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2003-04-24 - 6:26 p.m. looting, bosnia, republican, and breastfeeding war news o'the day! for thursday april 24th 2003.sport the troops! http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YSEZGKRDGZHTACRBAEOCFEY?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2616462 The Pentagon is once again warning family members not to send U.S. troops in the Gulf flea and tick collars designed for pets. "The fact is that flea and tick collars are not approved for humans and in fact are quite detrimental to the skin," said Army Maj. Dwight Rickard, contingency officer for the Armed Forces Pest Management Board. [not a satire!] .................................................................................................................. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0422-07.htm Most Americans probably aren't aware that [April 22nd] is Earth Day. ...In March... the administration reversed a ban on snowmobiles in national parks, called for legislation exempting military installations from federal environmental laws, and dropped Clinton-era rules that were set to take effect on cleaning up impaired streams. And this month, the Department of the Interior announced that 3 million acres of designated wilderness in Utah would lose protected status. "I think we're looking at an administration that's far worse than the (former Interior Secretary James) Watt years under Reagan," [Brent Martin, director of Georgia ForestWatch] said. "But they're subtle about it. They take a logging plan and call it the Healthy Forests Initiative. They take a plan that allows more air pollution and call it the Clear Skies Initiative." ......................................................................................................................... http://www.msnbc.com/news/850567.asp?0cv=CB10 North Korea admitted possessing nuclear weapons and threatened to boost its arsenal during talks with American and Chinese officials in Beijing, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday... THE PYONGYANG delegation also claimed it had reprocessed spent fuel rods, moving a step closer to building more nuclear bombs, and threatened to export plutonium — the product of such reprocessing — unless the United States agreed to direct talks, officials told NBC News. Powell ruled out direct talks. ...State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the North Korea and U.S. delegations did not meet on Thursday, but that meetings were held between the Americans and the Chinese as well as between the Chinese and the North Koreans. .............................................................................................. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777311990.html A top Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying yesterday in Tokyo that a "catastrophic" development of events in the US-North Korean nuclear standoff was imminent and could occur within the next day... He added that the standoff had "reached an extreme stage." ...Losyukov holds the Asian affairs brief in the ministry. ................................................................................................................................. http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000373.html The United States' arsenal of 10,000 nuclear weapons isn't enough. The country needs more bombs, and the place to make them is the scandal-plagued, security-challenged Los Alamos National Laboratory. That seems to be the meaning behind yesterday's announcement by Los Alamos officials that the lab has constructed, for the first time in a long while, a plutonium pit -- the deadly heart of a nuclear warhead -- that's bomb-ready. It's been 14 years since the last one was completed. The United States hasn't had the ability to make the pits since the FBI stopped production at the Energy Department's Rocky Flats plant for environmental violations in 1989. It's the opening trickle in what is scheduled to eventually become a torrent of new nuclear cores. For the next four years, Los Alamos will make about a half-dozen pits per year. After that, capacity will ramp up to 10 pits per year -- and then to as many as 500 new pits annually, as the new U.S. Modern Pit Facility comes online in 2018. According to the Bush administration's central plan for atomic weapons, the Nuclear Posture Review, making additional nuclear cores is key to keeping America's potential adversaries cowed. The ability to "upgrade existing weapon systems, surge production of weapons or develop and field entirely new systems … (will) discourage other countries from competing militarily with the United States," the review says. .............................................................................................................. http://spot.colorado.edu/~chernus/NewspaperColumns/Israel/MSNBConIsraelWMD.htm Most astounding web page of the week: http://www.msnbc.com/news/wld/graphics/strategic_israel_dw.htm Here is MSNBC, giving us more information on Israel’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD)than I’ve seen in any left-wing or peace-activist news source. Here is the mainstream U.S. media, that beast we love to hate, giving us a story that gives away the store. It’s a story we expect the elite media to hide, because it is so embarrassing to U.S. policymakers. ...Even now, MSNBC is not making the information easy to get. It is tucked away in an obscure corner of the website. Try finding it from the home page, and if you figure out how, let me know. (I found it only through a direct link in an email I received.) When I searched the site for "Dimona" (Israel’s best-known nuclear weapons site), it came up blank. When I tried to access the root directory, I was told that I was "not authorized to view this page." Still, the information is there on the site, if you know how to get it (and now you do). ............................................................................................................ the graphic says what? http://www.msnbc.com/news/wld/graphics/strategic_israel_dw.htm "Despite Israel's refusal to acknowledge its nuclear weapons status, its secret arsenal is an open secret... Israel's program has developed into one that rivals those of larger powers like France and Britain. ...Once described as a "textile factory," the Dimona Center actually produces about 40 kilograms of weapons grade plutonium every year and has been doing so for 10 and possibly 20 years. ...Tirosh is one of two nuclear weapons storage facilities. ...Eliabun is [the] second. ...Soreq is the equivalent of the U.S. national weapons laboratories and is considered by the Pentagon to be among the most sophisticated such operations in the world. ...The country's leading chemical and biological warfare facility is at Nes Zionyaa, outside Tel Aviv. [and so on.] ................................................................................................................................. local q & a http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat/5674107.