Al Qaeda Surrounded in Konduz--But We Are Ordered to BACK THE FUCK OFF AND LET THEM ESCAPE?!?!?

NOW: Transcript - Jane Wallace Interviews Seymour Hersh | PBS

SY HERSH: I think it's a losing game. I think it's a losing game and I think there's a lot of evidence that Musharraf is certainly much more interested in his own survival than ours. I can't give you chapter and verse of things. He came to American when and when there was tremendous concern about the fate of Danny Pearl, the WALL STREET JOURNAL reporter.

And he was here about a week or so before it became known that Pearl was dead. And the whole time, we later learned, that he was here, when he was saying, you know telling us that he was doing everything he can. He was sure he was alive. He knew that Pearl was dead. We now know that. We knew he was deceiving us.

JANE WALLACE: How do we know that?

SY HERSH: Because--

JANE WALLACE: Time of death on Pearl?

SY HERSH: More than that. There's-- we were able to unravel a lot of information, WALL STREET JOURNAL reporters and others about when he died. And there was, if you remember, there's been a trial. And everything that showed up in the trial indicated that-- witnesses told about telling the government things-- weeks before we thought they had.

JANE WALLACE: There is a man facing death, facing hanging, Saeed Sheikh, in the murder of Daniel Pearl. Saeed Sheikh is reported, in various quarters, to have been an ISI Pakistani intelligence agent.

SY HERSH: Asset. Yeah.

JANE WALLACE: Do you believe that?

SY HERSH: This certainly is a case when he gave up, he turned himself in basically eventually to ISI and-- who-- not-- not right away, but pretty immediately. He turned a-- he was made available to the ISI and they debriefed him first.

JANE WALLACE: Why would he turn himself in to Pakistani intelligence as opposed to the police?

SY HERSH: There's no question he has some connection. There's no question he had some deep standing-- long standing connection to Pakistani intelligence.

JANE WALLACE: Now let me draw the picture ... If in fact he has a deep long standing connection to Pakistani intelligence, we are supporting a government that has some responsibility in the murder of an American reporter?

SY HERSH: What can you do?

JANE WALLACE: Let's talk about Konduz. During the war with Afghanistan--

SY HERSH: Great story.

JANE WALLACE: -- you reported that during a key battle our side in that battle had the enemy surrounded. There were a reported perhaps 8,000 enemy forces in there.

SY HERSH: Maybe even more. But certainly minimum that many.

JANE WALLACE: It's your story, take it.

SY HERSH: Okay, the cream of the crop of Al Qaeda caught in a town called Konduz which is near ... it's one little village and it's a couple hundred kilometers, 150 miles from the border of Pakistan. And I learned this story frankly-- through very, very clandestine operatives we have in the Delta Force and other very...

We were operating very heavily with a small number of men, three, 400 really in the first days of the war. And suddenly one night when they had everybody cornered in Konduz-- the special forces people were told there was a corridor that they could not fly in. There was a corridor sealed off to-- the United States military sealed off a corridor. And it was nobody could shoot anybody in this little lane that went from Konduz into Pakistan. And that's how I learned about it. I learned about it from a military guy who wanted to fly helicopters and kill people and couldn't do it that day.

JANE WALLACE: So, we had the enemy surrounded, the special forces guys are helping surround this enemy.

SY HERSH: They're whacking everybody they can whack that looks like a bad guy.

JANE WALLACE: And suddenly they're told to back off--

LINK.....

BUSH: THE METEOR THAT STRUCK AMERICA IN 2000--Destroys our National Parks for Fun and Profit

Please tell your friends. Go to this LINK to send free e-postcards urging your friends to take this action.

Tell them "BUSH IS THE METEOR THAT STRUCK AMERICA IN THE YEAR 2000" and we need to Fight Back Hard.

Chief Dale N. Bosworth
U.S. Forest Service
c/o Roadless TNF
Content Analysis Team
P.O. Box 22810
Salt Lake City, Utah 84122

Dear Chief Bosworth,

64 Million years ago, an Asteroid or Meteor struck the Gulf of Cancun, causing a 'nuclear winter' that destroyed most fauna and flora on Planet Earth. I believe George Bush is on track to do the same thing.

I write to oppose plans to exempt the Tongass and Chugach National Forests from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Please accept this letter as my official comment opposing both the proposed temporary exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule and the advance notice of proposed rulemaking to make permanent the Tongass exemption and extend it to the Chugach National Forest.

I strongly support the original Roadless Area Conservation Rule as it was issued in January of 2001 by our last, duly elected President, William Jefferson Clinton. The roadless rule is a landmark conservation policy that has the overwhelming support of the American people. During the rule's development, 2.2 million people commented in favor of its protections for our last wild national forests.

The Tongass and Chugach forests are our nation's two largest national forests, totaling 22 million acres, and are among the crown jewels of our national forest system. They contain the world's largest intact temperate rain forest, with centuries-old trees that provide critical habitat for wolves, grizzly bears, bald eagles, and other wildlife that have been depleted in the rest of the country.

If the exemptions are allowed, nearly 50 timber sales in the Tongass alone--comprising 300,000 acres of old growth forest--could go forward. During the last 45 years, the Alaska timber industry has already logged more than 1 million acres of old growth forest and built 5,000 miles of logging roads in the Tongass. According to the General Accounting Office, these roads and timber sales were subsidized with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Bush and his toadies are giving away the forests and landscape that belong to AMERICA, not Bush or Repiglikens or Big Campaign Contributors. Yet he desecrates our beautiful, wild areas by donating our lumber to his reelection_cabal and they give back to him, in a deadly cycle. Our world is being chopped, lopped, canned, and crapped by the renegade, anti environment and insidious maurauding of the Bush crusade; the War against the Trees.

GWBush is the meteor that struck America in the year 2000.

What will be left of our natural wonders after he (this bastard) is done with them? What will the result of his trashing the Kyoto treaty because it might cost coal mine operators some money to clean up? To stop mountain-top removal? It is almost time for voters to make a decision whether or not to reverse that disaster. I oppose the changes suggested because I love the fauna and flora that exist in those environments. God placed them here, in America, for all Americans. They are not there to be parceled out by the METEOR THAT STRUCK AMERICA IN THE YEAR 2000.

Sincerely,

Your Name Here

But Mr. President Why Did You Lie To Take Us Into War? (Rose Garden Press Conference 7/30)

YOU'RE THROUGH, JOHN

Chimper got up the nads to stand in front of 'the press' today. But his rambling, incohesive responses left most reporters at the event scratching their heads.

In a particularly direct question, Chimp was asked...well, you can read it.

And when the reporter tries to get a sensible answer, all he gets from the pResident is a snippy "YOU'RE THROUGH, JOHN."

John

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Building sort of on that idea, it's impossible to deny that the world is a better place in the region, certainly a better place without Saddam Hussein. But there's a sense here in this country, and a feeling around the world, that the U.S. has lost credibility by building the case for Iraq upon sometimes flimsy or, some people have complained, non-existent evidence. And I'm just wondering, sir, why did you choose to take the world to war in that way?

Chimper:

You know, look, in my line of work, it's always best to produce results. And I understand that. The -- for a while the questions were, could you conceivably achieve a military victory in Iraq? (No mr chimper sir that was not my question)

You know, the dust storms have slowed you down. And I was a patient man because I realized that we would be successful in achieving our military objective.

Now, of course, the question is, will Iraq ever be free, and will it be peaceful? (No mr chimper sir that was not my question) And I believe it will. I remind some of my friends that it took us a while to go from the Articles of Confederation to the United States Constitution. Even our own experiment with democracy didn't happen overnight. I never have expected Thomas Jefferson to emerge in Iraq in a 90-day period. (No mr chimper sir that was not my question)

And so, this is going to take time. And the world will see what I mean when I say, a free Iraq will help peace in the Middle East, and a free Iraq will be important for changing the attitudes of the people in the Middle East. A free Iraq (No mr chimper sir that was not my question) will show what is possible in a world that needs freedom, in a part of the world that needs freedom. (Ah shit you dumb bastard that was not my FUCKING QUESTION!!!)

Let me finish for a minute, John, please. Just getting warmed up. (eh eh eh) I'm kind of finding my feet. (eh eh eh.)

