Feb 19, 2005

AP: Iraqi Died While Hanging by His Wrists

" AP Iraqi Died While Hanging by His Wrists Fri Feb 18,10:38 AM ET By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer SAN DIEGO - An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA (news - web sites) interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press. The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed at the time. The prisoner died in a position known as 'Palestinian hanging,' the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations."

Gannon scoop shows White House Forged TANG/CBS memos?!?!

This is one of the most important stories of the day!!!

What I want to know is why aren't the major media outlets covering this? When one considers the refusal of the media to seriously inquire as to why Novak seems to be enjoying legal immunity where his more "liberal" counterparts like Judith Miller are being jailed, I'm afraid that this shows ever so clearly that the media is in the pocket of the White House. These two stories are the ones that go inside the White House and these two are the ones that aren't being followed. It can't get any clearer

GW
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"Gannon scoop shows White House Forged TANG/CBS memos?!?!

by RegenerationMan


Fri Feb 18th, 2005 at 09:20:51 PST

It now appears that Jeff Gannon could be the thread that unravels the real story behind the TANG/CBS forgeries. I have put together a case here that if looked at carefully by the blogosphere would show that the TANG forgeries were made by the White House, probably Dan Bartlett, and then given to Bill Burkett by a former associate of Karl Rove, Roger Stone. Stone's wife, Nydia, who is Cuban, was most likely the Hispanic lady on the phone who convinced Burkett the documents were real and that he should burn them after copying them to protect her honor.

The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard 'memos.'

. . . Reached at his Florida home, Stone had no comment. [NY Post]

Gannon was apparently used by the White House to ID Mapes as the CBS producer and to try and conflate the Abu Ghraib photos she revealed as sourceless as the TANG docs.

RAW STORY

The FULL STORY on the flip."

Feb 17, 2005

War Helps Recruit Terrorists, Hill Told (washingtonpost.com)

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 17, 2005; Page

The insurgency in Iraq continues to baffle the U.S. military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top U.S. national security officials told Congress yesterday.

'Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists,' CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence."

Continued....

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

"Wow. Bush is freakin' batshit loopy.
by demokerryat
Thu Feb 17th, 2005 at 19:20:47 PST

Did you see the press conference today? I just caught the end of it on C-SPAN. I am not a tinfoil hat aficionado, but if Bush is not on some kind of stimulant, my name is Jeff Gannon. He was doing his seemingly drug induced jaw flick thing (moving his jaw rapidly side to side) and he was really amped up. I noticed during the campaign that the frequency of Bush's jaw twitches (a common side effect of stimulants) correlates perfectly with his demeanor. Lots of jaw movement--pumped up. No jaw movement--lethargic. The guy is on drugs. They finally nailed the dosage, however. He wasn't second debate hostile, but he was way more together than the first debate. He was riffing like a fool and trying to be funny. He managed to combine the awkwardness of his father with the vacuousness of Reagan. It was amazing.

More below the fold..."

The Atrocities of a Pale Rider John Negroponte- by Celerino Castillo: Drugwar.com

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him". Revelation 6:7

The Atrocities of a Pale Rider-
John D. Negroponte
by
Celerino Castillo 3rd

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 17, 2005

negroponte The above biblical quotation is the only way I can describe John Dimitri Negroponte because of the atrocities he's previously committed around the world.

From 1971 to 1973, Negroponte was the officer-in charge for Vietnam at the National Security Council under Henry Kissinger. During that period, former DEA Michael Levine was conducting undercover operations in Saigon, Thailand, and Cambodia where our government was smuggling heroin into the U.S. Our government was utilizing caskets and body bags of those "Killed In Action" to smuggled the heroin.

