The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 04/09/2006 - 04/16/2006

Saturday, April 15, 2006

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus do not be surprised if, by the end of the 12 days still left of the United Nations' Security Council "deadline", Ahmadinejad announces a "temporary suspension" of uranium enrichment as a "confidence building measure". Also, don't be surprised if some time in June he agrees to ask the Majlis (the Islamic parliament) to consider signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such manoeuvres would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Muhammad El-Baradei, and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to congratulate Iran for its "positive gestures" and denounce talk of sanctions, let alone military action. The confidence building measures would never amount to anything, but their announcement would be enough to prevent the G8 summit, hosted by Russia in July, from moving against Iran.

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the "Jerusalem Cause", which includes annihilating Israel "in one storm", while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran's network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to reappear.

At the same time, not to forget the task of hastening the Mahdi's second coming, Ahamdinejad will pursue his provocations. On Monday, he was as candid as ever:

"To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"


His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."


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Retired Gen. Zinni Flashback: Saddam the Biggest Threat

Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who now complains that President Bush cherry-picked pre-war Iraq weapons intelligence and misled the country into going to war, warned six years ago that Saddam Hussein's WMD program was the biggest threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East.

"Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region," Zinni told Congress on March 15, 2000.

"Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased," the general-turned-war critic said, "Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and is concealing extended-range SCUD missiles, possibly equipped with CBW [chem-bio-weapons] payloads," Zinni said, in quotes unearthed Friday by the American Thinker blog.


Gen. Zinni is currently leading to charge to get Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign - a campaign he began two weeks ago on NBC's "Meet the Press."

During the same broadcast, Zinni addressed the issue of Saddam's WMD threat - sounding like someone who'd developed acute amnesia about his earlier testimony.
"What bothered me," Zinni told host Tim Russert, "[was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn�t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.

"Now, I�d be the first to say we had to assume he had WMD left over that wasn�t accounted for: artillery rounds, chemical rounds, a SCUD missile or two. But these things, over time, degrade. These things did not present operational or strategic level threats at best."


In fact, Zinni's flip-flop was so acute he should be suffering from a case of rhetorical whiplash. Here's more from the old Zinni - here telling Congress that Saddam would remain a threat even if he gave up his WMDs:

"Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains the scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months."


The old Zinni even warned of a potential collaboration between Osama bin Laden and Iraq, telling Congress:

"Extremists like Osama bin Laden and his World Islamic Front network benefit from the global nature of communications that permits recruitment, fund raising, and direct connections to sub-elements worldwide . . .

"Terrorists are seeking more lethal weaponry to include: chemical, biological, radiological, and even nuclear components with which to perpetrate more sensational attacks . . . Three [Iraq, Iran and Sudan] of the seven recognized state-sponsors of terrorism are within this potentially volatile area, and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council for its harboring of Osama bin Laden."


Now Zinni wants Bush to apologize and Rumsfeld to resign for taking his advice in the first place.

Bill Clinton gave Iran bomb plan

N.Y. Times reporter says harebrained scheme to foil Tehran likely helped advance program

In his last year of office, President Clinton approved of an unusual scheme to transfer classified data that likely helped Iran advance its nuclear weapons program, according to New York Times reporter James Risen in his new book "State of War."

Risen says the CIA used a double-agent Russian scientist to hand over a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran.

The White House plan actually was to derail the Iranian program by passing on fatal flaws, says Risen, but the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they would have been easily fixed by Russian nuclear scientists, reported the online Post Chronicle, which said the story was recounted last night by radio host and former Justice official Mark Levin.

The Clinton operation, in early 2000, was code named Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA," Risen writes.


A defector from Russia was to offer Tehran the blueprint for a "firing set," the sophisticated mechanism that triggers a nuclear explosion.

CIA officers told the Russian the Iranians already had that technology and the scheme was to find out the full extent of Tehran's nuclear capability.

But the Russian inserted a note in the package indicating he could help fix the flaws if he were paid the right price.

Tehran issues stark military warning to U.S.

In one of Iran's boldest challenges yet to the US, the Islamic regime has claimed it can defeat any American military action over its controversial nuclear drive.

"You can start a war, but it won't be you who finishes it," General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said.

"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error."


The US has accused Iran of using an atomic energy drive as a mask for weapons development. Last weekend US news reports said President George Bush's administration was refining plans for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one," General Safavi said.

"We have American forces in the region under total surveillance. For the past two years, we have been ready for any scenario, whether sanctions or an attack."


On Friday senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Janati branded the US a "decaying power" lacking the "stamina" to block Iran's ambitions, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said a US push for tough UN sanctions was of "no importance".

Asked to respond to comments by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighting part of the UN charter that provides for sanctions backed up by the threat of military action, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "She is free to say whatever she wants. We give no importance to her comments."

Bush had good reason to believe there were WMD in Iraq

Bush may have been misled by the information he had, but he did not lie.

Among the allegations leveled at President Bush by his critics, probably the most serious is that he took the United States to war in Iraq on false pretenses. He told the American people that Saddam Hussein had a collection of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when Mr. Hussein did not.

In retrospect it is clear that the weapons did not exist, although they had in the past, and Hussein had used them against his enemies. But what is also clear from captured documents now coming to light is that Mr. Bush had every reason to believe they still existed at the time he launched the military campaign in Iraq. Not only did US and allied intelligence agencies assert that the weapons were there, but Hussein himself played a dangerous game of convincing enemies such as Iran, and even his own generals, that he had such weapons, while protesting to United Nations inspectors that he did not.

While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed.

From thousands of official Iraqi documents captured by American forces, and dozens of interviews with captured senior military and political leaders, a picture is now emerging of the world of delusion in which Hussein lived when he was in power. It is being chronicled in magazines such as the Weekly Standard and a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs and books such as "Cobra II." Written by New York Times reporter Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, the book is being hailed as one of the most comprehensive accounts of the war in Iraq.


Hussein was much more concerned about an internal coup, or a rebellion by dissident Shiites, or even an attack by Iran (with which he had fought a long war), than he was with an invasion by the US. Though he had largely disposed of his stocks of chemical and biological weapons in the 1990s, he encouraged the Iranians to believe he might have a hidden cache of them, a strategy called "deterrence by doubt." He did not take seriously a military threat from the US because he believed France and Russia would block the US diplomatically at the UN, and that in any event the Americans had little stomach for taking heavy casualties.

The Americans, however, took seriously the probability of confronting Hussein's WMD. When the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had close ties with Hussein, told Vice President Cheney that Hussein did not want war but would use chemical weapons if attacked, Mr. Cheney did not blink. The Americans, said Cheney, would deal with them.

Bush ordered that, when the US assault started and the anticipated stockpiles of WMD were seized, they must be publicized. Gen. Tommy Franks, his military commander, arranged for specially trained public affairs camera crews to document the discoveries.

Initially it was planned that seized samples of WMD would be shipped to Kuwait for analysis, but when Kuwait balked at this, the 75th Field Artillery Brigade headquarters at Fort Sill, Okla., was assigned the task.

Messrs Gordon and Trainor say in their book that German agents in Baghdad tipped the American military to Hussein's plan for defending his capital. Concentric rings were to be manned by Iraqi units of varying trustworthiness. One of the circles was called the "red line." This was to be the final barrier, manned by Hussein's elite and most reliable troops. US military intelligence reasoned that as American troops reached this defense line they would be met by poison gas or germ weapons.
But within Hussein's war council, the story was very different.

