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The Gross National Debt
(Real-Time)
Bush Announces Plan To Regulate
US Gas Consumption
2,179,000 U.S. homes were vacant and for sale in the first three
months of this year, 38 percent more than a year earlier.
The Dollar’s Plunge…
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Tuesday: 78 Iraqis Killed, 114 Wounded
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AMERICAN VALUES?
Audience Applauds As Giuliani, Tancredo Coyly Endorse
Waterboarding - Torture
“MAD DOG” BOLTON: We Must Attack Iran
By Toby
Harnden in Washington
The Telegraph
– London
May 16, 2007
(Excerpt)
Iran should be attacked
before it develops nuclear weapons, America's former ambassador to the
United Nations said yesterday.
More…
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British
Parliament Wants Say Before PM Starts Next War
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Bolton: British Foreign
Office 'Infected' With French and German Views
NOT ON MY WATCH…
Commander's Veto Sank
Threatening Gulf Buildup
by Gareth Porter*
Inter
Press Service News (IPS)
May
15, 2007
(Excerpt)
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“There are several of
us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
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WASHINGTON, May 15
(IPS) - Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM),
expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to
increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two
to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long
as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his
thinking.
Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a
third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush
administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased
military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by
administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial
deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over
policy toward Iran.
The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the
Gulf had been a key element in a broader
strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of
military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.
Admiral Fallon's resistance to a further buildup of naval striking
power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command,
had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last
January, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea
that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in
regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.
More…
Dobson
Hallucinates Iranian “Existential Threat”
Kurt
Nimmo
May 15,
2007
'Surge'
Not Slowing Iraq Attacks
By JAMES GLANZ
New York Times
May 16, 2007
(Excerpt)
Newly
declassified data show that as additional American troops began streaming
into Iraq in March and April, the
number of attacks on civilians and security forces there stayed
relatively steady or at most declined slightly, in the clearest
indication yet that the troop increase could take months to have a
widespread impact on security.
Even the suggestion of a slight decline could
be misleading, since the figures are purely a measure of how many attacks
have taken place, not the death toll of each one. American
commanders have conceded that since the start of the troop increase,
which the United States calls a “surge,” attacks in the form of car bombs with their high death
tolls have risen.
The attack data are compiled by the Pentagon
but were made public in a report released yesterday by the Government
Accountability Office. It analyzed the effect of the attacks on the
struggling American-financed reconstruction program in Iraq, especially
the program’s failings in the
electricity and oil sectors.
A draft version of the report, obtained by
The New York Times last week, indicated that every day
during much of the past four years, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000
barrels of oil, valued at anywhere from $5 million to $15 million, had
been unaccounted for. But the draft report did not contain the attack
statistics.
More…
Sorry Harry, Try Again Next Year…
ABOUT FACE!
IRAQ TOO ‘DANGEROUS’ FOR ROYALS -
Prince Harry Will Not Be Sent There With His Troop
BBC
5.16.07
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“Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a
cannonball.”
~Charles V of France~
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(Excerpt)
This
is an excerpt from the statement by the head of the British Army General
Sir Richard Dannatt.
Over
the last few weeks I have made a particular point of saying that I would
keep under constant review my decision to deploy Prince Harry to Iraq
with his troop.
As
with any military operation, circumstances do change, and therefore so
should decisions, if necessary.
I have decided
today that Prince Harry will not deploy as a troop leader with his
squadron.
I have
come to this final decision following a further and wide round of
consultation, including a visit to Iraq by myself at the end of last
week.
There
have been a number of specific threats - some reported and some not
reported - which relate directly to Prince Harry as an individual.
These
threats expose not only him but also those around him to a degree of risk
that I now deem unacceptable.
More…
ALL
HAIL THE ‘WAR CZAR’!
Bush Finally Finds Someone
To Accept His ‘Shi_ _y Stick’
May 15, 2007
AP
(Excerpt)
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2007 - President Bush has
chosen Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the Pentagon's director of operations, to
oversee the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a "war czar" after a
long search for new leadership, administration officials said
Tuesday.
More…
A standoff at a hospital
bedside speaks volumes about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Washington
Post
May 16,
2007
(Excerpt)
JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow
former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered
the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration
lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a
less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004
nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D.
Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H.
Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines
of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting
as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to
recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping
program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around
Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.
More…
Patrick Chappatte, Switzerland, Cartoons on World Affairs
Geneva daily "Le Temps", Sunday edition of the Neue Zurcher
Zeitung, weekly cartoon for the International Herald Tribune.