From 1981-1985, Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, where he illegally assisted the contra war and, most devastating, helped the Reagan administration in "disappearing" close to 300 political opponents in classic death squad fashion. He supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, which the Contras used as a secret detention and torture center. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two American missionaries. In May 1982, a nun, Sister Laetitia Bordes went on a fact-finding delegation to Honduras to investigate the whereabouts of thirty Salvadoran nuns who fled to Honduras in 1981. Negroponte claimed the embassy knew nothing. But in 1996, a U.S. newspaper interviewed Negroponte's predecessor, Jack Binns. Binns said that a group of Salvadorans, among whom was Bordes, who had been captured on April 22, 1981, and savagely tortured by the Honduran Secret Police, and then later thrown out of helicopters, alive. Negroponte turned a deliberate blind eye to a murderous pattern of political killings. He orchestrated the famous death squad Battalion 316, which used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners were often kept naked and when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves. We have seen similar pictures of those atrocities committed by our service men and women in Iraq.

From 1989 to September 1993, he was also ambassador to Mexico where he directed our U. S. intelligence services in assisting the war against the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. Furthermore, he was there obstructing the war on [some] drugs. Seven Mexican drug agents were gunned down in an ambush by 100 members of the Mexican army on the payroll of a drug cartel; Negroponte dismissed the slaughter as "a regrettable incident." The slaughter had been videotaped by the DEA from another plane, which had also been strafed by the army unit.

Ironically enough, I was stationed in Vietnam as a combat soldier at the same time Negroponte was assigned to Vietnam. It was there I saw some of my brothers laid low from heroin overdose. It was also there, that I promised myself that if I survived that war, I would initiate my own personal war against drug trafficking. In 1979, I became one of the very few Latinos DEA agents.

From 1985 to 1991, I was assigned to Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. As one of two DEA agents that covered those countries, I observed that our U.S. government was complicit in drug trafficking and human rights violations. The area was rife with rebellion, gunrunning, and a perception that communism was on the move towards our back yards. One of my job descriptions was to train members of their military intelligence on the interdiction of drugs. However, most of my time was spent assisting the CIA in training the death squads. We were utilizing CIA contract agents from different parts of South America, specifically Venezuela and Argentina. In reality, Central America became one huge country, which allowed the death squads to overflow into each other. Mario Sandoval-Alarcon, best known as the godfather of the death squads and creator of the notorious death squad, "La Mano Blanca" ran all death squads. Sandoval was so loved by Ronald Reagan that he got a private invitation to, and attended, Reagan's inauguration.

Continued.....

Bush Nominates Negroponte to New Intel Post

Another War Crimimnal In The Cabinet

GW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bush Nominates Negroponte to New Intel Post
Iraq Ambassador Will Return to Washington
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 17, 2005; 11:54 AM

President Bush today named veteran diplomat John D. Negroponte to the new post of national intelligence chief, picking the current ambassador to Iraq and former envoy to the United Nations in a surprise choice to oversee 15 intelligence agencies.

If confirmed by the Senate, Negroponte, 65, will assume a post created by legislation aimed at overhauling the nation’s intelligence system. He was appointed by Bush last year as the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein and recently announced, without explanation, that he would be leaving that post.

Continued......

Feb 16, 2005

Novak and his "Immunity"

kg said:In other words, screw the sanctity of confidential sources. Let's get Novak!

No. What I'm saying is: Lets shine some light on Novak's "Free Pass".

Something I need to make abundantly clear is that I have not called for the prosecution of Novak. I am however calling for the media to pick up on the issue of the disparate and highly selective prosecution of the law. As it is now being applied is absolutely scandalous.....something the media ...hell, even corporate media....*particularly corporate media*...loves to get hold of and never let go!

But here we have a very strange, very conspicuous silence. Why? This silence isn't the doing of the government. This is on the part of the media. And that is what I made the call for people to get ornery about. I want them to start asking their media contacts why the silence on this very clear, very obvious, selective prosecution. It is a story in and of itself, yet someone has decided not to go with it. Who? What the hell is going on?