In December 2002, Hussein called his generals together for a surprising announcement: Iraq did not possess WMD. The generals were stunned. They had long assumed that they could count on a hidden cache of chemical or biological weapons. Iraq had used such weapons in the war with Iran. Hussein had convinced his generals that it was the threat of WMD that had enabled him to stop the Americans moving on Baghdad after the 1991 war.


According to "Cobra II," Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, told American interrogators after the 2003 war that Hussein's stunning admission to the generals "sent morale plummeting."


The Bush critics can argue that the president was too gullible in accepting the conclusion of his intelligence agencies. But the evidence does not suggest that he knowingly lied to the American public about the existence of WMD.

Six Retired Generals Hate Rumsfeld

Is that a lot?

Two more retired generals stepped forward on Thursday and called for Donald Rumsfeld to resign, increasing the faction of outspoken officers to six. Rumsfeld brushed off the criticism: "Out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round." How many retired admirals and generals are there?

It's hard to get good numbers, but the Explainer estimates that about 4,700 general officers are enjoying their retirement in the United States right now. (For a detailed look at the data and the Explainer's calculations, click here.) That means the six former generals who stepped forward to criticize Rumsfeld make up about one-tenth of 1 percent of the total community.

Retired generals pipe up all the time. In March, five of them wrote a letter to the Supreme Court asking that Justice Scalia recuse himself from the Hamdan case. In January, nine generals and three admirals banded together as the "Retired Generals Against Torture" and sent an open letter to the Senate judiciary committee. During campaign season, retired generals issue small-group political endorsements.

Hilton to oust veteran-honoring steakhouse

D.C. restaurant serves free dinners every Friday to disabled soldiers

A Washington, D.C., restaurant that has been serving free steak dinners to disabled veterans recovering at nearby military hospitals is scheduled to be closed at the end of this month after its host hotel, the Capitol Hilton, enforces the termination of its lease.

Each Friday for three years, Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steakhouse, located just three blocks from the White House, hosts veterans and their families � and the cost is picked up by its owners, Marty O'Brien and Hal Koster, a Vietnam veteran. The service personnel come from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

E-mails circulating on the Internet indicate Hilton is ousting O'Brien's due to liability concerns of having so many disabled people on the premises, some of whom descend the stairs to the basement restaurant, but the hotel denies that has anything to do with the ending of the lease.

"The Capitol Hilton elected to terminate the lease, but that had absolutely nothing to do with the Friday night dinners," Lisa Cole, regional director of communications for Hilton, told WND. "It was strictly a business decision."


Cole says the hotel's general manager, Brian Kellaher, has "reached out" to Walter Reed, hoping to work out a way to host the dinner at another location in the hotel.

"We're in discussion with the Walter Reed group � to see if we can't make this work for the future," the spokeswoman said.


Cole would not say specifically why the lease was terminated or what the hotel will do with the space after April.

"We don't have anything that we're definitely going to do with the space," she said.


Koster served in Vietnam as a helicopter door-gunner in the 174th Assault Helicopter Company from 1967 to 1969.

"I have been to several of the dinners, and it is absolutely wonderful what Hal has been doing at significant effort and personal expense (every dollar he spends on our veterans could be money he puts in his pocket)," wrote Jim McDaniel, webmaster for the 174th AHC, in an e-mail soliciting help to keep the restaurant open. "You really have to be at one of these dinners to fully appreciate what this means to these soldiers."


Writes columnist Lisa Hoffman: "Koster credits fellow Vietnam vet and longtime Fran's patron Jim Mayer with conceiving the dinners. A double-amputee himself, Mayer is a 'peer counselor' at Walter Reed, where he cajoles, teases and comforts those newly limbless who think life is over. �

"Both Mayer and Koster said their purpose is a simple one: to ensure that these kids are treated better than they were when they came home from Vietnam."


Those circulating e-mails about the lease termination encourage readers to contact Hilton on behalf of Koster and the restaurant.

Writes McDaniel: "Call or write to Hilton NOW. Let them know how you feel."


Read More About It Here: http://chrisdickson.blogspot.com/

Iran Could Build Nukes in 'Days'

Iran could build a nuclear weapon within "days" once it completes plans to beef up its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, a State Department official said Wednesday.

"Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges," Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters in Moscow. "Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days."


Rademaker, whose stunning "nukes-in-days" prediction was first reported by Bloomberg News, offered his comments in reaction to Saeedi's announcement.

While it's not clear how quickly Iran could reach the 50,000 centrifuge mark, there are indications that the rogue nation is already much closer than indicated by Tuesday's announcement.

Last August, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002, told the Associated Press that Iran has already manufactured thousands of centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade.

"4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA," Alireza Jafarzadeh said. "And the regime has kept the production of these machines hidden from the inspectors while the negotiations with the European Union have been going on over the past 21 months."


The Natanz facility is buried 75 feet underground and has a reinforced concrete roof, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

ILLEGALS' RALLIES ALIEN-ATE VOTERS

IT LOOKS as if voters are starting to tilt toward get-tough Republicans on immigration - and those massive protest rallies by illegal aliens waving flags have backfired.

Republicans are now more trusted on immigration - 37 percent trust them on the issue, while just 31 percent trust Democrats, according to a national survey by the Rasmussen Reports Web site done April 8-9.


That marks a Democratic slide from 10 days earlier, when both parties were equally trusted on the hot issue. Thirty-eight percent said they trusted Republicans and 37 percent trusted Democrats.

"The Democrats lost ground," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "I suspect there�s backlash against the rallies, and the Democrats appear to be against enforcement. People say beforewe talk about reforms, we ought to enforce the law."


Rasmussen - who accurately predicted the 2004 presidential election - notes that 57 percent of Americans want a barrier built along the Mexican border, even though only 42 percent think it would really cut illegal immigration.

So maybe the conventional and politically correct media wisdom is wrong, as usual, with its focus on Republican splits over immigration and the risk that get-tough Republicans will alienate Latinos.


When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada blocked a bipartisan immigration bill last week, a prime reason was that he didn�t want Democrats to have to take a stand on amendments for tougher border patrols and deporting aliens who commit crimes.


Republican Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) - who backs get-tough laws against illegal immigration - says his phone calls are 99-1 favorable and he�s getting even more calls on this issue than on the failed Dubai ports deal.

"When Democrats embrace [the protesters], that drives home to the people that Democrats support illegal immigration," King claims.


Other Polls Opposing Illegal Immigration :

Zogby poll: National demonstrations have negative impact on Americans

U.S.-Born Latinos Oppose Illegal Immigration

Time Poll: Americans Back Border Fence, Deportations and Denying Benefits

Blacks, Hispanics, Poor Favor Immigration Crackdown

Poll Analysis: Large Majority Favors �Guest Workers�

Friday, April 14, 2006

Listen To The Latest Talk Show America PodCasts !

