Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src...57D%26symbol%3D

"The Biggest Slump in US Housing in the Last 40 Years…or 53 Years?"

Nouriel Roubini | Aug 23, 2006

Even more ominously, futures markets now expect that house prices will fall during 2007.

Following the lead and prodding of Robert Shiller – the maverick Yale professor who predicted the 2000 stock bust and is now predicting a housing bust - the Chicago Mercantile Exchange opened this spring a new futures market for house prices in ten U.S. cities.

While this market is very new and still relatively illiquid, it is now predicting that U.S. house prices will fall in 2007 at the national average level, for the first time in over fifty years.

The index of this futures’ market for the entire US is projecting a 5% price fall in 2007.

And the futures contracts for individual cities show expected declines in housing prices even larger than 5% for Miami, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, Miami, New York and Las Vegas.

ROBERT SHILLER, THE PROPHET OF HOUSE PRICES

By Martin Bashir, ABC News

March 24, 2006 -- If a prophet is only as good as his last prophecy, then you'd be wise to listen to Robert Shiller.

On "Nightline," Shiller offered his considerable analysis of the current real estate market … and he doesn't bring good news.

It was back in the heady stock market days of 1996 that Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University, gave voice to his first prophecy.

He warned that the stock market was overheating and that investment had risen to what he described as irrational levels.

The stock market crash that followed was no surprise to Shiller and proved that he had called it right.

Now he's warning that a similar collapse may soon apply to the real estate market.

And there's evidence that he may be right here, too.

In statistics published today, the Commerce Department reported that the sale of new homes during the month of February dropped by 10.5 percent.

That's the largest decrease in almost nine years.

It was also the second straight monthly decline and the possible emergence of a worrying trend.

Shiller said that the same psychology that applies to stock market investors now drives the real estate boom.

He called it irrational exuberance, coincidentally the title of his 2000 book about the stock market.

Prices Driven By Emotion

Shiller argued that human emotion, not strategic economic factors, drives prices and property buying.

He argues that many first-time buyers pay inflated prices simply because they fear they'll be left behind.

He believes that "glamour" locations, such as Las Vegas and Miami, drive prices upward but the real worth of properties in such giddy locations may be a great deal less.

Shiller has traced the actual financial return that houses produce for their owners.

He says that over the long term, house prices roughly match gains in people's incomes and that booms are more often followed by busts, thereby dissipating any major increases in equity.

The National Association of Realtors, unsurprisingly, challenges Shiller's assessment and argues that the market is stabilizing and predicts continued growth, albeit at a more sober rate.

As long as Americans continue to believe that their money is only as safe as their houses, then investment in real estate will continue.

But Shiller's warnings are well worth hearing.

[Livyjr]

And a public service notice from the Tom Suozzi for New York State Governor Campaign ......

Dear Friend,

The election is heating up!

On Wednesday, August 30th, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., local cable stations are hosting a statewide gubernatorial town hall meeting in four locations - Albany, New York City, Rochester and Syracuse.

Tom Suozzi will participate from Pace University in New York City, and John Faso and Eliot Spitzer will participate from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester.

Other audiences will convene at production studios in both Albany and Syracuse.

Each candidate will have 25 minutes to field questions from the audiences in all four locations.

The four audiences will be connected via remote video and audio, and we are encouraging Suozzi supporters from each region to attend the town hall in their area.

For ticket information for each location, please use the reservation information below:

Albany, call (518) 640-8606

New York City, call (212) 379-3443

Rochester, call (585)-340-8358

Syracuse, call (315) 634-6224

Please mark your calendar.

If you can make it, we look forward to seeing you next Wednesday; if not, please check your local listings for cablecast information where you live and tune in to cheer Tom on!

Sincerely,

Team Suozzi

P.S. Remember that Primary Day is Tuesday, September 12th.

[Livyjr]

Iraq Liberation Act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) [1] (codified in a note to 22 USCS § 2151) is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq.

Findings and Declaration of Policy

The Act declared that it was the Policy of the United States to support "regime change."

The Act was passed in the House [2] and Senate [3] and signed into law by the US President Bill Clinton on October 31, 1998.

Its stated purpose was: "to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq."

Congress found: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

The Act specifically refused to grant the President authority to use U.S. Military force to achieve its stated goals and purposes.

Contemplation of Post Hussein Iraq

A generalized statement of policy toward the post-Hussein Iraq was also set forth stating, "It is the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq's transition to democracy by providing immediate and substantial humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, by providing democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals, and by convening Iraq's foreign creditors to develop a multilateral response to Iraq's foreign debt incurred by Saddam Hussein's regime."

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act

The Iraq Liberation Act ....

Was a REPUBLICAN act .....

Not a Democrat act .....

Despite being signed by Bill Clinton .....

And that was two full years before George W. Bush got onto the throne .....

Here in OUR America ......

SOOOOoooooo ........

WHAT WENT WRONG IN IRAQ?

WHEN WITH THE REPUBLICAN "IRAQ LIBERATION ACT" IN PLACE .....

SINCE 1998 .....

NOTHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GO WRONG ...

AT ALL ....

"Bush adopts new tack to stress Iraq obstacles - President's refocused message is seen as acknowledgment of nation's darkening mood"

By PETER BAKER, Washington Post
First published: Thursday, August 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Of all the words that President Bush used at his news conference this week to defend his policies in Iraq, the one that did not pass his lips was "progress."

For three years, the President tried to reassure Americans that more progress was being made in than they realized.

But with Iraq either in civil war or on the brink of it, Bush dropped the unseen-progress argument in favor of the contention that things could be even worse.

The shifting rhetoric reflected a broader pessimism that has reached into even some of the most optimistic corners of the administration, a sense that the Iraq venture has taken a dark turn and will not be resolved anytime soon.

Bush advisers once believed that if they met certain benchmarks, such as building a constitutional democracy and training a new Iraqi army, the war would be won.

And now, they feel they have more or less met those goals, yet the war rages on.

While still committed to the venture, officials have privately told friends and associates outside government that they have grown discouraged in recent months.

Even the death of al-Qaida's leader in Iraq proved not to be the turning point they expected, they have told associates, and other developments have been relentlessly dispiriting, with fewer signs of hope.

Bush acknowledged this week that he has been discouraged as well.

"Frustrated?" he asked.

"Sometimes I'm frustrated."

"Rarely surprised."

"Sometimes I'm happy."

"This is -- but war is not a time of joy."

"These aren't joyous times."

"These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country."

Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush and his advisers still believe progress is being made and the war will be won.

"No question about it, the last three months have been much more challenging," Bartlett said.

"Are we always going to be pleased with the pace?"

"No."

"There are days that are frustrating."

"But is the overall direction going the right way?"

"The answer to that is yes."

The tone represents a striking change from what critics considered an overly rosy portrayal of Iraq in the past.

With sectarian violence flaring into some of the worst bloodshed since the 2003 invasion, the White House felt the need to connect with the American public's anxiety.

"Most of the people rightly are concerned about the security situation, as is the President," Bartlett said.

But with crucial midterm congressional elections just 2 months away, Bush and his team are trying to turn the public debate away from whether the Iraq invasion has worked out to what would happen if U.S. troops were withdrawn, as some Democrats advocate.

Using terms like "havoc" at Monday's news conference, Bush made no effort to suggest the situation in Iraq is improving.

Instead, he argued, "If you think it's bad now, imagine what Iraq would look like if the United States leaves before this government can defend itself."

Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University scholar whose research on public opinion in wartime has been influential in the White House, said Bush had little choice.

"He looks foolish and not credible if he says, 'We're making progress in Iraq,' " Gelpi said.

"I think he probably would like to make that argument, but because that's not credible given the facts on the ground, this is the fallback."

"... If the only thing you can say is 'Yes, it's bad, but it could be worse,' that really is a last-ditch argument."

As recently as two weeks ago, Bush was still making the case that things in Iraq are better than they seem.

The new Iraqi government, he said on Aug. 7, "has shown remarkable progress on the political front" and its mere existence was "quite a remarkable achievement."

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad published a piece in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday arguing that a recent shift in security operations in Baghdad has shown "positive results" and said "this initial progress should give Iraqis, as well as Americans, hope about the future."