Saddam Hussein was a threat. The United Nations viewed him as a threat. That's why they passed 12 resolutions. Predecessors of mine viewed him as a threat. We gathered a lot of intelligence. That intelligence was good, sound intelligence on which I made a decision.

And in order to placate the critics and the cynics about intentions of the United States, we need to produce evidence. And I fully understand that. And I'm confident that our search will yield that which I strongly believe, that Saddam had a weapons program. (but chimper_fuckin_liar that wasn't what you said. You said he had WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION READY TO GO) I want to remind you, he actually used his weapons program on his own people at one point in time, which is pretty tangible evidence. But I'm confident history will prove the decision we made to be the right decision.

Hold on for a second. You're through. John.

Chimper admits it. Right off the get-go: You know, look, in my line of work, it's always best to produce results.

The ends justify the means. Lies are ok if you get your fucking way. Doesn't matter how many Americans are killed or what else happened. eh eh eh. Results matter, son, not what you had to do to get the results. Period. Fucking liar.

What do we tell the children?

You're through John?

The Fingerprints On Bush's Lies Remain Intact...Even If MSNBC MEDIA WHORES TRIED TO ERASE IT!

Mario's Cyberspace Station - The Global Intelligence News Portal - Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2003

White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq

President Meets With Blair on Strategy (i.e. FUCKING LIES) Ahead of Speech

Saturday, 7 September, 2002

Seeking to build a case Saturday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, President Bush cited a satellite photograph and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency as evidence of Iraq's impending rearmament. But in response to a report by NBC News, a senior administration official acknowledged Saturday night that the U.N. report drew no such conclusion, and a spokesman for the U.N. agency said the photograph had been misinterpreted.

Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair talked to reporters before opening about three hours of talks at Camp David, Bush's presidential retreat in Maryland.

Blair cited a newly released satellite photo of Iraq identifying new construction at several sites linked in the past to Baghdad's development of nuclear weapons. And both leaders mentioned a 1998 report by the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, that said Saddam could be six months away from developing nuclear weapons.

"I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush said as he greeted Blair for a brainstorming session on Iraq. "We owe it to future generations to deal with this problem."

In a joint appearance before the summit, the two leaders repeated their shared view that Saddam's ouster was the only way to stop Iraq's pursuit - and potential use - of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

"The policy of inaction is not a policy we can responsibly subscribe to," Blair said as he joined Bush in trying to rally reluctant allies to deal with Saddam, perhaps by military force.

With Thanks to "Mario" and his truly great web. Link...to entire story.

SCUMBAG BUSH_CABAL FACES MORE DEAD AMERICAN TROOPS, MORE DEAD INNOCENT IRAQIS, AND WORLD CONDEMNATION. BUT STILL CENSORS PRESS COVERAGE.

Is the bush_junta really going to pay someone $30,000,000 (Thirty Million Dollars) of our tax money to the Iraqi snitch? Do they think that poor sucker will make his next birthday? People in Iraq are laughing at him and taking bets on how long the snitch and his family will be on this side of the dirt. Not that they did a bad thing. I would have liked to have a shot at either one of them (but it wouldn't have been legal and I would have gone to jail, or worse).

SO WHAT? TowMissiles and a coupla billion dollars of US military might, and our servicemen and women did the dirtywork--the slaughter of two bad boys and a little 14 year old kid--What does that change? American Dollars have paid for a "HIT?" In the days since the slaughter and the gleeful presentation of the bloated, bullet-holed bodies, at least 5 American lives have been traded for that hit. How many more does the chimper_junta think may be lost over the estimated 4 to 10 years we will be there, alone?

Now wait a minute...nearly two months back, CHIMPER gets on the aircraft carrier ABE LINCOLN, in his Commander Bunnypants outfit, sock in his crotch to make his tiny dick cheney bigger, and claims

---------> MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ! ! ! <-------

But still, 60-100 dead American troops later, our friends, sons, fathers, daughters, neighbors and family come home in green body bags. We will never know the true number because the fuckers hide the information on the dead Americans. It's a secret, you know. It's OUR GOVERNMENT...It's OUR INFORMATION, Not a Government By and For the Fucking Repuglikens,Goddamit. You just gotta hate those bastards.

What if there are over a THOUSAND DEAD AMERICANS??? HOW WILL WE KNOW??? PROPAGANDA AGENCY RUN BY the failing mind of Donald Rumsfeld is hiding everything it can hide.Even the Secret Service is involved in all the cover-ups, chasing a FUCKING CARTOONIST--LA TIME'S RAMIREZ, because he dared take a SHOT at their idiot_chimp!!

But still, Iraqis are forced to give back their cell phones because bush_junta didn't approve and take a cut from the Baharaini cell phone company.

But hey, the oil is OK!!! Thanks be to Jesus...the Oil is OK!!!

Nothing changes the facts: Where are the WMD? Why did Bush_junta lie about Nukes, Chemicals, missiles, gliders that can bomb America in 45 minutes? Because they are fucking liars? Because they are murderers? Because there was no honesty in even the least honest of this illegal, unelected_junta? Because they all deserve to be HUNG. Have their NECKS STRETCHED, including the BITCH, dirty Rice, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfilled, Wolferwizz, Peril, DeLay, and all the other crooked

CHICKEN<--->HAWK COWARDS. GANGSTERS USING OUR MILITARY FOR THEIR OWN, GREEDY ENDS.

HANG EM ALL.

"U.S. military spokesmen declined even to discuss the incident beyond confirming Task Force 20 was involved. Some troops tried to prevent journalists filming the aftermath."

Bush Cabal Makes Trials Unnecessary. Just Slaughters Evil doers and "Enemy Combatants."

iafrica.com | news | world news Iraq 'informant' faces reprisals

There are more questions than answers as a result of the horrendous slaughter of Saddam's sons. And no discalimer from me...chimper_cabal delivered a Nazi-like state execution to 'enemies of the state.' Chimper may discover that the longer you ride on the back of the tiger, the more likely you are to end up in its stomach.

Part of a report on the aftermath from iafrica.com...Link

"The cousins of Uday and Qusay and Saddam are arranging to kill the family. Naturally, the family will be killed," the man, also a real estate broker, said on condition of anonymity.

Even if they were not saddened that Saddam's sons were gone, many in Mosul felt it was their own personal business, not the Americans, to dole out justice.

Most Iraqis wanted to deal with Saddam and his sons according to Iraqi principles, explained Mohammed Taher al-Abid Rabu, a member of the Mosul city council.

Yet Rabu also sees Nawaf's shirking of his responsibilities as an Arab, particularly the sheltering of two Muslims seeking aid, as a prime reason why he was labelled a traitor in this city.

"According to our Arab traditions and principles, he who seeks refuge must be protected."

THE HORROR. THE HORROR. **Blood, Guts Get Grip On GOP **

Release of Hussein son's photos: Washington exposes its own barbarism

The world was subjected to a gruesome and barbaric spectacle on Thursday when the Bush administration released photographs of the mutilated corpses of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, ambushed and killed by American forces on July 22.

The American cable news networks wasted no time in displaying blowups of the bloody heads and torsos of the dead men and beaming the images into homes across the US and around the world. US government spokesmen and media commentators could barely conceal their glee at the sight of the shattered bodies, and their satisfaction over inflicting the pictures on a global audience.

Nothing the World Socialist Web Site could say would be a more devastating indictment of the degenerates who wield power in the US and their media accomplices than their own self-exposure. The overwhelming majority of people around the world, and especially in the US, will feel only revulsion and shame at this exhibition of sadism.

Whatever one thinks of the deposed Iraqi ruler and his sons—who were undoubtedly guilty of reprehensible crimes—the actions of the Bush administration in slaughtering Uday and Qusay Hussein and then gloating over their dead bodies demonstrate that the US ruling elite has nothing to learn from its enemies when it comes to savagery and contempt for human life.

Link.....

TRAITOROUS RUMMY, Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein--And Supplying the Iraqi Dictator with Money, Loans, and **Oil Field Equipment**

Traitor Rumsfeld, Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein

This is a very carefully researched piece on the origins of GOPPER establishment of "THE IRAQI DICTATOR AND BAD PERSON" (petty_despot_Chimper) in the seat of power in Iraq. One of those, 'we can make you we can break you' moments that gangsters in power have, and abuse.

