Iraq Reviews: June 2005 Archives

Iraq Reviews > June 28, 2005

Let’s Play Nice With Murderous, Kidnapping Thugs

[RightPundit] With people like Andrew Jaspan providing rhetorical cover, it is no wonder the terrorist insurgents keep kidnapping and killing people in Iraq. He gives the terrorists reason to believe that the horrors of their actions will not be covered in the Western old media and that their efforts will instead be lauded.

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] Critics of the Bush administration contend the documents -- including the now-famous Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002 -- constitute proof that Bush made the decision to go to war at least eight months before it began, and that the subsequent diplomatic campaign at the United Nations was a charade, designed to convince the public that war was necessary, rather than an attempt to resolve the crisis peacefully. They contend the documents have not received the attention they deserve.

Posted at 11:58 AM

June 28, 2005

Let’s Play Nice With Murderous, Kidnapping Thugs

Posted at 12:02 PM

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War

Posted at 11:58 AM

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

[OneWomanWreckingCrew] As a master of illusions, it’s time once again for Rove to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Posted at 11:52 AM

It’s ok to eat “french fries” again

[Clean Cut Kid] So as President Bush addresses the nation today in front of the men and women in uniform at Camp LeJeune, remember the Republican Congressman from that district is calling on him to “set a plan and a date to begin reducing the number of troops we have in Iraq.”

Posted at 11:51 AM

No homeland security: We are no safer now

[IO ERROR] Pentagon creates student database to find recruits Posted by IO ERROR under Homeland Stupidity , Privacy Leave a Comment I’ve opened a Privacy...

Posted at 11:49 AM

One by One

[Harry's Place] I have no problem with Harry banning people from his site. But to attribute comments to people that they have not made is fundamentally dishonest and is an underhand strategy that should have no place in decent debate.

Read related posts for „One by One“.

Posted at 11:48 AM

AH, FREEDOM: THE BLOODY NIGHTMARE OF IRAQ

[The Light Of Reason] I've discussed Patrick Cockburn's indispensable reporting from Iraq for the UK Independent before -- most importantly in this essay, Embracing Ignorance on Principle: And Still, We Will Not See, and also here. Here are a few excerpts from Cockburn's latest dispatch, which I strongly recommend you read in its entirety (and note the Then and Now

Posted at 11:40 AM

June 27, 2005

More Moonbat Groups Jumping on the Gitmo Bandwagon

[The Urban Grind] If i ran Gitmo, the inmates will have 1 meal a day, no ac, and they will not be allowed to have a Koran unless they are good. If they throw anything at the guards, the guard will be then be allowed to go inside the cell and kick the living crap out of the inmate.

Posted at 05:56 PM

deja vu

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] Times of London: US 'in talks' with Iraq rebels. Weren't they doing that back in February? Time: Talking with the enemy. Link retrieved via Juan Cole...

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Posted at 05:53 PM

Iraqi Coalition Deaths in Flash

[This is Martey Dodoo] From Ben Tesch’s del.icio.us feed comes a Flash application called “Iraqi War Fatalities.” It shows deaths of Coalition personnel chronologically, marking them on a map of Iraq and Kuwait with small black dots and “tic”

Posted at 05:51 PM

NY Times Is Dead Wrong

[bronxpundit.blog-city.com] This strong possibility justifies going to war. Had we not went in, our men and women in uniform would have probably been fighting Iraqi soldiers and other terrorist groups in our backyard. Going to war with Iraq to dethrone Saddam Hussein and to open up the country to democracy was the right thing to do.

Posted at 05:49 PM

Death Wish - Cloned!

[Toe In The Water] A HOSTAGE held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one.Who says modern-day Swedes lack cojones?

Posted at 05:46 PM

Iraq Becomes Haven To Radical Islam

[News America Now - Real News for Real Americans] Basra, second largest city, now subject to extremist Islamic law... "We can't sing in public anymore," said Hussin Nimma, a popular singer from the south.

Posted at 05:41 PM

June 26, 2005

The Final Session of The World Tribunal on Iraq Begins in Istanbul

[San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center] The Istanbul session of the The World Tribunal On Iraq is being held from June 23rd through the 27th and consists hearings investigating various...

Posted at 11:46 AM

Support Our Troops: Cut and Run

[The Metropolis Times] Other than our international reputation and national pride, what exactly would happen to America if we suddenly pulled all our troops from Iraq and let the Iraqis fight for control amongst themselves? We're not helping the War on Terror there- in fact, our presence is actually losing the War for us, by creating more new terrorists than we are destroying.

Posted at 11:44 AM

The Adaptability of Iraqi Insurgents

[If..Else Log] The Adaptability of Iraqi Insurgents: Attacks and countermeasures are being increasingly sophisticated as a result of the experience gained by both...

Posted at 11:42 AM

What's In A Name?

[Rook's Rant] While Miss Hokel is engaged in virtual combat, "Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centers in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said."(Link) Miss Hokel doesn’t have to worry about being taken prisoner by the enemy since she’s pretty safe at the mall on most days. There’s not been a lot of combat action reported from The Gap front.