But again. I wish to be clear about this. I am not calling for the prosecution, particularly the imprisonment of Novak....or most anyone...ever. The penal system and myself...well...we have "issues".

And about the Blind Sheik, that was a reference to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. In that capacity, we were discussing the right of a lawyer to claim confidentiality (or to pass on)information gleaned from their client, much the same as a reporter and their source. Perhaps the confusion is my mistake, and for the sake of peace on earth, I'll assume that responsibility.

Gary Williams

Plame Convictions

Kelly Garrett wrote:
> Jack Lebowitz wrote:

JL: Why isn't the act of publishing this information in a national opinion column the major "per se" violation that occurred, if the purpose of the law is to prohibit divulging the identity of covert operatives such as Valerie Plame?

KG: Because the major violation was by those in the administration who divulged the information, those who ordered the information divulged, those who condoned the divulging, and those who are still covering it up -- NOT by those to whom it was divulged.

OK. Fine Kelly. Still, why isn't Novak being subpoenaed to tell his source? After all, he knows the same evidence that Miller does.

KG: That seems so obvious to me that I don't know why it even needs to be discussed, but this must be the fourth or fifth go-round on the topic here and the consensus (on a journalists' list!) still seems to be that the journalists are at fault rather than the thugs in the White House.

The consensus the other day was on the Blind Sheik BS. That's a whole different story, different issue and on this issue, I believe a different opinion.

KG: The situation would be comical if it weren't so threatening. The administration attempts to manipulate the press in the pursuit of illegal political vengeance, and then goes after the reporters it couldn't manipulate, sparing the one it could. And, as usual, they get away with it. The activist right doesn't give a damn because they support anything the administration does. The great masses don't give a damn because you can't eat it or drive it or watch it on television. And the activist left doesn't give a damn because they don't like Judith Miller or the New York Times, which to them is apparently the more important issue.

I don't see that. I see people who are wondering aloud how the prosecution of these reporters, minus Novak, can possibly be this transparently selective and still be considered to be "blind".

It seems to me that all good journalists should be taking CNN to task, promising to boycott (or to even mislead) CNN of any future information and/or their journalistic efforts unless they start to publicly question this serious breach of an issue that goes right to the heart of the American judicial process.

Am I naive in thinking Big Media gives a sh** about what a bunch of journalists think? Will they just in turn blacklist those persons who stand up against this crap? Possibly. But you gotta do what you gotta do. This is bullshit.

The lot of you all have wanted to slap Novak's smarmy mouth for a long time. Here's your chance.

Gary Williams

Feb 15, 2005

Ex-Aide Questions Bush Vow to Back Faith-Based Efforts (washingtonpost.com)

Ex-Aide Questions Bush Vow to Back Faith-Based Efforts

By Alan Cooperman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A01


A former White House official said yesterday that President Bush has failed to deliver on his promise to help religious groups serve the poor, the homeless and drug addicts because the administration lacks a genuine commitment to its 'compassionate conservative' agenda.

Continued......

Feb 14, 2005

Israel and/or America Implicated in Killing of Rafik Harriri:

Asssasination? Why not? The Bush Regime seems to think that they are immune to retribution. The sad part is....So far, that indeed seems to be the case. The American media is certainly complicit in enabling them to commit their mis-deeds.

GW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Israel and/or America Implicated in Killing of Rafik Harriri:

"This is the work of an intelligence service, not a small group," said Rime Allaf, Middle East analyst at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Sam Hamod, Ph.D.

02/14/05 "Information Clearing House" - - We must do as they do in other criminal cases, look at who had the most to gain from the assassination of Prime Minister Harriri. The Lebanese had a lot to lose, as did the Syrians (he was close to Bashir Al Assad, the leader of Syria), as did the other Arab countries in the region who saw him as a strong leader and a stabilizing force in Lebanese politics. On the other hand, Israel has wanted chaos in Lebanon, as has America, and both countries have been agitating to get Hezbollah outlawed and both America and Israel have wanted the Lebanese to oust Syria. In both cases, the Lebanese government has said, “NO,” that Hezbollah is a respected part of Lebanese life and that Syria is there to protect Lebanon from Israeli aggression.