It even features the picture that the aging and unstable Hummer Rumsfeld thought would never appear...shaking hands with the IRAQI DICTATOR.

This National Security Advisory clearly shows that "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The following is only the very last paragraph. It is not a long briefing and should be known to fully understand the perfidy of crook Bush#41 and even worse, the mendacity and impeachable offenses of of petty_despot_chimper Bush #43. He needs to be dragged kicking and scratching, not only in front of a debate with his Democratic presidential replacement in 2004, but a War Crimes Tribunal.

Bush, and his entire big oil cabal, murdering, maiming gangsters, slaughtering bastards one and all, should be hung. Hung by their necks until dead. Would anything less bring justice to the long-suffering people of Iraq?

Conclusion:

The current Bush administration discusses Iraq in starkly moralistic terms to further its goal of persuading a skeptical world that a preemptive and premeditated attack on Iraq could and should be supported as a "just war." The documents included in this briefing book reflect the realpolitik that determined this country's policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.(emphasis by NLTCP blog)

Most of the information in this briefing book, in its broad outlines, has been available for years. Some of it was recorded in contemporaneous news reports; a few investigative reporters uncovered much more - especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A particular debt is owed to the late representative Henry Gonzales (1916-2000), Democrat of Texas, whose staff extensively investigated U.S. policy toward Iraq during the 1980s and who would not be deterred from making information available to the public [Note 2].

Almost all of the primary documents included in this briefing book were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act and were published in 1995 [Note 3].

Some of the notes in this report need Acrobat Reader, available at the report website.

The Bush_Junta_War_Criminals Do the Same Thing As Saddam's Sons--With Our Tax Dollar--And Gloat About It

The killing of Hussein's sons: the Nuremberg precedent and the criminalization of the US ruling elite

“The president of the United States has no power to convict anyone. He can only accuse. He cannot arrest in most cases without judicial authority. Therefore, the accusation made carries no weight in an American trial whatsoever. These declarations are an accusation and not a conviction. That requires a judicial finding. Now we could not be parties to setting up a formal judicial body to ratify a political decision to convict. Then judges will have to inquire into the evidence and give an independent decision.”

In his opening statement to the Nuremberg tribunal, Jackson said, “That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”


Hang em. Hang em all. Hang em by the BALLS.

Photos of Saddam sons released

Photos of Saddam sons released

Welcome to the Big Darkness

ESPN.com - Page2 - Welcome to the Big Darkness

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is one of my literary heroes. Nothing the man writes is wrong. I offer up this, his latest beautiful essay, from his home on ESPN.com! I have just grabbed a bloody chunk of it. Follow the link to get the whole piece of meat.

When I went into the clinic last April 30, George Bush was about 50 points ahead of his closest Democratic opponent in next year's Presidential Election. When I finally escaped from the horrible place, less than three weeks late, Bush's job-approval ratings had been cut in half -- and even down into single digits, in some states -- and the Republican Party was panicked and on the run. It was a staggering reversal in a very short time, even shorter than it took for his equally crooked father to drop from 93 percent approval, down to as low as 43 percent and even 41 percent in the last doomed days of the first doomed Bush Administration. After that, he was Bill Clinton's punching bag.

Richard Nixon could tell us a lot about peaking too early. He was a master of it, because it beat him every time. He never learned and neither did Bush the Elder.

But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. By the summer of 2004, he might not even be living in the White House. Gone, gone, like the snows of yesteryear.

The Rumsfield-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.

CHIMP SICS SECRET SERVICE ON CARTOONIST

This is the cartoon....Link

Now Fraud_in_Thief puts his brown-shirts, and their baseball bats, out to break a few knees. Crack some bones. Draw some blood.

On a Cartoonist, for chissakes!! The LA Time's Ramirez!

I think it is the cartoon of the year! If there are awards for cartoonists, Ramirez gets it. Funny! Has Balls! Is True!

Ruh-Roh--those are all things chimper hates, though. Hmmmm. What can he do? Intimidate. Threaten. Have his bitches make phone calls to newspaper king-pins. Move their reporters to the back of the room. And bust some knees. As long as someone else does it.

Headline...GANGSTER MENTALITY IN OUR WHITE HOUSE! ! ! ! TROOPS REBEL ! ! ! CARTOONISTS TARGETED FOR BEATINGS ! ! !

Bush, we know what you are about. Chickenhawk_Coward_AWOL Cdr. Bunnypants. Shove a sock in it already.

BUSH NAILS ANOTHER SORRY BASTARD UP ON HIS CROSS OF LIES

BBC NEWS | Americas | Aide takes blame for uranium claim

"A senior US national security adviser has said it was his fault that allegations about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not removed from a speech by the US president.

Stephen Hadley, America's deputy national security adviser who reports to Condoleezza Rice, said he should have deleted a reference to claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa from George W Bush's State of the Union speech in January. "

Link to balance of BBC report......

Line up you useless bodies working for bush_junta. You are worth less than a US Soldier in downtown Baghdad. You are working for a lousy coward Commander Bunnypants, who craps his drawers everytime he screws up, but isn't man enough to take the hit himself.

Chickenhawk Coward Bush will nail you all up on crosses of lies for as long as it takes to keep his ratings steady in the press. Does he think the public is as fucking stupid as he is? Does he think we won't see right through this transparent mendacity? HE IS A FUCKING WAR CRIMINAL, FOR CHRISSAKE.

His whole dirty cabal needs to be hosed down with the same acid he said he used to clean our White House after the last, duly elected and most successful president of our lifetimes, William Jefferson Clinton, left office.

Bush, you are a liar and a war criminal. A murderer and you are in violation of the Geneva Conventions which are, by nature of them being a treaty the US signed on to, part of our US Constitution. You have commenced a War Against the Peace, conceived by lying to the American public on many, many occasions.

Your handlers have trotted out every single member of the cabal: Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolferrwizz, Perle, to tell the BIG LIE. AND REPEAT IT OFTEN ENOUGH THAT YOU ACTUALLY HAD A MAJORITY OF MORON-AMERICANS BELIEVING IT.

But now you all must go. Leave in to that good night. GET THE FUCK OUT YOU STINKING BASTARDS! Or the American People will nail all of you up on crosses on the White House Lawn.

Who's Unpatriotic Now?

Who's Unpatriotic Now?

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Some nonrevisionist history: On Oct. 8, 2002, Knight Ridder newspapers reported on intelligence officials who "charge that the administration squelches dissenting views, and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary." One official accused the administration of pressuring analysts to "cook the intelligence books"; none of the dozen other officials the reporters spoke to disagreed.

The skepticism of these officials has been vindicated. So have the concerns expressed before the war by military professionals like Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, about the resources required for postwar occupation. But as the bad news comes in, those who promoted this war have responded with a concerted effort to smear the messengers.

Issues of principle aside, the invasion of a country that hadn't attacked us and didn't pose an imminent threat has seriously weakened our military position. Of the Army's 33 combat brigades, 16 are in Iraq; this leaves us ill prepared to cope with genuine threats. Moreover, military experts say that with almost two-thirds of its brigades deployed overseas, mainly in Iraq, the Army's readiness is eroding: normal doctrine calls for only one brigade in three to be deployed abroad, while the other two retrain and refit.

And the war will have devastating effects on future recruiting by the reserves. A widely circulated photo from Iraq shows a sign in the windshield of a military truck that reads, "One weekend a month, my ass."
....Link

Ten Questions For Cheney--Time to Pull The Batteries out of Dick Vice-Frankenstein

TOMPAINE.com - Ten Questions For Cheney

Dear Mr. Vice President:

While it has been widely reported that the President made a false assertion in his State of the Union address concerning unsubstantiated intelligence that Iraq purchased uranium from Niger, your own role in the dissemination of that disinformation has not been explained by you or the White House. Yet, you reportedly paid direct personal visits to CIA's Iraq analysts; your request for investigation of the Niger uranium claim resulted in an investigation by a former U.S. ambassador, and you made several high-profile public assertions about Iraq's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. We hope that you will take the opportunity to provide responses to the following ten questions.