Posted at 11:17 AM

Karl Rove Is Right! The U.S. Army Has Been Stabbed in the Back

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] It has been stabbed in the back by those who assigned the finest high-tech mechanized force in the world a mission--that of being military police in an Arabic-speaking country--that it is not designed to fulfill, by sending only one-third of the troops necessary for the mission if they did speak Arabic, and by dragging their feet at getting the troops on the ground the tools and protection they need.

Posted at 11:14 AM

connecting the dots on Iraq

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] During the week, Smith published an article in the Los Angeles Times revealing a bit more about how he got all the leaked memos and setting out what he thinks is the real story, the bombing campaign. Smith published another version of this article in the Sunday Times adding some information and commentary that didn't appear in the LA Times.

Posted at 11:11 AM

June 25, 2005

Bono on Meet the Press

[To Wish for Impossible Things] which seek to encourage the G8 nations to provide the world's poorest nations with complete debt cancellation, increased aid and more trade.Also on Sunday's MTP, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will discuss the ongoing US debacle in Iraq.

Posted at 10:38 AM

A Sensible Democratic Critique of Iraq Policy, Part 3 - The Other War

[democracy guy] The Economist, "unending". The Bush Administration calls it a victory in the war on terror.

Posted at 10:36 AM

Karl Rove Should Resign

[Chuck Currie] the issue that you raised, which only works for your purposes when taken OUT OF CONTEXT, is the statement of Karl Rove. And, since you can not honestly quote the context of what he did say in this instance, here it is in context.

Posted at 10:32 AM

Rift in GOP - Sen. Hagel calls Bush ”˜disconnected from reality,’ says ”˜Iraq getting worse’

[SebiMeyer.com] says ‘Iraq getting worse’'>Rift in GOP - Sen. Hagel calls Bush ‘disconnected from reality,’

Posted at 10:29 AM

Saddam’s Novel: “Get out, damned one”

[Sabbah’s Blog] A novel Saddam Hussein reportedly finished writing a day before the U-S-led war in Iraq began will be published next week. The book includes a dedication from his daughter which reads: “to the one who taught us all the great values.”

Posted at 10:26 AM

Iraq and public sentiment

[Stygius] Polling of American disenchantment with Iraq evoke the myth that the American attention span won't permit a long project that involves American casualties. Thus, some -- like the Out of Iraq Caucus -- feel increasingly emboldened to argue for either a drawdown or withdrawal of American forces, often dressing it up in calls for a specific timetable.

Posted at 10:24 AM

June 24, 2005

Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud Killed In Iraq

[OpinionBug.com] SignOnSanDiego””CAIRO, Egypt (AP ) - One of Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted suspected terrorists was killed by an airstrike during fighting with U.S. and Iraqi forces in northwest Iraq, the leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq group said in a Web statement posted Thursday. …

Posted at 07:47 AM

War In Afghanistan Over

[The Hedgehog Report] Mrs. Pelosi said it is past time that the administration established a policy on determining the fates of the detainees at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arguing that most are from Afghanistan and that the conflict there has ended.

Posted at 07:45 AM

Flushing The Media

[The Society Junto] This whole schooling thing is quite distracting. But now with me having graduated I have much more time to make sure I let you all know what’s going...

Posted at 07:35 AM

The Yellow Elephant Campaign

[Fierce Planet] Because ranting is safer than enlisting. Edit: With a hip-hip-hooray for Jesus's General!

Posted at 07:33 AM

Stormy Outlook on Iraq: Small Monkey Advisory

[Hammer of Truth - Libertarian Blog] That’s anybody’s fucking guess, but I doubt a lot of people are walking around thinking “hey, I sure know Iraq is fucked up today, I wonder if it’s the troops I should be blaming.”

Posted at 07:32 AM

Blowback: Leaked CIA Report Confirms The Obvious On Iraq

[BushTracker.net] According to the brief story -- an online search Thursday evening turned up no American media reports on the document -- the insurgency in Iraq is acting as a training grounds for militant Islamists, allowing them to hone a craft involving car bombs, assassinations and coordinated attacks.

Posted at 07:31 AM

The Real News in the Downing Street Memos

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

Posted at 07:26 AM

June 21, 2005

GQ Interview: Personalizing Saddam Hussein

[California Conservative] “Those and other details of the deposed Iraqi leader’s life in U.S. military custody appear in the July issue of GQ magazine, based on interviews with five Pennsylvania National Guardsmen who went to Iraq in 2003 and were assigned to Saddam’s guard detail for nearly 10 months.”Maybe if GQ personalizes Saddam, he’ll start getting some sympathy. Who knows?

Posted at 01:25 PM

Clowns to the Left; Jokers to the Right

[the crossfader] It will be interesting to see how the U.S. media plays up the discovery that Iraqi insurgents are torturing Iraqis. Interesting because of the administration stance on its refusal to shut down Gitmo because of allegations of mistreatment.

Posted at 01:23 PM

exceptions to the rule

[personal political] That's about the full extent of the good news from Iraq this week. In other news, the number of US troops killed there passed 1700.

