oh and lest we forget.....

ILLEGALLY, where the FUCK are the town hall protesters now? where were they when king georgeIMMORALLY AND UNJUSTLY invaded a country that NEVER did us harm nor MEANT to do us harm? where where where where?


Blasts Kill at Least 53 in Iraq
Attacks in Capital, North Add to Ethnic, Political Tensions

By Ernesto Londoño and Dlovan Brwari

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Aug. 10 -- Two truck bombings in northern Iraq and attacks targeting day laborers in western Baghdad killed at least 53 people and wounded scores of others early Monday, exacerbating ethnic and political tensions in this country.

The truck bombings in a small village north of Mosul, in northern Iraq, marked one of the deadliest attacks in an area controlled by the autonomous Kurdish government. At least 35 people were killed and more than 110 were wounded in the attack, according to the U.S. military........

no matter what

if this story is true or not true (i of course am leaning more toward true), we all know what sort of people found organizations like blackwater (changing your name to xe doesn't change who you are or what you've done or what you will do).

prince reminds me of one of those nefarious characters you see in spy movies or thrillers. those that have the ear of the president (i don't think he has much of obama's ear. i KNOW he had the big dick's and king george's ear.) those that kill and murder (in the movies that is. prince has NOT been charged or convicted in these charges so i'm not talking ABOUT him. just a character i think he COULD be). those that think they believe in god. those that think their god is telling them to kill everyone who isn't a 'true believer' (whatever the eff THAT means) those that are reckless and thoughtless and heartless and self absorbed. those that care nothing about anyone other than their own circle of rich white dudes (women are just to f**k). those that think killing is ok and do not suffer from pangs of hurt of conscious. those that murder without effort. those that are not just immoral but amoral. those that have their own mission that concerns none of us. those that think they are a god among men.




Founder of Blackwater-Xe Accused Of Murder, Gun Running To Iraq

By Steve Hynd

Sworn statements to a Virginia federal court accuse Blackwater founder Eric Prince of using murder to silence witnesses to criminal acts by Blackwater, of smuggling weapons into Iraq to sell for profit, of destroying evidence of criminal acts and lying to federal agencies.

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."....

i pray this isn't true

yet i know it most likely is true. fat lot of good WE did in iraq, ey?

Report: Iraq militia kill gays with anal glue torture
RAW STORY

...............From the translated Al Arabiya article:

A prominent Iraqi human rights activist says that Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using "Iranian gum.” … Yanar Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, “Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.”

According to her, the new substance 'is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.'..............

this sentence struck me funny

............"Full-body massages are forbidden, to eliminate the possibility of sexual conduct between soldiers and salon employees. Soldiers in Iraq are prohibited from having sex with foreigners. "............


and not funny ha ha either.

our hero deployed military members can't get busy, yet every stiff (i couldn't resist) on wall street (some of whom we threw our hard earned money at) can bang to their heart's content WITH their corporate credit cards by their sides. what's wrong with THAT picture?

On a Base in Iraq, The Pedi-Cure
Salon in Still-Volatile Area Refreshes Hands, Feet and Exhausted Spirits

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

MOSUL -- Pfc. Cortez Hamilton of St. Louis smiled blissfully as a 20-year-old beautician from Kyrgyzstan rubbed lotion on his left foot after spending a half-hour scraping off dead skin.

"It relaxes you," the 29-year-old cavalry soldier said halfway through a recent pedicure at Forward Operating Base Marez in this still-volatile northern Iraqi city. "You just go to sleep and it feels so good."

Marez, after six years of war, has become a cosmopolitan city within a city. Soldiers can buy tailored suits and knockoff designer purses, cigars and DVDs, lattes and burgers. After a long day of soldiering, a 30-minute, $17 back rub hits all the right spots.

"If not a need, there's certainly a demand," said Maj. Amanda Emmens-Rossi, a frequent customer at the beauty salon. "You come here on the weekend, and there's always Joes lined up to get manis and pedis. Just because you're deployed doesn't mean you have to look like a ragbag."..........

another DUH!

Former Iraqi PM: Bush policies an 'utter failure'

will they ever find justice?

i don't know. the king george administration is certainly guilty of outing a covert cia agent (and that is tantamount to treason is it not? didn't the king PROMISE to root out who was responsible for this and make them pay? kind of hard when YOU are in on it as well, n'est pas?)

NO ONE - NO ONE PERSON or GROUP OF PEOPLE IS ABOVE THE LAW.
Plame, Wilson to take CIA leak lawsuit to Supreme Court
Nick Cargo
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, plan to take their civil lawsuit against Bush administration officials to the Supreme Court after a federal circuit court refused to rehear the case on Monday.