I. Concerning "unusual" personal visits by the Vice President to CIA analysts.

....Link

Hang Bush (Think It Is Impossible? What happened to Milosevic? He thought he was untouchable, too)

Let's hope they get around to hanging war criminals again in the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, which Chimp & Co. virulently opposes. He says it will put 'our servicemen and women overseas' at risk.

Does this bastard not think HE poses a threat to our servicemen and women in Iraq? He and Rummsfuck have just threatened them all with retribution for their remarks that “RUMSFELD THE SON OF A BITCH OF A BASTARD SHOULD RESIGN.” Does anyone think our service people should be threatened by the chimper_fraud & CO?

But AWOL_coward and liar that chimp is, he knows that this court has excluded service people from its aegis. He and his ilk hide behind the skirts of US Service people to deprive the America of access to an international court that deals with genocide, kidnappings, murders, internment without charges, and other crimes that Kissinger, and now the Bush_junta, are among the MOST WANTED criminals all over the world.

Bush is scared of this court. He pisses his pants at the thought of a court doing to him what he is doing to the people in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Why? What would those men there say if they got a real trial? Would they implicate Chimper_mother_fucker in some way?

Would they hang Kissinger if he goes to Paris again? They almost got him last time when he ducked out the back door of his hotel.

Will they eventually hang Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter, and the rest of the junta, who are cast as international criminals for their complicity in the same governmental abuses in Iraq which sent the Nazis to the gallows?

Hung by their necks until dead? We can only hope that justice will be mine, sayeth the Lord. And that the entire bush_junta will pay with their lives for what they have done to our young service people and to the innocents in Iraq.

They are dirty, stinking, guilty bastards. Just exactly what they blame on the helpless and hopeless detainees who will fight a filthy bush_criminal tribunal for their lives. After suffering beatings, starvation, and what the International Red Cross deplores as isolation without aid for three fucking years.

What are they prepared to say? That they were recruited by the CIA? That they are being framed by the chimper_junta? What is so important that these poor, starving and beaten and tortured souls can’t stand in front of a US judge? Instead they will be tried by a bush_prosecutor, “defended” by a bush_attorney, and sentenced to death by a bush_judge because according to bush, they are already assumed to be “bad people.”

Who is worse than bush, cheney, rummy, wolferwizz, Perle, powell, rice, et al? How can anyone be more of a 'bad people' then them? How can these murdering war criminals sleep? They must be dragged, kicking and screaming, in front of the same tribunal that they would have for these poor, sorry, Afghanis.

They must be tried, as were the Nazis, and Milosevic, for “Crimes Against the Peace.”

And then, if found guilty, the must be HUNG BY THEIR NECKS UNTIL DEAD. BETTER YET, HANG EM ALL BY THE BALLS. HANG THE BITCH RICE BY WHATEVER MEANS TO STRETCH HER LOUSY NECK. HANG EM ALL.

Commander Bunnypants, strap on that fake flight suit, stuff your crotch with a sock, and land on an aircraft carrier again. Mission Accomplished. You hideous aberration of United States politics.

The AWOL Chimper and RUMMY & CO threaten Service people, and Slur ABC Reporter--For Telling The Truth.

Can anyone really believe that a news reporter on ABC has been slurred and smeared by the White House for a report on the low morale of our young, fellow Americans serving in the Iraq desert?

We must, as citizens, make SURE that none of these young, American Heroes catch any shit from the junta_generals, Bush or Rumsfuck,. EVER!

Most Republicans I know say they will NEVER support another Bush pResidency. They are very upset with this MORON.

Bush, these are the same young people who have given their lives--put them on the line--over lies and fraud from YOU, coward smirk. You, bush, slap on your #43 golf cap and get your dumb ass out there in the hot, stinking Iraqi desert.

Paint a target on your back. Let you hear cusswords thrown at you, along with stones, all day long. Sweat it to think that you may never return to your family again.

Good riddance to you...Hang Bush. Not our devoted and young volunteers who get nothing out of this except hazardous pay CUTS, expense CUTS, and bushhit while CHIMP and CO makes the millions off of their sacrifices. $MILLION$ and $BILLION$...what is a young serviceman/woman's live worth to you fuckers?

NADA

How surreal. Bush&co planning to punish these guys. Already punishing the reporter from ABC, calling him a 'queer and a Canadian.' What a nauseating fraud we have in our WH.

Will you, Bush, fire the bastard that gave that slur to 'Drudge?' How much longer can the American people wait until we get a chance to fire your goddam cowardly fucking ass from our people's White House...and send you to the Hague to be tried as a War Criminal? You and your whole, crooked chickenhawk junta. Sitting there next to your bud Milosevic. And then

HANGING BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD.

The Idiot Speaks

BAD UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
(From TomPaine.com)

Kudos to Nick Robinson, political editor for the commercial British
television network ITV. At yesterday's press conference following Tony
Blair's address to Congress, Robinson refused to let President Bush's
pre-judgment of the Guantanamo Bay captives go unchallenged.

Asked whether he was concerned about the detainees getting
justice, Bush replied, "No. The only thing I know for certain is that these
are bad people."

Other journalists let this bizarre remark slip by;
Robinson followed up. Would such an unproven assertion "fuel... doubts that
the United States regards [the captives] as innocent until proven
guilty and due a fair, free and open trial?" he asked.

"Well, let me just say these were illegal combatants," Bush
fumbled. "They were picked up off the battlefield aiding and abetting the
Taliban. I'm not trying to try them in front of your cameras or in your
newspaper."

Whether the 32 Afghans and three Pakistanis already released from
Guantanamo without charges are also "bad" was not addressed. For more
on the good, the bad, and the ugly, check out Take on the News -- our
new blog!


http://www.tompaine.com/blog.cfm/

"Intimidation" and stonewalling of September 11 commission By Bush War Criminals Getting Worse

September 11 commission complains of "intimidation" and stonewalling

"At a news conference accompanying the release of the statement, Kean and Hamilton called attention to the administration’s insistence that all government witnesses be accompanied by officials representing their agencies when interviewed by commission staff.

"Media observers have compared this to the Iraqi government’s use of official “minders” to sit in on interviews by UN weapons inspectors. At the time, the Bush administration declared that such tactics proved Saddam Hussein had something to hide.

"Kean told the press conference, “I think the commission feels unanimously that it’s some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either work for or works for your agency. You might get less testimony than you would. We would rather interview these people without minders or without agency people there.”

"The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was established last fall, more than a year after the destruction of the World Trade Center, after ferocious opposition by the Bush administration. The White House backed down only in the face of protests by the families of September 11 victims, which threatened to embarrass the administration in the weeks before the November 2002 congressional elections.

"Bush initially appointed former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as the commission’s chairman, in a transparent attempt to insure that the investigation would protect both the Republican administration and the national security apparatus. Kissinger stepped down within two weeks, however, after refusing to make public his business connections and activities in the Middle East....More

Media Watchdog Presents Case: We Only See Tip of Iceberg on Bush Administration's Pattern of Lies and Deception

MEDIA ADVISORY:
Bush Uranium Lie Is Tip of the Iceberg("Or, The more you repeat a big lie, the more people will believe you." Adolph Hitler, Bush Family Mentor)<--NLTCP.blog
Press should expand focus beyond "16 words"

July 18, 2003

Five months later, the truthfulness of one claim in George W. Bush's
State of the Union address has become the focus of growing media scrutiny.
The attention media are paying to this single assertion should be part of a
larger journalistic inquiry into other misstatements and exaggerations
that have been made by the Bush administration about Iraq.

In the January 28 speech, Bush claimed that "the British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of
uranium from Africa." That assertion was similar to claims made
previously by administration officials, including Secretary of State
Colin Powell (CBS Evening News, 12/19/02), that Iraq had sought to import
yellowcake uranium from Niger, a strong indication that Saddam
Hussein's regime was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

In fact, the Niger story, as documented by journalist Seymour Hersh
(New Yorker, 3/31/03) and others, was based on crudely forged documents. In
addition, the administration's own investigation in March 2002 concluded
that the story was bogus. As one former State Department official put it,
"This wasn't highly contested. There weren't strong advocates on the
other side. It was done, shot down" (Time, 7/21/03).