Posted at 01:20 PM

Tom Dispatch and Mark Danner on the Downing Street Memo

[Where We're Bound] TomDispatch has a posted an excellent introduction to, and reprint of, Mark Danner's coverage of the Downing Street Memo and the resulting non-coverage and bias of the corporate media. This is a must read for anyone interested in the DSM as well as the corporate media cover-up and obedience to state dictates.

Posted at 01:17 PM

Saddam and Al-Qaeda

[AMERICAN FUTURE] The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Aymanal-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to takepart in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier IyadAllawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawimade public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in thearchives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on therelationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network.He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawiprobably entered Iraq in the same period.

Posted at 01:11 PM

Coalition pix

[One Hand Clapping] Arthur Chrenkoff, famous for hus “Good News From Iraq” series, has put together a pictoral tribute to soldiers from all 28 member states of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq.

Read related posts for „Coalition pix“.

Posted at 01:09 PM

Anti-war momentum

[FloridaBlues] Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee kicked off his campaign for the US Senate with a "let's bring the troops home"

Posted at 01:06 PM

June 20, 2005

Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely An 'Inside Job'

[Questions and Contemplations] "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7," said Reynolds about his comments that first appeared June 9 on the web. "If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either.

Posted at 10:51 AM

THE OVERWHELMING UNREALITY OF WHERE WE ARE NOW

[The Light Of Reason] Bush, who was to welcome Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari for his first visit to the White House on Friday, ruled out any hard and fast timetable for withdrawing the 130,000 US soldiers currently deployed in Iraq and made it clear that it will not be anytime soon.

Posted at 10:49 AM

Downingstreet Memo-gate

[Turnpike Feminist] The Downing Street “Memo” is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister’s meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

Posted at 10:48 AM

Rendell makes U-turn on minimum wage

[Daly Thoughts] List, Pederson expected to launch Senate run against Kyl, Howard Dean's Raised Voice Isn't Raising Cash, Getting Cranky On Senate 2006 Races, Harkin: 'Christian broadcasting is America's own home-grown Taliban', Hate Speech, Foreign Poll Roundup, Yes!, Dick DeVos running for governor [Mi], Things like this crack me up, So Who's Lifting Who?, Just Say No To Marine Vets">2

Posted at 10:46 AM

Do Over

[Oliver Willis] Robert K. Brown wonders what the definition of major combat operation really is.

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Posted at 10:45 AM

AnySoldier.Com: Freedom Isn’t Free

[Kicking Over My Traces] We also wanted to give something directly to ourtroops — we have two members in the Air Force, and they’relucky enough to have lots of family support, but we know there aremany soldiers, airmen, seamen and marines who never get anything.

Posted at 10:43 AM

Questions Rise About Downing Street Memos

[Jay Reding.com] We now know that his WMD arsenal was probably destroyed, but we also know that Hussein had maintained the capability to restart his programs, and that he was certainly developing banned missile technology. The question of whether or not Saddam Hussein violated UN Security Council Resolution 1441 is not under debate —

Posted at 10:43 AM

June 19, 2005

Growing Impatience

[Fresh Politics - Politics from the Student Perspective] Daniel Henniger at the OpinionJournal wonders: is America losing the will to fight?

Posted at 01:27 PM

Marines Free Iraqis Tortured by Insurgents in Western Iraq

[Kapitalismo] I just saw a report on CNN that during the course of Operation Spear in western Iraq, Marines freed four Iraqis that were being tortured by...

Posted at 01:23 PM

U.S. Soldier Kills His Superiors: Casualties of Liberal Warfare?

[California Conservative] Martinez, 37, is a supply specialist with the Headquarters Company of the 42nd Infantry Division, New York Army National Guard.”The vital question is: Why? What evil, darkness of mind and absence of conscience, would drive a man to commit such an atrocity upon his fellow soldiers?

Posted at 01:21 PM

In Response to a Question

[The Fourth Rail] The attacks against civilians increase the number of casualties, but their primary motivation is to destabilize Iraqi society, and particularly the civil structure that is still forming in Iraq. The aim of the terrorists is no longer first and foremost to kill Marines and soldiers, but now to disrupt Iraqi society in order to fracture it so badly that it cannot be held together.

Posted at 01:20 PM

Iraq - In The Name of Freedom

[Keld Bach’s Press Cuttings] Fact is that if the islamofascist terrorists did not keep on killing civilians blowing up police stations the reconstruction would be doing much better and the living conditions of the iraqi civilians would be so much better. All in all the liberation of Iraq and implementation of democrazy is in the interest of the Iraqis - except of cause the baathists who want Saddam back or the islamofascists who want to install a rule like Taliban in Afghanistan.

Posted at 01:18 PM

THE GENUINE TIPPING POINT

[The Light Of Reason] He is heavily committed to that approach, just as Bush is heavily committed to not withdrawing U.S. forces. The upshot is the tipping point—a point that has been reached whereby, first, Iraq is likely to abandon its efforts to establish democracy and instead plunge into civil war, and, second, public opinion in America will become starkly at odds with the policies of the Bush administration.

Posted at 01:17 PM

Soldier Charged In Officer Deaths

[OpinionBug.com] DefenseLink””WASHINGTON, June 16, 2005 - A soldier in Iraq has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in connection with the June 7 deaths of two other soldiers in his unit, military officials in Baghdad announced today.