There are 5 new "Talk Show America" PodCasts:

Talk Show America 4/13/2006

How To Become an Illegal, Dems face uphill battle to retake house, Libby wasn't ordered to leak Plame's name

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Talk Show America 4/12/2006

Zogby Poll suggests Protests Backfire, Iran vows to expand Uranium enrichment

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Talk Show America 4/11/2006

Taking on the main stream news media everyday in their relentless attacks on the President and Our brave men and women in the Military.


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Talk Show America 4/10/2006

Bush planning Nuke attack on Iran ? Wash Post says Bush leak OK !, Time poll syas America favors, wall, deportation and denied benefis of illegal immigrants, Army re-enlistment up 15 %.


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Talk Show America 4/6/2006

Major Terrorist caught in Iraq, Mc Kinney apologizes to the house for Police incident, Car bombings plummet in Iraq, Libby says Bush OK'd leak..sort of, WMDs in Iraq that slipped through our hands.


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Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated

The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."


Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

On Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?"

The land of Palestine, he said, referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, "will be freed soon."

He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."

"The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations."

Media treachery in Iraq exposed!

I have seen the enemy ...("This is a MUST READ."...J.R.)

By Franklin Raff
� 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

An Iraqi officer of significant rank approached my translator as I quietly took notes near the banks of the Euphrates River, at a combat observation post named COP Dunlop. He knew I was an embedded American. He had a sense, perhaps, that I was a sympathetic soul, and he wanted to pass along an urgent message.

We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. I learned he was an educated and successful man, an accomplished soldier, and quite knowledgeable about the affairs of the world. He had served under Saddam. He openly spoke about the likelihood of corruption in the new Iraqi Ministry of Defense. We spoke about black-market arms trading, ancient smuggling routes, and the problem of porous borders.

We even discussed personal matters, and the question of his taking a second wife. (I told him the one about a thousand pair of panty-hose hanging from King Solomon's shower-curtain.) We had a reasonably long and genuine conversation about matters of importance to all men. And at a certain moment, he grew a little uneasy and blurted out what he had wanted to say from the beginning:

Why do you people not tell our story? Why do you not say what is going on? Why do you come to our country and see what is happening, you see the schools and the hospitals and you see the markets and you eat with Sunni and Shia soldiers � everybody eats together, everybody works together �you see that Saddam is gone forever and we are free to speak and complain.

You see we are working and eating together and fighting together � Sunni and Shia � you see what we are building here, you see the votes we make as one people. Then you say to the world about a great war and horrible things and how we are all killing each other? We are not animals! We are Iraqis. Look around you! Look!


Non-English speaking Iraqis are distressed and disheartened by American media bias. Many feel personally offended by what they read in translation and hear of in the foreign press. I am not talking about press information and public affairs officers. I am not talking about coalition soldiers (though every one I spoke with on the subject was equally frustrated.) I am talking about Arabic-speaking Iraqis. They see a difference between what we're seeing and what we're saying. What does that tell you about the extent of our problem?

I was truly "downrange" in Iraq, embedded in Baghdad, Sadr City, Fallujah, and a series of remote combat outposts and forward operations bases in the Sunni Triangle. I spent much of my time in areas that were in immediate transition or wholly controlled by Iraqi forces. I wanted to get dirty, and I wanted to see the worst of it.

I was entirely too close to a vehicle-borne IED � intended, possibly, to destroy my party � which tragically killed a U.S. Marine and a young Iraqi boy. I trampled through a mass of depleted uranium, breathed the squalor of a Saddam-era slum, slept uneasily through the bursts of an urban gunfight, and dined on the partially-cooked head of a sheep. But these are not my most disturbing recollections.

Civil unrest is distasteful and at times gruesome, but in much of the Middle East it is an abiding condition. The scenes that flicker in my mind seem graver than the filth, disorder, and sorrow that have been a part of Iraq's dramatic transition. And now that I have returned to Washington, as memories play alongside my daily media intake, they combine to create an increasingly gloomy montage.

It was hilarious at the time. So funny, in fact, I nearly wept. I will never forget the sight of my colleague, a well-known, market-leading radio reporter feverishly clutching his satellite phone as a Chinook transport helicopter flew by, half a mile or so away. He was standing right beside me as he dialed through the time zones to go "live from Iraq":


We're right in the middle of the action! I'm sorry ... I can't hear you! There's a Blackhawk landing right behind me! I can't quite describe what's going on! This is unbelievable!


At the time, you see, we were just outside an Embassy chow hall, quietly discussing the weather. We had just eaten a magnificent lunch. In this combat reporter's trembling right hand was the target of his desperate screams, the satellite phone � his listeners' link to the horror and chaos of war, the sweat and tears, the booming, blood-shod tragedy of it all. And in his left hand � I swear it � a chocolate milkshake.

There is plenty of bombast in the green zone. "On the scene" excitement breeds hyperbole, and many reporters are pretentious and boastful to begin with. There's no need to name names: Most folks can smell manure wrapped in newsprint, no matter who does the wrapping. But I quietly curse when I think of all the self-styled Ernie Pyles in their Baghdad hotel rooms, staring out over the city skyline, giving you news "from the front."

Let me tell you what has become somewhat of a running joke among coalition soldiers. It is evening, and a boom is heard in the distance. Some foreign fighter has blown himself up, and maybe he's taken one of ours with him. Maybe it's an IED. Or it might be an attack on one of our new electrical transformers, engineered to dishearten and confuse Iraqi citizens by depriving them of a nights' electricity. Nobody knows yet, but that doesn't really matter.

Our journalist, "on the line" in his cushy suite, scrambles to the balcony. He sees a puff of dust on the horizon, shivers in the cool night air and the intensity of the moment, and turns down CNN on the television. He e-mails his editor about these explosive developments and then, with a cool beer in hand, begins writing about a great and desperate war. Brothers in the crosshairs. A rag-tag insurrection, gaining momentum in dramatic increments. A few historical references. A scribbled, out-of-context comment overheard in the mess hall. A line or two from some radical imam, if a desirable translation can be found. Bingo: It's a front-page story.

Embedded news-gatherers � even those with military experience, as was the case with me and my immediate company � are essentially expensive luggage. We take up valuable space. We are unarmed, untrained, generally unfit, and we tend to get in the way. We are valuable targets for the border-hopping, media-crazed murderers who seek instability and chaos. But this isn't what irritates our defenders. What bothers them is that when we put pen to paper, we tend to stab them squarely in the back by misrepresenting and over-dramatizing our experiences. It is no wonder a "PRESS" tag will get you a few hairy eyeballs in the field: There's a general consensus that we are liars.

The lies aren't relegated to firsthand reports. I listen to NPR every morning. I read the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and scan any number of online media. As lifelong and moderately accomplished student of war history and of the works (and memoranda) of men like Sergei Eisenstein and Josef Goebbels, I have been keenly aware of an increasing use of elemental propaganda techniques and tactics in "mainstream" reporting on the war.

Good news from Iraq, for instance, is systematically, if delicately, prefaced with the indication of a biased source. I am almost certain there is a standing order at outfits like NPR's "Morning Edition" to compromise positive stories with selections from an arsenal of useful poll numbers. For good measure, the stories are often relegated to commentary segments of the program, in order to lend a casual and dismissive air to core information.