Bush's use of the Niger forgeries has received considerable media
attention in recent days. Much of this reporting has been valuable,
and some outlets have broadened the inquiry beyond one passage in a speech.
The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, for example, suggests (7/16/03)
that the uranium claim remained in the State of the Union address because
"almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by
U.N. inspectors in Iraq."

Much media coverage, however, has focused narrowly on the Niger
incident, putting the press is in danger of ignoring the most important question
the story raises: Does the uranium claim indicate a larger pattern of
deceptive claims made about Iraq? At minimum, the following assertions
made by the Bush administration also deserve media scrutiny:

--Aluminum tubes: In the State of the Union address and elsewhere, the
White House has claimed that Iraq was seeking to purchase high-strength
aluminum tubes to use in processing uranium, tubes Bush said would be
"suitable for nuclear weapons production." But a report in the
Washington Post (9/19/02) months before Bush's address noted that leading
scientists and former weapons inspectors seriously questioned the administration's
explanation-- pointing out that the tubes, which would be difficult to
use for uranium production, were more plausibly intended for artillery
rockets. The Post also noted charges that the "Bush administration is
trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret
the evidence." Commendably, some reporters, like NBC's Andrea Mitchell
(7/14/03), have questioned the aluminum tubes claim in recent reporting
about Bush's State of the Union address.

--Iraq/Al Qaeda links: When Bush announced the end of hostilities in
Iraq in a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, he said of the defeated Iraqi
regime: "We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda." While a Saddam
Hussein/Osama bin Laden connection was one of the administration's
early justifications for going to war, it has produced no evidence to
demonstrate this link exists. There is evidence, however, that the
administration was deeply invested in proving such a tie, as former
Gen. Wesley Clark attested recently on Meet the Press (FAIR Media Advisory,
6/20/03). Yet media accounts of Bush's USS Lincoln speech hardly raised
an eyebrow over this attempt to keep the Iraq/Al Qaeda link alive.

--The trailers: Bush presented the discovery of two trailers in Iraq as
proof that Iraq possessed banned weapons: "We found the weapons of mass
destruction. We found biological laboratories," he told Polish TV
(Associated Press, 5/31/03). "They're illegal. They're against the
United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find
more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the
banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
But serious questions had been raised within the administration about
whether these trailers had anything to do with biological weapons--
doubts that soon emerged in a New York Times article (6/7/03). No evidence
has been put forward confirming that the trailers were designed for
anything other than the production of hydrogen for artillery balloons, as
captured Iraqis had said (London Observer, 6/8/03).

--Weapons Inspections: More recently, Bush has flagrantly
misrepresented the history of the prewar conflict with Iraq over weapons inspections,
telling reporters on July 14, "We gave him a chance to allow the
inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." In fact, after a Security
Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in,
they were given complete access to the country. The Washington Post
(7/15/03), describing Bush's remarkable statement, could only say that
his assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this
spring." Joe Conason (Salon.com, 7/15/03) took note of "the press
corps' failure to report his stunning gaffe. The sentence quoted above doesn't
appear in today's New York Times report, for example."

--Powell's U.N. address: Some of the current reporting over the Niger
uranium forgery notes that Colin Powell was less confident about the
story, as evinced by the fact that he did not include the claim in his
February 5 address to the United Nations. But Powell's speech had
problems of its own. As pointed out by Gilbert Cranberg (Washington
Post, (6/29/03), Powell embellished an intercepted conversation about weapons
inspections between Iraqi officials to make it sound more incriminating,
changing an order to "inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas"
to a command to "clean out" those areas. He also added the phrase "make
sure there is nothing there," a phrase that appears nowhere in the State
Department's official translation. Further, Powell relied heavily on the
disclosure of Iraq's pre-war unconventional weapons programs by
defector Hussein Kamel, without noting that Kamel had also said that all those
weapons had been destroyed (FAIR Media Advisory, 2/27/03).

--Other pre-war deceptions: Even when administration deceptions have
been exposed by prominent mainstream outlets, the media in general tend not
to recall them or draw connections. In October 2002, in a notable front-page
article titled "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable" (10/22/02), Washington Post
reporter Dana Milbank noted two dubious Bush claims about Iraq: his citing
of a United Nations International Atomic Energy report alleging that Iraq
was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon; and that Iraq
maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used, in
Bush's words, "for missions targeting the United States." While these
assertions "were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought," Milbank
concluded they "were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed
that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States" and "there
was no such report by the IAEA." But recent media discussions of
Bush's credibility-- including in the Washington Post-- have rarely mentioned
these examples.
----------
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Keep Your Eye On The Bouncing Ball Of Lies from Junior & Co

Well, it turns out his Lie-A-Day fraud to drag the country into a war with Iraq was finally exposed as treachery. High Crimes and misdemeanors.

The Latest Lie: The British Had Good Intelligence on these Nuclear purchases, but won't tell anyone who these good intels are, and so it's now a secret if Bush and Blair are lying their fool asses off to keep their jobs and avoid investigation in their respective, angry countries.

Keep your eye on the lie. Yesterday, the 'dodgy dossier' became a 'secret dossier' became a fiasco for the new White House spin-liar.

Hear the whole news conference if you have RealPlayer--look for Scott McClellen White House briefing 7/17. It's a GAS!

Dodgy Scotty couldn't answer a single question without bungling it, trying to turn Bush Lies into some sort of Dem conspiracy...The little fucker tells the whole country lies and blames it on (a) CIA's Tenet, who already had the line removed from one speech and told a committee yesterday he was surprised it was used again (b) No No NO Mr. Bill it's not a lie it's not a lie the Brits can proove it's not a lie (c) The Democrats are calling it a lie because it's an election year and this is just a trick to bring Bush down.

But will the little AWOL coward say, "The Buck Stops With Me, I am a Fucking Liar and all of this war never should have happened?"

Because Now We All Know: IT WAS A LIE. IT WAS A FUCKING LIE FROM LOUSY BUSH BASTARD. AND NOW 'SOME' OF THE GOP ARE STONEWALLING. Which doesn't change the fact about all of the dead Americans, dead Iraqis, and SCHLOCK AND AWE, does it.

Email the pResident@whitehouse.gov and tell him he lied and it is time for him to pull down his junta and get the fuck out of dodge. Call him a liar. Tell him you don't trust a word he says, anymore.

Or maybe he would rather go to the Hague, be tried by a War Crimes Tribunal for Crimes against the Peace, and HANG BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD? Share the Hangman's noose with Rummy, Franks, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Wolferwizz, Perle and the whole BLOOD for OIL cabal?

Hang em. HANG EM HIGH. HANG EM BY THE BALLS!

Did Mayberry Machiavellis Use Classified CIA Documents to "OUT" A trusted officer's Wife?--Because He Told Truth To Power?

Capital Games

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted.

In a recent column on Nigergate, Novak examined the role of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV in the affair. Two weeks ago, Wilson went public, writing in The New York Times and telling The Washington Post about the trip he took to Niger in February 2002--at the request of the CIA--to check out allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium for a nuclear weapons program from Niger.

Read the rest at the Link to David Corn's great article...

Gangster mentality: Bush junta has placed the life of one of our intelligence agents at risk--perhaps ruined his career and his life--as payback for doing what he was supposed to do. Tell the Truth. But doing that in Bushville could get you killed. Bush could just as well wait for the agent to get a haircut and shoot him in the barber chair. Or massacre his family when they were eating spaghetti on some Friday night. Gangsters one and all.

Bush is one sick motherfucker. He, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Wolferwizzz, Perle, RUMMY...all murderers and War Criminals. The Geneva convention cites "Crimes against the Peace" as the most heinous offense on the list. Hitler's Crime. The Crime of the indicted Nazis in Nuremburg. And I ACCUSE the Bush_Junta of those same crimes by attacking a sovereign nation, Iraq. A nation without the capability to defend itself in any way whatsoever against billions of dollars of "SHOCK AND AWE." Rummy was so proud of that! His neck should be stretched right along with Rove and the other perps.

Cuff em and stuff em. Take them to the Hague to sit on the prisoner's dock, wearing jailhouse jumpsuits, next to Milosevic.

Hang em. Hang em all. Hang em high.

Senator Sam Brownbeck, (R-KS) Bring Them Bantu (African Black Tribespeople) to--Massachusetts--Just NOT TO KANSAS!!