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Q. I have a friend trying to convince me that the United States was at least partially responsible for giving Saddam Hussein the weapons of mass destruction that we now have been fighting to destroy. Can he be right? -- E.N. of Belleville A. This likely will raise howls of protest from supporters of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., but your friend is essentially correct. You don't have to dig deep to find that from 1982 to 1990 the United States supplied Iraq with not only conventional arms and cash but also chemical and biological materials, including the precursors for anthrax and botulism. --Roger Schlueter, Answer Man ...................................................................................................................................... me feel sadder now http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s836988.htm The US military has revealed it is holding juveniles at its high-security prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, known as Camp Xray. The commander of the joint task force at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller, says more than one child under the age of 16 is at the detention centre. However, Maj Gen Miller has revealed little more about their welfare... He has refused to reveal how many there are... About 660 prisoners are in the camp. They have not been tried or convicted of any offence but are being held as part of what the US calls its war on terror. ........................................................................................................................................... http://www.irna.com/en/head/030424205501.ehe.shtml Israeli occupation troops on Thursday opened fire on Palestinian school boys west of Ramallah, killing two people, and injuring others. Palestinian sources said Israeli soldiers riding two jeeps raided the village of Qarawat Bani Zeid near Ramallh around mid-noon Thursday and opened fire on school children who were returning home. Eyewitnesses said the trigger-happy soldiers opened fire indiscriminately, killing a 14 year- old boy and a laborer who was working outside the school. A spokesman for the Israeli occupation army sought to justify the killing, saying soldiers had to open fire after stones were thrown on the jeeps. ....................................................................................................... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/24/international/worldspecial/24IRAQ.html?pagewanted=print&position= Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of ground forces in Iraq, issued a proclamation putting Iraq's politicians on notice, saying, "The coalition alone retains absolute authority within Iraq." He warned that anyone challenging the American-led authority would be subject to arrest... Maj. Gen. Albert Whitley, the senior British officer in General McKiernan's command, put General McKiernan's edict into effort at a meeting today with railway representatives. The allies are trying to restore Iraq's basic services, and its railroad is one of them... Mr. Chalabi's representatives... had been taking credit for restoring the railroad... Mr. Zobeidi and Mr. Chalibi have sought to claim credit for allied efforts to rebuild the country in order to build political support. "Nobody has authority unless General McKiernan says so," General Whitley advised. "Mr. Zobeidi and Mr. Chalabi have no authority. If we say you run the railroad, you run the railroad. If anybody comes and tells you differently... we will arrest them." ...................................................................................................................... what railway representatives are these, anyway? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&ncid=68&e=20&u=/nyt/20030419/ts_nyt/from_power_grid_to_schools__rebuilding_a_broken_nation ...The Bechtel contract covers virtually all the major projects in Iraq, including repairing two international and three domestic airports, ensuring that potable water is available, reconstructing electric power plants and building roads, railroads, schools, hospitals and irrigation systems... Iraq has about 3,000 miles of domestic train track, rail officials say. ..................................................................................................................................... in case you missed this story last week http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/5636585.htm Sometime this week, Iraqis with television reception will turn on their sets and see a parade of new faces delivering the evening news: Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Jim Lehrer and Brit Hume... part of an ambitious effort that White House officials say will show Iraq what a free press looks like. ..."Iraq and the World," funded by the U.S. government, will feature nightly contributions from CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS and Fox News translated into Arabic, and is spearheaded by Norm Pattiz... White House officials asked him last week to get the new commercial-free network operating as soon as possible, Pattiz said. ............................................................................. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2974035.stm The United States has reacted angrily to comments made by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in which he reminded US forces in Iraq of their duties as an "occupying power" in the country... Mr Annan said he hoped coalition troops would adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Only minutes after the secretary-general had finished speaking, Kevin Moley, the US ambassador to the UN in Geneva, made his irritation clear... "Quite frankly, we find it odd at best that the secretary-general would feel that he had to bring this to our attention," Mr Moley said. ...Washington is angered by the use of the term "occupying power", which it says may not be correct under international law. .......................................................................................................................... http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777306319.html The United States will not permit United Nations weapons inspectors to return to Iraq... Asked if the White House saw any role at all for the UN's weapons teams and, in particular, for chief inspector Hans Blix, Mr Fleischer said: "Well, the President is looking forward, not backward." One diplomatic source described US feelings towards Dr Blix as "visceral", saying US officials... insist Dr Blix should have reported before the war that Iraq had failed to co-operate in disclosing its weapons of mass destruction [whether he believed it to be true or not --mrs. h]. .................................................................................................................... furthermore http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/22/1050777257250.html Dr Blix, who addressed the UN Security Council late last night... said he would not dream of accusing US and British intelligence agencies of fabricating reports on illegal arms. But he questioned their ability to spot "fakes", such as a report Iraq had imported tonnes of raw uranium. "Is it not disturbing that the intelligence agencies that should have all the technical means at their disposal did not discover that this was falsified?" he said. "I think that's very, very disturbing. Who falsifies this?" ...Dr Blix also [discussed] allegations by US officials that his [UN] team had deliberately suppressed information on an Iraqi unmanned drone plane and a cluster bomb in its report on Iraq's weapons... "At that time the US was very eager to sway the votes of the Security Council and they felt that stories about these things would be useful to have and they let it out," he said... Asked whether the US had leaked information to sway UN votes, he said: "It looked like that." Meanwhile, political appointees and analysts are still confident US forces will find chemical and biological arms, ballistic missile components and equipment and plans for uranium enrichment. .................................................................................................................................. drinking the pentagon kool-aid http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/international/worldspecial/21CHEM.html By JUDITH MILLER A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said. ...Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home... While this reporter could not interview the scientist, she was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried. This reporter also accompanied MET Alpha on the search for him and was permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic that he slipped to American soldiers ................................................................................................................... what's bigger than a smoking gun? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/search_04-22.html RAY SUAREZ: Judith Miller, welcome back to the program. Has the unit you've been traveling with found any proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? JUDITH MILLER: Well, I think they found something more than a "smoking gun." What they've found is what is being called here by the members of MET Alpha-- that's Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha-- what they found is a silver bullet. .......................................................................................................................... whaddya think, rush? http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_042103/content/truth_detector_2.guest.html Judith Miller wrote a big, huge, very important story in Monday's New York Times. Liberals and Democrats are running around carping, "You haven't found any WMDs, so the whole war was a waste! Bush misled us!" ...[But] this kind of wraps it all up, doesn't it? If this appeared anywhere but the sainted New York Times, many liberals would be out there pooh-poohing it. Since it appears there, what are they going to say? ...................................................................................................................... what kind of liberals would pooh-pooh such hard evidence? http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Chemical-Weapons.html Many chemical weapons ingredients have nonmilitary purposes and officials cautioned that the findings, which are being analyzed, do not confirm the presence of chemical weapons at that site. Officials also raised suspicions about some of the scientist's claims that couldn't be immediately verified... A senior defense official in Washington said the Pentagon was "highly skeptical" of information the scientist provided. ...In Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declined to confirm the discovery... He said inspections were continuing in a search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction and that the government would ``obviously look with favor on'' Iraqis who provide information on hidden materials... The Pentagon is offering rewards of up to $200,000 for information on the whereabouts of Iraqi leaders and any hidden weapons. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix cautioned the Americans to treat information with skepticism, noting that some Iraqis may be motivated to claim more than they know. ....................................................................................................... http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/index.php?event=link,150&values[0]=2&values[1]=617 I used to support PBS. But after the poor reporting during the Iraq invasion and after tonight’s NewsHour nonsense featuring Judith Miller who carried on what was basically an uncritical, pretentious and unprofessional monologue with Ray Suarez tossing her softballs, I’ve had enough. ...What was wrong? First, Judith Miller has been known as an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim writer, though she claims to know a lot about the Middle East. ...Second, Suarez didn’t ask her any hard questions, he just let her go on and on and on... She did not interview