But Bush has been ruminating on the different nature of Iraq and the battle with Islamic radicals and how hard it is to define victory.

"Veterans of World War II and Korea will tell you we were able to measure progress based upon miles gained or based upon tanks destroyed or however people measured war in those days," he said in a speech last week.

"This is different ... and it's hard on the American people, and I understand that."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a strong supporter of the war, suggested this week the Bush team has only itself to blame for setting unrealistic expectations.

"One of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said.

"'Stuff happens,' 'mission accomplished,' 'last throes,' 'a few dead-enders.'"

"I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."

[Livyjr]

WHEELS ...

WITHIN WHEELS .....

WITHIN YET MORE WHEELS .....

AS THE ESSENCE ....

OR SUBSTANCE ......

OR "FOG" .....

OF THE WORLD-WIDE BUSHCO "WAR OF TERROR" .....

CONTINUES TO UNFOLD .....

JUST WEEKS BEFORE ....

WE ARE TO VOTE .....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

FOR WHO WE BELIEVE .....

CAN BEST REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS .....

AS AMERICAN CITIZENS .....

IN OUR UNITED STATES CONGRESS ....

And so ....

WHAT IS THE GAME BEING PLAYED HERE, BY GEORGE W. BUSH'S ALLY, PAKISTAN, WITH RESPECT TO THIS LATEST "TAY-RIST PLOT" THAT GEORGE W. BUSH SUPPOSEDLY FOILED, WITH HIS UNCONSTITUTIONAL SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM, HERE IN OUR AMERICA?

JUST WHOSE "PAYROLL" IS THIS AL-QAIDA REALLY ON?

AND WHOSE GOALS ARE THEY REALLY PURSUING?

AND ARE WE BEING TWEAKED ....

OR FIDDLED WITH .....

YET SOME MORE .....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

BY THIS ADMINISTRATION .....

THAT NEEDS US AFRAID .....

SO THAT IT CAN CONTINUE TO HOLD POWER ....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA .....

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY .....

And so ...

"Pakistan withholds terror suspects' info"

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:16 a.m., Friday, August 25, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Two weeks after an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners was thwarted in Britain, Pakistani authorities have screwed tight the faucet that had trickled intriguing details from their investigation.

Mystery surrounds the role played by "key suspect" Rashid Rauf, a Briton with dual Pakistani nationality who has family ties to a notorious Pakistani militant.

Pakistani authorities allege Rauf communicated between an al-Qaida mastermind in Afghanistan and the plotters in Britain.

Britain has yet to confirm al-Qaida's involvement in the plans to bomb as many as 10 U.S.-bound aircraft.

On Wednesday, it released Rauf's brother Tayib without charge.

The Home Office in London refused to say Thursday whether it was still seeking Rashid Rauf's extradition.

Rauf, in his mid-20s, is the only one among the at least seven suspects arrested in Pakistan to have been named.

He is being interrogated at a high-walled Pakistani intelligence headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.

It's unclear if he or the other suspects have been charged with any offense.

The lack of transparency is characteristic of terror cases in Pakistan, which has netted most of the top al-Qaida figures captured since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

It contrasts with the legal process pursued in Britain, where despite tight control on information from the investigation, authorities named two dozen suspects soon after their arrest Aug. 10.

So far, British authorities have charged 11: eight with conspiracy to murder and preparing to commit terrorism, and three others with lesser offenses, including failing to disclose information.

Under Pakistani law, authorities can hold any terror suspect for up to a year without charge.

Such a detention must be approved by a panel of judges.

In practice, suspects in the custody of intelligence agencies have little or no recourse to the law.

"The difference between Britain and Pakistan is the absence of due process," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group think tank.

"There's been very little information to come out, other than about Rauf, and I think that's because his links with some very prominent jihadi leaders were bound to come out in the open."

"It would have been impossible to keep it covered up," she said.

Rauf has ties by marriage to Masood Azhar, leader of an al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Rauf was arrested Aug. 9 in the Punjab town of Bhawalpur, where he had settled and where the outlawed group has a strong presence.

A senior Pakistani government official, who like the intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the case's sensitivity, described Rauf as a "transmitter of messages" between the unnamed al-Qaida mastermind in Afghanistan and plotters in London.

The official said there was as yet no established link with Pakistani militant groups to the plot.

To many observers in Pakistan that stretches credibility, and could explain authorities' reluctance to divulge more details about the other suspects, even their nationalities.

A Pakistani intelligence officer said Rauf had been monitored for five or six months, and within two days of his arrest had given investigators a full picture of the plot.

The information was shared with Britain and the U.S., whose leaders later praised Pakistan's role thwarting the plan.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key Western ally, has been robust in fighting al-Qaida and has taken steps to reel in militant groups that emerged here during the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later, the Pakistan-endorsed fight against Indian rule in Kashmir.

But the continued presence of dangerous militants in Pakistan and its failure to regulate religious schools that cultivate extremists has left this Islamic nation open to allegations that it remains a magnet for jihadists -- such as the suicide bombers who killed 52 people on the London transit system in July 2005.

Three of them visited Pakistan before the attacks.

Pakistan has also placed under house arrest Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, former leader of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba group, which fights in Kashmir.

The government said his Aug. 10 detention was to prevent him from making a public address in Lahore on Aug. 12, but he has not been released, adding to the mystery surrounding Pakistan's investigations.

On Thursday intelligence agents took him away from his home in the city to an undisclosed location for questioning.

Officials refused to disclose the reason.

[Snuffysmith]

TO IRAN WITH LOVE: FROM THE BOTCHED IRAQ WAR TO THREATENING IRAN WITH "REGIME CHANGE," NEOCONSERVATIVE POLICIES HAVE BEEN A BOON FOR TEHRAN - JOE CONASON (SALON, AUGUST 25)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/...s/index_np.html

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/2...ntelligence.php
'Fixing' Iran Intelligence
John Prados
August 25, 2006


John Prados is a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington. His forthcoming book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher).

More and more it appears that the pattern of manipulation and misuse of intelligence that served the Bush administration in the drive to start a war with Iraq is being repeated today for its neighbor Iran.

Recently we reported on TomPaine.com one facet of the repetition—that Congress, not the president, has had to ask for National Intelligence Estimates that would shed light on a key foreign policy issue on the front burner in the Bush White House. The demand described there pertained to Iraq, but Congress has also pressed for an NIE on Iran, where many worry that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which denies it, is secretly conducting a nuclear weapons development program.

Now that the Senate has called for the NIE, the first marker has gone down, in the form of a report released this week by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chairman Peter Hoekstra. Disguised as a technical review of “gaps” in knowledge, the report tosses together speculations on the array of Iranian enrichment facilities, charges of its deceptions on these programs, notes on Iran’s missile development efforts with extraneous material—indications of an Iranian role in the Iraqi mess plus charges against Tehran on terrorism and support of Hezbollah in Lebanon—to conclude that “Iran is a serious security threat.”

Let’s take a moment to recall the Iraq prewar intelligence manipulation. The Bush administration asked the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community for data on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had private channels to Iraqi exiles feeding them alarmist fabrications. When the CIA’s reporting emerged as less dark than hoped for, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and their staffs, asked for new looks at the data. When revised analyses came out the same, the manipulators surfaced their exile fabrications and demanded evaluations of those. The fabricated material was also put before the public in the form of leaks to friendly media. Halfway through the process, intelligence officers were put on notice that their jobs were on the line when John R. Bolton, at the time undersecretary of state, started a vendetta against top analysts at both the State Department and the CIA. Meanwhile, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others, made speeches and gave public declarations that asserted as fact elements of the data that intelligence analysts were being asked to assess. That effectively put out markers to the CIA as to what conclusions were permissible to Bush officials when the NIE was finally requested, as mentioned, by Senate Democrats in September 2002.

Now to Iran. Readers will be aware that charges and denials regarding the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and its rate of progress, have been swirling for years. That has been especially true since late 2004, when the Iranian exile group National Council for Resistance in Iran publicly charged that the Iranian Ministry of Defense was operating a major secret nuclear site. The Iranian government has been in on-again, off-again negotiations with the Europeans on curtailing its alleged program, and has accepted inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, though with little enthusiasm. The Iranians have devoted a large effort to generating nuclear power for peaceful purposes and consider themselves as having a right to nuclear weapons, whether or not they are actually developing them.