SAY IT AIN'T SO, SAM

You know, hypocrisy and lies have become such a staple of GOPPER NEO-CON politicians that the average political junky can become jaded. So hardened to all of it that it becomes expected, like sweat when you run. Like diarrhea if you eat a bad clam. Like sulfurous burps if you eat bad sausage.

Like projectile vomit.

But Sam Brownbeck (R-KS) brings the worst of all possible worlds of shit-affliction. He pretends to be the hero of the displaced tribes of deepest, darkest, Africa. Those that are starving and struggling with AIDS and multiple births. Those that are not allowed to have condoms supplied by Brownbeck, and his pro-family anti-homo anti-choice idealogues. They are more than willing to preach 'abstainance' to others, but won't allow a penny to go to 'family planning.' Including condoms or abortion counseling.

So when this stinking gopper bastard extends the hand of mercy across the ocean you would think he would be extending the invitation to these black bretheren to come to Kansas, where he is the elected GOPPER Senator.

But NOOOOOOOO. He proposes that they all come to America on your tax dollar. Lady Liberty raising her lamp to all those oppressed peoples and all...

But, To Massachusetts! That's right...bring all them poor, starving, AIDS ridden Africans to America...more specifically...to MASSACHUSETTS. Not To Kansas. No No. Not a single one is invited to Kansas. As a matter of fact, he explicitly works to keep these people OUT of Kansas, Dorothy.

You can read the story above. Sam Brownbeck, you lousy bastard. You deeply flawed mother fucker. If you are going to extend the hand of mercy over seas, at least have the decency to extend it on the part of those fools who have put your disgusting GOPPER ass in the Senate, the people of KANSAS.

God, he is such a dirty hypocritical motherfucker that I might loose ten or fifteen minutes sleep thinking about it tonight.

"Technical Accuracy" by Gene Lyons

Gene Lyons
July 16, 2003

Technical Accuracy

As you know, in a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my
relationship with Monica Lewinsky. While, technically, my answers were
legally accurate, I was not entirely truthful with my information."

---President Bill Clinton, August 1998

"It didn't rise to the standard of a presidential speech, but it's not
known, for example, that it was inaccurate. In fact, people think it
was technically accurate."

--Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, July 2003

What we have here is a crisis of competence. Those impertinent rascals
at Mediawhoresonline.com have posted some unintentionally funny
photographs downloaded from the official White House website. They show
President Junior with furrowed brow and pencil in hand, making final
revisions to his State of the Union speech. As if, as the kids say.

Cheap irony aside, nobody thinks Bush writes his own speeches. People
don't even expect him to grasp with great particularity what's in them.
Nobody holds him responsible; certainly nobody ever has.

It's CIA director George Tenet's fault. No, it's Dick Cheney's fault.
No, it's Condoleeza Rice's fault. Where was Colin Powell? We had a
word for this kind of circular activity in junior high, but it's unsuitable
for the newspaper. Anyway, it can't be Junior's fault. He not only
doesn't know what's in the intelligence briefings, he doesn't appear to
know what's in the newspapers.

On Monday, Bush told reporters the CIA raised concerns about crudely
forged documents supposedly showing Iraq buying African uranium only
"subsequent" to his speech. Not so. In fact, the falsehood was scrubbed
from an October, 2002 Bush speech at the CIA director's insistence.
Time reports Tenet personally intervened with Condi Rice's chief deputy.

Somebody at the White House then stuck a weasel-worded version back
into Bush's January 2003 speech. A good guess would be Rice, who alluded to
the phony story in a November, 2002 New York Times op ed entitled "Why
We Know Iraq Is Lying."

There was even a discrepancy between Tenet's blame-taking and Bush's
actual words. See, what Condi and Rummy mean by calling Junior's speech
"technically accurate" is that British intelligence did cite the
African tale in one of what London newspapers call its "dodgy dossiers." (Both
dossiers turned out to be substantially plagiarized from outdated
public sources.) That would arguably make Bush's statement true in precisely
the way Bill Clinton's denial of "sexual relations" with Monica
Lewinsky was true--i.e. literally factual, but calculated to deceive.

Except Junior said this: "The British government has learned that
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
As Michael Kinsley notes, you don't "learn" something false. Bush
didn't simply report the British claim; he endorsed it.

Monday, Junior argued that he'd given Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow
the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." Evidently, he's
forgotten the elaborate diplomatic charade leading up to his own March
2003 speech warning U.N. inspectors out before the bombing began.

To comprehend the stygian depths of the administration's mendacity,
however, it helps to begin on Sept. 7, 2002, when Junior and British
Prime minister Tony Blair appeared at the White House together. Bush
alleged that a "new" IAEA report (International Atomic Energy Agency)
stated that Iraq was "six months away" from building a nuclear weapon.
"I don't know what more evidence we need," he added.

"Absolutely," Blair seconded.

No such report ever existed, as our brilliant Washington press corps,
as John R. MacArthur points out in the Columbia Journalism Review, didn't
exactly knock itself out reporting. Next Condoleeza Rice conceeded that
"there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam
Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons...But we don't want the smoking
gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Vice president Cheney told "Meet the Press," that Iraq's
"reconstituted" nuclear weapons program was an incontestable fact.

Calculated to stampede Congress and frighten Americans into supporting
the radical doctrine of pre-emptive war, almost word every in Bush's
speech regarding Saddam's non-existent nukes has been shown to be
false.


"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990's that
Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had
a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different
methods of enriching uranium for a bomb" Bush said. After citing the
discredited British story, he added that "our intelligence sources tell us that he
has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for
nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained
these activities. He clearly has much to hide."

Saddam's not the only one who does. U.N. inspectors found Iraq's
nuclear weapons program destroyed after the Gulf War. The aluminum tubes
business has been thoroughly debunked by IAEA experts. As with all
incompetent propagandists, the Bush team's cocksure
attitude--its vaunted air of corporate-style "leadership"--is pure
illusion.

They appear decisive precisely because they cook the books and have
only contempt for anybody who disagrees.

Chimp hangs Blair out to dry over Iraqi nuclear claims Prominent MPs call for Blair to resign. Ha Ha Ha Told Ya, Blair!

Bush hangs Blair out to dry over Iraqi nuclear claims Prominent MPs call for Blair to resign

BUSH LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB?

GEORGE W. BUSH RESUME
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, D.C.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS pRESIDENT:

I attacked and took over two countries.
I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for the most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history did.
I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The poorest multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant. I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world's sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history. In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war. I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

PERSONAL REFERENCES:

For personal references, please speak to my dad or uncle James Baker (They can be reached in their offices at the Carlyle Group where they are helping to divide up the spoils of the US-Iraq war and plan for the next one).

Thanks Doris! Must be something in the Shreveport water :-))

Secretary Rumsfeld Lies Lies Lies--Prevaricator of Defense Proves that NO MAN CAN BE A SUCCESSFUL LIAR (Lincoln)

DoD News: Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with ABC This Week

Now this guy is one accomplished fucking liar. Rumsfeld makes all liars in history look like amateurs. Rumsfled makes every liar throughout the civilized world seem like a Roman Catholic Bishop. Like Jesus Christ, by comparison.

This guy is such a slick, slippery bastard, there is not a single fact ABOUT ANYTHING that he admitted in this whole interview with George Stephanopolous.

How 'bout we put him under oath and question him, again? Let's hear his answers to the same questions when there is a strong probablility that he could be tossed in a war crimes prison for Crimes Against The Peace?

Anyone who watched this slick, slippery bastard knows what I am talking about. He gives liars everywhere a bad name. He is probably the most mendacious war criminal on the planet. Rumsfeld refuses to give out a SINGLE VERIFIABLE FACT.

Even when crook Nixon (R) was in the White House, there was not THIS LEVEL OF CRIMINAL PERJURY.

Rumsfeld, you lying bastard. Cuff him. Stuff him. Try him, fry him. Hang him. Hang him high. HANG HIM BY THE BALLS.

Oh Captain my Captain....Oh...Oh...OHHHHHHHH -- Or How Bush_Lite Pokes America In The ... well, you get it.

The Pretend Captain

Thanks to an English Professor at my old Alma Mater, Bloomsburg University (PA) for this...

