Oh No! We're part of the Axis of Evil?

Iran: CIA a ‘terrorist organization’

Iran’s parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution to label the CIA and the U.S. Army “terrorist organizations.” The move is seen as a diplomatic tit-for-tat after the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

Hey, if we can do it, so could they. Will we learn a lesson from this? Well maybe some of us will realize that the war of words can escalate beyond control.

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Black water is not safe to drink

Would you drink water from your septic system? How about if you filtered it through newspapers? Well it seems W would.

Blackwater USA has been accused of killing innocent civilians.

It's being described as "Baghdad's bloody Sunday." On September 16 a heavily armed State Department convoy guarded by Blackwater USA was whizzing down the wrong side of the road near Nisour Square in the congested Mansour neighborhood in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi police scrambled to block off traffic to allow the convoy to pass. In the chaos, an Iraqi vehicle entered the square, reportedly failing to heed a policeman's warning fast enough.
The Blackwater operatives, protecting their American principal, a senior State Department official, opened fire on the vehicle, killing the driver. According to witnesses, Blackwater troops then launched some sort of grenade at the car, setting it ablaze. But inside the vehicle was not a small sect from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia or the Mahdi Army, the "armed insurgents" Blackwater described killing in its official statement on the incident.
It was a young Iraqi family -- man, woman and infant -- whose crime appeared to be panicking in a chaotic traffic situation. Witnesses say the bodies of the mother and child were melded together by the flames that had engulfed their vehicle.

Iraq threatened to expel the "rent-a-soldier" firm. Would this stand in the way of Blackwater and it's minions in the Pentagon and White House? Think again - why would civilian deaths, corruption, wishes of friends stand in the way of "progress?"

Dealing with death/murderers is not an issue for the Pentagon.

"Blackwater has been a contractor in the past with the department and could certainly be in the future," said the U.S.’s top-ranking military officer, General Peter Pace, at an afternoon press conference here.
The future arrived just two hours later when the Pentagon released a new list of contracts – Presidential Airways, the aviation unit of parent company Blackwater, was awarded the contract to fly Department of Defense passengers and cargo between locations around central Asia.

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Look over your shoulder Bobby

Everyone condoning, voting for, and/or promoting war better look over their shoulders. Voters, taxpayers, neighbors and friends are getting pissed.

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Dividing Iraq

Thanks to The Cat's Blog for giving us some background on the Iraq partition scheme.

In 1982, Israel Shahak, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, wrote:
The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part" (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.
Israel Shahak’s The Zionist Plan for the Middle East is based on Oded Yinon's A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, an essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
Here two passages from Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties:
(…) Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi'ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren't for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq's future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi'ites in Iraq view as their natural leader. (…)
(…) Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization (…)

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Lieberman setting the stage for the big one

Lieberman-Kyl’s Iran amendment passes

By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.”

Who were the 22?

Biden (D-DE), Bingaman (D-NM),Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Byrd (D-WV), Cantwell (D-WA), Dodd (D-CT),Feingold (D-WI),Hagel (R-NE), Harkin (D-IA),Inouye (D-HI),Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA),Klobuchar (D-MN), Leahy (D-VT),Lincoln (D-AR),Lugar (R-IN),McCaskill (D-MO),Sanders (I-VT),Tester (D-MT),Webb (D-VA), Wyden (D-OR)
Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) didn’t vote.

In looking at the list and seeing how some candidates voted - shame on you Hillary and Barack. Crazy to vote in the affirmative. And too important to not vote.

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Coalition (?) minus one

Kuwait says would not take part in any Iran attack

Kuwait said on Tuesday it would not allow its territory to be used for any attack on Iran.
"Iran is a friendly, neighbouring country and it is not possible that we would agree to see it in a difficult position," Sheikh Jaber al-Hamad al-Sabah, Kuwait's defence and interior minister, said at a Ramadan meal.
"Kuwait is not a place that harms its neighbours ... and would not allow Kuwaiti land to be used to assault any country," the official KUNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Will W go into this without a Coalition? You bet!