The Bush administration has alternately refused to engage with Tehran on these issues, aligned itself with the European group of concern, pondered military strikes on Iran, or lately, sought United Nations sanctions against Tehran. Bush’s diplomatic initiatives have extended to sending out a tag team of diplomats and nonproliferation experts who travel to any country that will listen and give an “intelligence” briefing designed to paint black hats on the Iranians. Despite all this activity there seems to be no current NIE on Iranian nuclear development. Late this May, five Democratic senators wrote President Bush asking that he request such a study.

What is it with this administration? Bush seems consistently to resist hearing what U.S. intelligence can tell him about the issues that are central to his own foreign policy. In the case of Iran, it seems that the White House is uncertain what it will learn from an intelligence estimate. The consensus among U.S. intelligence analysts--as reflected in annual threat reports to Congress and briefs on worldwide acquisition of technology for weapons of mass destruction--has waxed and waned. In 2001 the CIA was sure Iran had the intention of seeking weapons but conceded a limited capability. Over the next two years, during which the agency learned of Pakistani exports of nuclear technology to Iran, the view became more alarming. A report at the end of 2003 declaimed, “The United States remains convinced that Tehran has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.” But CIA director George Tenet in February 2004 acknowledged that Tehran had admitted its covert nuclear activity and agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), retreating to the posture that Tehran was “trying to preserve its WMD options.” The CIA’s technology acquisition report for 2004, actually released shortly before Porter Goss became the agency’s director, posited only that Iran “may have” a clandestine nuclear weapons program. In fact, the initial IAEA inspections had weakened the WMD charge by finding no conclusive evidence of mass production of the highly enriched uranium necessary for nuclear weapons.

The analysts who draft NIEs were burned by the Iraq prewar estimate, which has been used to try and blame the war on the CIA. They are going to be doubly careful this time around, and the judgment that Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle is being diverted to weapons is an inherently difficult one. Despite difficulties collecting intelligence in Iran, there is a lot more data for this case than for Iraq. A computer hard drive purloined from an Iranian official is reputed to be chock full of information. Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte’s analysts also have the material gleaned from the breakup of the Pakistani nuclear smuggling network, plus what the U.S. has received from Russia, Iran’s main nuclear supplier; the IAEA inspection data; that from exiles and spies; plus everything collected by satellites and drones. There is also an official today who is in charge of shaping collection on Iran, a “mission manager,” S. Leslie Ireland, a longtime Iran hand among CIA analysts.

But the intelligence problem is the classic one of identifying how long it will take before a putative Iranian threat can be a serious one. Technical experts from the International Institute of Strategic Studies, as recently as last September, held it would be at least five years until Iran could enrich enough material for a single nuclear weapon. Public reporting of the intelligence community’s own timeline agrees, expecting the emergence of a weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015. That’s not much of an excuse for bombing Nantaz today, or Tehran for that matter. In February, Negroponte, in his own threat briefing, remarked “we assess that Iran seeks nuclear weapons,” but hastened to add “We judge that Tehran probably does not yet have a nuclear weapon and probably has not yet produced or acquired the necessary fissile material.”

Which brings us back to intelligence manipulation. The staff paper released by Hoekstra was not considered by the full committee, which took no vote on releasing it. Its lead author was Frederick H. Fleitz, who in 2002 was John Bolton’s henchman in his attempted ambush of the intelligence analysts, and is now on the committee’s majority staff. Fleitz’s substantive expertise at CIA, it should be added, was in peacekeeping operations, not weapons of mass destruction. Hoekstra publicized this report unilaterally. That act sends the message that any NIE which takes a less alarming view will be deemed suspect.

All this should be read as fresh politicization of intelligence, the very “Boltonization” that crippled efforts to prevent war in Iraq. The fact that this act has been perpetrated by a congressional committee whose job it is to oversee U.S. intelligence is further evidence that intelligence oversight has become part of the problem, not the solution.

[Livyjr]

And for anyone out there who is interested in the grass-roots campaign of Democrat Tom Suozzi for Governor of the State of New York ....

This weekend ....

Tom Suozzi can be heard on:

NY1's Inside City Hall with Dominic Carter at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, August 25

WB's 11 News Closeup with Marvin Scott at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 26

WNBC Channel 4's News Forum with Gabe Pressman at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 27

Sincerely,

Team Suozzi

[Livyjr]

Bush Haiku

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. Bush.

These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.

A wonderful Haiku poem like this is too good not to share.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over .....

This is still a dangerous world ......

It's a world of madmen ....

And uncertainty .....

And potential mental losses ......

Rarely is the question asked ....

Is our children learning?

Will the highways of the Internet ....

Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me .....

I am a pitbull ....

On the pantleg of opportunity .....

I know that the human being ....

And the fish can coexist .....

Families is where our nation finds hope ....

Where our wings take dream .....

Put food on your family!

Knock down the tollbooth!

Vulcanize society!

Make the pie higher!

I am the Decider!

[Livyjr]

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over .....

This is still a dangerous world ......

It's a world of madmen ....

And uncertainty .....

And potential mental losses .....

Boy ......

I'll say there are, alright .....

Those potential mental losses, anyway .....

And that all seems to be concentrated .....

Right down there ....

In Washington, D.C. .....

Where the White House is .....

And so ....

"Baghdad's quieter, say top U.S. brass - Killings continue as questions remain about accuracy of information"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
First published: Friday, August 25, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- America's two top generals in the Middle East said Thursday a security operation in Baghdad was helping curb violence after a surge of bombings and shootings there in recent months.

But the bloodshed persisted with three car bombs in Baghdad and a series of bombings and shootings across the country killing at least 16 Iraqis and two U.S. soldiers on Thursday.

Another U.S. soldier was killed the previous day, the military said.

U.S. authorities claim a joint American and Iraqi operation in Baghdad that began in early August has improved security.

The U.S. military has said the operation, for which 12,000 troops were redeployed to Baghdad, aims to curb mostly sectarian warfare.

"I believe there is a danger of civil war in Iraq, but only a danger," Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said after meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"I think Iraq's far from it."

"I think that there's been great progress in the security front here recently in Baghdad."

Abizaid said he and Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, were "very optimistic that the situation will stabilize."

Casey also said the security operation was working.

"I think everybody has seen an improvement in the situation in Baghdad over the last weeks because of the operations of the Iraqi security forces supported by the American Army," he said.

"And we're confident that we can sustain that."

Although accurate casualty figures are not available and statistics have not been provided for violent deaths in August, an Associated Press count indicates a downward trend.

Reported deaths, however, are thought to be considerably lower than the actual number of people killed.

With one week remaining in August, the estimated number of Iraqis killed around the country was at least 605, according to an AP count.

That was about 60 percent of the estimated AP total of at 1east 1,015 killed for all of July.

But the government's count for July was far higher at 3,500, including 1,500 in Baghdad alone.

British target border

British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling.

Anti-American cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr called British relocation the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

A British military spokesman told the Washington Post the last of 1,200 troops left Camp Abu Naji, just outside of Amara, at noon Thursday after several days of heavy mortar and rocket fire by a local militia, which local residents identified as the Mahdi Army, controlled by Al-Sadr.

Six-hundred British soldiers will soon slip into the marshlands and deserts of eastern Maysan in an attempt to secure the Iranian border.

[Livyjr]

And here is a public service announcement to America and the world from George W. Bush's NSA surveillance team ......

Who wants us to know .....

THEY ARE INDEED LISTENING IN .....

ON OUR VERY THOUGHTS .....

And so .....

http://www.newsday.com/media/flash/2006-06/23671673.swf

[Livyjr]

And as the George W. Bush administration ....

Continues to ratchet down tighter .....

And tighter ...

And tighter ...

And yet tighter still ...

On what thoughts we are allowed to have ...

AS AMERICAN CITIZENS .....

About this or that ...

Or some other thing ...

And who we have to like .....

And who we have to dislike ...

BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ....

And who our friends can be ...

And who our enemies have to be ...

BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ....

Even if we ourselves have Christian beliefs .....

That have us personally ...

And individually .....

HAVING NO ENEMIES .....