No matter where else you look, no one else had anything to gain except Israel and the U.S. because this death could cause some possible upset in Lebanese politics and life.

Continued....

Feb 13, 2005

Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision (washingtonpost.com)

Now whatcha gonna do , bright boys? Fucking idiots......

GW
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"Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 14, 2005; Page A01 When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions. But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say."

When Sexuality Undercuts A Family's Ties (washingtonpost.com)

More like "When The Right-Wing Eats Its' Own Young"

GW
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"When Sexuality Undercuts A Family's Ties

By Marc Fisher
Sunday, February 13, 2005; Page C01

Maya Keyes loves her father and mother. She put off college and moved from the family home in Darnestown to Chicago to be with her dad on a grand adventure. Even though she disagrees with him on 'almost everything' political, she worked hard for his quixotic and losing campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Now Maya Keyes -- liberal, lesbian and a little lost -- finds herself out on her own. She says her parents -- conservative commentator and perennial candidate Alan Keyes and his wife, Jocelyn -- threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her."


Continued......

Eason Jordan affair: when bloggers appear as the sons of Senator McCarthy

"Strange Days Indeed"
John Lennon


G.W.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, February 12, 2005

Eason Jordan affair: when bloggers appear as the sons of Senator McCarthy

Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers than the defense of reporters' work (and sometimes life)! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the 'sons of the First Amendment', they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy. And this is very worrying to see this new wedding between self-proclaimed citizen's media and maintstream journalists scalps' hunters. Fifty years ago, it was enough to be communist to be fired, today, it is enough to raise questions about the Bush administration policy in Iraq to be denounced as 'anti-American'. Maybe the only difference is that you are not fired, but that you must dismiss! What's my conclusion? Real promoters of citizen media would have to take some distance with those who have fueled and organised the Eason Jordan hatred. If not, the 'new era of journalism' opened by the blogosphere will appear as the old clothes of American populism."

continued.....

New "Bad Boy" truck dwarfs the Hummer

Only In America could a father feel it's right to send his son off to fight and die in a foriegn country, so that he could be assured of enough oil to drive this thing.

GW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By KRISTEN HAYS
AP Business Writer

JASPER, Texas (AP) -- For some drivers, even a Hummer may not be enough. At a curb weight of more than 3.5 tons, the Humvee-inspired Hummer H1 is no skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face. But the Bad Boy Heavy Muscle Truck, a dressed-up military vehicle more than twice as heavy, is being billed as bigger, badder and more bodacious.

'It's the rugged Bubba,' said Daniel Ayres, president and CEO of Homeland Defense Vehicles LLC and its division Bad Boy Trucks.

The East Texas company aims to market the machine to civilians with disposable cash and a hankering for more protection from the outside world. A $379,000 version made its public debut in January at the Dallas Safari Club convention.

For a base price of $225,000 - nearly twice the Hummer H1 wagon's base price of $117,508 - consumers can get a basic version of the 10-foot-tall Bad Boy that can drive through five feet of water, climb a 60-degree grade, tow six tons and keep rolling even with a quarter-sized hole in the tire's sidewall.

The price goes up from there, depending on options. Drivers can get infrared cameras that peer through darkness. The flat-nosed cab can be bulletproof, and house a mini-safe behind three leather seats. The dash can include a satellite phone, a two-way radio and a global-positioning system - all alongside DVD, MP3 and CD players and a flip-out LCD screen.

For $750,000, buyers can get the fully loaded 'NBC' version that can, Ayres said, detect and block out fallout from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by over-pressurizing the cab with filtered, clean air much like an aircraft.

Ayres said he isn't playing on post-Sept. 11 fears by offering the NBC option.

continued......