the scientist, she did not know the man’s qualifications or his name, she did not know if he’d been interviewed by Blix and others from the UN; in fact, she didn’t really know if he was a scientist at all, she just took the word of the American in command of the situation. ...But Judith was so happy to be the first to scoop the story, that she and the US troops had found the “silver bullet” that would get that bad old werewolf, Saddam Hussein, and pin the WMD and poison weapons on him. I just love her phrase, so I keep repeating it because she did in the course of her monologue, so much so that she gave up all of her critical senses. Or did she? Did she have her own agenda to help the Bush team prove their point so she could make points with them, to be part of the “insider” bunch of journalists GW likes...? ...She lost her credibility with professional journalists, but it helped her currency in other quarters, as well as access to the big boys in Washington and the chance to go out with this investigative unit. ...As for me, I won’t give NPR another dime. ...................................................................................................... whom would ray bradbury bomb? ...Either you're embedded and accept the censorship and constraints that embedding involves, or else you're in a dangerous place and might get hit by a US tank shell. And if you work for a news outlet deemed suspect, like Al Jazeera, your office is struck by a US missile, despite having provided your exact coordinates to the US military to avoid just such a incident... So the theme of Fahrenheit 451 is certainly relevant today. ...Consider the story of the US government ordering the bugging of the offices and homes of the UN ambassadors from the non-permanent members of the Security Council... The Los Angeles Times said in their headline: "Forgery or no, some say it's nothing to get worked up about.". The Washington Post downplayed it saying, it was "no shock." ...The major networks didn't mention a word about it. In fact, they had scheduled interviews with one of the British reporters who had broken the story, but cancelled them. And the New York Times, our newspaper of record, didn't cover the story at all. [and so on. from a talk given at a 'Farenheit 451' conference --mrs.h] .......................................................................................................................... http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,942302,00.html Jay Garner, the retired general overseeing Iraq's post-war reconstruction, held out the promise yesterday of a Bosnia-style commission to resolve disputes between Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans displaced in northern Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime. He said that a commission to "arbitrate what is just and fair" would help to reverse "years of ethnic cleansing"... Details of the proposed commission remain vague. ............................................................................................. so how about that bosnia-style redress? from the Balkan Express http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m032003.html Bosnia is occupied by a small NATO force and governed by an Imperial viceroy – currently a washed-out British politician – with powers the ancient absolute monarchs would envy. Throughout Bosnia, statism reins supreme; there are no safeguards of liberty or property rights, political correctness runs rampant, and individuals are seen as servants of the government, not the other way around... "Bosnia challenges any definition of 'nation'," wrote a Canadian reporter in a recent story on his hometown's peacekeeper regiment. The Canadians' commanding officer summed it up as, "a nearly dysfunctional government of three ethnic groups in two entities comprising one country." ............................................................................................. Balkan Express again, this column from last year: [author] Nebojsa Malic left his home in Bosnia after the Dayton Accords and currently resides in the United States. During the Bosnian War he had exposure to diplomatic and media affairs in Sarajevo, and contributed to the Independent. As a historian who specializes in international relations and the Balkans, Malic has written numerous essays on the Kosovo War, Bosnia and Serbian politics. His exclusive column for Antiwar.com appears every Thursday. http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m092602.html When the New York Times published the current government’s "National Security Strategy of the United States" last [September], the American Empire – already a painful reality – became official. [see http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/international/20STEXT_FULL.html?ex=1051329600&en=43336bf3b5901070&ei=5070] According to one review, "the 31-page document asserts American dominance as the lone superpower – a status no rival power will be allowed to challenge. ...All eyes are now turned towards Iraq, as the testing ground for the new Grand Strategy. But the test has already been conducted over the past decade, in the faraway corner of Europe: the Balkans. From the early-on involvement in dismembering Yugoslavia to the current occupation and domination of the resulting vassal principalities, the US has used the Balkans to test and expand the limits of its power, eventually abolishing them altogether. What the Strategy offers to the world is a global Balkans: ruined, conquered, desperate... A wasteland, called peace. There are many passages in the "National Security Strategy" dealing with specific objectives, from promoting genetically modified foods (for which US companies would charge royalties) and "free trade" (only as long as America comes out ahead), to subjugating India, China, Russia and several key African countries. ...In several places, the "Strategy" asserts the importance of democracy in the new world order, and pledges US power to spread it to the entire world... That the US literally paid the Serbian opposition to take over the government was freely admitted on the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times even as the Serbian elections of 2000 were under way. In Kosovo, elections were used to legitimize the Albanian takeover and the UN/NATO occupation. In Bosnia, Imperial satraps have regularly attempted to influence electoral outcomes, and if the results displeased