We have .....

GOVERNMENT PROFILING ....

To determine ...

IF WE MIGHT BE A "GOOD" AMERICAN ....

OR AN ENEMY OF GEORGE W. BUSH ...

AND WHAT HE PERSONALLY BELIEVES IN ....

WHICH IS TOP SECRET, OF COURSE ...

LEST HIS ENEMIES KNOW WHAT HE IS THINKING .....

All of which seems excessively paranoid to me .....

From what I can glean from the gibberish he is always spouting .....

About making the pie higher .....

And humans co-existing with fish .....

And so ....

"Terror link key to trial - Federal prosecutors set to use experts to prove Albany men fit profile"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, August 26, 2006

ALBANY -- A terrorism expert is set to testify that an Albany pizza shop owner was once caught on tape mirroring Osama bin Laden's justification for the Sept. 11 attacks -- and declared "kill or be killed," according to court papers.

Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan researcher based in Singapore, will also testify that a city mosque leader is a "global jihadist," or fighter in a holy war, said documents that federal prosecutors filed in Albany.

The mosque leader, Yassin Aref, and pizzeria owner, Mohammed Hossain, were arrested in a 2004 federal counterterrorism sting and accused of taking part in a phony plot to profit from the sale of missile launchers to terrorists.

Both men are charged with money laundering.

Their trial begins Sept. 6.

A superseding indictment in September also charged Aref, 35, an Iraqi refugee, with having documented connections to key terrorist figures in the Middle East.

This week, a Binghamton judge quashed a defense attempt to subpoena documents about Gunaratna, the head of terrorism research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies and a key witness in the trial.

Gunaratna, an expert on the formation and structure of Islamist groups and their ideology and members, will try to show the jury how Aref and Hossain fit into that structure, according to a trial memo filed by federal prosecutors.

Gunaratna's expert testimony report on the defendants and the charges they face is so inflammatory, U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy ordered it sealed during a pre-trial conference Tuesday in Binghamton.

McAvoy said the document was not to be opened until he gave further notice, or until a jury renders a verdict.

Previously, the judge said Aref and Hossain's right to a fair trial warranted sealing the document only until a jury was selected.

However, portions of that text have been filed in both defense and government cases and are now public documents.

Prosecutors say that Gunaratna's testimony will lay a foundation for the jury to see how a relationship between a confidential FBI agent and Hossain developed, beginning in August 2003, and led to the full-blown sting operation.

Five months after the male agent showed Hossain a surface-to-air missile -- and Hossain purportedly made the bin Laden comment -- the 49-year-old husband and father laundered cash from the sale of the missile to Islamic zealots in New York City, according to court documents.

If Hossain wasn't mimicking bin Laden, the leader of al Qaida, when he made the remark, prosecutors, who allegedly have the scenario on videotape, say "Hossain is free to argue that he was expressing his own independent thoughts."

Defense lawyers Terence L. Kindlon and Kevin Luibrand have denied all allegations.

They say Hossain was involved in legal money exchanges and Aref was present only as a witness, per the Quran.

Kindlon also said in court papers it's unlikely Aref will testify in his own defense.

The case -- already shrouded by sealed government documents and illegal wiretapping allegations -- deepened this week when McAvoy also quashed a defense request for access to other secret documents, immigration information, and reports and notes.

They pertained not only to Gunaratna, but also to Rodney Ratledge, another key witness.

Ratledge is a weapons expert from the Alabama Defense Intelligence Agency, Missile and Space Intelligence Center at Red Stone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Ala.

Prosecutors said he is chief of a division that studies short-range surface-to-air missile systems, or SAMs, including producing scientific and technical intelligence assessments of foreign versions.

"Mr. Ratledge will testify concerning surface-to-air missiles generally, as well as the system utilized in this case, including system components, how SAMs work, identification of particular weapons, capabilities, proliferation, and use of SAMs by terrorists," documents said.

He will show the jury that Hossain knew, as he allegedly cradled one of the projectiles, that it was a "weapon of mass destruction," prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, McAvoy ordered Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth Coombe and William Pericak to give him documents related to the men's anticipated testimony to determine which, if any, should be shared with the defense.

In a written decision, he also reminded all attorneys to abide by a gag order.

Kindlon has objected to a prosecution plan to offer examples, dating 12 years, of Aref's journals, writings and contacts with people he met in the Middle East as a way of proving he has deep ties to terrorism.

Government allegations tying Aref to the Islamic Movement for Kurdistan, or the IMK, fail to note that the organization is not a designated terrorist group, he says.

Rather, it is a Kurdish nationalist group that had an office in Damascus, Syria, where Aref worked after shuttling his family out of Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

During his time at IMK, Aref had contact with Mullah Krekar, who later founded the terrorist organization Ansar al Aslam, which has been linked to attacks on both Kurdish and U.S. targets in Iraq.

Nothing in the documents filed this week indicates that McAvoy has ruled on a prosecution request to allow five FBI translators to testify using disguises and pseudonyms.

The translators are expected to explain Urdu, Kurdish, Arabic and Bengali audiotape translations and written documents that are evidence in the trial.

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at 434-2403 or by e-mail at mbolton@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

And speaking about continued REPUBLICAN EFFORTS ....

At THOUGHT-CONTROL .....

Here in OUR America ....

"Sweeney's attorney goes after TV ads - MoveOn.org attack on defense donations to congressman called false"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, August 26, 2006

U.S. Rep. John Sweeney brought in a legal big gun to aid his effort to blast two political ads off the airwaves.

Attorney E. Stewart Jones Jr. fired off a letter to local TV stations Thursday, asking them to remove the ads from MoveOn.org.

The ads depict Sweeney with his hand tinted red and claim he's been "caught red-handed" accepting donations from defense contractors.

"The MoveOn.org advertisement is demonstrably false, irresponsibly misleading and clearly defamatory," Jones wrote to the stations.

"I know that you are well aware that as an FCC licensee you have an obligation to exercise your independent editorial judgment and refuse to air such deliberately false statements."

"You also have a duty to avoid being a party to libelous, reckless, wanton or negligent character assassination and defamation of any individual, public or private, including (a) congressman."

Sweeney is running for re-election in the 20th Congressional District against Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

MoveOn.org, a liberal organization known for targeting Republicans, is paying for the ads.

Earlier this week, Sweeney's campaign mailed a similar letter.

The Republican National Congressional Committee also protested the ads, one of which says Sweeney supported hiring Halliburton as a contractor and approved $8.8 billion unaccounted for in Iraq.

The missing funds were from Iraqi oil revenue, his staff has said, and Congress does not vote to hire individual contractors.

Sweeney voted to create the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to investigate contractor fraud in Iraq, Jones wrote.

Tom Matzzie, MoveOn's Washington, D.C., director, said the letter is meant to intimidate stations.

"It looked like a cookie-cutter letter the Republicans have sent to stations all over the country," he said.

"Every place we place ads, it doesn't matter what it says, they send out nasty letters with big words trying to use the clout of the congressman."

Jones' letter stops short of saying legal action would be taken if the ads continue to run.

"It's certainly in discussion," the attorney said.

"The question is would the action be directed at MoveOn.org or with the media outlets?"

Since the ad is running in other congressional districts, Jones said, legal actions may be taken against MoveOn.org nationally.

Steve Baboulis, vice president and general manager for WNYT, said he passed the letter along to the station's attorney.

"The ad he references in his letter is not the ad that is running," Baboulis added.

There are two "caught red-handed" ads, one of which depicts dump trucks unloading cash in Iraq.

While Sweeney and the National Republican Congressional Committee have complained that ad is riddled with errors, the ad WNYT is airing targets Sweeney's acceptance of cash from defense contractors.

Both ads, however, use the "caught red-handed" theme, which Jones wrote falsely implies Sweeney has done something illegal.

Rene LaSpina, president and general manager for WTEN, said it, too, has only been asked to run one ad and it is not the one that makes charges regarding missing money in Iraq.

Still, she said, the station chose not to run the other ad.

"I'm not running it -- not because of Stew Jones," she said.

The station's counsel had advised against airing it, LaSpina said.

"It had the potential to be defamatory," she said.

"It was pretty close to the line."

