Wednesday News Bucket

18 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on September 19, 2007 at 6:49 am

   helping to catapult the propaganda at WashPo

   The U.S. military has introduced “religious enlightenment” and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

   Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to “bend them back to our will” and are part of waging war in what he called “the battlefield of the mind.” Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the “House of Wisdom.”

   Gosh, isn’t the US great, running the Islamic equivalent of vacation bible school in Iraq?

   • 

     idredit on September 19, 2007 at 10:43 am

     Considering they’re detainees!  ….equates to bending hearts and minds at the point of a gun.  Democracy at the point of a gun didn’t work either.

   • 

     chocolate ink on September 19, 2007 at 4:00 pm

     I’d like to know just how many of these young prisoners-not detainees, that sounds so refined doesn’t it-are being in held in the truly hideously named ‘House of Wisdom’.  I’ll just bet those 11 year olds and other young ones are feeling the Wisdom daily aren’t they now.  Nah, we’re not on any Crusade are we..do you think there will be one Iraqi left that doesn’t hate us…that we didn’t ‘bend them back to our will’? I suspect the blowback on this fucked invasion is going to last forever.

     I’m afraid to even go read the linked article because just this little excerpt is really sickening by itself.

2. 

   CabinGirl on September 19, 2007 at 6:56 am

   I just love what the GOP thinks is a pressing matter for the house: The HIll

   The ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants to convene a hearing on whether The New York Times violated campaign-finance laws when it granted a discounted rate for MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” ad.

   Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) asked committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Tuesday to convene a hearing on the issue, saying that any rate change “for political advertising could constitute an unlawful campaign contribution.”

   According to media accounts, the “open rate” for the ad should have been $181,000. The liberal group said it paid $65,000.

   What someone paid for an ad is now worthy of congressional investigation? While the politicization of the justicve department and subsequent contempt of congress is not?  While habeas corpus has been thrown out with last year’s newspapers?  While torturing and starting another war to cover up the disaster that’s been created in the middle east is not?

   I am so sick of these A-holes.

   • 

     meagert on September 19, 2007 at 11:06 am

      As in all business advertising, there are scaled pricings. Pick the day, and page…biggest price. Tell them run it on any day you want within this week, and any page…another price. This ad was not selective, so it was cheaper. This is a big pile of guano over nothing.
      Why this hasn’t been put to pasture yet shows just how bad the traditional media is at showing the truth.

   • 

     chocolate ink on September 19, 2007 at 4:07 pm

     The rethugs do seem to have a genius for picking up on the inane and unimportant don’t they. I guess I can only consider it a good thing that the moveon ad got them so riled up.

3. 

   ask on September 19, 2007 at 7:07 am

   US diplomats grounded in Iraq row

   The US has suspended all road journeys by its diplomats in Iraq outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

   This follows an incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians died when security guards from the US firm Blackwater opened fire in a busy Baghdad square.

   Blackwater has a contract to guard all US State Department employees in Iraq.

   • 

     CabinGirl on September 19, 2007 at 7:13 am

     Is this an indication that if Blackwater is unavailable, there is no security detail for the ‘diplomats’?  I would love to see some transparency about how many mercenaries we’ve hired to do the fighting in Iraq.  Or even some acknowledgment that this is the case by the corporate media.

     • 

       ask on September 19, 2007 at 7:39 am

       Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First

       BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant.

       The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before.

       In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the American Embassy here suspended diplomatic missions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on Tuesday.

       “There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.”

     • 

       ask on September 19, 2007 at 7:47 am

       I saw a little piece in Norwegian which states that (my translation):

       • In April, the American Department of Defense stated that there were approximately 129,000 contractors from many different countries in Iraq.  That corresponds to almost the same number of American soldiers in the force, prior to the surge implemented this year.
       • Approximately 4,600 of the contractors are in a combat role, i.e., their task is to protect convoys moving around in Iraq.

       (“* I april oppga det amerikanske forsvarsdepartementet at det var om lag 129 000 kontraktører fra mange ulike nasjoner i Irak. Det tilsvarer nesten det samme antallet amerikanske soldater som før styrkeoppbyggingen ble iverksatt i år.

       * Om lag 4600 av kontraktørene er i stridsroller, det vil si at de har som oppgave å beskytte konvoier som ferdes rundt om i Irak.”)

   • 

     dada on September 19, 2007 at 2:49 pm

     may not go very far, as the Iraqi government is beginning to push back:

     The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, apologised to the Iraqi government yesterday in an attempt to prevent the expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA.

     […]

     “She has expressed her personal apologies and the apologies of the government of the United States. She confirmed that the United Sates will take immediate actions to prevent such actions from happening again.”

     The office did not specify whether the apology was sufficient to reverse the expulsion decision.

     The apology offers a face-saving exercise for both the Iraqi and the US governments. The US would find it temporarily awkward if Blackwater was expelled. At the same time, it does not want to be seen to be undermining the decisions of the Iraqi government, which the Bush administration repeatedly insists is autonomous.