Let's use, for example, the fact that Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders are organizing innumerable micro-summits to resolve their tribal differences in the name of national unity. Participation is nearly 100 percent, negotiations are largely fruitful, and leaders from local imams on up want to reiterate to the press, just like our Iraqi officer did, that despite isolated attacks and foreign insurgent activity, there is no "civil war" going on. So the Pentagon releases selections from this tapestry of reassuring stories in the standard manner along with requisite sound-bytes, interview opportunities, and raw statistics. The news is verifiable, rich in human interest, and undeniably positive. Here's how it plays on "Morning Edition":


The president has admitted he was wrong about WMD, and now, according to the White House, Shia and Sunni leaders are evidently trying to work together to try and quell the burgeoning civil war. Approval ratings for the Bush administration and the war are at an all-time low, so the question is: What's behind these last-ditch efforts, and can they possibly succeed? Joining me to discuss this is NPR senior news analyst Cokie Roberts ...


In the minds of those who do not recognize the telltale signs of subversive delivery, the desired effect is achieved.

This effect � to convince the world that Iraq is a hopeless and violent wasteland, heartbreaking evidence, even, of a trigger-happy cowboy's hubris � is compounded and reaffirmed day after day, as biased and exaggerated reports reverberate through and within thousands of local and syndicated media outlets. As George Orwell explained in his dystopian novel "1984," "If all records told the same tale � then the lie passed into history and became truth."

I wanted to confess to my new friend, the Iraqi officer at COP Dunlop, that we have an autocracy in America that has never been deposed � an imperious corps of convenience-isolationists with short memories and powerful imaginations. I wanted to explain that though there are hardly any soldiers among them, they rule the thoughts and actions of legions of citizens.

I wanted to tell him about our media elite, about how "if it bleeds, it leads," about our 24-hour news cycle, and about the "Journal of Record" and its endless struggle to embarrass and discredit our president. I wanted to tell him that the same folks who tell us they're giving the world "all the news that's fit to print" are the same ones who deep-sixed Babi Yar and ignored the Holocaust, the same ones who bury stories about Saddam's mass graves and "spike" Iraqi efforts to show us the awe-inspiring progress they have made.

I wanted to acknowledge that too many Americans lack the fortitude and patience to stand behind our new Iraqi allies as they forge a new nation. I wanted to explain that certain powerful Americans feel we didn't find quite enough chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to make our multinational effort worthwhile � no matter what we have, in fact, found; no matter what the Iraqis witnessed, no matter our soldiers' experiences and testimony, no matter Iraq's success thus far.

I wanted to tell him that not all media people are liars. But I knew that my thoughts were too complicated to make it through translation. I knew that when I returned to America, the words "civil war" would be plastered all over the mainstream media, just as they were when I left. So I held my tongue.

I returned to what I expected. All the hotshot analysts and commentators are speculating, with that requisite gravitas, about the "roots" of civil war.

I was there. I was in some miserable places, but I saw a miracle every day. I saw a lot of smiles, a lot of hope, and a lot of pride in that traumatized country. I saw a remarkably fraternal affection between Iraqi and coalition soldiers. I saw bustling markets, busy streets, and peaceful demonstrations. I believe I may have witnessed a pivotal time in the infancy of a vibrant, freedom-loving ally in the Middle East.

I did not see a civil war. I did not see the beginnings of a civil war. But I did learn a thing or two about the "roots" of this civil war: Iraq's civil war has been engineered, in no small part, from the comfort of a Baghdad hotel room. It is catalyzed by minor exaggerations, partial facts, and propagandistic suppressions. It will escalate, over time and across media, as minor mistruths beget outright lies, until the truth itself begins to change.

As our new Iraqi allies become discouraged by what they see in the world news, and as they start losing hope, they may abandon their dreams once and for all. Our media's dark prophecies will then have fulfilled themselves. Then, and tragically, Iraqi and coalition pleas for "truth" may finally be silenced.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

How to be an illegal

This article came out in January but it bears another look in light of the current Illegal Immigrant news.....

Mexico government publishes guide to assist border crossers

The government of Mexico is raising eyebrows with a new comic book offering advice on how to cross the border into the U.S. illegally.

Called "The Guide for the Mexican Migrant," the 32-page book published by Mexico's Foreign Ministry uses simple language to offer information on safety, legal rights and living unobtrusively in America.

"This guide is intended to give you some practical advice that could be of use if you have made the difficult decision to seek new work opportunities outside your country," the book says, according to the Arizona Republic.


Illustrations depict illegals wading into a river, trying to evade U.S. Border Patrol and crouching near a hole in a border fence. Immigrants are also shown hiking through the desert with rock formations similar to those in Arizona and being caught by an American agent.

Among the tips offered:


"Try to walk during times when the heat is not as intense";

"Salt water helps you retain your body's liquids. Although you'll feel thirstier, if you drink water with salt the risk of dehydration is much lower";

"Thick clothing increases your weight when wet, and this makes it difficult to swim or float."
It also says if migrants get lost, they should follow train tracks or power lines. It warns of walking for days to reach towns or roads in the desert.

If caught by Border Patrol, the book says, "Don't throw stones or objects at the officer or patrol vehicles because this is considered a provocation. Raise your hands slowly so they see you are unarmed."

It also recommends not running away from agents in pursuit.

"It's better to be detained a few hours and repatriated to Mexico than to get lost in the desert," the guide states.

The book includes a disclaimer stating it doesn't promote crossing the border illegally, but it doesn't give information about legal steps to seek a U.S. visa.

Immigration-control groups are not thrilled about the guide.

"This is more than just a wink and a nod," Rick Oltman, Western field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the Republic. "This is so transparent, this is the Mexican government trying to protect its most valuable export, which is illegal migrants."

John Vincent, with Virginia-based Americans for Immigration Control, said, "It really looks like the Mexican government is encouraging illegal immigration. It shows the contempt that the Mexican government has for our laws."


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Democrats Face Uphill Battle to Retake House

An 18-month recruitment drive by the Democrats has produced nearly a dozen strong candidates with the potential for unseating House Republicans, but probably not enough to take back control of the House absent a massive anti-incumbent wave this fall, according to House political experts.

Democratic leaders have been heartened by the quality of the candidates they have recruited to challenge vulnerable Republicans in congressional seats in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and they insist that there is a strong chance they can narrow the Republicans' 30-seat majority. Their efforts are being helped by widespread public dissatisfaction with Congress and with President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, a situation that has driven down the Republicans' approval ratings to less than 40 percent.

But Tuesday's special election north of San Diego to fill the seat of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) showed that the Democrats face an uphill battle to pick up seats even in districts where the Republicans have their backs to the wall. Democrat Francine Busby, running on a theme of ethics in government, finished first in a crowded field of 18 candidates to succeed Cunningham, who was sent to prison after pleading guilty to taking bribes in return for legislative favors.

From a national perspective, the California contest has not changed most analysts' views of the Democrats' chances in November. "If this election comes down to the individual, race-by-race, case-by-case campaigns, like we've seen for the last four cycles, the Democrats don't have enough top-tier candidates to win 15 seats," Amy Walters, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said, referring to a net gain. "But they do have enough second- and third-tier candidates who can ride a wave."


Currently, there are 231 Republicans, 201 Democrats, one independent and two vacant seats in the House. It will be up to lesser Democratic lights -- running in Republican districts with less-than-glowing r�sum�s -- to help provide the 15 net victories Democrats need to take back control of the House, which has been in GOP hands since the 1994 election.