Matzzie of MoveOn.org said he appreciates the extra attention the letters have generated.

"That's the ironic thing."

"Every time they send out a threatening letter, it prompts a news story," he said.

"It provides value to our ads."

Tim O'Brien can be reached at 454-5096 or by e-mail at tobrien@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

And here is an update on what is known in the corrupt REPUBLICAN EMPIRE of New York as the "Pataki STING", from just before the November 2004 elections, when it was necessary to keep Americans "scared" out of their wits with fears of TAY-RISTS lurking around, under their very beds, and in their clothes closets, to boot ........

"Sting targeted mosque leader - U.S. attorney's office files motion to limit information it must reveal about counterterrorism investigation of Albany imam and pizza shop owner; trial expected early next year"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, August 10, 2005

ALBANY -- The leader of an Albany mosque was the "ultimate target" of an FBI counterterrorism sting that began two years ago as authorities tried to learn whether the Kurdish immigrant had any ties to terrorism, according to documents filed Tuesday by the U.S. attorney's office.

The 40-page motion -- which was heavily redacted for reasons of national security -- outlined the government's case in sharp detail as it retraced how FBI agents enlisted an informant to infiltrate the Central Avenue mosque.

The motion is the government's formal request to have a federal judge limit the amount of information they have to disclose about their investigation and intelligence-gathering methods.

ref, 35, who is the spiritual leader at the mosque, and Mohammed M. Hossain, a 50-year-old pizza shop owner, were arrested a year ago on charges they took part in a scheme to make money from the sale of grenade launchers to terrorists

The FBI investigation was led by Special Agent Tim Coll, a counterterrorism agent based in Albany.

The FBI has been interested in the Central Avenue mosque since the 9/11 attacks.

Aref and other members were interviewed by FBI agents after the attacks, although no one from the mosque was ever accused of having any connection with terrorism.

Still, the FBI sought to infiltrate the mosque.

The FBI investigation "initially targeted Hossain, but had Aref as its ultimate target," according to the motion filed Tuesday.

"Coll's goal was to have Hossain introduce the (informant) to Aref, and for the (informant) similarly to engage Aref in conversation intended to determine if Aref was involved in terrorist or criminal activity."

Aref and Hossain were drawn into the sting by a Pakistani immigrant who has served as an FBI informant in other cases.

The informant went to work for the government several years ago after being arrested on charges he was helping other immigrants illegally obtain driver's licenses, according to court records.

Their supporters and lawyers have described Aref and Hossain as peaceful and deeply religious men.

But federal authorities have cast them as willing participants in a scheme to help launder $50,000 from the illicit sale of a shoulder-fired missile.

The plot was not real, but was proffered by the undercover informant who at one point allegedly showed Hossain the weapon and talked about it being used in New York City to kill a Pakistani ambassador.

In their motion Tuesday, federal prosecutors argued that Aref is not entitled to an entrapment defense because the FBI informant lured only Hossain into the sting.

While the FBI acknowledges they were hopeful the case would lead to Aref, they contend it was Hossain's choice to bring Aref into the alleged scheme as witness to their deal.

The informant cultivated a relationship with Hossain two years ago by befriending his children, including buying one of his sons a toy helicopter, according to Hossain, who owns a pizza shop and several rental properties.

Outside court Tuesday, Hossain said it has been difficult living under house arrest while the case has wended slowly toward trial.

"I am a human being, I have a limit," he said.

"I don't have any freedom."

"... Then I smile and laugh with my children and my family."

The informant, Shahed Hussain, had been facing deportation after being arrested in 2002 on fraud charges.

He pleaded guilty in April 2003 but has not been sentenced and was promised leniency for working as an informant for the FBI in at least three other undercover stings.

Those investigations, which involved driver's license scams, ensnared immigrants from China and the Middle East who were unable to pass motor vehicle exams and tried to buy their way through the process.

In the Albany mosque case, the informant allegedly tried to curry favor with Hossain by promising to help his brother, who is developmentally disabled, obtain a driver's license.

Later, at the FBI's direction, the informant allegedly asked Hossain if he wanted to participate in a plot to launder money from the sale of a missile launcher that was to be used in a terrorist attack in New York City.

Lawyers for the suspects have argued that language barriers prevented them from understanding what the informant was saying or that they were taking part in a terror-related plot.

But prosecutors have disclosed dozens of pages of wiretap transcripts from conversations between the informant and the defendants, which they say demonstrate that Aref and Hossain knew the informant was importing illegal weapons from China for "jihadists."

Last week, the Times Union, citing a law enforcement official, reported that federal authorities intended to file a superseding indictment against Aref on Tuesday that would add criminal charges to his case.

But a source close to the case this week called the newspaper's report "premature."

He said additional charges against Aref, in connection with the sting operation, will be filed in the coming weeks.

A year ago, a federal judge jailed Aref and Hossain without bond after federal prosecutors laid out their case, including information found in a notebook in Iraq that they claimed may tie Aref to terrorist activities.

But the U.S. attorney's office later acknowledged that Army intelligence experts had apparently misinterpreted a document that prosecutors cited as a link between Aref and terrorists in Iraq.

The document referred to Aref as "brother," not "commander," prosecutors said.

Authorities said the mistake did not undermine their allegation of terrorist connections in the case.

Still, U.S. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer reopened a bail hearing after the mistake was acknowledged by the Justice Department and ordered the pair released on bond while their case is pending.

Aref and Hossain are charged with money laundering, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, importing firearms without a license and conspiracy charges related to the sting.

U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy said during a status conference Tuesday that he expects to schedule the case for trial in early 2006.

The case has moved slowly because, prosecutors said, they are dealing with volumes of classified material, which they have not publicly described, that may be offered as evidence in the case.

The government also invoked the Classified Information Procedures Act last August, enabling them to file records in the case under seal.

There are several things about this "sting" that I find troubling, such as the fact that this "informant" was walking around the City of Albany, New York carrying a Stinger anti-aircraft missle in its storage box, which is kind of obvious, and yet, nobody, including the Albany police, ever questioned that, which is like something out of a Mel Brook's movie, when you think about!

In fact, maybe the "informant" was walking around Albany with the missle under his arm like it was a violin, and for all practical purposes, he might as well have been!

But what is most troubling is that this Pakistani, who was doing illegal things, and got caught, is now going to be rewarded by the United States government making him a full-blown citizen, as I last understood the situation up here.

The Pakistani "informant", himself a criminal, agreed to "sting" these others in return for citizenship, and I find that reprehensible!

OUR government sure does seem to be an awful good friend to criminals, is how I see it!

They have protection programs for them, and this Pakistani criminal gets to be an American, because he is a criminal, so go figure that out, will you .... 

"Lawyers request access in sting case - Attorneys for two men named in terrorism charges ask judge to see secret documents against clients"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Saturday, October 15, 2005

ALBANY -- Attorneys for two Albany men ensnared in a counterterrorism sting have asked a federal judge to give them access to top secret documents government prosecutors have compiled in the case.

But the request, according to sources close to the case, is unlikely to be granted by U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy, who was able to view the classified materials before they were filed under seal.

During a status conference Friday in U.S. District Court, McAvoy said the trial in the case will begin early next year.

The judge also recently ordered federal prosecutors to file a brief explaining why the defense should not have access to the secret materials, which are sealed because prosecutors contend they involve matters of "national security."

It's not clear whether the sealed materials would assist the defendants.

But without seeing them, defense attorneys said, they are at a disadvantage because they don't know every aspect of the federal government's case.

The defense attorneys, Terence Kindlon and Kevin Luibrand, underwent background checks and had to sign agreements stating they would keep secret any classified information they viewed in the case.

So far, they have not been granted access to any secret materials.

Two weeks ago, another federal judge revoked bail for one of the defendants, Yassin M. Aref, who is the spiritual leader of a Central Avenue mosque at the center of the investigation.

The judge cited new evidence proffered by prosecutors that indicates Aref may "espouse" terrorism and had once known key terrorist figures in the Middle East.

The latest allegations were outlined in a memorandum filed Sept. 29 by federal prosecutors in connection with a new round of terrorism-related charges.

Aref and another mosque member, Mohammed M. Hossain, a city pizza shop owner, were arrested Aug. 5, 2004, on a 19-count indictment charging them with money laundering in connection with a plot to sell grenade launchers to terrorists.