     […]

     Brigadier-general Adam-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said: “We have cancelled the licence of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities.”

     He said there would be prosecutions in relation to Sunday’s deaths….

     Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister, said: “This is such a big crime that we can’t stay silent. Anyone who wants to have good relations with Iraq has to respect Iraqis.”

     He told al-Arabiya television that foreign contractors “must respect Iraqi laws and the right of Iraqis to independence on their land. These cases have happened more than once and we can’t keep silent in the face of them”.

     Guardian UK

     just another day in BushWorld™.

     lTMF’sA

     

4. 

   CabinGirl on September 19, 2007 at 7:10 am

   like more fun than a Southwest flight: USA Today

   Air New Zealand is delving into the gay and lesbian market with a special themed flight that will feature drag queens, pink cocktails and a cabaret performed by the flight crew.

   The destination for the airline’s one-time “Pink Flight,” scheduled to depart San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 26, is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, one of the world’s most well-attended gay events, said Jodi Williams, an Air New Zealand marketing director.

   “We are looking at tailoring the inseat entertainment and having gay-friendly movies and contests and different music and things like that,” Williams said. The airline also plans to throw a “Get-Onboard-Girlfriend” going away party for its passengers, who will pay an average of $1,000 roundtrip.

   The flight will be modeled after an Auckland-to-Sydney trip Air New Zealand made this year for the gay Mardi Gras, according to Williams. Before that full flight, the crew put on pink feather boas and sang for its couple hundreds passengers, she said.

   “Even the pilot was wearing fairy wings and got into it,” Williams said.

   • 

     Indianadem on September 19, 2007 at 9:08 pm

     Here’s my suggestion for the in-flight movie its one of our favorites;-)

5. 

   on September 19, 2007 at 7:29 am

   This morning the local MSM (Illuminati) channel “suggests” I get my winter flu shot.  I thought it was particularly nice of them to frame the “request” by adding the threatening meme of

   “manufacturers may cut back production next year if the current levels are too high”. In other words you best get one this year if you want one next year.

   I’ll take the flu, thank you.

6. 

   ask on September 19, 2007 at 7:32 am

   Russia calls arms move serious signal to West

   MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday its decision to suspend the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty later this year was a serious sign to the West, but stressed Moscow was not seeking confrontation.

   “Our aim today is to give a signal, a serious signal, to our Western partners that things cannot go on like this,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak told parliamentary hearings on the CFE.

   “We are ready to work with them (Western partners) to solve these problems but if not, we will suspend our compliance with the treaty,” Kislyak said. “Our decision is not aimed at confrontation but the opposite.”

   Signed in 1990 and updated in 1999, the treaty limits the number of tanks, artillery, aircraft and helicopters stationed between the Atlantic and the Ural mountains in Russia, as well as in eastern and central Europe.

   […]

   Russia says the treaty is no longer effective because NATO states have failed to ratify the latest version of it.

   NATO has declined to ratify it until Russia withdraws all its troops from ex-Soviet Moldova and Georgia, as it pledged to do in 1999 when the pact was signed.

   Russia has said its decision to suspend compliance was also linked, in part, to a U.S. plan to station elements of a missile defence shield in central Europe.

7. 

   ask on September 19, 2007 at 8:19 am

   U.S. spy chief: 9/11 could have been prevented

   Watch Mike McConnel testifying.

8. 

   on September 19, 2007 at 1:25 pm

   The spin over this Florida tazer incident from both “left” and “right” political pundits has all the markings of organized damage control marketing techniques.  I strongly recommend people take an interest and research psychology, modern marketing, negotating “skills”.
   Andrew could be your son, daughter, hell even your grandmother.  That’s what six years of thuggery has brought, institutionalized police brutality.

9. 

   dada on September 19, 2007 at 3:51 pm

   seems her status as an emissary of the US has reached a nadir at the vatican:

   Pope Benedict XVI refused a recent request by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq, Vatican sources say.

   […]

   There are at least two reasons why Pope Benedict may have decided peremptorily against a private meeting with Ms Rice.

   First, it was Ms Rice who just before the outbreak of the Iraq war in March 2003 made it clear to a special papal envoy sent from Rome, Cardinal Pio Laghi, that the Bush administration was not interested in the views of the late Pope on the immorality of launching its planned military offensive.

   Secondly, the US has responded in a manner considered unacceptable at the Vatican to the protection of the rights of Iraqi Christians under the new Iraqi constitution.

   BBC

   and she’s having a fit of pique over Mr. ElBaradei’s “muddying the message” to Iran:

   The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, today publicly criticised the UN’s atomic watchdog and called for diplomacy with “teeth” to end Iran’s nuclear plans.

   […]

   “The IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy,” she said. “The IAEA is a technical agency that has a board of governors of which the United States is a member,” Ms Rice told reporters travelling with her to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

   Guardian UK

   tsk, tsk….shameless behaviour for a SecState.

   Oh well, there’s always Stanford…or maybe not.

   lTMF’sA