star Wars.

Yet at the same time, the President declines, at a time of war, to set aside 1/77th of that $10.2 billion to provide bolt-on armor for Humvees -- armor that could have prevented hundreds of American deaths and grievous injuries.

He declines to set aside 1/12th of that $10.2 billion to provide our troops in the field with combat helmets, underwear and boots. He can't even spare 1/255th of the Star Wars budget to buy body armor and helmets for Marines.

Don't get me wrong; I opposed going into Iraq, and think we should declare victory and get out, as soon as possible.

But it's offensive that we deny soldiers health care because it cuts into Halliburton's war profiteering; it's offensive that our soldiers are dying or being maimed for want of protective gear, because boots, helmets and underwear expenditures would slow down the missile defense gravy train for Lockheed Martin.

Rarely has so much been demanded of our armed forces and so little given to them in return. - http://www.thenation.com/outr...

BUSH/CHENEY PUPPET SHOW WON'T BE FORMALLY RECORDED SO VEEP-CHENEY-N-CHIMP-BUSH CAN LIE!!!!!

04.28.04 (4:19 pm) [edit]

[b]Bush-Cheney 9/11 Interview Won't Be Formally Recorded[/b]

The White House said on Tuesday that there would be no recording or formal transcription of the historic joint interview of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The interview, to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday at the White House, will be recorded by two note takers, one from the White House. Under a pact with the White House that allowed all its 10 members in the interview, the commission is permitted to take a note taker, but not a recording device. The panel said it did not press for a formal transcription of the session, letting the White House decide.

The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, told reporters that the session would not be officially transcribed because the White House considered it a "private meeting" that would include highly classified information.

"Let's keep in mind that it is extraordinary for a sitting president of the United States to sit down with a legislatively created commission," Mr. McClellan said.

An adviser to Mr. Bush said a larger consideration was the concern that an official transcript would set a precedent for appearances by presidents before other commissions and create legal problems down the road.

Mr. Bush will not be under oath, and the White House has been adamant that what he says should not be considered official testimony.

"He is not testifying, he is talking to them," the adviser said. "A transcript implies testimony. This would open a Pandora's box of all sorts of precedent-setting and legal issues. We were reluctant for the president to do this, anyway."

Legal scholars said the lack of an official transcript would give the White House some deniability and make it more difficult to use the president's words as evidence in a future suit against the government.

"It gives them more maneuverability in case someone slips up or says something he regrets," Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have cleared much of their schedules to be ready for the session. Mr. Bush has prepared with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, as well as with the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, who will sit in on the interview. Mr. Cheney's office declined to give details of his preparations. White House officials would not say whether Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had prepared together.

Commission members say they believe that they are under no formal time limit for the interview. Although the White House had offered one hour each for interviews of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, they dropped that as part of an accord in which the president and vice president could be interviewed together.

The panel chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, said White House officials had not told him that the questioning would have to be cu