them, they would simply dismiss or disenfranchise the winners. Most recently, Imperial lackeys did their best to manipulate the vote in Macedonia. To seize power anywhere in the Balkans – not just the former Yugoslavia, either – one needs America’s blessing. Yet the lives of Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Romanians are a far cry from the "American way." ...In the aftermath of US interventions, Bosnia (1995+) and Kosovo (1999+) have been occupied by NATO troops. In Bosnia, the occupation was supposed to be temporary. By the time Kosovo came along, even that pretense was abandoned. "Peacekeeping" was replaced by "nation-building." Though a cruel experiment in playing God, with predictably disastrous results, it is endorsed by the Strategy: "As humanitarian relief requirements are better understood, we must also be able to help build police forces, court systems, and legal codes, local and provincial government institutions, and electoral systems." (Section IX) Finally, there was the manner in which the Kosovo War was fought: massive destruction from the air, combined with proxy forces on the ground to avoid American casualties. Empire’s causes are worth thousands of deaths, as long as they are not American. ...In the period leading up to the US attack, the Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" engaged in politically motivated violence against innocents. It was even branded "a clearly terrorist organization" by a US diplomat, who was subsequently exiled to Indonesia for this transgression. The KLA, you see, couldn’t possibly be terrorists. They were fighting for "American values," as Sen. Joseph Lieberman infamously noted. Never mind their actions, or their celebration of their Nazi ancestors. Imperial support for the KLA and its offshoots in Macedonia and southwestern Serbia is unwavering. Equally troubling is the continued support for militant Islamic fundamentalists in Bosnia, despite their links to Al-Qaeda. The Strategy proclaims: "Allies of terror are enemies of civilization." (Introduction) Here’s looking at you, Your Majesty... .......................................................................................................................... http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/dg/Qiraq-war-us-forces.R0pp_DAM.html The United States sees an opportunity in the aftermath of the Iraq war to change how it projects force around the world, relying more on military operations launched over long distances from a global network of "strategic hubs," a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday. ..."When you come out of an engagement (like the one) that we've just had it would be naive to suppose that you just reset everything to where it was before," said retired admiral Arthur Cebrowski, director of the Pentagon's office of force transformation... He believes that the challenges are more likely to come from those areas of the world left behind by globalization than from conventional military powers. "These tend to be the disconnected elements of the world, and disconnectedness is emerging as one of the great signals of danger," he said. The United States, he said, has "a certain moral imperative to shrink the gap." ......................................................................................................................... http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=257816 BAGHDAD — Oil from Iraq's southern fields began flowing through pipelines Wednesday for the first time since the war... "Our focus in restoring the oil is to give the biggest benefit to the Iraqi people," said Brig Gen Robert Crear, the top U.S. official charged with getting Iraq's oil production up and running. ........................................................................................................................... looting news part 1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2596484,00.html A television news engineer faces smuggling charges after attempting to bring into the United States 12 stolen Iraqi paintings, monetary bonds and other items, federal officials said Wednesday... [Ben] Johnson worked for six years as a satellite truck engineer for Fox News Channel, which fired him after learning he had admitted to taking the paintings... Johnson... said he had planned to keep them "for decoration" and to provide one to his employer, the affidavit says. ......................................................................................................................... looting news part 2 http://www.nypost.com/commentary/74020.htm FOUR sticky-fingered GIs have been arrested for trying to steal nearly $1,000,000.00 of the $700,000,000.00 in cold cash found hidden on the grounds of several estates in Baghdad, Army officials said yesterday. ........................................................................................................................... looting news part 3 FOUR GIs arrested and charged with stealing nearly $1 million in cash from money found hidden in Baghdad had intended to filch another $12 million, The Post has learned... an additional $112 million was found in another cottage in the neighborhood - bringing the total stash to $824 million, including the $12 million found by the river. As a result of the arrests, the district is now swarming with members of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. .................................................................................................................. looting news part 4 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,941629,00.html In Iraq's foreign ministry... a small team of Iraqi men from the US-funded Free Iraqi Forces have set up their camp-beds beside the main foyer where a broken chandelier still hangs. They allowed reporters into the building yesterday, but, taking a leaf out of Saddam's book, they insisted that every group had a minder with it. Documents could be read and notes made, but nothing was allowed out of the ministry. This was in contrast to scenes over the past few days when an American television network took carloads of documents from the foreign ministry and other civil service buildings. Several key treaties from Iraq's diplomatic archives have been removed by the American television reporters. ............................................................................................................................... looting