In that context, Busby's performance -- respectable but not surprising -- is not encouraging to Democrats, said Stuart Rothenberg, a congressional analyst and editor of the Rothenberg Political Report.

"There may be a wave building, but it's still off the shoreline," he said. "It certainly didn't hit here."


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Libby Wasn't Ordered to Leak Name, Papers Say

In grand jury testimony two years ago, former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby did not assert that President Bush or Vice President Cheney instructed him to disclose the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war, Libby's lawyers said in a court filing late yesterday.

A court filing last week by the special federal prosecutor investigating the disclosure of Plame's identity had highlighted the fact that Bush and Cheney ordered Libby to disclose details of a previously classified intelligence report as part of an effort to rebut criticism by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. This disclosure provoked speculation that Bush or Cheney had instructed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.

But the lawyers asserted that White House documents outlining what Libby was to say in conversations with reporters did not mention Plame's name. They said this supports Libby's contention that he did not participate in a campaign to damage Wilson by disclosing Plame's CIA employment or in a coverup of the episode.

The statement that Libby did not link Bush and Cheney to the disclosure of Plame's name during his 2004 grand jury testimony is meant to bolster Libby's contention that no conspiracy existed to make selective disclosures to undermine a key administration critic, as some in Washington have charged.


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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Protests backfire!

Zogby poll: National demonstrations have negative impact on Americans

Recent images of seas of illegal aliens marching in cities across the U.S. are having a far greater negative than positive impact on the foreigners' cause, according to a new poll.

A Zogby survey of nearly 8,000 people shows coast-to-coast protests against immigration proposals in Congress � particularly to make it a federal felony to be an illegal worker in the U.S. � have not persuaded a majority of likely American voters.

Asked whether the protests have made likely voters more or less sympathetic toward undocumented workers, 61 percent said they're less likely to be sympathetic to the plight of illegals as a result of the protests, while only 32 percent of respondents said they're now more sympathetic. Younger respondents to the poll were more likely to be sympathetic than were older participants. And while 56 percent of Democrats said the protests made them feel more sympathy for unlawful workers, just 6 percent of Republicans felt that way.

"The gap between what the American people believe ... and what these elites in Washington thinks is right, that continues to grow wider," said host Sean Hannity on his national radio program today. "Many Republican leaders are siding with the elites, they are not siding with the people that put them on office."


Doubt about the prospect of Washington's success on the issue spreads across all geographic and racial demographics, the survey shows.

Asked specifically whether Bush or Congress is trusted more to properly handle the immigration issue, 50 percent said they don't think it's likely either branch of government will get the job done properly. Another 22 percent said they trust Congress more, while 17 percent said they think Bush is more likely to come up with the right answer. There was some difference depending on the age of the respondents � those over age 65 said they trusted Bush more, while those under age 30 said they put more trust in Congress.

Likely voters said their biggest concern about illegal immigration is the burden it places on government social services at all levels. While 27 percent said the increased burden was their top concern, another 22 percent said they hold a companion worry � that illegals will trigger an increase in the cost of government services.

One in four � 26 percent � said they were concerned America's southern border may be the entry point for terrorists intent on attacking the U.S.

A majority of Americans said they oppose amnesty for illegals who already reside in this nation. While 52 percent said there should be no amnesty, 32 percent said they'd favor it.

The survey shows significant partisan divide on this question. Among Democrats nationwide, 51 percent favor amnesty, while 29 percent oppose it and another 20 percent said they are unsure. Among Republicans, just 13 percent said they favor amnesty, while 76 percent said they oppose such an offer.

The Zogby Interactive survey included 7,967 respondents nationwide between March 31 and April 3, and has a margin of error of +/- 1.1 percentage points.

White House: Iraq WMD Claim Debunked

President Bush's claim three years ago that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq was based on U.S. intelligence that was later proved false, the White House acknowledged on Wednesday.

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan vigorously denied suggestions that Bush was making claims that had been debunked when he said two small trailers seized in Iraq were mobile biological laboratories.

Bush declared in a May 2003 television interview, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was cited at the time as supporting evidence for the decision to go to war.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that experts on a Pentagon-sponsored mission who examined the trailers concluded that they had nothing to do with biological weapons and sent their findings to Washington in a classified report on May 27, 2003.

One day later, the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency publicly issued an assessment saying the opposite _ that U.S. officials were confident that the trailers were used to produce biological weapons.

The assessment said the mobile facilities represented "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program." On May 29, 2003, the president repeated the claims from the public intelligence report.


McClellan dismissed the Post article and a report based on it that aired on ABC News Wednesday morning as irresponsible. He said ABC News should apologize and took issue with the way the Post story was written.

"The lead suggested that what the president was saying was based on something that had been debunked, and that is not true," McClellan said. "In fact, the president was saying something that was based on what the intelligence community - through the CIA and DIA - were saying."


McClellan said information for public reports from the CIA comes from many sources and takes time to vet.

"It's not something that, they will tell you, turns on a dime," McClellan said.

Patrick Fitzgerald: Leakgate Filing was False

In a move that raises serious questions about his conduct of the Leakgate probe, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald now admits he was wrong to publicly allege last week that Vice President Dick Cheney deliberately tried to mislead reporters about prewar Iraq intelligence.

In a much ballyhooed filing with the court, Fitzgerald had claimed that Cheney told Leakgate defendant Lewis Libby to tell New York Times reporter Judith Miller that one of the "key" findings of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium before the war.

However, in a letter yesterday, Fitzgerald advised Leakgate Judge Reggie Walton that his April 5 filing was flat out wrong.

"We are writing to correct a sentence," Fitzgerald confessed, before explaining that the following statement in his filing had no basis in fact: "Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."


Instead, Fitzgerald told the judge he wants to withdraw the bogus claim, and revise his filing to read:
"Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."


The New York Sun, which obtained a copy of Fitzgerald's letter late last night, notes today:
"The now-withdrawn assertion that Mr. Libby was ordered to tell a reporter that a secondary and disputed finding in the report was, in fact, a 'key judgment' was featured in the second paragraph of a front-page New York Times story on Sunday arguing that the leak to Ms. Miller was skewed."


Fitzgerald's bogus claim, the paper said, had been "noted prominently in some news accounts and contributed to an uproar that threw the White House into a tailspin last week."

Iran Vows to Expand Uranium Enrichment

Iran intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges, the country's deputy nuclear chief said Wednesday, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international community has insisted it halt.

Iran's president announced Tuesday the country had succeeded in enriching uranium on a small scale for the first time, using 164 centrifuges. The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment activity because of suspicions the program's aim is to make nuclear weapons.

"We will expand uranium enrichment to industrial scale at Natanz," Deputy Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi told state-run television Wednesday.


He said Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by late 2006, then expand to 54,000 centrifuges, though he did not say when.


"The next stage is to install 3,000 centrifuges. We definitely won't have problems doing that. We just need to increase our production line," he said.


Enriching uranium to the much higher levels needed for a nuclear warhead is even more difficult, requiring tens of thousands of centrifuges or much longer periods of time.