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Cheney's New War Plans

Getting Ready

Writing in the just-out issue of Newsweek, Dan Ephron and Mark Hosenball bring us a good deal more information on the strange recent events surrounding the Israeli air strike and overflights in Syria. The speculation for the last week has focused on this being connected with plans for an Israeli air assault on Iran, supposedly as an element in a plan that Vice President Cheney is cooking up for an aerial war against Tehran.
Still, Newsweek sees the plans for an aerial war against Iran as far from likely to be executed. Steven Clemons, writing in a column for Salon, concludes that in the end cooler heads will prevail and the drive for an air war will be averted.
The notion that Israel would be used as a U.S. proxy in the launch of an air war against Iran is hardly far-fetched. Security experts in Israel now regularly state off-the-record that last year’s disastrously misplanned Lebanese campaign was timed and stage-managed by the White House, and that the impetus for it came from Vice President Cheney with the involvement of Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser. So the tactical notion of using Israel as the “tip of the spear,” which is frequently labeled by Middle East experts as lunatic, has a well established provenance. The real question, of course, is whether Cheney is the author of the president’s policy on Iran. If he is, then another war is on the horizon, no matter what the generals think.

Involve Israel or have an action (here or in Iraq) that can easily be blamed on Iran. Fabricate. Set up. Lie. Misguide. Instill fear in the hearts of Americans. Blame Iran for 911.

These tactics were successful before...

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Let he who is without blemish cast the first stone.

Tempers flared. Names were called. Effigies burned as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the president of Iran visited NY.

Sure I can write about how we should allow free speech, open dialog, etc. I can talk about how labeling someone evil stops any chance of discussion. I could write about how, even though we do not agree with him, Ahmadinejad is an elected official - part of humanity - part of the world...

Sure I can write it but Cindy Sheehan writes much better:

Let’s clean our own filthy house before we criticize someone else for theirs.

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Profiting from Death!

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Serj Tankian - Empty Walls

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It Is Coming

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Don't pick up the trash!

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With ‘Bait’

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,” Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. “Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.”
In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military’s Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the “drop items” to be used “to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight.”
Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined “quite meticulously” because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

Who is this Asymmetric Warfare Group?

The Army is creating an “Asymmetric Warfare Group” to assess new tactics adversaries may use to take advantage of U.S. military vulnerabilities, according to service officials and documents. The group is expected to train forces up and down the ranks in countering such threats, with the first priority being those troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials say.
The asymmetric warfare specialists—to number nearly 200 soldiers, civilians and contractors by next January—will operate much like the IED task force, but with a broadened mandate. The unit is expected to be capable of planning and training for emerging threats in both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The AWG specialists will prepare to counter high- and low-technology weapons, to include even such futuristic concepts as “ray guns,” according to a task force contractor.

Civilians and contractors? Ray Guns? Baiting and killing those picking up the "bait"? We all know war is not pretty, but this is getting ridiculous. Let's outlaw war!

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Raining on Peru

American Spy Satellite Downed In Peru

Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States most secretive spy satellites, the KH-13, targeting Iran was ‘destroyed in its orbit’ with its main power generator powered by the radioactive isotope Pu-238 surviving re-entry and crashing in a remote region of the South American Nation of Peru, and where hundreds are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning.
Western media reports are stating that the US spy satellite debris hitting Peru was caused by a meteor, but which, according to these reports, would be ‘impossible’ as the size of 30-meter crater, if caused by a meteorite, would have hit the ground with about as much energy as 1 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon, and which would have been recorded by the seismic stations around the World.
Most astonishing about these reports, however, are that they state that it was the Americans themselves who destroyed their own spy satellite with the attack upon it being made by the United States Air Forces’ 30th Space Wing located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California .
This incident further fuels the intrigue involving the United States War Leaders plans to attack Iran in their attempt to engulf the entire Middle East in Total War, but, against which, according to Russian Military Intelligence Analysts, a ‘high ranking and significant’ faction of the American Military Establishment is opposed to.

Thanks to World Peace Society for the heads up on this article.

This could explain the effects felt by locals.

People who visited the scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.

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Burn your AARP cards!

AARP To Kucinich: Drop Dead

On Thursday night, AARP will host a debate in Iowa on the issue of health care.
Republicans and Democrats running for President will attend.
Of all of the Democrats and Republicans in the race, guess who is the only one who would put the Novelli’s buddies in the health insurance industry out of business?
Guess who is the only candidate among the Democrats and Republicans who would create a Canadian-style single payer, everybody in, nobody out, no deductibles, no co-pays, no in-network, no out-of-network, streamlined system that would save billions of dollars in administrative costs, deliver a higher quality health care system, and cover everyone?
Yes.
And guess who was not invited to confront Novelli’s corporate brotherhood of profit and death?
You guessed it.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

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Get to the Real Issue!