news part 5 Customs officials said unidentified U.S. service personnel attempted to ship a rifle, pistol, and AK-47 assault rifle — all gold-plated — as well as swords and knives taken from an Iraqi government facility to a military base in the United States. The items were intercepted last Friday at London's Heathrow Airport, then shipped to Fort Stewart, Ga. ...Customs officials in Boston said they confiscated several souvenirs, including a painting, from Boston Herald reporter Jules Crittenden when he returned Saturday from Kuwait... Additional Iraqi items, including a painting, gold-plated emblem, gun holster and knife, that were being shipped by several other unidentified members of the media, were seized at Dulles on Monday. Those cases are still being investigated. ............................................................................................................... republican news http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/6493421p-7444509c.html Out of office for less than two months, former state Republican Party Chairman Shawn Steel is still on the hustings, trying to pitch that "big tent" of inclusion the GOP covets to return to relevancy in California. In two appearances at campus pro-troop rallies, Steel took dead aim at Islam, referring to it as "a diseased religion" at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles... At the University of Southern California, he was more specific. "The Islamic community has a cancer growing inside it, which hates Jews, hates freedom and hates Western society," Steel said, as reported by the Daily Trojan, the campus newspaper. "The disease of Islam must be rectified. It's kill or be killed." Steel also managed to bash the peace movement and Democrats: "Because of the peace movement, we had the Holocaust," Steel said, according to the Trojan. "The Democratic Party is keeping the Ku Klux Klan alive." .................................................................................................. republican news, the sequel http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/powerlines-meyerson.php Whom the gods would destroy, they would first lead to military victory in Iraq. With the resounding success of the military campaign in Iraq, the neoconservatives have gone utterly manic. Any force that they see as standing in their way is fair game, and in the last week they have trained their fire chiefly on fellow Republicans... On Tuesday, a savage attack on Colin Powell’s State Department was leveled by none other than Newt Gingrich... [who] is a member of the now-celebrated Defense Policy Board, where neocon free associations turn into state policy. ...Republican Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio are under attack from both the administration and movement conservatives for their adamant opposition to Bush’s proposed $726,000,000,000.00 tax cut... By refusing to vote for a cut larger than $350,000,000,000.00, the two senators have... roused the ultra-right Club for Growth... to produce and air attack ads on them. “Some so-called Republicans,” the ads proclaim, “stand in the way” of the president’s economic plans... In case viewers miss the point, digitally inserted French flags flutter behind the senators’ heads. ...All prudent Republicans must now swear allegiance to Wolfowitz and Rove. If they don’t, Newt Gingrich — like Robespierre, a provincial second-rater with delusions of grandeur and an affinity for ruthlessness — is already tinkering with his chopping block. ................................................................................................................ republican news strikes back Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's comments equating homosexuality with adultery and incest this week... show no signs yet of jeopardizing his spot as the Republican Party's third-ranking senator. Several conservative organizations released statements supporting Santorum, while GOP leaders in the Senate remained silent, and White House officials declined to rebuke him Tuesday. Santorum's comments on gays came during an interview with the Associated Press printed Monday. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum said ...In an interview with Fox News late Tuesday, his first since the comments were published, Santorum said he doesn't owe anyone an apology. "I do not need to give an apology based on what I said and what I'm saying now -- I think this is a legitimate public policy discussion," Santorum said. "This is what the state of Texas argued in their brief." .................................................................................................................. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/24/politics/24SANT.html?ex=1051761600&en=7141fd0f3971122b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Mary Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, demanded today that Senator Rick Santorum apologize to gays for his remarks equating homosexuality with bigamy and incest. .................................................................................................................. talk to the republicans http://www.gop.com/sendyourthoughts/ The Democrat Party is quickly becoming a Party that looks to blame America first, and demonstrates a willingness to say anything to attack the President. Days before the war Tom Daschle blamed any potential war casualties on President Bush. Joe Lieberman called President Bush a "greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein." Dick Gephardt claimed that President Bush is "bullying" the world. And just yesterday, John Kerry called for "regime change" in the U.S. Tell us what you think of these radical comments by filling out this form below. ................................................................................................................... http://www.muslimwakeup.com/likefatherlikeson.htm The omnipresent neo-conservative kingmakers are at it again, this time with the eloquent and dashing Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the former enigmatic Iranian King of Kings, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, who ruled Iran from 1941 until his exile in 1979... [The Shah's] popular legacy is the current theocratic regime in Iran and SAVAK--the brutal intelligence arm of the Shah. For a short time, though, he waived the flag of democratic reform and Iranians had high hopes for democracy. He