There was never any real terrorist plot.

Rather, the plot was concocted by FBI agents as they used an undercover informant to befriend Aref and Hossain.

The informant convinced them to take part in a scheme to sell shoulder-fired missiles to a terrorist group.

Much of the government's motions and evidence in the case have been filed under seal, viewed only by the presiding judge.

Luibrand and Kindlon both have filed motions arguing the cloaked records have undermined their ability to mount a defense.

Iraqi-born Aref, 35, is a religious scholar who was hired as imam at the Masjid As Salam mosque on Central Avenue soon after he arrived in the United States six years ago.

The mosque did not draw much attention from federal authorities until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, after which Aref and other members were questioned and, in some cases, polygraphed or detained by the FBI.

No one else at the mosque has ever been alleged to have any terrorism ties.

The FBI sting began in July 2003 when an undercover informant allegedly convinced Aref and Hossain to take part in a money-laundering scheme.

The informant, a Loudonville resident and Pakistani immigrant, allegedly lured Hossain into the deal.

Aref was enlisted to witness transactions, according to court records.

If convicted on all counts, both face sentences of more than 400 years.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

And while we are on the subject of REPUBLICAN George Pataki's capital city of Albany, New York .....

Here is an update on a story up here involving alleged TAY-RISTS that is called the "PATAKI STING" ......

This is a big TAY-RIST BUST that occurred up here just before the November 2004 presidential elections, where these two guys who got arrested were allegedly tied in to some plan to kill the Pakistani ambassador to the U.N., or some such bunkum and twaddle as that, since it was nothing more than a scam to ensnare these two guys who got arrested ....

And when they were arrested, Pataki was right there on the news, holding a press conference to tout George W. Bush as the only one in America who could keep us safe ......

And what a grand production it was ....

Scared some people up here who are easily scared, anyway .....

And so, it got George W. Bush some votes ...

Or so they say ....

And why would they say it, if it were not so?

"Suspects raise domestic spy issue - 2 Albany Muslim men accused in FBI sting seek information"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, January 5, 2006

ALBANY -- The first formal challenge of a controversial national spying program has been raised in the case of two Albany men who were ensnared last year in an FBI counterterrorism sting.

Attorneys for the Muslim men, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, recently filed motions in U.S. District Court asking the government to disclose whether the pair were subjected to the domestic surveillance measures, which triggered a national debate when the activity was first exposed last month in a report by The New York Times.

The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program relied on a secret directive issued by President Bush more than three years ago, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, that allowed the cryptic NSA to circumvent court-authorized wiretaps in the hastened hunt for terrorists here and abroad.

The Bush administration has defended the practice, contending it was a matter of national security, and not unlawful, to sift through thousands of phone calls and e-mails without a warrant or court order.

Bush said last week that the measures, implemented to monitor conversations between Americans and terror suspects abroad, are "consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities."

But the Albany investigation is a sting case, which means the government will likely be compelled at trial to show the men were predisposed to take part in a terrorism plot without any urging from an FBI informant.

However, if it turns out they were targeted because of information secretly gleaned from their e-mails or telephone calls, the entire case could be jeopardized if its foundation was based on an unlawful act, according to their attorneys.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the FBI reshaped its mission to focus on counterterrorism.

But many of their sting cases have drawn controversy.

The Albany-based sting began in July 2003 when the FBI sent an undercover informant, a Pakistani immigrant and Muslim, into Hossain's pizza shop to lure the men into a plot to make money from the sale of missile launchers to terrorists.

Federal authorities have admitted Aref was the "ultimate target" of their lengthy operation.

Aref's name, phone number and Albany address were found in a notebook recovered from a bombed-out Iraqi encampment -- about two months before the sting began -- that the government contends was occupied by "terrorists."

It's not clear when the FBI learned of the notebook entry or if it triggered the sting.

His lawyer said it's possible Aref was being monitored before the government collected any information tying him to terrorist figures.

Hossain's and Aref's confidential criminal history reports, which prosecutors have turned over to their lawyers, show no arrests outside of their Aug. 5, 2004, arrests in the sting case.

However, their criminal history reports, which are normally not public, refer to a U.S. attorney general's directive on April 11, 2002, regarding "known or suspected terrorists."

It's not clear why the entry is listed in their criminal history reports.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak, who is prosecuting the case, declined comment.

Hossain's attorney, Kevin Luibrand, and Aref's attorney, Terence L. Kindlon, also declined to discuss their motions, citing judge's orders not to discus the case.

The 2002 directive from former Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the FBI, the newly formed Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force and other federal agencies to begin coordinating their activities to fight terrorism.

Ashcroft's memo also noted an Oct. 30, 2001, directive from Bush in which the President ordered that the task force should have access to electronic surveillance and other intelligence information "to keep foreign terrorists and their supporters out of the United States."

Even if Aref and Hossain were secretly monitored by the NSA, it's not clear whether their attorneys, or, the public, will ever know.

So far, U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy, who is presiding over their case, has not granted any requests by defense attorneys for access to classified information gathered by the government.

Much of the material has been reviewed by McAvoy under seal, and not turned over to the defense teams.

The new request for access to any NSA surveillance records, if they exist, is scheduled to be addressed at a status conference slated for Monday in U.S. District Court in Albany.

Aref and Hossain were arrested last year on a 19-count indictment charging them with money laundering in connection with a plot to sell grenade launchers to terrorists.

The government has since added more charges, including allegations the men conspired to provide material support to a Pakistani terrorist group, although the support was in the form of taking part in the FBI sting.

There was never any real terrorist plot.

Hossain, a Bangladeshi immigrant who has lived in Albany for more than two decades, claims he was lured into the plot by an overzealous FBI informant.

Aref, 35, is an Iraqi-born religious scholar who was hired as imam at the Masjid As Salam mosque on Central Avenue soon after he arrived in the United States seven years ago.

Aref and Hossain had been free on bond while their case is pending, but Aref's freedom was revoked by a federal judge on Sept. 30 when federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment that contained allegations of Aref's past ties to terrorist organizations.

The case is expected to go to trial in the coming months.

"Judge refuses to dismiss charges against New York terror suspects"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:28 p.m., Monday, January 9, 2006

ALBANY, New York -- A federal judge Monday refused to dismiss charges against two Muslims accused of supporting terrorism, despite their attorneys' arguments that the men were victims of entrapment.

Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain were arrested in August 2004, and accused of laundering money for an FBI informant posing as an arms dealer.

While the men were solicited by the FBI, prosecutors said the indictment should stand because they were "willing" participants in the crime.

Judge Thomas McAvoy ruled that there was sufficient evidence to take the case to a jury.

Aref, a 35-year-old native of the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, is in jail awaiting trial.

He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1999 and is an imam at Masjid as-Salam, the Albany mosque raided Aug. 5, 2004, by federal agents following the year-long sting aimed at Aref.

Hossain, 50, a pizzeria owner, is free on bond.

A native of Bangladesh, he is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

He declined comment leaving court.

They are accused of attempting to provide support to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group listed by the federal government as a terrorist organization.

The FBI informant allegedly told the men that some $50,000 they held for him was from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used to kill a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.

Both men have pleaded innocent.

They say their faith opposes terrorism and maintain they never believed the business deal was part of a terrorist plot.

Aref is charged with lying to federal officials for failing to disclose his former membership in the nationalist Islamic Movement in Kurdistan.

He is also believed to have known Mullah Krekar, the founder of Ansar al-Islam, which U.S. authorities maintain is a terrorist group that has ties to al-Qaida and has been responsible for attacks on American forces in the Middle East.

McAvoy refused Monday to grant separate trials, saying instructions to the jury should help prevent Aref's alleged background from prejudicing jurors against Hossain.

He also reserved judgment on whether to require the FBI to disclose information about wiretaps used in the investigation.

Defense attorneys said wiretaps may have been obtained without warrants and therefore be illegal.

If convicted of all charges, authorities say Aref faces a sentence of up to 470 years in prison and $7.25 million in fines while Hossain faces 450 years in prison and $6.75 million in fines.

And here is an update on a TAY-RIZM case from REPUBLICAN George Pataki's capital city of Albany, New York that we have been tracking in here ....

