Sunday, April 11, 2004

Headlines


Seattle Post Intelligencer: Footage shown of slain Westerners in Iraq
Are the slain (alleged Americans) intelligence agents? Mercenaries? We really don't know. The article leads us to think they're probably "contractors". We are having to "pacify" Iraqi cities because of depraved killings of "contractors". Some of these "contractors" may not even be American citizens...they may be soldiers of (pretty decent) fortune. Our troops risk all for meager pay. What's happening, really?

Yahoo News: Iraqi Civilians Flee Falluja as Truce Takes Hold
Consider the contrasting information between the reported facts and the White House spin:
Grabbing their chance, desperate families fled battle zones in the town of 300,000. Sunni Muslim fighters, who have been battling U.S. Marines from street to street, remained inside. In Falluja, overnight clashes gave way to calm by dawn after intense efforts to arrange a cease-fire. International relief groups say 470 Iraqis have been killed there and 1,200 wounded, including 243 women and 200 children, in the past week.
Now information disseminated by the White House:
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the neo-conservatives maintain that this upsurge of violence was expected, and that the insurgents are a small minority.
Americans want to know why we are expending so much blood and treasure on something so illegitimate. Bush spent the Easter weekend on his Texas ranch and officials insisted there is "no major combat" in Iraq.

Charles Krauthammer says Hubert Humphrey was an over-idealistic schlump...the secret to curing hunger and poverty is capitalism and free trade. To hell with human rights, true democracy, UNICEF, the U.N. We see how the Iraqis love the idea of our bastardized gift of "democracy".
History Repeats


The Philadelphia Inquirer article begins:
It was fitting that Condoleezza Rice testified to the 9/11 commission on the day before the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

In both cases, information was available to the White House that might have prevented disaster - the attacks on the twin towers and Pentagon and the postwar chaos. In both cases, the information wasn't used.

We need to know why.
Could it be a willful rejection of inconvenient facts?


On Meet the Press:
John McCain states he supports re-election of Bush

Blah.
Just blah.

*Why has the DLC been dancing with this fellow? At the end of the ball, he's leaving with the village idiot.*
Here's the August 6, 2001 PDB Text

Do you think this document should have given Bush enough warning to push for more intelligence information about possible domestic hijackings? Read for yourself.

Related Stories:

MSNBC: White House releases intelligence memo

Washington Post: Bush seemed unworried in Aug. 2001