Senate Votes to Condemn MoveOn for Ad Attacking General Petraeus

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a measure condemning MoveOn.org for a newspaper ad it ran last week attacking Gen. David Petraeus. The move came as President Bush accused Democrats of cowering to the liberal political action group.
The measure passed in a 72-25 vote, with none of the Democratic presidential candidates supporting it. Sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, never one to shy away from forcing Democrats to go on record on politically sticky issues, the amendment to the defense authorization bill did win the backing of 23 Democrats.

Let's forget the "Sticks and Stones" and realize that we have Free Speech. Forget the words of the ad and instead worry about ending this senseless war and making sure we don't expand it to Iran. That's the vote you should take, Senators! That's the vote we demand.

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Let's Make the Dream a Reality

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
words and music by Ed McCurdy

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room
Filled with women and men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the paper was all signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful pray'rs were prayed

And the people in the streets below
Were dancing 'round and 'round
While swords and guns and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd never dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.

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It's Called "Bait and Switch"

Dept. of Misdirection: With Iraq a Disaster, GOP Goes Crazy Over a Newspaper Ad

Does anybody really believe the problem with the war in Iraq is too much questioning of those in authority, too much bluntness, and not enough deference to those who have been in charge of the war for the last four years?
That’s apparently the feeling of all the conservative talk-show hosts and GOP presidential candidates who came down with the vapors over the MoveOn ad that had the temerity to question Gen. David Petraeus. Tens of thousands of dead civilians, nearly 4,000 dead American soldiers, half a trillion dollars spent, and the squandering of America’s moral authority — none of that seems to have ruffled their feathers very much. But the ad? Now that has got them royally steamed.

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We didn't listen before...

Drift into War with Iran Out of Control, Says UN

The UN’s chief nuclear weapons inspector yesterday warned against the use of force against Iran, in what UN officials said was an attempt to halt an “out of control” drift to war.
His outspoken remarks, which drew a parallel between Iran and Iraq, appeared to take aim at the US and Britain. They followed comments on Sunday night by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who said: “We have to prepare for the worst,” adding “the worst is war”.
“I would not talk about any use of force,” Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. “There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”
There has been a string of reports out of Washington that the Bush administration is running out of patience with diplomacy and is intensifying its plans for air strikes as a means of halting Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.

We did not listen to the world before. We are not listening to the masses now. Should I expect W to listen now?

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They censored this?

Sally Field's Speaks Truth

"If mothers ruled the world, there'd be no goddamn wars in the first place"

Well if it was W's mother - we'd already be in Syria, Iran and ....(?)

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Remember - This Friday

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Stalin, Nixon, Hitler would be proud!

McCain To MoveOn: Get Out

Arizona Senator John McCain has taken criticism of anti-war group MoveOn.org to a whole new level: He is suggesting that the organization “ought to be thrown out of this country.”
And speaking at an event in Hudson, New Hampshire last night, CBS News’ Dante Higgins reports he once again displayed the ad and said: “It’s disgraceful, it’s got to be retracted and condemned by the Democrats, and MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country.”

What type of "democracy" is this Senator and Prezident-wanna-be advocating. Smash dissent? Free speech for some? He joins a number of past leaders (noted in the title) who would second his motion without hesitation. (Some current leaders would also agree and are trying hard to marshal enough power and create a state of fear to allow them to do just that!)

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Sniping in the Ranks

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.
However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

What took you so long, Alan, to come to this stance? Many said this from Day One!

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Thanks Rev. Yearwood!

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Trying to stop the insanity

September 15th March on Washington: 100,000 March Against Iraq War in Washington

Yesterday, nearly 100,000 people -- led by anti-war Iraq veterans, military families and others -- marched from the White House to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to demand an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq. The march concluded with a dramatic "die-in" of 5,000 people surrounding the Capitol. Almost 200 people were arrested when police prevented them taking an anti-war message to Congress.

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Does he ever learn?

Bush Setting America Up for War on Iran

Senior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Dick Cheney (’The Man’) with George W BushPentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons program are doomed to fail.
Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.
Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.
In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.

He doesn't listen to the cries to end this war but he'll hear the couple of voices (like Lieberman, Rush, Sean) calling for stupid attacks!

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A Green reason to support Kucinich

Power to the People: Dennis, Anyone?