Posted at 01:15 PM

June 18, 2005

SQUANDERED VICTORY

[The Light Of Reason] The failures of the Bush administration to prepare adequately for the postwar period in Iraq are by now well known, underscored by the revelation this week that a briefing paper, prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain eight months before the invasion, warned that “a postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise” and that “little thought”

Posted at 07:40 PM

Napalm: Making it stick

[Chicken Yoghurt] Khalid ash-Shaykhli's assertion back in March that banned weapons may have been used in the assault on Fallujah (a claim that nobody seems overly keen to get to the bottom of), it seems to me that this so-called war of liberation has been fought with precious little morality on either side (see also the lack of a count of the dead.)

Posted at 07:39 PM

The way towards the country of the two rivers

[Baghdad Dweller» Forcing Democracy in The Middle East] Muslim militants seeking to join the fighting in Iraq against the US-led coalition forces and their Iraqi government allies can now choose the best route to smuggle themselves into the country, simply by following detailed instructions available on the Internet. “The central border area between Syria’s Dir al-Zur province and Iraq’s al-Anbar province is the entry point most used by the mujahadeen,” says part of a lengthy message, posted on the Islamic “Firdaws” forum on the Internet.

Posted at 07:35 PM

Let's take a Ride in the "WAYBACK" Machine with Amnesty International

[The Fourth Rail] And let's look at AI's own report and I would like to ask our lefty Tin-foil hat wearing Moonbat friends to please comment on why the US should turn a blind eye to these sort of abuses by Saddam and how this is not justification for forcibly removing Saddam from power. If this kind of evil committed against his own people does not justify military intervention to remove a man who gassed his neighbors and invaded Kuwait while raping and slaughtering Kuwaiti men, women and children and a man who was sending millions to Isreal to fund terror against Isreali citizens and a man who the entire world believed had WMD's, then Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were not that bad of guys either and we should have just ignored them.

Posted at 07:34 PM

BlogProps: A smashing idea

[Knappster: Blog Naked for Jesus] We'll know, though -- they'll be the ones who start shaking, urinating all over themselves and mumbling "yeah, I was, a, uh, Green activist in college" whenever CNN runs the "whatever happened to" story with the famous courtroom artist's sketch of Bush, Cheney and cabinet on a single chain, in orange coveralls and legirons, at their mass arraignment.

Posted at 07:32 PM

Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq’s Oil

[Usayd Network News] 03/17/05 - "BBC" - The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq’s oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC’s Newsnight has revealed.

Posted at 07:30 PM

Taking Responsibility

[The Quonset Hut] When I first read that Sunni mosques in Baghdad have been closed as part of three day protest; the first thought that came to my mind and many others was, why they are protesting now and didn’t protest when innocent civilians, Shiites, Iraqi Policemen and Iraqi National Guards got killed/executed by terrorists?

Posted at 07:29 PM

June 17, 2005

First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II

[Bittersweet] A 23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star ”” the nation’s third-highest medal for valor since World War II.

Posted at 09:25 AM

Good News from Iraq!

[UnFairWitness] Only follow this link if you're one of thereality-based community. Otherwise, you'd best keep your illusionsintact by sticking to the pure, unfiltered Chrenkoff version:

Posted at 09:20 AM

Keep on flogging the Downing Street Memo

[pandagon.net - just poppin' and bloggin'] Jake's take on the whole thing is dead on, but I would like to point out something about the smoking gun effect. It's human nature to focus in on one damning detail in things like this.

Posted at 09:18 AM

In Support of a Resolution of Inquiry

[Where We're Bound] The majority of Congress and the corporate media happily went along for the ride and will continue to ignore and misdirect the public. As far as I'm concerned many of these supporting actors need to be removed of their jobs.

Posted at 09:16 AM

Food Shortages Gnaw at Iraqis' Stomachs, Morale

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] World Food Program, which monitors the distribution of rations, recently reported "significant countrywide shortfalls in rice, sugar, milk and infant formula." Families in Baghdad haven't received sugar or baby milk since January. Newspapers have also begun reporting that the tea and flour handouts contain metal filings and that people have fallen ill after consuming food rations.

Posted at 09:12 AM

Freedom of Speech

[ The (vast) Right Wing Conspiracy] “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime ”” Pol Pot or others ”” that had no concern for human beings,” Durbin said.

Posted at 09:09 AM

THE JOURNALISM HALL OF PUTRID HACKS: SCREW YOU, PURDUM, AND SCREW THE NYT

[The Light Of Reason] for the mainstream press to its diet of White House propaganda, but the blogs insure that, whatever nonsense the US press is biting on, the public need not swallow.

Posted at 09:07 AM

June 16, 2005

Via Email

[Flight Pundit] A Marine squad was marching north of Basra when they came upon an insurgent soldier badly injured and unconscious. Nearby, on the opposite side of the road, was an American Marine in a similar but less serious state. The Marine was conscious and alert.

Read related posts for „Via Email“.