instituted the White Revolution, a 1963 program that included land reform, the extension of voting rights to women, and the elimination of illiteracy. But the trappings of power, fear of opposition groups, and insensitivity towards Islam (Arab Muslims conquered Iran in roughly 650 BCE) led him, like his father [the Crown Prince's grandfather], into an insular dictatorship and all the wretched practices that method entails. During a recent meeting with US Congressional Representatives and staffers on Capitol Hill, Pahlavi--called "Your Majesty" by the representatives and staffers... argued for the political and economic boycott of Iran using the Iraqi model, in order to undercut the Iranian regime while seemingly ignoring the dastardly effects that action would have on the people he wants to "liberate"... Oddly, he maintained that Bush II is someone who cares for Iranians and indicated that "Iranians were heartened by the Axis of Evil comment". ...Pahlavi also cut a backroom deal by garnering political support and funding from the US Congress for private Iranian-American satellite companies in California and US government sponsored external radio programs such as Radio FARDA, geared to reprogramming Iranians under 30 years of age... Not surprisingly, Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, introduced an amendment on April 8, 2003, that would provide $50 million (US) to an Iran Democracy Foundation, the purpose of which is to broadcast “democracy" into Iran. According to reports, the language in Brownback's amendment has its origins in the Pentagon and is almost the same as that used in the Iraqi Liberation Act that the US Congress approved in 1998. ...This next King--should the US and Israel install him--seems destined to repeat the mistakes of his ancestors. ................................................................................................ from 14 months ago http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/magazine/24NITV.html?ex=1051329600&en=a6b8ed5696f08177&ei=5070 I drove down from the Bay Area to Los Angeles to watch Reza Pahlavi appear live on National Iranian Television -- or NITV, as it usually calls itself. I thought maybe there was a story in the surprising new political influence of the son of the former dictator. And there was. It just wasn't the best story. In this little hellhole of a TV station off a back street on the wrong end of Hollywood, something astonishing had happened. NITV opened for business in March 2000. It was the brain wave of an Iranian-American man named Zia Atabay... In the old days, before the Iranian revolution, he was a rock star. He sold so many records in Iran that he thought nothing of flying to Paris with 50 grand in cash in his pocket... Ayatollah Khomeini believed all music was sinful, and Atabay wound up fleeing on foot for his life with $4,000 stuffed inside his underpants... In Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles, Atabay became a United States citizen. ...To establish his product, Atabay decided he needed... an Iranian personality big enough to attract the mass audience he craved... The Dan Rather of Iran now lived in Encino. The Frank Sinatra of Iran lived in Sherman Oaks. Atabay found the real star power he was looking for in a journalist named Ali Reza Meybodi, who also lived in Sherman Oaks. The Persians who live in Los Angeles describe Meybodi as the Larry King of Iran... [then Atabay obtained] Reza Pahlavi. ...Two-thirds of Iran's population is under 30 years old and so has no visceral memory of Pahlavi's father. All they know is that they despise the old mullahs who replaced him. The combination of the events of Sept. 11 and the spread of NITV has opened a new dialogue between Pahlavi and young Iranians... He is someone to whom the Iranian people might turn for leadership and who, when they do, might lead them to democracy. ''He's a good guy,'' Atabay says as Pahlavi heads into his TV studio. ''I hope he stays a good guy when he gets power. I hope he just shuts his mouth and stays there, like the queen of England.'' .................................................................................................................... it's... the great game! http://www.irna.com/en/head/030424190936.ehe.shtml New Delhi, April 24, IRNA -- Iranian players drew against rivals from China and India in the seventh round of the Commonwealth Chess Championship in Mumbai on Thursday. Iranian grandmaster Ehsan Ghaem Maqami (4) playing black drew with Wang Yu (4) of China and Darban Vaighan (3) playing white drew against Vishal Shah (3) of India at Hotel Tulip Star in Western Indian State of Maharashtra. In the championship which has 10 rounds, 138 players from 14 countries including Iran, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cyprus among others are playing. ........................................................................................................... naughty, naughty france! http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/24/1050777357699.html The Bush Administration is pursuing steps to punish France for opposing the United States on the war in Iraq... The anger at France is so deeply felt within the Administration that even Secretary of State Colin Powell, the most dovish member of the Bush Administration, on Tuesday warned the country would be punished... A US Administration official confirmed yesterday that some steps would be taken to downgrade formal relations between Washington and Paris. ............................................................................................................... ari explains it all (press conference transcript) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030423-2.html#m Q Is the U.S. contemplating some reduction in the consultations the U.S. has with France...? MR. FLEISCHER: I think when it comes to Iraq you've heard this expressed very directly. There's a coalition that is involved, that has been involved, that shed blood and lost lives to help provide for the freedom of Iraq. And that coalition is on the ground and is taking the actions to help the Iraqi people to a better future. Our focus is on our mission, and that's what we're doing. Q But, I mean... this has been a difficult moment in U.S.-French relations. How should we anticipate this will be reflected in U.S.