I am a true environmentalist. In 2003, I put forth a national plan for the United States to use 20% Clean Energy by the year 2010. I strongly support any and all genuine and truly renewable non-polluting forms of energy.

Clean energy will play the central role in my energy plan! How will that happen? I plan to create a Works Green Administration, which will bring clean energy to America. We will have millions of wind and solar technologies that will be retrofitted onto American homes so that everyone can produce clean energy! We will create millions of new jobs not only building these wind and solar technology applications but also installing them.

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Should we be worried?

With reports about military flights standing down until the 14th, the nuclear warheads "excellent" adventure, the increased talk of an Iranian war, the increased chatter about something big brewing, the increased chatter about a nuclear threat, the theories revolving around an incident on September 14 (an excellent opportunity to blame and invade Iran)... should we worry?

With this regime, you bet your ass!

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Thanks Joe - Stoke the Flames

Joe says - let's go into Iran

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-CT), among the Senate's fiercest hawks, blamed Iran for the deaths of "hundreds of American troops," and claimed the US has evidence that Iran is training insurgents outside Tehran before sending them to Iraq. He asked whether the US should expand its invasion into Iran.
"Is it time to give you authority, in pursuit of your mission in Iraq, to pursue those Iranian Quds Force operations in Iranian territory, in order to protect Americas troops in Iraq," Lieberman (I-CT) asked at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of US troops in Iraq, demurred, but did not shoot down the idea of an expansion into Iran.
"I think that really the Multinational Force Iraq should just focus on Iraq and that any kinds of operations outside the borders of Iraq would rightly be overseen by the Central Command," Petraeus said.

Wrong answer Dave. You should have said, "Are you out of your mind Senator? Invade Iran? We have to not only stop the talk and moves towards war against Iran we have to end this war in Iraq. Put me out of work, please!"

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What are the odds?

Two of Seven Soldiers Who Wrote ‘NYT’ Op-Ed Die in Iraq

The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.
Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad, two of seven U.S. troops killed in the incident which was reported just as Gen. David Petraeus was about to report to Congress on progress in the “surge.” The names have just been released.
The accident in Iraq occurred when a cargo truck the men were riding in overturned.

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Gaining Insights About General Betray Us

He's back For More

Having assumed command of all U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year, Petraeus warns the war is not “going to be resolved in a year or even two years.” In fact, he predicts that the counterinsurgency effort could last “at least nine or 10 years.”
Petraeus is green-lighting the funding and arming of Sunni militias in strife-wracked Al Anbar province for the stated purpose of routing Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. But it is also part of the Bush administration’s overall Middle East strategy. Petraeus and the White House are forming Sunni militias apparently as a counterweight to Shiite militias and parties that it helped bring to power in Iraq and which they see as an Iranian fifth column.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk told Seymour Hersh, “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq… It’s doubling the bet across the region.” Hersh writes that this amounts to a “new strategy” termed a “redirection.” It’s bringing “the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.” He adds, “A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”

It's a frightening game we play (yesterday's enemies are today's allies and tomorrow's enemy). So where are the calls to stop the madness?

None of this would be possible if the home front were not blissed out on shopping and celebrities. With the Democrats’ capitulation to Bush and Cindy Sheehan’s bitter exit, there is little left of a national antiwar movement. Bush may only have 18 more months to go, but the domestic disconnect — why oppose Bush’s wars when he’s headed out the door? — gives the administration freedom to fan the flames of war in the Middle East.

I hope we can prove this writer wrong. I hope that the masses will rise and oppose the continuation of this war and the start of a new one. If they don't....

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Fanning the flames of war...

A "Proxy" war with Iran

Iran is fighting a "proxy war" through Shi'a militias against the Iraqi state and United States-led forces in the war-torn nation, US war commander General David Petraeus said on Monday.
"It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq," Petraeus said.
Petraeus was testifying at a crucial hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees seen as a key moment for US strategy on Iraq.

Fanning the flames for the current war and the war to come.

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Deja vu

"Look General. I know it didn't work at Nuremberg but let's just tell them we are following orders. They know who we work for, maybe they'll feel sorry for us."

Photo courtesy of NY Times

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War Made Easy

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.
War Made Easy gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq.

It sickens to realize how true and spot-on this movie is. The spin succeeded (for some) to get us into Iraq. Will it succeed for Iran or Syria?