Moussaoui Jurors Hear Flight 93 Tape

Federal prosecutors seeking the execution of Zacarias Moussaoui figuratively placed the jury aboard doomed Flight 93 for its last searing moments, playing a recording in which a passenger begs the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, "Please, don't hurt me" and another cries "I don't want to die."

The United Air Lines flight crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers tried to retake the plane - according to a cockpit voice recording played publicly Wednesday for the first time - as the jury weighed whether to recommend the death sentence for Moussaoui, an admitted terrorist conspirator.

The recording began with the hijackers' voice clearly stating "ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain ... we have a bomb on board, so sit."

For the next few minutes, passengers are repeatedly told, 'Don't move,""Shut up""Sit," and "down down down."

An air traffic voice says, "Is that United 93 calling?"

A translation of the hijackers' Arabic words was provided to the jury. At one point a hijacker is heard to say "In the name of Allah, most merciful, most compassionate."

There's a voice in the cockpit saying "Please don't hurt me. Oh God!" Then a few seconds later somebody says "I don't want to die!" three times.


Then there are what sound like groans in the cockpit. Then in Arabic a couple of minutes later, a voice of a hijiacker says "Everything is fine. I finished." He said that around the time that the plane is turning back toward Washington.


As the jury heard the recording, prosecutors played a video presentation that simultaneously showed the flight path, speed and heading in a mockup similar to a flight simulator.

In the final minutes of Flight 93, passengers attempted to retake the plane at which point the hijackers crashed it into the western Pennsylvania field. The plane had been headed for the U.S. Capitol, according to Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate has already declared him eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on 9/11.

Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, the jury ruled that lies told by Moussaoui to federal agents a month before the attacks kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.

After several days of testimony related to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the focus shifted Tuesday to the Pentagon, where the jury saw some of the most gruesome evidence in the trial.

Several photos showed badly burned bodies, facial features still discernible. Defense lawyers objected unsuccessfully to their display.

Lt. Col. John Thurman testified that when the Pentagon was hit, he thought a bomb had exploded, then later described a sensation similar to an earthquake as the plane moved under his second floor office.

Thurman crawled through the office, unable to lift his head above the carpet because the smoke was too intense. He said he felt an overwhelming need to take a nap and "that's when it hit me: I'm going to die. And I got very angry. Angry that terrorists would take my life on the same day my parents were getting their first grandchild" (from his sister).


"I realized I had to get out. I pushed file cabinets with all of my strength and found an opening," Thurman said.


Thurman left the Pentagon coughing up black soot and was taken to a hospital. He fully recovered from his injuries after a weeklong hospital stay that included a medically induced coma.

"I feel incredibly lucky," he said. "But there's guilt about getting the lucky break."

Cindy Sheehan: Don't attack Iran

Activist finds no justification for military response to atomic threat

Turning her attention from Iraq to Iran, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan insists the U.S. has no justification for any kind of military response to the emerging nuclear threat from Iran, which today declared it successfully has enriched uranium.

Writing in the left-wing Buzzflash.com, Sheehan said that after a war in Iraq, President Bush, the "swaggering imbecile of a 'leaker in chief' has the nerve to be trying to sell all of us on a new war in Iran."

"Do the warped neocons with their puppet president think that we are all stupid? Fool us once, shame on us, fool us, -- well, we just can't be fooled again," she writes.

Sheehan said the U.S. possession of nuclear weapons is "crazy, but talking about deploying them is sheer insanity."

She fears this could lead to a world war.

"With all of the 'Left Behind' religious fanatics praying for Armageddon, this thought is made even scarier by the fake believers in the White House who are exploiting the neo-Christian idea that Jesus was a war monger and anything our great leader does is okay, because he is a Christian man!" she declares.

The U.S. also "must not even, for one moment, contemplate a conventional invasion in Iran either," she said. "No matter how George Bush lies about how rosy things are in Iraq, they aren't, and Iraq is proof that war of any kind is a horribly tragic way to solve problems."

She said the U.S. "must elect leaders that will get at the root causes of terrorism and not pretend that every terrorist can ever be killed to satisfy some kind of primeval bloodlust that flows through the war machine's veins."

"When our leaders go terrorist hunting," she said, "they kill innocent men, women and children and they, themselves, become the very thing that they are trying to teach us to loathe."

Iran 1 step from atomic bomb

With 3 developments this year, Tehran's pace startling analysts

Confounding the predictions of many Western analysts, Iran's announcement yesterday that it successfully enriched uranium was the third major development this year on the way to producing an atomic bomb, leaving only one more step.

That next development � metalizing the enriched uranium to fit it into a warhead � could come as soon as four months from now, says author Jerry Corsi, who has watched the predictions in his book "Atomic Iran" unfold since it was published one year ago.

"They have only one more problem to solve," Corsi said. "The world has got to stop thinking about these Iranians as backward, just because Ahmadinejad has a radical religious agenda. They have all the technical knowledge and all the money they need to solve these problems."


In February, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress that Iran was as much as a decade away from producing a nuclear weapon.

But Corsi, noting it took just four months to produce enriched uranium, argues Tehran is only trying to solve technical problems to make an atomic bomb, not come up with breakthroughs. With the help of China, Russia and their own scientists, who have received world-class training, they could easily have a bomb by the end of the year, he said.

Yesterday, in a nationally televised speech, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that with the production of enriched uranium, "I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries."

The audience, which included top military commanders and clerics, broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!"


In January, Iran successfully tested a missile with solid fuel, and last week, a U.S. official reported Iran now has ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Tehran has rejected a demand by the U.N. Security Council to stop all uranium enrichment activity by April 28. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s watchdog agency, plans to travel to Iran this week for talks.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tehran's latest boasts "continue to show that Iran is moving in the wrong direction."


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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Happy Red Sox Opening Day From Country Bank in Charlton, MA. !



J.R.'s Wife Sheila (She She)(right) and co-worker, Kat(left), wish J.R. and his listener's and reader's a Happy Red Sox Opening Day !



The whole crew now wishes J.R. and his listener's and reader's Happy Red Sox Opening Day ! Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame ! J.R.'s Wife Sheila (She She)(left), co workers Kat (center), Haley (right), Renee (rear)




Anonymous said...
Those are four dedicated ladies! Raising money for the Jimmy Fund AND supporting their favorite team!! :)

Al-Zarqawi Leads 90% of Iraq Attacks

More than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by terrorists and foreign fighters recruited, trained and equipped by al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida in Iraq "are real threats to the citizens, security and stability of Iraq and we continue to conduct aggressive operations to eliminate the threat they pose not only to Iraq, but also to the rest of the region,"
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in a statement.

The Washington Post reported Monday that U.S. military was conducting a propaganda campaign to "magnify the role" of al-Zarqawi to turn Iraqis against him and to link the war in Iraq to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the newspaper, some U.S. military intelligence officials believe the campaign has overstated al-Zarqawi's importance within the Iraqi insurgency.

Lynch's statement did not refer directly to the Post story but said "a recent article" had called into question the threat posed by al-Zarqawi.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Lynch said. "The terrorists and foreign fighters that he recruits, trains and equips carry out more than 90 percent of the insidious suicide attacks against the men, women and children of Iraq attacks that have killed or injured thousands of Iraqis in the last year alone."


Lynch acknowledged that al-Qaida in Iraq represents a "relatively small portion" of the insurgency but "their impact has been ruthlessly devastating."