-French relations? MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think it's been the history of U.S. relations with France, on some issues we agree, on other issues we disagree... The President believes that economic sanctions on Iraq are no longer needed. They shouldn't be merely suspended, they should be out-and-out lifted. And that's a difference of opinion between the United States and France on how to get the job done. We're pleased that France has made some moves in this direction; they've got a little more to go. Q You're saying they've turned the corner, they just haven't gone quite far enough? MR. FLEISCHER: I'll leave it as I put it. Q Why won't you answer the question about -- MR. FLEISCHER: Greg. Q Hold on. We're entitled to follow up, Ari -- this isn't homeroom. MR. FLEISCHER: Greg. Q Why won't you answer the question about whether or not -- he said there are going to be consequences -- MR. FLEISCHER: David, there are other qualified reporters in here, too, who can follow-up. Q I didn't say they were not qualified, Ari. I'm saying you're running it like it's homeroom, like we can't follow-up when you're refusing to answer a question that's been posed twice to you, directly. The Secretary of State said that there would be consequences. Why won't you say what they might be? MR. FLEISCHER: Greg. Q Do you want to elaborate on what those consequences would be? MR. FLEISCHER: I addressed it earlier. You heard what I said about consequences. Q You didn't address it, which is the point. But you can't tolerate that kind of dissent. ................................................................................................................. take a hit of some afghan economic recovery and mellow out, dude http://www.irna.com/en/head/030424164731.ehe.shtml The hugely increased production of opium in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban regime could have disastrous consequences for the fight against drug abuse in Europe, chair of the Irish parliament's Transport Committee, Eoin Ryan, warned Thursday. "If there is a drug problem in Afghanistan, there is a drug problem all over Europe. A flood of cheap heroin will result in even more addicts," Ryan was quoted saying by the Irish Independent. ................................................................................................................... what to do til the CIA airlifts in the smack http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-657051,00.html IN MISSOURI they are unscrewing every third lightbulb. Prisons in Illinois are splitting prescription drugs in half. The Governor of South Carolina is urging others to follow his practice of reusing Post-it notes and saving paper clips. ...The worst budget crisis in half a century has forced states to scrimp for savings in a style reminiscent of the Great Depression. Together, the 50 state governments are facing deficits of $30,000,000,000.00 this year and $82,000,000,000.00 next. Because all but Vermont are obliged by their own laws to balance their budgets, they have to find $112,000,000,000.00-worth of savings in two years. ...In Kentucky, every other ceiling light has been turned off in the State Capitol. The Kansas Governor has asked agencies to drop the gold-embossed state seal from stationery, saving 2c a page. Agencies in Oregon are banned from colour printing... In Virginia, prisoners are to receive only two meals a day at weekends. Kentucky has chosen an alternative route, releasing prisoners early... In Oklahoma, teachers are mopping floors, driving school buses and cooking meals because support staff have been laid off. In Oregon, teachers worked for two weeks without pay to keep schools open. School districts in some parts of Colorado are operating four-day weeks. In Idaho, towns have held cake sales to keep teachers on staff... Tens of thousands of poorer families are losing access to healthcare as capitals cut back on the Medicaid programme. In Texas, 275,000 fewer children will receive healthcare. ...The turmoil has yet to threaten President Bush. The White House has tried to keep the issue at arm’s length, refusing to bail out states and telling them it is their problem. .......................................................................................................... you better watch your step http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id=51AA6AB6-034B-4FE0-911C-04871E6B1EC5 Deborah Wolfe, a Canadian citizen who was just breast-feeding her son and changing his diaper while en route between Houston and Vancouver, says her "subversive" actions led to her being threatened with detainment, RCMP involvement and legal charges for terrorist action against a U.S. citizen in international airspace while on an American flight during a time of war. ...Wolfe says it started during the final leg of a trip back to Vancouver from Florida, when a man seated near her on the Continental Airlines flight took offence to her nursing her 4-month-old son and complained. Continental Airlines spokesman Rahsaan Johnson told me that the airline does not have a policy that prohibits breast-feeding on board. But Wolfe says a flight attendant told her that if someone - anyone - complains, the mothers are supposed to change diapers in the bathroom and nurse at the back of the plane. ...Wolfe says she refused a flight attendant's offer of an airline blanket to hide herself because it hadn't been sealed and, given the SARS scare, she'd rather use her own things. Thus, unbeknownst to her, a "Level 1" crew complaint was filed. When an announcement then came over the public address system stating that all mothers should change diapers in the plane's bathrooms, she decided to ignore it because she found the change table too high, right above the toilet and with nary a restraint to stop an infant from falling. She says she explained all this to the flight attendant who came over for a second time, but the complaint, of which she was still unaware, was upgraded to Level 2. Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding her son. "He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This woman just assaulted me.' He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge." She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal charges for an act of war upon an American. ...In the end, Wolfe says things were resolved when she signed a document promising that she would neither break Continental's rules about such things, nor speak to American passengers.
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