And actually, I started tracking this case on the old John Kerry forum ....

Before the November 2004 elections ....

When this "big bust" was made ...

And REPUBLICAN BUSH WATER-CARRIER George Pataki had his face right there on the TV ....

Telling us how lucky we were to have REPUBLICANS in power here in OUR America ....

And how sorry we would be ....

If George W. Bush lost to Democrat John Kerry ....

The PATAKI STING .....

And DUE PROCESS OF LAW is right out the window ....

Here in George W. Bush's America ...

"Imam loses 4th bid for release - Albany suspect in FBI terror sting still danger to society, jurist rules"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, February 11, 2006

ALBANY -- An imam at an Albany mosque facing terrorism charges lost his fourth bid for bail Friday, despite a lawyer's impassioned plea that he is a peaceful, deeply religious man desperately needed by his family and faith.

"To be isolated from every other human being, especially if you're a social person, has a devastating effect," said lawyer Terence L. Kindlon.

"Over the course of the past several months he has become profoundly depressed."

Yassin Aref, 35, has been held in 22-hour-a-day protective confinement in the Rensselaer County Jail since Sept. 30, when U.S. Magistrate Judge David Homer revoked his bail after 13 months of electronically monitored house arrest.

cAref and his co-defendant, Mohammed Hossain, an Albany pizza shop owner, were caught in an FBI sting beginning in August 2003 in which they allegedly took part in a fake plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists.

Hossain is free on bail.

A superseding indictment in September also charged the Iraqi refugee with having documented connections to key terrorist figures in the Middle East.

Friday's detention hearing, again before Homer, was the fourth for Aref.

Kindlon offered three new pieces of information he said warranted Aref's release.

First, he said, government red tape could delay a trial until at least 2007, violating the right to due process.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak brushed off Kindlon's claims, saying, "I think the case will be tried long before January."

Kindlon also noted that Aref's wife, who has a mental illness, is struggling to care for three young children and a newborn on public support and isolated by language barriers.

"They talk once a week, and they cry," Kindlon said.

"In her culture there is no such thing as a single mother."

"A woman is an extension of a man."

Finally, he said, there are national published reports that say the Bush administration's National Security Agency's penchant for potentially illegal, warrantless wiretapping was specifically responsible for Aref's arrest.

If so, such criminal activity requires the indictment to be tossed immediately, Kindlon said.

He believes prosecutors have made too much of Aref's private journal entries that allegedly link him to terrorist activity.

Kindlon said his client is not guilty.

He said he is yet to see any of the government's evidence.

"The government has issued secret security clearances to me and my colleague yet as of today we've seen no classified information," he said.

"I guess they've taken the position we don't need to see it."

"In the meanwhile, my client is rotting in jail."

Pericak asserted to Homer there is nothing new to consider.

He said both the journal entries and family situation are not new.

And Kindlon's request to toss the case based on the NSA allegations is the subject of a March 13 hearing, he said.

Homer agreed that Kindlon's arguments produced new issues but said they didn't persuade him Aref deserves to be free.

Five months in jail doesn't begin to approach an excess, Homer said.

He agreed that the March hearing will address wiretap issues.

"There is a tragic element to the effect of detention," the judge said.

"But it is the judicial function not to be affected by the tragedy."

"The effect on Mrs. Aref and the children is not a material fact."

There may well be innocent explanations for Aref's journal entries, but the current conclusion is they show he has substantial ties to terrorism and, thus, is a danger to society, Homer said.

During arguments, Aref bowed his head, and then gestured vehemently to Kindlon as the judge issued his decision.

Aref's wife, children and other family filed quietly from court, refusing to comment.

Outside, Kindlon said he was desperately disappointed with the decision, his client is heartbroken, but it doesn't stop here.

When asked if he thinks the federal government is tapping lawyers' phones, Kindlon unloaded:

"I think anyone's phone may be tapped."

"This administration is acting lawlessly."

"They don't give a damn about the Constitution."

"Every time I hear George Bush speak, I think someone should really read that guy his Miranda rights."

"Shaky case keeps imam stuck in jail"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Tuesday, February 14, 2006

On Friday, the Albany imam facing terrorism and money laundering charges stemming from a phony missile launcher sting operation in 2003 again was denied bail by U.S. Magistrate David Homer.

So it was back to the Rensselaer County jail for the religious leader of an Albany mosque, Yassin Aref, 35, until the government can get its act and its case together.

Homer's bail denial is understandable, but barely, at this point.

Technically, this is a terrorism case.

But as terrorism cases go, this one is unusually shaky, along the lines of Vice President Dick Cheney's quail-shooting skills.

The government's sting operation was a clumsy affair that left us wondering if the accused was far more interested in making an illegal buck than he was in fomenting terrorist activity.

For 13 months, the imam was free on $250,000 bail, wearing a monitoring ankle bracelet.

At least he was able to work and support his young family.

As far as we have been told, the imam was a model bailee.

But bail was revoked five months ago because the government plopped down a superseding indictment that intimates the imam actually had documented connections to known terrorists.

Maybe.

Depending, no doubt, on translations that the government has blown before, and on what are to be considered "connections."

The imam's lawyers haven't seen any of this so-called damning evidence.

It's of a piece with the way this entire dismal case has progressed, more as a political sideshow than anything else.

At some point, this has to become about the rule of law, and actual illegalities, not concocted ones, and appropriate punishment for those illegalities.

The court, and the people of the region, have been patient, too patient.

It's time for the government to put up or shut up.

The federal prosecutor, William Pericak, in responding to the latest failed bail attempt, brushed aside claims of "Justice delayed is justice denied," by saying, "I think the case will be tried long before January" 2007.

I wonder.

In the meantime, what's wrong with the imam going back out on the street until that trial?

Law enforcement can effectively monitor his whereabouts, and save the taxpayers a ton of money in the process.

Also, the court can and should send out the appropriate message that the government's enormous power to accuse does not trump the individual's presumption of innocence.

Not unless there is compelling evidence otherwise.

So far, none is visible.

The joker in all this is that the imam may well turn out to be the victim of illegal wiretaps by the government anyway, which makes even the superseding indictment shaky.

This case was specifically cited as justification for the Bush administration's secret domestic electronic surveillance that has Washington deservedly in an uproar at the moment.

Next month, the imam has a scheduled hearing before Magistrate Homer on the potentially illegal wiretaps, and tossing the case out because of it.

An appropriate gambit, but probably fruitless.

There's no indication at this point that the furor over the wiretaps will be settled one way or the other by next month.

In fact, it may be years before that happens -- and the trial can be held.

Aref should not be penalized for such a delay.

Put two ankle bracelets on him if it makes the government feel more secure, but until there's a trial, let him walk.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

And then, of course ....

There is GUMMINT SECRECY here in OUR America .....

Where pretty soon ....

We won't know nothing at all ...

Because it's a secret ...

So don't tell anyone ...

And they won't know either .....

EVEN IF THEY ARE A DEFENDANT IN A CRIMINAL TRIAL ...

Here in THEIR America ......

Which is to say ...

George W. Bush's warped and twisted version of OUR America ....

Which is no longer a NATION OF LAWS .....

But a nation of the whims and foibles and outright follies of George, instead .....

"Judge upholds terror counts - Federal jurist's sealed order denies mosque case defendants' request to dismiss indictment based on national spy program"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, March 12, 2006

ALBANY - The secrecy enveloping an FBI counterterrorism case against two members of an Albany mosque continues, as a federal judge has issued a sealed order refusing to dismiss the indictment.

U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy handed down the order, which cannot be viewed by the public or defense attorneys, after reviewing a sealed motion filed by the Justice Department.

Defense attorneys Terence L. Kindlon and Kevin Luibrand, who hoped to win dismissal of the suit on the grounds it may have originated from a controversial national spying program, both said they were stunned at how the process unfolded.

Essentially, McAvoy based his decision Friday on a government motion that may never become public, although it's possible the decision will be appealed to the Second Circuit.

The attorneys had hoped their challenge of the government's case against Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, who allegedly took part in a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists, would force federal prosecutors, and the judge, to address a national debate unfolding about whether the National Security Agency violated any laws by eavesdropping on U.S. residents.