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Tom Hayden's ideas...

Ending the War in 2009

In the debate on Capitol Hill, I favor setting a withdrawal deadline, which is the only way to begin the shift away from a military model to a conflict resolution model. But a deadline is not enough. I interviewed former CIA director John Deutch about a rational exit plan, and he stressed two essentials: [1] that the US has to decide to withdraw, which it has not, and [2] he stressed diplomacy with Iran, which he called the only country that could cause trouble during our withdrawal. He was implying negotiations with Iran to obtain what Richard Nixon once called a “decent interval” for the US to leave Vietnam.
We should call for a shift from warmaking to peacemaking through a diplomatic offensive, declaring a firm intention to withdraw all American troops and bases on a one-year timetable, which would create an immediate incentive for engagement on the part of Iran, Syria, the Arab League, the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, the UN. No one has an interest in joining the US in the occupation; everyone has a interest in minimizing a power vacuum as we leave. The issues to be resolved will be humanitarian assistance to 3-4 million refugees, economic reconstruction, and protection of all Iraqis from unrestrained vendettas. America should offer to assist by appointing a peace envoy and offering billions in reconstruction. The horrific damage cannot be undone but can be contained and mitigated.
The year 2009 will be decisive. This week comes the debate over the surge. Next week the president’s recommendations. Then the elusive search among the politicians for bipartisan consensus. Then the appropriations bill, then the new request for next year’s war funding, then the presidential primaries, all of that in the next six months. Then in April, comes the projected breaking point for the armed forces, when some troop withdrawals will have to begin or tours of duty extended to intolerable lengths. Then the political conventions in the protest-friendly cities of Denver and Minneapolis, and then the campaign itself.
Step by step, we all need to ensure that ending the war is the issue on which the elections turn.

Not happening as soon as we would like - but this may be the reality of the mess - we have to wait until the next Oval Office occupant. Let's make sure the right one is elected...

Iraq is the focal point for confronting the great issues of our future. The fight is on. As Bobby Sands, the Irish hunger striker used to say, everyone has a part to play, and our reward will be seen in the smiles of the children.

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U.S. Institute of Peace?

New Report Recommends Iraq Handover in 5 Years

In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years.
"The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge," the report says. " . . . It is time to chart a clearer path forward."
The panel includes many of the experts that advised the Iraq Study Group panel led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Democratic congressman Lee H. Hamilton, which issued its report last December. Many of its recommendations have since been adopted, some reluctantly, by the Bush administration. The U.S. Institute of Peace ran the Baker-Hamilton report and assembled the experts.

With a report that talks about anything less than immediate withdrawal - shouldn't they change their name to "Institute for the Status Quo?"

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The End of Empire

"What a Way to Go"

Tim Bennett, middle-class white guy, started waking up to the global environmental nightmare in the mid-1980s. But life was so busy with raising kids and pursuing the American dream that he never got around to acting on his concerns. Until now…
Bennett journeys from complacency to consciousness in his feature-length documentary, What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire. He reviews his Midwestern roots, ruthlessly examines the stories he was raised with, and then details the grim realities humans now face: escalating climate change, resource shortages, degraded ecosystems, an exploding global population and teetering global economies.
Bennett identifies and calls into question the fundamental assumption that has led to this unprecedented crisis in human history: that humans were destined to dominate the rest of the community of life with the Culture of Empire.
He pushes the dialogue where Al Gore did not go.
Powerful interviews with well-known authors including Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen and Richard Heinberg, and noted scientists William Schlesinger and Stuart Pimm, fill in some important pieces. Scathing and humorous use of archival footage is balanced with very human snapshot comments from family and friends.
On Walkabout, Bennett ends with an invitation to join him with courage and consciousness on the unexplored shores of a future not yet written.

Will you make the shift?

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A ruse?

Syria 'fires on Israel warplanes'

Syria says its air defences have opened fire on Israeli war planes which had entered Syrian airspace overnight.
Israeli planes had "dropped ammunition" over desert areas of Syria, before being forced to leave, according to the official Syrian news agency, SANA.

And we thought all eyes were on Iran.
A little diversion or was Iran and those war drums the distraction? Tell me there are no plans to go after Syria and Iran at the same time!

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Join the Revolution!

Before it is too late for us all!

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For Creationists It Took God 7 Days to Create It All...

W only needs three days to destroy the entire world.

Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

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