He cited statements attributed to al-Zarqawi on Islamist Web sites calling for foreign fighters to come to Iraq and declaring war against Shiites and coalition forces here.

In January, al-Zarqawi's group said in a Web statement that it had joined five other Iraqi insurgent groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura Council. Since then, al-Zarqawi's group has stopped issuing its own statements.

On April 2, Huthayafa Azzam, believed to have close ties to Iraqi militants, told The Associated Press that al-Zarqawi had been confined to a military role within the coalition, specifically barred from making public statements and from any political or propaganda role.

Azzam said Iraqis in the Shura Council had demanded that al-Zarqawi give up his political role - particularly in propaganda - because he had "embarrassed" them with statements about regional politics, al-Qaida's activities and beheading videos.

U.S.-Born Latinos Oppose Illegal Immigration

Contrary to scenes of hundreds of thousands of united Latinos marching across the country in support of immigration reform, a sizable number of the ethnic group opposes the marches and strongly objects to illegal immigration.

Their voices have largely been muffled by the massive protests, however, which continued Monday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of cities nationwide.

Those protesting are voicing their support of a Senate bill that would give an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country a chance for U.S. citizenship.

"That's the objective of the marches � to give the impression that all Latinos are for allowing the illegals to become citizens," said Phoenix resident Lionel De La Rosa. "Well, I'm not."


The 71-year-old Texas native and Vietnam veteran said he favors punitive measures more in line with the immigration bill passed by the U.S. House in December that would have made it a felony to be in the United States illegally.

"I'm for that 100 percent," he said. "As far as my Latino friends are concerned, they all agree on this."


A 2005 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that Latinos in general have favorable attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. But when it comes to illegal immigration, significant numbers have negative views of undocumented immigrants.

The survey found those feelings are strongest among middle-class and middle-age U.S.-born Latinos.

And though 68 percent of Latinos said they believe undocumented immigrants help the economy by providing low-cost labor, nearly a quarter felt undocumented immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages.


U.S.-born Latinos looked even less favorably toward undocumented immigrants than foreign-born Latinos. More than a third of U.S.-born Latinos said undocumented immigrants hurt the economy, compared with just 15 percent of foreign-born Latinos.




Latinos also are divided over whether to allow undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship, the survey found.

Though 88 percent of foreign-born Latinos favored allowing undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship, a smaller number of U.S.-born Latinos, 78 percent, said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to do so.

Though views such as De La Rosa's are common among Latinos, they are rarely reflected among Latino leaders, said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors greater restrictions on immigration.

"It's easy to tap into the views of the intellectual class, but harder to tap into the views of the common folks," he said.

And because so much of the debate over illegal immigration comes off as anti-Hispanic, Latinos who favor greater restrictions on immigration are often reluctant to speak out.

"That's extremely off-putting," Camarota said. "Whatever their views, they keep it to themselves."

Many Latinos fear being ostracized for their negative views of undocumented immigrants, said Phoenix resident Frank Barrios, 64.

"There are a lot of Hispanics that are upset about the undocumented just the same way as the Anglo population," said Barrios, a third-generation Mexican-American who traces his family's roots in Arizona to the 1870s. "That group is larger than many people would believe."

Romney: Secure Borders, Oppose Amnesty

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said it should be harder for illegal immigrants to get into the United States but added that those who are here should not be rounded up and deported.

Regarding immigration, Romney said U.S. borders should be made more secure to keep illegal immigrants from entering. He also said he opposed an amnesty program that would automatically grant citizenship to the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.

"I think that route is not acceptable at this stage," he said. "We should report illegal behavior."


Instead, Romney said, illegal immigrants should be identified and required to apply for green cards, which would allow them to live and work in the United States. Those whose applications are accepted could stay, the rest would be returned to their native countries.

US economy's latest output: better jobs

Newest job numbers show that businesses are expanding opportunities in high-wage fields.

The US economy isn't just producing jobs these days, it's also producing good jobs. Alongside the ads for jobs handling a cash register or a spatula are these new opportunities:
� In St. Louis, AFB International is enlisting both technicians, paid $30,000 to $40,000, and PhD scientists, offered $80,000 to $100,000, in its quest for the perfect pet food.

� In Delaware, Honeywell plans to hire people at $40,000 to $100,000 to work in a data-storage center.

� In southern California, some of the latest openings involve working on the railroad, for $35,000 to $70,000 a year. Union Pacific plans to add 2,000 employees altogether.

These reports in the past month symbolize a welcome trend during an economic expansion that at first offered only tepid job gains, both in quantity and quality.

This good news about the breadth of job creation comes against a backdrop of labor-market anxiety that has persisted despite the economy's solid overall footing. Competition from imported goods, the threat of outsourcing services abroad, and a controversial influx of illegal laborers are just some of the forces that make many workers worried about their future.

Creating good jobs - the kinds that can keep American living standards rising - appears likely to remain a challenge. But the current employment picture at least indicates movement in a positive direction.

"We're creating lots of all kinds of jobs, across many industries, occupations, and pay scales," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.


The economy added 211,000 jobs in March, according to a Labor Department report Friday - a solid showing about on par with expectations. The unemployment rate fell a notch, to 4.7 percent.

The new jobs still include plenty at the low end:

An analysis by Merrill Lynch finds that some 40 percent of the net gain in March came in two areas known for low pay: retail services and leisure/hospitality, which includes restaurants.


But this is just part of a broader tapestry.

Management and professional occupations are employing 1.2 million more people this month than a year ago - or about 1 in 3 new jobs in America. This is the highest-paying of five broad categories tracked by the Labor Department. Not all of them are CEOs or engineers, but the median paycheck for full-time workers in this category is $937 a week, far above the US median of $651.


The construction industry continues to hammer out more than its share of new jobs. It accounts for about 6.4 percent of US jobs, but has provided 14.4 percent of the past year's job growth. The quality of construction jobs is mixed - often offering higher hourly pay than the US median but with lower benefits.

Even the manufacturing sector, which has long offered blue-collar workers a measure of middle-class prosperity, appears to be stabilizing after a period of heavy job losses. Despite downsizing in the automotive industry, 175,000 more people are employed in production occupations today than a year ago.

"As this recovery gets under way, professional services have begun adding jobs fairly broadly," says Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington.


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Iran Has Enriched Uranium for First Time

Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tuesday that Iran has enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology, news agencies reported.

Rafsanjani made the comment to the Kuwait News Agency during an interview in Tehran.

"Iran has put into operation the first unit of 164 centrifuges, has injected (uranium gas) and reached industrial production," the Kuwait News Agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying.

Iranian authorities had promised to announce "good nuclear news" on Tuesday.

Arrival of aliens ousts U.S. workers

An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.

Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.

"After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work."


"We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."


Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money.

The number of foreign workers who flooded the area after the hurricane has been estimated at more than 30,000. Many of them have been identified by law-enforcement authorities and others as illegal aliens.

"The men we sent to jobs in Alabama were local fellows looking for work, men who needed jobs," Mrs. Swope said. "After driving 50 miles to the work sites where they had been promised $10 an hour, they discovered the employers had found substitutes who were willing to work for less."