When it became apparent after the war the President lied to the people, the President's political action team went into overdrive. It wasn't the President's fault, they moaned. Others, like the CIA, gave him bad information, they whined. The British were at fault, they blamed. The president doesn't have responsibility for anything, they wailed.

Instead of sending war-mongering lieutenants Cheney and Rumsfeld out to face the media, the commander-in-chief sent Colin Powell. The secretary if state, a much more sympathetic figure, had protested the war until, good soldier that he is, accepted the Bush doctrine as his marching orders. To nail the claim he had no responsibility, the commander-in-chief sent out his other minority aide, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, to try to explain in a one-hour news conference why the commander-in-chief and his entire senior White House staff, including her, was merely a dupe of bad intelligence. In a sniveling response, she even claimed that had the CIA told the President to take out the inflammatory 16 words, he would have. Of course, by the time the State of the Union was ready for presentation, there was no doubt the President wanted, needed, and expected to utter those 16 words, and hundreds of others, to justify his plans two months later.

The CIA's first mission, according to its charter, is "to support the President." And so CIA director George Tenet fell upon his sword to keep his boss from looking bad.

Bush White House SQUIRMING AND DUCKING over Their Iraq war lies...Tenet to save Rice, falls on his own sword.

Bush White House in crisis over Iraq war lies

While most US media is still in disarray about the lies and mendacity which have sent our troops, as a disaster-ridden army of occupation half-way around the world, much very effective analysis remains...

..."By week’s end, Tenet had been compelled to issue an extraordinary statement taking full responsibility for the falsification, in what was widely understood to be an effort to protect National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Cheney and Bush himself....

...The exposure of lying in the State of the Union speech produced a wide public reaction, not because of the intrinsic significance of Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa, but because this statement was part of an enormous web of lies used by the administration to drag the American people into war.

The entire Bush administration case for war with Iraq was based on serial falsifications of the most grotesque and flagrant character. The claim that Iraq possessed vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, the claim that Saddam Hussein’s regime was a powerful military threat to his neighbors and even the United States, the claim that Iraq had close ties with Al Qaeda and would share weapons of mass destruction with the terrorists, all these are lies which have been exposed by the events of the war and its aftermath."

Anybody had their fill of gopper lies, yet? Anybody ready to RECALL CHIMPER AND BIG TIME DICK?

I say the time has already come and still awaits the NUREMBERG WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS.

What happened to those politicians who were responsible for the murders of innocents during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia? What happened to the Nazi leaders who persecuted and killed the existing political leaders? What happened to industry that supported the Nazi war effort? Well, WHAT THE F*** DO YOU THINK HAPPENED?

They were HUNG. Hung By Their Necks Until Dead.

I think the country is ready for a good hanging of dirty politicians. The ones who steal the treasure of sovereign nations while surreptitiously claiming to be liberators. The ones who engage the help of America's big corporations, which these same dirty pols own, or own stock in, piece and parcel...The ones who send our countrymen, our sons and daughters, on a mission to kill and destroy and maim and gut-out another country and its innocents. All this while the unelected_fraud straps on his CDR. BUNNYPANTS outfit to land on an aircraft carrier:

?MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

Really?

?BRING EM ON?

Really?

Give em helmets and let these brave crooks hop in Humvees and ride around Baghdad in the dark. Better yet, Hang em. Hang em all...Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Tommy Franks, Wolferwizz, Perle. Hang em high. Hang em out to dry.

We should declare the day this happens a NATIONAL HOLIDAY.

But what would the bewildered media say?!?

Said Abraham Lincoln - "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

Famous Quotes - Abraham Lincoln - No man has a good...

Certainly not chimper.

Faux News Assassinates Howard Dean--To No Avail. Faux Has Become The Toothless Dog of Neo Con Media

To Faux News Political—er—whatever,

The first time I’ve looked at ‘wereportyoudecide’ in about 4 years. Heh!

All of the interviewees on your Howard Dean assassination attempt seemed to be members of Fox’s preferred political persuasion—idiot--or was there a critic of Democratic Party affiliation hiding in the woodpile?

At least you motherfuckers are consistent. Don’t you realize that your reputation eliminates your value? You have no clarity of reporting when it comes to threats to your neo-con comfort level, do you?

This putrid little piece could have come from skinny, anemic, 40-something Ann C, or ole’ whale-blubber hisself, lim rushbaaa. You faux folks are in such good company! I can’t wait to see who will be ELECTED in sixteen months. Do you really think this country will give chimp a shot at being elected, now that they really know what the little bastard is about?

Have a nice day :-))

BELGIUM CRACKS--NO WAR CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST RUMMY, FRANKS, AND *gag* Junior. THIS TIME.

Can You Say BRIBE?? GUILTY??? Hang em. Hang em all.

"American Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that Washington would block further funding for Nato's new headquarters in Belgium until the legal threat was withdrawn."

Excuse me, but Rummy took American taxpayer's money to bribe Belgium. The message was clear: get rid of the war crimes indictments, crimes against the peace indictments, murder and maiming charges and indictments against Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush, and General Franks or Americans would not let our collected tax money be used to 'HELP' build a new NATO office building in Brussells.

Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut said he was surprised by Mr Rumsfeld's warning, insisting the General Franks case had been rejected by his country.

Mr Rumsfeld has said American military and civilian officials need assurances they could come to Brussels without facing "harassment" from the Belgian courts.

A Bribe. If there was no office building and no $50 million in US taxpayer funds involved, Cheney/Rumsfeld/Frankds/Bush would have had no buttons to press against the Belgium government.

The trials would have gone on. Why bribe the jury unless you know you are GUILTY?

So we can be very proud of our chickenhawk, neo-con cowardly leadership. They have to bribe foreign governments and make civil servants like George Tenet fall on their swords to keep the wolf away from their doors. They are our first homegrown, domestic terrorists.

Cheney even gets to fight his energy lawsuit--where he is shredding the paperwork and evidence that he conspired to rob Americans, hand in glove with Enron etc-- against citizens of this AMERICA with our own tax dollars. Gotta be proud of that mothafoca.

It's not like he doesn't get a $quarter-of-a-million$ dollars a year from Halliburton right now, this year and every year, anyway. He should be paying his own fucking legal bills like the Big Dog, our last duly-elected president Bill Clinton, had to do. No--he would rather charge off the legal bills to the same taxpayers he plotted to steal from with his big-oil cabal.

Never in the history of the world have so many criminals, thieves, and killers been sitting in the White House with their finger on 'the button.' A tree full of pillaging vultures from the old Nixon era. All with axes to grind and worlds to conquer before they die. That won't be soon enough to save what is left of our environment, our national pride, or domestic tranquility, and maybe, our democracy.

Meanwhile, the coward in chief still does the Bush-dodge in deepest, darkest Africa. No Commander Bunnypants landing on an aircraft carrier today? Gee, when is the next heroic chimper moment so's I can set the VCR?!?

Gangsters one and all. Bringing Corporate Greed on a MegaLevel to Your White House!

Hang em all. HANG EM HIGH. HANG EM BY THE BALLS!

Mayberry Machiavellis Break George Tenet's Legs

Anyone remember U of P professor Dilulio, a Democrat who was appointed to the bush_junta early on to show that chimp was a uniter_not_uh_divider?

Creator of the phrase "MAYBERRY MACHIAVELLIS?"

Remember what happened after he said that the Bush White House did NOTHING that couldn't help them POLITICALLY? That they were a bunch of "MAYBERRY MACHIAVELLIS?"

Legs were broken. He suddenly decided it was "taken out of context" or something...the gangsters in bush_junta shut him down fast...remember?

Poor George Tenet. I never pictured him as a chickenshit coward. But nothing else changes. Bush still used knowingly fake and fraudulent info to scare America. It is still chimper's dirty deed. Hell, the cleaning lady could have said it was ok to say the "British did it" and Bush would be just as responsible for what went into HIS speech. But that's what defines him as the fraud. The phony. The coward that is Bush. He has to blame it on someone. He can't accept responsibility that he is the killer. The War Criminal.

Wouldn't it have been better if Tenet just told CHIMP IT WAS "OK" TO JUMP OFF A CLIFF?!? And Chimper would'a done it then, right??

But he is AWOL in deepest darkest Africa, letting everyone else take the heat.

Maybe he will get cuffed and stuffed over there. War Criminal. Killer.