Wilson v. Cheney, filed in 2006, charges that Bush administration officials such as Vice President Cheney, and aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, violated Plame's constitutional rights in allegedly engineering the outing Plame, who was undercover at the time, as retaliation against her husband, an Iraq war critic, who had been sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate the possible sale of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. While Wilson reported back that such sales were unlikely to have taken place, President Bush asserted to the contrary in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to speak out publicly in a July 6, 2003 New York Times piece entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." ......

this my dears is a VERY telling story

let's say we BELIEVED them at the time. we (some of us that is) believed king george and his court that iraq had wmd didn't we? and then some of us (some NEVER learn their lessons do they?) believed king george when he said iran was making zillions of weapons and just TOSSIN' 'EM across to the iraqis like beads from a balcony at mardi gras.

i must sit here and wonder though, we sort of know how many actual weapons of iran the iraqis have. i wonder how many of the weapons of let's say BLACKWATER they have? think on that why don't cha

(note: i do NOT like iran. well the powers that be of iran. don't get me wrong. i'm NOT sticking up for them.. i'm pointing out the lies of our OWN king and his court. lies people continue to support and believe. WAKE UP MY PEEPS)

POLITICS: U.S. Task Force Found Few Iranian Arms in Iraq
By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (IPS) - Last April, top George W. Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between the Nouri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'a militias.

Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates suggested that there was "some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups." And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the "plentiful, high quality weaponry" the militia was then using in Basra was "recently manufactured in Iran".

But a U.S. military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story. The data collected by the task force in the previous six weeks showed that relatively few of the weapons found in Shi'a militia caches were manufactured in Iran.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. ...........

i've not seen the video

nor will i. i will take the word of the written account. i wonder why the mothers and fathers and families and friends of our heroes cannot know the truth. if i was president i would NEVER STAND for that kind of treatment (then again, if i was president we would never be in iraq)

not much more to say other than to the friends and families of pfc suarez-gonzalez and pfc nelson, i am so very sorry for your loss

(as i am with EVERYONE's losses)

Friendly fire in Iraq -- and a coverup

The Army says no, but a graphic video and eyewitness testimony indicate that a U.S. tank killed two American soldiers. The mother of one soldier demands answers.

Editor's note: Mark Benjamin's friendly fire investigation contains 1) the main article, 2) video documentation and 3) the Army's own report on the killing of Nelson and Suarez.

By Mark Benjamin

Oct. 14, 2008 | PHILADELPHIA -- Once a cop, always a cop. Asked if she wanted to see a graphic battle video showing her son Albert bleeding to death, Jean Feggins, retired from the Philadelphia Police Department, said yes.

"Listen, I've moved dead bodies of people I don't even know," she told me, as she sat on a brown couch in the den of her West Philadelphia row house. "I need to know everything. Because he is not a stranger. That's my baby. That's my child."

When Pfc. Albert Nelson died in Iraq in 2006, the Army first told Feggins that he might have been killed by friendly fire, and then that it was enemy mortars. She says she never believed the Army's explanation. "I always felt like they were lying to me," she said. "I could never prove it."

"I would ask the casualty officer what was going on. I'd be told they are still working on the report," she said. "They were still doing their investigation. What could I do? It's the U.S. military. I had no control."............

hey sarevil, it's E E E E E E E E E E E

raq. NOT eye raq. i don't like your disingenuous folksy ways. you're not fooling me. i want someone in the white house who actually HAS a brain. KNOWS how to pronounce a foreign country's name. you are a steamin' pile (as is the dude that's running with you. what's his name now???)

Conservatives Hate That Obama Pronounces Words Correctly
Posted by Staff, Think Progress

Conservatives are in a tizzy over the way Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) pronounced "Pakistan" during last night's debate:

- "When Obama says Pock-i-stahn I have an uncontrollable urge to read the New Yorker and find some Chardonnay. Fortunately I have an old copy of NR and a Coors Light to snap me back to reality. Seriously though -- no one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying." [E-mail posted by Kathryn Jean Lopez]

- "Re Senator Obama's ostentatiously exotic pronunciation of Pakistan, one thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says 'Eye-raq'." [Mark Steyn].........