Posted at 10:44 AM

New Memos Detail Early Plans for Invading Iraq

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] Blair's advisors were weighing how Britain could participate in a war. The need to establish a policy on Iraq led to a flurry of meetings between senior U.S. and British officials and internal British government memos in advance of a Bush-Blair summit in April 2002 at the president's ranch near Crawford, Texas. (According to one of the subsequent documents that has been leaked, a British Cabinet briefing paper written in July 2002, Blair gave Bush a conditional commitment at the Texas summit to support military action to remove Hussein.)

Posted at 10:42 AM

Do you think they know?

[Daly Thoughts] Kevin at Media Slander wants people to know about what all is involved in preparing meats that are certified HalÄl for our captives (or as Ami calls them, kidnap victims) at Gitmo:

Posted at 10:40 AM

you don’t say”¦

[Blog: Derek Rose] “Jihad may be fueling attacks” - USA Today lead story today...

Posted at 10:37 AM

Dr. Forbush Thinks - How Many Wives? - Podcast

[Dr. Forbush Thinks] Even though Christians have harped on “Liberals” for having relative morality they have not come down on this president for dealing with relative truth. Where I come from truth is not relative to your objective.

Posted at 10:36 AM

Downing Street Memo to get moment at the Capitol

[HongPong.com] Tomorrow in Washington, Congressmember John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, will convene a public hearing on the so-called Downing Street Memo and other newly released documents that Conyers says show the administration's "efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence." Conyers also says that he plans to raise new documents that back up the accuracy of the Downing Streets memo, which is actually the classified minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Tony Blair and his senior advisers.

Posted at 10:35 AM

Dr. Forbush Thinks - How Many Wives? - Podcast

[Cranky Radio] Even though Christians have harped on “Liberals” for having relative morality they have not come down on this president for dealing with relative truth. Where I come from truth is not relative to your objective.

Posted at 10:34 AM

June 15, 2005

Iraq’s al Qaeda: Ruling By Terror

[California Conservative] Is Getting Cold, Utah’s Jurassic Park, Defensive Medicine: Doctors Can’t Afford To Treat Patients, DNC Action Plan: Diversify The “Diversity”, California Assembly: Voting On Driver’s Licenses For Illegal Aliens, SEC Gets A “California Conservative”, VIDEO: Behind the scenes of Dreamworks’ feature animation “Madagascar”, Homosexuals Pushing Marriage In California">2

Posted at 06:51 AM

NBC, Brace Yourself!

[Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda] NBC News has just verified the recently released seven British memos from Spring 2002. Get ready for Scottie, Dick and Rummy to go after NBC with the same vengeance they unleashed on Newsweek and Amnesty International. These memos demonstrate how British officials questioned the Bush administration's lack of post-war planning:

Posted at 06:50 AM

Bring it on

[Why are all the good names gone...?] The insurgents have been forced from direct confrontation in most provinces back to hit and run terror attacks. People have increasingly begun to turn to both Iraqi security forces and Coalition forces as a source of protection and support - the insurgents offer no coherent political solution. The worst damage being done is caused by extremists from out of the country - but even they are forced to fall back on a terror campaign designed more to gather news coverage than actually convince Iraq's populace that they have a chance of 'winning' anything other than martyrdom.

Read related posts for „Bring it on“.

Posted at 06:48 AM

Different Approaches to Grief

[The Art of the Blog] Left: Mother of dead soldier vilifies Bush over war Mixed: Families of the fallen and their views on the war Right: Father says soldier died doing...

Posted at 06:47 AM

Deep Throat of Downing Street

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] Elsewhere in the article, Morley links to a story in Britain's Telegraph newspaper from September 2004 by the same Michael Smith (now at the Times of London) who broke the original Downing Street Memo story and the second memo. In the Telegraph story, Smith describes some leaked memos that appear to be the same ones I highlighted here. There is also a second story in the Telegraph about these same memos from around the same time, also by Smith.

Posted at 06:45 AM

Top 10 Defenses Planned by Saddam's Lawyers

[AbbaGav - An Israeli Dad Blogs Israel, the Mideast and the World] We are starting to get a hint at how Saddam's lawyers might try to defend him in court. After telling us that Saddam will only be tried on 12 of the myriad possible charges that could be brought against him, ArabNews gives us his legal team's response:

Posted at 06:44 AM

Kofi Annan: Can’t Recall Any Wrongdoing

[California Conservative] AP reports: “Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are “urgently reviewing” new information that suggests U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more than he revealed about a contract that was awarded to the company that employed his son.”

Posted at 06:42 AM

June 14, 2005

Eric Umansky Is Also Unhappy with David Sanger

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] Iraq's Training Daze By Eric Umansky: That brings us to No. A day after the Post broke word of another prewar British memo, the NYT hops onboard. Presumably not content to simply repeat the WP's angle--'MEMO: U.S. LACKED FULL POSTWAR IRAQ PLAN'--the Times gets creative: 'PREWAR BRITISH MEMO SAYS WAR DECISION WASN'T MADE.' That headline hangs on a single clause of a single sentence in the 2,300-word memo:

Posted at 09:22 AM

Lies And Accountability

[Past Peak] Richard Nixon was impeached for a cover-up of a two-bit break-in. William Cohen, a young Maine Republican, played an important role for the prosecution in those proceedings. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex with an intern.