Hang him. Hang him high. HANG HIM BY THE BALLS.

Helicopter Landings on Abe Lincoln--Easier Than Landing In Front of the Press in Africa?!? COWARD. AWOL AGAIN?

I have survived a lot of presidential administrations. Yours is certainly the worst ever. You hide. You lie and obfuscate; you duck questions. When you last had a 'news conference,' before your lying charade about 'the dictator of Iraq,' it was, in your own gobbledygook_lexicon, "scripted, you know."

Letting your string_puppets, Powell, Rice, etc, take the hit for you today, though, right Cdr. Bunnypants?

Why don't you just get out there and let the press ask some real questions like they do in Africa? But you are hiding out there, coward. We know that. You are AWOL yet again.

Do you not have the intelligence to answer questions? Where is your presidential ability? Did you need to know the answers to the questions before you got your "gentleman's C" in college? Or was cheerleading at football games, dressed in a tutu, your real forte?

Come out come out where ever you are, George. Let the public hear you answer real questions from real reporters, not scripted answers from made up reporters. Take a question or two from the Grand Dame of the White House Press Corps, Ms. Helen Thomas. Why did you relegate her to the back row in your phony, scripted, pre-attack performance? Coward. AWOL again?

The last duly-elected president of the United States, President William Jefferson Clinton, had given upward of 100 (ONE HUNDRED) news conferences by this time in his first term.

You won't give that many in your entire 4 year fiasco and junta. Which can't end soon enough for me, and the majority of Americans who voted for Al Gore.

Don't be scared, shithead. Remember your landing on the Abe Lincoln? You were so brave! And that roll of socks in your crotch...really turned on Chris Matthews (MSNBC) huh?!? You had him screeching in envy of your make-believe ball room!

Now, land on a stage in front of the nation's media and answer questions: Did you lie and fabricate intelligence that put America into a war, with devastating slaughter, in Iraq? Are you really going to dump this on CIA director Tenet? The Bush_Buck stops where? With Director Tenet?

COWARD. AWOL AGAIN.

Even though it was common knowledge in the intel community over a year before that? Even the Brits knew it was a lie, but you are so god-damn stupid that you tried to buy, with daddy's money and RNC donations from your energy cabal, phony intel that Saddam was some kind of threat? Worth investing our nation's young volunteer servicepeople's lives and our nation's treasure and Bill Clinton's surplus in capturing the oil fields? At the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of dead innocents?

You are a son of a bitch if ever there was one.

Except to your bud's who are making a fortune on Iraq's oil reserves--The oil you couldn't coax out of the stinking West Texas desert.

No helicopter needed. Just some guts...Got guts, you coward? Not likely. AWOL AGAIN?

War Criminal. Murderer. Every soul you slaughtered in Iraq with your lies should haunt you when you try to sleep, with that sloppy cow Laura in the twin bed in the next room. Dead people screaming in the dark at both of you. How can she stand your stink?

Your screeners will keep this email from you, coward, AWOL after all these years. But hopefully, the souls of the murdered innocents will come screaming at you through the darkness for as long as you take breath.

I hate the air. There is some chance you may have breathed it before our dead or maimed service kids. Coward. AWOL Again.

The Wall Street Journal Editorializes--BRING ON ANOTHER VIET NAM

The Wall Street Journal and the occupation of Iraq

I have extracted only a few paragraphs from a report by WSWS.org. Click the link above to read it all.

In the Balkan states of Yugoslavia and Greece, after a rapid conquest of the countries, the German Nazi regime was confronted with an intractable war against resistance movements. Nazi efforts to suppress guerrilla activities progressed from detaining suspected partisans to reprisal killings of civilians and wholesale massacres. Mark Mazower, an author on the Nazi occupation of Greece, noted in his work Inside Hitler’s Greece: “One of the basic assumptions behind German occupation policy was that ‘terror had to be answered with terror’ to force the population to withdraw support from the insurgents.” (Inside Hitler’s Greece, Mark Mazower, Yale University Press, 1993, p. 173)

In a fashion similar to that of the Bush administration, the Nazis characterized the resistance fighters as terrorists and criminals. Mazower points out, ‘[R]egarding the guerrillas as inhuman, criminal or racially inferiors undoubtedly helped to erode the [German] troops’ moral and legal inhibitions against the use of ‘harsh and ruthless measures.’” (ibid, p. 160). If the Wall Street Journal has its way, US imperialism is on the path to using just as harsh and ruthless measures in what it calls the “Sunni-Baathist heartland” of Iraq.

Underpinning the Journal’s call for stepped-up repression in Iraq is the right-wing mythology as to why the US was defeated in Vietnam. According to this myth, US administrations were intimidated by the antiwar movement at home, which tied the hands of the military and prevented it from carrying out a “total war” to defeat the Vietnamese. The majority of the American people, the right-wing claims, did not oppose the war. They simply lost confidence in the determination of the government to win it.

The Journal editorial asserts: “The lesson we draw from American wars is that the public will accept casualties, even in large numbers, as long as it feels the cause warrants it and that its leaders have a strategy to succeed. As late as May of 1967, long into the war and after more than 10,300 US deaths, 50 percent of the American public still supported the conflict in Vietnam” (emphasis added).

The Journal confidently reassures its readers that with a sufficiently concerted war against the Iraqi guerrillas, “there is every reason to believe” the US will eventually defeat the “Baathist-terror counterattack.” It takes comfort in the fact that the Iraqi guerrillas, unlike the Vietnamese, have neither the backing of a rival great power nor the ability to cross borders into “foreign sanctuary.” And it is convinced that the American people “won’t turn against the US commitment in Iraq merely because of casualties” (emphasis added).

GOP Wrapping Themselves In The Dead of "NINE-ELEVEN" -- TELL THE BASTARDS THE JINGOISM MUST STOP

Watching the Senate hearings yesterday, one overwhelming fact became evident.

Every question a Dem Senator would ask Rumsfeld would have some reference to "well, after nine-eleven..."

Democrats can invoke 'after nine-eleven' just as well. It is our nation and our tragedy as well as the Bush_junta's.

After nine-eleven Americans lost many of their civil liberties, After nine-eleven, the country was taken into several nation building experiments that have decimated the lives of innocents in Afghanistan and, much more disastrously, Iraq.

"After Nine-Eleven" is becoming the mantra of the Bush_junta. They plan to wrap themselves with it in New York City for their "Nominating Convention."

Enough is enough already. No more "After Nine Eleven excuses."

What are the real reasons the administration decided to drum up fear and hatred for Saddam? Why was he made the bogeyman for our invasion and decimation of a sovereign nation for the first time in the history of our Republic?

After nine-eleven, we would have expected MORE care and concern from our elected leaders, not more WAR. Get to the truth. Cut the 'after nine-eleven' jingoism. Put away the flags and the religious dogma and let's hear the TRUTH.

I think once that happens, you will find out the 'truth' was all a pack of lies. I think the day is coming when Bush can run to Africa while this simmers in his back yard, but he can't hide. It's time to call him to account. The bush_buck should stop, NOW.

The coward is AWOL again. Yellow, lily-livered bastard, again. While this issue is on the front burner in America, Rove has his Commander Bunnypants off making speeches in deepest, darkest Africa. While the questions in everyone's mind is WHY DID WE GO TO WAR IN IRAQ??? That little bastard has the gall to hide out in the "country" of Africa.

AFTER NINE ELEVEN!

Let's hope someone over there cuffs him, stuffs him, and ships his fucking cowardly ass to the Hague in a small, hot, wooden box, where he is chained in an uncomfortable position. Wearing prison jump-suit orange and peeing in a small bottle. Rolling around in his own defecation. To be put on trial, right next to Milosovec, for Crimes Against The Peace.

Hang him. Hang him high. HANG HIM BY THE BALLS.

Bigger Than Watergate--Smoking Guns-- Election Anarchy: Election 2000, and others

Bigger Than Watergate!

Bring 'Em On? A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

Scoop: Stan Goff: Bring 'Em On?
Many thanks to my good friend, Maria, who brought this outstanding essay to my attention. It is really a great piece of work from Stan Goff.

By Stan Goff
From: Counterpunch
Thursday 03 July 2003

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.

Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing this war."