............Update: A. Serwer at TAPPED writes: "To pronounce something correctly is to be 'ostentatiously exotic,' while pronouncing something incorrectly is raised to the level of something like a presidential qualification. Meanwhile, there are thousands of Americans of Pakistani descent who are themselves 'ostentatiously exotic' by virtue of their names (and it would be elitist of them to expect anyone to pronounce them correctly) and ancestry.".............

the numbskull is up to her numbskullery best (again)

from VetVoice

Sarah Palin Links Iraq to 9/11 (again)

by: Brandon Friedman

Reporters have been clamoring for weeks to get a shot at asking Sarah Palin questions in an unstructured setting. When they finally got the opportunity this morning, Palin again demonstrated why the McCain campaign has striven to keep her hidden away. Because during her brief press appearance today, presumably to the horror of the campaign, the Alaska governor wasted no time in linking Iraq to 9/11:

please don't elect this numbskull

and i'm being nice

In CBS Interview, Palin Cites 'Victory' in Iraq

By Howard Kurtz

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sarah Palin, describing the need for more troops in Afghanistan, said the United States has achieved "victory" in Iraq.

In an interview with CBS's Katie Couric, the second part of which airs tonight, the Alaska governor pointed to logistical problems in battling the Taliban: "Things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that -- Bin Laden is -- is hiding out right now and . . . and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There . . . there are many more challenges there. So, again, I believe that . . . a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq."........

it speaks for itself

all i have to add is; how many more instances of evil (much less illegalities) are we going to allow? are we not human any more? have we lost our souls? they'll weasel out of this the way they weasel out of everything else they've (allegedly) done wrong (rape, murder and the like)

Halliburton sued for human trafficking
John Byrne

Twelve men recruited in Nepal died after forced transfer to Iraq, lawfirm says

Thirteen Nepali men were recruited and held against their will for thirteen months in a human trafficking scheme engineered and perpetrated by Halliburton and its Jordanian contractor, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in California federal court.

The Nepali men, each between the ages of 18 and 27, were allegedly hired as kitchen staff by the then-Halliburton subsidiary KBR and its Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners. Once they arrived in Jordan, however, their passports were seized and they were dispatched to Iraq.

"Tragically, as the men were being transported to Iraq, a car containing twelve of the men was stopped by members of the Ansar al-Sunna Army, an insurgent group," the Washington lawfirm Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll writes. "The 12 men in the car were taken hostage and executed by the insurgents. The executions were filmed and posted on the Internet. The Inspector General for the United States Department of Defense investigated and confirmed the facts related to the fate of the 12 men, which led to increased enforcement of anti-trafficking measures by the United States.......................

lest we forget

we're not only destroying OUR country we've ALREADY destroyed THEIRS

Iraqis desperate for water.»

Although the United States has spent $2.4 billion on Iraq’s water and sanitation sector since 2003, the United Nations “estimates that less than half of Iraqis get drinking water piped into their homes in rural areas. In the capital, people set their alarm clocks to wake them in the middle of the night so they can fill storage tanks when water pressure is under less strain.” Additionally, a billion liters of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad’s waterways each day. The World Bank estimates that at least $14 billion is needed to refurbish Iraq’s water system.........

irams urams herams sherams

it doesn't matter. our troops are getting killed over there and for what? NOT our freedom. NOT our security (the iraqis couldn't have cared less about us UNTIL we invaded their country). we'll just have to think about who profits from the war. me? nope. gas is 4.40ish a gallon in connecticut. i didn't get a cost of living raise. did you? home heating oil is through the roof. people can't pay their mortgages. so not YOU either. who then? well a bunch of good ol' white boyz somewhere. their pockets are lined with gold AND BLOOD

U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon

Use of Rocket-Propelled Bombs Spreads

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, July 9 -- Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops.

U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year.........

hey, just 'cause it's YOUR country

OBVIOUSLY doesn't mean YOU can tell US what to do!
Pentagon rebuffs Iraqis on withdrawal timetable

In a rebuff to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Pentagon said Monday that any timetable for a US withdrawal from Iraq would depend on conditions on the ground there.

Maliki told Arab ambassadors on Monday he was pressing for such a timetable in negotiations with Washington on an agreement on the status of US forces in Iraq beyond 2008.

Asked about the prime minister's comments, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters: "With respect to timetables I would say the same thing I would say as respects to the security situation -- it is dependent on conditions on the ground.".......

please read this

torture not only effects those that GET tortured, it effects those that DO the torturing as well. who does the torturing? our sons and daughters do. our moms and dads do. our next door neighbors do. you and i do

Am I a Torturer?