Posted at 09:21 AM

David Sanger of the New York Times Takes a Dive (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? Department)

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made - New York Times: A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made 'no political decisions' to invade Iraq...

Posted at 09:19 AM

CNN changes fact into fiction

[FloridaBlues] You think CNN is a liberal press outfit? Well, then, why is the blog "floridablues" noting how CNN changed the message within the Downing Street Memo? Read the article and then try to tell me how CNN's manipulation is consistent with libera...

Posted at 09:18 AM

Milestone

[FloridaBlues] The US death toll in Iraq has passed 1700, more than double what it was a year ago. And the Iraqi death toll is probably around 12,000 over the past...

Read related posts for „Milestone“.

Posted at 09:16 AM

Cunningham defends deal with defense firm’s owner

[Daly Thoughts] A defense contractor with ties to Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman’s Del Mar house while the congressman, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting the contractor’s efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.

Posted at 09:15 AM

Keeping Perspective on Iraq Not Easy

[nospeedbumps.com] After bitterly dividing over the war, Europe is uniting to help reconstruct Iraq, and these civics lessons in central France are part of that effort. Plans are in the works to coach about 750 Iraqi judges and prison guards on Western law and to hold an international conference in Brussels. European programs to train Iraqi security forces are mostly taking place outside the turmoil-torn country.

Posted at 09:13 AM

June 13, 2005

War Death Toll Over 1,700

[News America Now - Real News for Real Americans] The military announced the killing of four more U.S. soldiers on Sunday, pushing the American death toll past 1,700, and police found the bullet-riddled bodies of 28 people ”” many thought to be Sunni Arabs ”” buried in shallow graves or dumped streetside in Baghdad.

Posted at 09:56 AM

MSM Skeptical About Iraq But Not About Israeli-Palestinian Roadmap

[QT Monster's Place] Does anyone want to argue that the new Iraqi government has less of a chance of stabilizing Iraq than the PA has of controlling Hamas and Hezbollah? If not, then how to explain the unrelenting skepticism directed at the reconstruction of Iraq --of which the above two articles are only the most recent high-profile examples-- with the near complete absence of analytical skepticism directed at the PA's future?vadkins

Posted at 09:53 AM

"Free kool-aid for all", Cheney cheers

[Mike's Blog] "America will besafer in the long run when Iraq, and Afghanistan as well, are no longersafe havens for terrorists or places where people can gather and planand organize attacks against the United States," he said....

Posted at 09:51 AM

Religious Leaders Urge Congress to Declare That War in Iraq is Not Open-ended

[Chuck Currie] An Op-Ed by Bob Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches Joe Volk, Executive Director, Friends Committee on National Legislation Jim...

Posted at 09:50 AM

Michael Yon - a real journalist in Iraq

[ Seeker Blog] Currently Michael is exploring the Dohuk area in Northern Iraq, providing insights into the Kurdish areas that are rarely covered at all by the legacy media. Writing you will not find anywhere else, plus many superb photos that greatly improve the reader’s comprehension bandwidth.

Posted at 09:49 AM

TV's Deans

[Oliver Willis | Like Kryptonite To Stupid] You Feel A Draft? Filed under: Iraq Senator Biden does "We're going to have to face that question," Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press" television...

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Posted at 09:47 AM

You Feel A Draft?

[Oliver Willis | Like Kryptonite To Stupid] You Feel A Draft? Why wasn't Biden smart enough to also say that we are going to need a draft because of the "Republican war?" The word "draft" should NEVER be spoken unless it is accompanied by the words "Republican...

Posted at 09:46 AM

June 12, 2005

HELL: THE SEQUEL ”” COMING TO ANOTHER COUNTRY THIS SUMMER

[The Light Of Reason] Under these circumstances, the tepid call for a “constructive dialogue with the U.S. and the EU” by delegates at the Baath Party’s 10th congress, which ended earlier this week in Damascus, looks laughably out of touch. One reformist-minded Baathist, Ayman Abdel Nour, said after the congress finished that more reforms were soon to follow, because the leadership realized that “we don’t have time to go slow-motion because of the international and regional situation.” But many observers and analysts in the Syrian capital say that the leadership is merely trying to toss the international community a few bones now and then to see if it can be placated. If one doesn’t work, it will try tossing another.

Posted at 12:08 PM

Marines 'beat US workers' in Iraq

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] A Marine Corps spokesman denied that abuse had taken place and said an investigation was continuing. According to the marines, 19 employees of Zapata Engineering, including 16 Americans, were detained after a marine patrol in Falluja reportedbeing fired on by a convoy of trucks and sports utility vehicles. The marines also claim to have seen gunmen in the convoy fire at civilians.

Posted at 12:05 PM

The Draft is Coming?