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Class filmstrip casts Bush as 'a--hole'

Parent of 13-year-old 'livid,' upset teacher got only reprimand

An 8th-grade science teacher in Alabama who also is running as a Democrat for a seat in the state House was reprimanded for showing students a vulgar filmstrip that repeatedly refers to President Bush, members of his staff and conservative personalities as "a--holes."

But parent Christy Jackson is upset that teacher Steve White of West Limestone High School in Lester, Ala., got off with only a "slap on the wrist," the local Athens News Courier reported.

As WorldNetDaily first reported in September, the video, which can be viewed here [Warning: Contains obscene language], is in a slideshow format accompanied by a song that repeatedly uses the obscenity. Along with images of Bush, the show includes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, columnist Ann Coulter and Fox News Channel hosts Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

The filmstrip's website, FilmstripInternational.com, is registered to SLAB Media, based in Somerville, Mass.

The accompanying song, titled "A--hole," is by the Boston-area band Jim's Big Ego, whose website is also designed by SLAB.



Jackson said she was "livid" when she found out about the video and wants White to apologize.

"I'm really not out to get anybody fired, but I think a lesson needs to be learned and I don't want any teacher showing my son anything that is not clean or related to his studies," she told the Athens paper.


Jackson said West Limestone Principal Stan Davis told her White had been reprimanded. But she said the principal did not give her details.

School board member Darin Russell said the board learned of the controversy a month ago, but it was handled only by Superintendent Barry Carroll as a "personnel matter," the News Courier reported.

The paper said Carroll, Davis and White could not be reached for comment.

According to Jackson, her son and his friends say discussion in White's science class often turns to politics.

"I know of one instance where my son was told he couldn't leave the room without saying, 'John Kerry rocks,'" she told the Athens paper. "I think my son is entitled to his opinion, just like [his teacher] is. I don't think any issue should be forced on my son."


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Also see this realted story:

High School teacher in trouble after showing obscene video of animated Bill Clinton...

Monday, April 10, 2006

Wash Post: Nothing Wrong with Bush 'Leak'

The Washington Post has broken ranks with the rest of the press over the media fiction that President Bush's recently revealed decision to authorize Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak prewar Iraq intelligence somehow constitutes a new scandal.

In a stunning editorial headlined "The Good Leak," the Post said Sunday:

"There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about [Bush's decision]; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security."


Instead, the paper says that, if anyone has behaved unethically in the entire Leakgate fiasco, its Bush's accuser, former Iraq ambassador Joe Wilson:

"Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately 'twisted' intelligence 'to exaggerate the Iraq threat.'"


But as the Post notes: "The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium."

The Post says that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has provided additional evidence of the Bush accuser's duplicity.

"Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative . . . [But] after more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge."


Predictably, the Post's dismissal of the latest Leakgate "bombshell" didn't rate a single mention on the Sunday chat shows, which instead continued to cover the development as earth-shattering news.

Army surpassing year's retention goal by 15%



(Army Reserve Sgt. First Class Juanita Wilson, second from top, and others take a re-enlistment oath Thursday on Capitol Hill. Wilson lost her left arm in an explosion in Iraq.)

Two of every three eligible soldiers continue to re-enlist, putting the Army, which has endured most of the fighting in Iraq, ahead of its annual goal.


The Army was 15% ahead of its re-enlistment goal of 34,668 for the first six months of fiscal year 2006, which ended March 31. More than 39,900 soldiers had re-enlisted, according to figures scheduled to be released today by the Army.

Strong retention has helped the Army offset recruiting that has failed to meet its targets as the war in Iraq has made it harder to attract new soldiers. The Army fell 8% short of its goal of recruiting 80,000 soldiers in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, although it is exceeding its goal this year. Army recruiting figures for the first half of the year are to be released today.

The Army has met or exceeded its goals for retention for the past five years, records show. It was 8% over its goal for 2005, and 7% ahead of its targets for 2004. The number of re-enlistments has exceeded the Army's goal by a larger margin each year since 2001.

Soldiers like the Army, "and the war is not causing people to leave," says Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman.


Through March, 2,325 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq; 1,593 were Army soldiers.

The Pentagon announced in March that each of the armed forces was on track to meet its retention goal for the year.

Pay and re-enlistment bonuses help, Hilferty says. Bonuses range from nothing to $150,000 for a handful of special operations commandos. The average re-enlistment bonus is $6,000, Hilferty says.

"It's not just pay," Hilferty says. "Our people want to be part of something greater than themselves, and they're willing to put up with a lot."


Charles Henning, a national defense analyst with the Congressional Research Service, says robust re-enlistment allows the Army to maintain its strength.

"Retention has been a very positive thing for the Army," Henning says. "That's an indicator of very high morale, high esprit de corps. It's a very solid indicator that soldiers are gratified, or they'd vote with their feet."

Time Poll: Americans Back Border Fence, Deportations and Denying Benefits

Americans support building a security fence along the entire 2,000 mile U.S.- Mexican border by a landslide, a new Time magazine poll has found.

By a margin of 56 to 40 percent, respondents said they want the wall built from sea to shining sea - not just the 700 miles stipulated in the House plan, a proposal the press calls "draconian."


A full 75 percent say illegals should be denied government supplied health care and food stamps, with 21 percent saying they should get those benefits. A majority, 69 percent, say illegals shouldn't be allowed to get U.S. drivers licenses.



In more evidence that the American people want a tougher crackdown on illegal immigration than anything favored by Congress or the media, 62 percent told Time that they favored using the military to guard the border. Just 35 percent opposed.

But the poll's biggest shocker may be on the question of deporting illegals back to their native country, an option that politicians and the press say is out of the question.

Time found, however, that 47 percent of those surveyed actually favor deporting "all illegal immigrants," and 49 percent were opposed.
Most, 51 percent, said the U.S. would be "better of" if all illegals were deported and the border sealed to prevent any more from coming in. Just 38 percent disagreed.


Time surveyed 1004 adult Americans on March 29 and 30. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998

By Bob Carter
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco.

Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).


Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

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Iraq angered by civil war warning

Iraqi leaders have strongly criticised Egypt's president after he said Iraq was on the verge of a civil war.

"We are astonished that Egypt identifies Iraq's security problems as a civil war."

"Our people are still far away from any sectarian conflict or a civil war." ....
Ibrahim Jaafari


Exactly three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, there is growing disagreement over whether Iraq has descended into civil war.

Many say the risk of such a conflict would be reduced with the formation of a national unity government.

Talks on the issue are deadlocked and there was little hope that Shia leaders meeting on Sunday would resolve it.

They are trying to overcome the political impasse over whether Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari retains the support of his Shia bloc.

Since the December elections, Mr Jaafari's nomination has been one of the main sticking points in coalition talks with Kurds and Sunnis, and many Shias are now calling for him to step down as candidate.

On Sunday, Mr Jaafari - currently interim prime minister - appeared before reporters to dismiss suggestions made by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak that a civil war was imminent.

"The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and have astonished and discontented the Iraqi government."

Mr Mubarak had told al-Arabiya TV on Saturday that civil war in Iraq "was on the doorstep".

"Civil war has almost started among Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and those who are coming from Asia," he said.

This is a view rejected by both the US and Britain. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said the whole situation is "very serious", but civil war has been averted because of the restraint shown by Shia leaders.