By Justine Sharrock
The prisons in Iraq stink. Ask any guard or interrogator and they'll tell you it's a smell they'll never forget: sweat, fear, and rot. On the base where Ben Allbright served from May to September 2003, a small outfit named Tiger in western Iraq, water was especially scarce; Ben would rig a hose to a water bottle in a feeble attempt to shower. He and the other Army reservists tried mopping the floors, but the cheap solvents only added a chemical note to the stench. During the day, when the temperature was in the triple digits, the smell fermented.

It got even hotter in the Conex container, the kind you see on top of 18-wheelers, where Ben kept his prisoners. Not uncommonly the thermometer inside read 135, even 145 degrees. The Conex box was the first stop for all prisoners brought to the base, most of them Iraqis swept up during mass raids. Ben kept them blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic zip ties, without food or sleep, for up to 48 hours at a time. He made them stand in awkward positions, so that they could not rest their heads against the wall. Sometimes he blared loud music, such as Ozzy or AC/DC, blew air horns, banged on the container, or shouted. "Whatever it took to make sure they'd stay awake," he explains........

why?

why did we invade iraq?
why did we allow our leaders to lie to us?
why are we not punishing our leaders for lying to us (we HAVE PROOF)?
why are we allowing our leaders to continue in office?
why did we allow 4,098 of our men and women die in iraq?
why did we allow goddess knows how many (innocent) iraqis die?
why did we allow goddess knows how many (innocent) iraqis to become displaced?
why did we allow our troops to (unjustly, immorally, illegally) invade a country without proper protection (armor, armored vehicles, etc)?
why are we allowing our troops that physically come home lay in squalor or limbo if they need medical help (including that of the mind)?
why?
why?
why?
why?
why?

Key Iraqi Leaders Deliver Setbacks to U.S.
Premier Rejects Terms of Proposed Pacts; Cleric Reactivates Militia

By Amit R. Paley and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, June 13 -- The Bush administration's Iraq policy suffered two major setbacks Friday when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki publicly rejected key U.S. terms for an ongoing military presence and anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a new militia offensive against U.S. forces.
During a visit to Jordan, Maliki said negotiations over initial U.S. proposals for bilateral political and military agreements had "reached a dead end." While he said talks would continue, his comments fueled doubts that the pacts could be reached this year, before the Dec. 31 expiration of a United Nations mandate sanctioning the U.S. role in Iraq.
The moves by two of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders underscore how the presence of U.S. troops has become a central issue for Iraqi politicians as they position themselves for provincial elections later this year. Iraqis across the political spectrum have grown intolerant of the U.S. presence, but the dominant Shiite parties -- including Maliki's Dawa party -- are especially fearful of an electoral challenge from new, grass-roots groups. ,,,,,,,,

they just don't give a flying

fuck about our soldiers
Despite Alert, Flawed Wiring Still Kills G.I.’s
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON — In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted. The bulletin, with the headline “The Unexpected Killer,” was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water — one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool — that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.
“We’ve had several shocks in showers and near misses here in Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country,” Frank Trent, an expert with the Army Corps of Engineers, wrote in the bulletin. “As we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must ensure that we require contractors to properly ground electrical systems.”
Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators. ...........

how can king george and his court

claim iran is f**king up iraq and influencing iraq way too much when THEY ARE NOT ONLY DOING IT THEMSELVES THEY F**KING STARTED IT. they wrote the book on the subject. why is it ok for THEM to do it and not for others?

U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran

By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer
The nation's top military officer said yesterday that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" as one of several options against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.
"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference. Speaking of Iran's intentions, Mullen said: "They prefer to see a weak Iraq neighbor. . . . They have expressed long-term goals to be the regional power." .......

i don't know that much about dan froomkin

i DO know he has some clear insight in the following
Not to Be Trusted

By Dan FroomkinSpecial to washingtonpost.com
The Bush administration's latest story line about Iraq -- that Iran is now the primary problem there -- should be greeted with profound skepticism.
Not only is it the latest in a series of rationales for U.S. involvement in Iraq, most of which have turned out to be based on flawed intelligence, misrepresentations or outright dishonesty.
But there are at least two illegitimate reasons why the White House would want the American public to see Iran as a threat right now.
One is that President Bush needs a definable, demonizable enemy for public-relations purposes, to take attention away from the reality that U.S. troops remain perilously and indefinitely astride several civil wars and resistance movements. .......... (please DO read the whole thing. it's well worth it. how we can be so complacent and NOT challenge this buillshite is beyond me. i know the american people are smart enough NOT to believe it - weapons of mass destruction, COME ON NOW - but they're not brave enough or strong enough to say STOP. we've had it. this is BEYOND enough)