[code0range.net | Drink your juice.] Observers largely believe that Rangel, knowing beforehand that the bill would never be passed by the House, introduced it only to make a point. Rangel himself argued that the point of his bill was to express his opposition to the war in Iraq. In an editorial in the New York Times, Rangel said “if those calling for war knew that their children were likely to be required to serve””and to be placed in harm’s way””there would be more caution and a greater willingness to work with the international community in dealing with Iraq.” (See 1 and 2)

Posted at 12:03 PM

Contractors

[Body and Soul] It will be interesting to see if Americans complaining about being abused by our military will get a more sympathetic hearing from our press than Iraqis have. I have a terrible feeling that all the ugly stories we've been hearing about contractors in Iraq since the war began, will, ironically, work to the military's advantage, making it all the easier to find scapegoats for everything that goes wrong, and provide one more way of swatting away charges of abuse.

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Posted at 12:01 PM

Right Wing Militias On The March

[Oliver Willis | Like Kryptonite To Stupid] This is just what wee need right about now. A bunch of crackpot right-wingers "defending" our borders from the brown-skinned menace.

Posted at 12:00 PM

Terrorists 35, Free Iraq 40

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Posted at 11:58 AM

”˜Good and honest’ Iraqis fighters

[Keld Bach’s Press Cuttings] A senior US military chief has admitted “good, honest” Iraqis are fighting American forces. Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because “they’re offended by our presence”. In an interview with Gulf News, he said:

Posted at 11:56 AM

June 11, 2005

Signs of a Draft or Just My Paranoia?

[Michael Gorsuch: Hey, I'm Just Sayin'] NPR reported today on the woes of military recruitment. It seems that they haven't seen such hard times in over 30 years (I wonder why) and that they do not believe that they will even come close to what they need.

Posted at 01:38 PM

The Downing Street Memo and Impeachment of George Bush

[Where We're Bound] Okay, well, it seems this is the most attention we've seen yet on the issue of George Bush and the lies told by the White House to wage war against Iraq. The information is not really new though the current spotlight being shown upon the memo seems to be.

Posted at 01:36 PM

Not For A Thousand Years

[Past Peak] "I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept.

Posted at 01:35 PM

Emerging Front in Iraq

[Intelligence Watch] - As Shi'ites and Kurds fought for three months to come up with an Iraqi cabinet, it is emerging from Baghdad that soon a broad front will emerge on the political scene composed of politicians, religious leaders, clan and tribal sheikhs - basically Sunni but with Shi'ite participation - with a single-minded agenda: the end of the US-led occupation. This front will include, among others, what we have termed the Sinn Fein component of the resistance, the powerful Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and the Sadrists.

Posted at 01:33 PM

DUH!!!!!

[Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs] The invasion of Iraq did not help US standing in the Middle East, says a bipartisan task force, co-chaired by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former Republican congressman Vin Weber.

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Posted at 01:28 PM

Eat the Rich - Before they eat YOU!

[I never thought Id read this @ blog.mintruth.com] When Peace Is The Enemy: Ten Deadly Enemies of Humanity in America

Posted at 01:27 PM

"Them"

[Past Peak] The punchline to this gag is that the Army (the US one, I mean) selected Charlie Company as the Iraqi unit it most wanted the Washington Post and its readers to get acquainted with. Which either means this is the very best they've got, or, someone in the chain of command deliberately picked one of the worst units in hopes of cutting through the oceans of Bush administration bullshit and showing the American people exactly how desperate the situation is in Iraq ”” and not for the insurgents.

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Posted at 01:26 PM

June 10, 2005

Even Count Potemkin No Longer Pretends His Creations Are Villages

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] National Review says things are not going well in Iraq. Why oh why do they hate America so much?

Posted at 11:50 AM

The US, Democratization, and Grand Strategy

[Discord and Elaboration] Yesterday I mentioned the new blog America Abroad which is essentially the international relations arm of TPMCafe. John Ikenberry, an esteemed professor of IR at Princeton, had an interesting piece the other day on the seeming shift from a focus on terrorism to democratization by the Bush administration. It was a post in response to one by Anne Marie Slaughter--also of Princeton--who argued that the administration had not foresaken the fight against terrorists for a crusade of democractization, but rather the latter had subsumed the former.

Posted at 11:49 AM

Jefferson Morley on the "Thin" Coverage of the Downing Street Memo

[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal] Everyone read the elite media's cover of the "Downing Street Memo"--i.e., Walter Pincus in that prominent spot on page A-18? In an online chat, Jonathan Morley muses about why elite media coverage has been so "thin":

Posted at 11:47 AM

The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror

[Keld Bach’s Press Cuttings] After a year and a half of investigation and a three month trip covering Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, THE OIL FACTOR looks at both the human cost and the greater geo-strategic picture of George Bush’s “war-on-terror”. Along with solid facts & figures, clear, illustrative maps and graphics and original footage shot on location, THE OIL FACTOR features such personalities as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Noam Chomsky, The Project for the New American Century Director Gary Schmitt, best-seller “Taliban” author Ahmed Rashid and the Pentagon’s Karen Kwiatkowski.