WASHINGTON'S
MURDEROUSLY LUCRATIVE COLOMBIAN ‘DRUG WARS’: The General, The Diplomat,
and the Mass Grave
By Sean Donahue
May 12th,
2007
(Excerpt)
Last week the Associated
Press reported the discovery of a mass grave in Putumayo containing
the mutilated bodies of 105 people believed to have been murdered by
right wing paramilitaries from 1999 - 2001. The killings took place
while Gen.
Mario Montoya, now commander of Colombia's armed forces, was leading
a massive offensive in the department. Throughout that offensive, the
U.S. continued providing weapons, intelligence, training and equipment to
the counternarcotics battalions of Montoya's Joint Task Force South
despite the fact that the State Department knew those battalions were
working closely with Montoya's 24th Brigade -- a unit linked to the
paramilitaries responsible for that mass grave. Anne
Patterson, who now oversees most U.S. operations in Colombia as
Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement, served as U.S. Ambassador to Colombia at the time and had
been warned of the close collaboration between the paramilitaries and
Montoya's troops. The discovery of the mass grave raises serious
questions about Patterson's commitment to breaking the ties between the
Colombian military and the paramilitary groups that are responsible for
not only the country's worst atrocities but also the production and
export of most of the cocaine that reaches the U.S.
More…
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Court arrests Colombian
lawmakers in growing scandal Reuters AlertNet
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Venezuela
Accuses U.S. DEA of Being a “Drug Cartel”
RED CROSS
BLOCKBUSTER REPORT: Israel disregarding humanitarian law
BBC
May
15, 2007
(Excerpt)
The
international Red Cross has privately accused Israel of reshaping Jerusalem
to further its own interests, in violation of international law.
A leaked ICRC report says Israeli policy has
far-reaching humanitarian consequences for Palestinians living under
occupation in East Jerusalem.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, and the
territory is regarded as occupied land under international law.
But Israel rejects this, and says the report's
premise is, therefore, wrong.
The report says Israel shows "general
disregard" for its obligations under international humanitarian law
and the law of military occupation in particular.
Violations that change the status of East Jerusalem
include the West Bank barrier, an outer ring of Jewish settlements around
the city and roads to connect Israeli districts and settlements, the report
says.
An ICRC spokesman confirmed that leaked quotations
in a US newspaper were from a confidential report transmitted in February
2007 to Israel and some other governments.
More…
Harper’s Magazine
May 13,
2007
(Excerpt)
Last summer, the Associated
Press and New York Times each did stories
on the detention facilities operated by the United States inside of Iraq.
The conclusions of each investigation were roughly the same. At the time,
they noted roughly 14,000 Iraqis were being held in a “legal vacuum.” The detention facilities were
chaotic, a large portion of the persons held were taken in on sweeps
through their neighborhoods and were suspected and charged with nothing.
No trials occur, but the detainees languish often for many months – in some cases for more than a
year. “They may not be enemies when they
enter these prisons,” one Army officer told me, “but you can count on it that they are
insurgent sympathizers by the time they leave.” He was alluding
not just to the treatment standards, which he called “nothing I would be proud of as an American,” but the fact that the facilities are allowed to function as
recruitment and training centers for the insurgents. Politically
uninvolved Iraqis enter. But to find a way of surviving in the brutal
gang reality of the prisons, they cast their lot with insurgent groups.
The United States government views this as a “security detention” system that has
nothing to do with justice. They are literally right about that. The
system has no legal basis. When challenged for authority, spokesmen for
U.S. Forces in Iraq constantly cite Security Council Resolution 1546.
However, this resolution does not authorize the detentions. To the
contrary, it, and the letter from Secretary of State Colin Powell which
accompanied it, make clear that detentions must be made in accordance
with the Iraqi Constitution and laws. And Iraqi law requires any
detention to be justified before a magistrate in a matter of only a few
days. One of the most striking features of the U.S. detention
regime in Iraq is, however, its complete contempt for the requirements of
Iraqi law.
More…
Current News & Views
·
Iraqi
Death-Squad Activity Up Over 70% in a Month
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ISRAEL
LOBBY: AIPAC to Pay Accused Spy's Legal Fees AIPAC reached a deal with lawyers for its former Iran
analyst, Keith Weissman, to pay for his defense against Espionage Act
charges.
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Ethnically
Cleansed: Israeli Forces Turn Center Of Key Palestinian Town (Hebron)
Into A ‘Ghost Town’
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Lieberman To Raise Money For The GOP
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Tenet To Testify Before Congress On Pre-War Claim Of
Iraq-Niger Uranium Trade
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Kosovo: No Good
Alternatives to the Ahtisaari Plan (Europe Report N°182 - 14 May 2007)
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Colombia’s
New Armed Groups (Latin America Report N°20 - 10 May 2007)
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An extraordinarily prescient TV
interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy
National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.
Why
Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…
(Click on blinking
dot above for video)
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