Posted at 11:45 AM

State of Iraq

[Imagining Australia: Ideas For Our Future] The quarterly "State of Iraq" figures, by Mike O'Hanlon and coauthors, came out in the NYT last Fri. Here's their summary (click on the chart on the left to enlarge):

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Posted at 11:44 AM

Misdirected Anger: Don’t Call Troops Baby Killers

[Hammer of Truth - Libertarian Blog] Now, I’m avidly against the late Vietnam war and the current Iraq war (yet, I fully agree with using military force to retaliate and hunt down Osama in Afghanistan and wherever he is), but I think once you start throwing around blanket statements about the morality of our military troops, you are treading into dangerous territory. Back during Vietnam, one of the greatest blunders of the anti-war movement was to greet returning troops with spit and name-calling.

Posted at 11:43 AM

Impeach the Crook-in-Chief

[EditorMom] containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002””a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

Posted at 11:41 AM

The real Memogate

[FloridaBlues] At the 2002 meeting, the memo reveals that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action." However, Straw was also not convinced by the WMD argument, saying, "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." In public, Straw supported the official claim that Iraq's WMDs posed a threat that justified war.

Posted at 11:40 AM

The truth hurts

[FloridaBlues] The garbage rarely gets collected.Some of the worst ambassadors in U.S. history are the GIs at the GreenZone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched Iraqi ministers,accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and behave (even on gooddays) with all the courtesy of nightclub bouncers--to Americans andIraqis alike. Not that U.S. soldiers in Iraq have much to smile about.They're overworked, much ignored on the home front and widely despisedin Iraq, with little to look forward to but the distant end of theirtours--and in most cases, another tour soon to follow.

Posted at 11:38 AM

A thousand tears for a drop of blood

[One Hand Clapping] Many Kurds had expressed the same sentiment. One had said poetically: “For every drop of American blood, we shed one thousand Kurdish tears.”

Posted at 11:36 AM

More on the Memo

[FloridaBlues] What can be learned from George W. Bush's sinking poll numbers and themajor media's sudden chagrin over its failure to follow-up the DowningStreet Memo? What political factors should get the credit and whatlessons can be applied to the future?

Posted at 11:25 AM

Iraq Reviews > June 28, 2005

Let’s Play Nice With Murderous, Kidnapping Thugs

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War

June 28, 2005

Let’s Play Nice With Murderous, Kidnapping Thugs

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

It’s ok to eat “french fries” again

No homeland security: We are no safer now

One by One

AH, FREEDOM: THE BLOODY NIGHTMARE OF IRAQ

June 27, 2005

More Moonbat Groups Jumping on the Gitmo Bandwagon

deja vu

Iraqi Coalition Deaths in Flash

NY Times Is Dead Wrong

Death Wish - Cloned!

Iraq Becomes Haven To Radical Islam

June 26, 2005

The Final Session of The World Tribunal on Iraq Begins in Istanbul

Support Our Troops: Cut and Run

The Adaptability of Iraqi Insurgents

What's In A Name?

Karl Rove Is Right! The U.S. Army Has Been Stabbed in the Back

connecting the dots on Iraq

June 25, 2005

Bono on Meet the Press

A Sensible Democratic Critique of Iraq Policy, Part 3 - The Other War

Karl Rove Should Resign

Rift in GOP - Sen. Hagel calls Bush ”˜disconnected from reality,’ says ”˜Iraq getting worse’

Saddam’s Novel: “Get out, damned one”

Iraq and public sentiment

June 24, 2005

Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud Killed In Iraq

War In Afghanistan Over

Flushing The Media

The Yellow Elephant Campaign

Stormy Outlook on Iraq: Small Monkey Advisory

Blowback: Leaked CIA Report Confirms The Obvious On Iraq

The Real News in the Downing Street Memos

June 21, 2005

GQ Interview: Personalizing Saddam Hussein

Clowns to the Left; Jokers to the Right

exceptions to the rule

Tom Dispatch and Mark Danner on the Downing Street Memo

Saddam and Al-Qaeda

Coalition pix

Anti-war momentum

June 20, 2005

Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely An 'Inside Job'

THE OVERWHELMING UNREALITY OF WHERE WE ARE NOW

Downingstreet Memo-gate

Rendell makes U-turn on minimum wage

Do Over

AnySoldier.Com: Freedom Isn’t Free

Questions Rise About Downing Street Memos

June 19, 2005

Growing Impatience

Marines Free Iraqis Tortured by Insurgents in Western Iraq

U.S. Soldier Kills His Superiors: Casualties of Liberal Warfare?

In Response to a Question

Iraq - In The Name of Freedom

THE GENUINE TIPPING POINT

Soldier Charged In Officer Deaths

June 18, 2005

SQUANDERED VICTORY

Napalm: Making it stick

The way towards the country of the two rivers

Let's take a Ride in the "WAYBACK" Machine with Amnesty International

BlogProps: A smashing idea

Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq’s Oil

Taking Responsibility

June 17, 2005

First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II

Good News from Iraq!

Keep on flogging the Downing Street Memo

In Support of a Resolution of Inquiry

Food Shortages Gnaw at Iraqis' Stomachs, Morale

Freedom of Speech

THE JOURNALISM HALL OF PUTRID HACKS: SCREW YOU, PURDUM, AND SCREW THE NYT

It’s ok to eat “french fries” again

Saddam’s Novel: “Get out, damned one”