Kindlon, Aref's attorney, filed a nine-page motion in January asking for all evidence in the case to be thrown out, and for a dismissal of the indictment.

While defense lawyers have requested access to classified evidence for more than a year, the motion specifically targeted the NSA program.

Kindlon said the secrecy surrounding the government's motion and McAvoy's decision leads him to believe the program was used in this case.

In his motion, he argued:

"The government engaged in illegal electronic surveillance of thousands of U.S. persons, including Yassin Aref, then instigated a sting operation to attempt to entrap Mr. Aref into supporting a nonexistent terrorist plot, then dared to claim that the illegal NSA operation was justified because it was the only way to catch Mr. Aref."

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a motion trying to intervene in the case on the NSA issue, but it's not clear now whether the effort will be moot.

Kindlon filed his motion several days after The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the NSA spying program may have prompted the FBI to zero in on Aref and Hossain.

An analysis of the spying program by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, a noted constitutional law scholar, called the NSA eavesdropping program "as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied."

Through its sealed motion, Kindlon said, the government appeared to tacitly confirm Aref was targeted through information gleaned in the controversial spy program.

Federal authorities have acknowledged Aref was the "ultimate target" of their investigation, although they have not said why.

Two months before the sting was launched, Aref's name, phone number and Albany address were found in a notebook recovered from a bombed-out Iraqi encampment that the government contends was occupied by terrorists.

Prosecutors have laid out allegations tying Aref to top Middle East terrorist groups.

Aref has admitted he met people who the U.S. government has labeled terrorist figures, but he has denied being involved with their causes.

Officials have not made any similar charges against Hossain.

The NSA's surveillance program has relied on a secret directive President Bush issued more than three years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It allowed the agency to circumvent court-authorized wiretaps as it eavesdropped on phone calls and e-mails exchanged between U.S. residents and people abroad.

The Bush administration has defended the practice, contending it was a matter of national security, and legal, to sift through thousands of phone calls and e-mails without a warrant or court order.

The Albany-based sting began in July 2003 when an undercover FBI informant, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant, went to Hossain's pizza shop to lure the men into a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists.

No trial date has been set.

Hossain is free on bond while Aref remains jailed without bond.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

And then ...

There is the PATAKI STING .....

"Terror sting tapes sought - Lawyer for Yassin Aref asks for release of any calls as Sept. 6 trial date set for mosque leader and Mohammed Hossain"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, April 15, 2006

ALBANY -- An attorney for an Albany mosque leader has asked the government to turn over any tape recordings of calls that his client allegedly made to a Syrian phone number the Justice Department claims was used to gather intelligence for Osama bin Laden.

Terence L. Kindlon, who is the attorney for Yassin Aref, a Kurdish refugee and the jailed spiritual leader of a Central Avenue mosque, is challenging the Justice Department's assertions that Aref aided terrorists when he called the Syrian number between 1999 and 2001.

"Yassin Aref assures me that those 13 calls, which the government is apparently claiming connect him to a terrorist organization, Ansar al Islam ... (were) personal in nature and do not in any way connect him to any alleged terrorist activity," Kindlon wrote in a letter this week to U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy.

The request, which is intended to force the government to disclose whether it secretly recorded Aref's telephone calls, was filed as McAvoy set a September trial date for Aref and another mosque member, Mohammed Hossain, who were indicted two years ago in connection with an FBI counterterrorism sting.

"The court has set a trial date of Sept. 6 and the government looks forward to putting on its proof," said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak.

But pending challenges by defense attorneys, who are seeking access to classified government records involving their clients, could delay the start of the trial several months.

Last month, the defense attorneys asked the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to intervene.

Their formal request seeks to undo the Justice Department's efforts to keep secret whether the National Security Agency eavesdropped on the e-mails or telephone calls of Aref and Hossain and whether the spying may have triggered the sting investigation.

It was the first challenge of the controversial NSA program in a federal appeals court, but it's not certain the circuit court will agree to hear the case.

If the NSA program triggered the sting, both Kindlon and Hossain's attorney, Kevin Luibrand, said they hope to have the indictment against their clients thrown out on the grounds it was the "poisonous fruit" of an unlawful wiretap.

But aside from the fight for that information in the appellate court, Kindlon's request this week is geared toward forcing the court to again address the NSA issue.

This time, Kindlon argues that any tape recordings should be disclosed because they could potentially exonerate his client in terms of any connections to terrorist figures.

His request was based on classified documents unsealed on March 21 that the Justice Department said show that Aref was linked to terrorist figures because he called a phone number linked to al-Qaida.

There was no information outlining what was discussed in the calls, though, and most of the FBI report was blacked out before being released.

The report claims an informant told the FBI that during October 2001 he was approached by someone soliciting intelligence about "flight training schools, access to airports in (redacted)" and information about "how close the individual could get to an aircraft."

The informant said he was instructed that any information could be distributed to "brothers" through two phone numbers in Damascus, Syria.

The report does not say anything about Aref.

But one of the numbers that the FBI believes was linked to terrorism was called repeatedly by Aref from his Albany home, according to federal authorities.

Kindlon said the information is meaningless because the number was at the headquarters for Islamic Movement for Kurdistan, a political organization which had an office in Damascus where Aref had worked after fleeing Iraq.

Aref called IMK because he had made many friends there, Kindlon added.

Aref and Hossain were arrested in August 2004 and accused of taking part in a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists.

So far, defense attorneys in this and other terror-related cases have been thwarted in their attempts to learn whether the NSA program was used against their clients.

U.S. government officials have refused to publicly disclose the controversial program's use in any specific case.

The NSA's surveillance program has relied on a secret directive President Bush issued more than three years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It allowed the agency to circumvent court-authorized wiretaps as it eavesdropped on phone calls and e-mails exchanged between U.S. residents and people abroad.

The Bush administration has defended the practice, contending it was a matter of national security, and legal, to sift through thousands of phone calls and e-mails without a warrant or court order.

In January, The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, first reported that the NSA spying program may have prompted the FBI to zero in on Aref and Hossain.

Federal authorities have acknowledged Aref, a Kurdish refugee and religious scholar, was the "ultimate target" of their investigation, although they have not said why.

Aref has admitted he met people who the U.S. government has labeled terrorist figures, but he has denied being involved with their causes.

Officials have not made any similar charges against Hossain.

Hossain is free on bond while Aref remains jailed without bond pending trial.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

And here is something else that needs to be said ...

As well ....

And so .....

"Parallels of inequity in terror cases"

Fred LeBrun, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, April 25, 2006

For the second time, government prosecutors have had to significantly back down on claims against the accused in local terrorism cases.

First it was the sting involving the still-to-be-tried imam of an Albany mosque.

A critical word in an incriminating document that the federal government took to the grand jury as "commander" turned out to be "brother."

That revelation certainly deflated the U.S. attorney's case against Kurdish refugee Yassin Aref as far as the public was concerned.

Now, what yet another grand jury was told were high crimes by a Chinese immigrant living in Guilderland turn out to be the equivalent of jaywalking thanks to a screw-up by the State Department.

Jun Wang, a microbiologist at Wadsworth Laboratories of the state Health Department, was accused of mailing sensitive guidance systems back to China, ostensibly for the military.

But then we learned the same guidance systems are legally sold in China, as they are all over the world, and Wang's only impropriety was a procedural one of not filling out proper export papers.

Meanwhile, Wang -- who was hired at the Health Department through a contractor -- spent a month in jail.

He was fired from his job because the contractor got skittish from the publicity, according to Wang's attorney, Kevin Luibrand.

And Wang is threatened with deportation.

So sorry we erred and ruined your life, Mr. Wang.

What inevitably happens to cases like these two, which get big media buildups but turn out to be molehills, is that the accused pay a big price whether they are guilty or not.

All to salve the ego and arrogance of our Justice Department, which wouldn't think of walking away in the interests of justice.

It's the "where there's smoke, there's fire" prosecutorial strategy.

OK, so there was no fire, but we think we smell smoke, so let them pay for the fire anyway.

In this instance, Wang is still confined to his home, having posted $250,000 bail, all because the government hasn't been able to track every one of those guidance systems to the university Wang said they were going to.

You know what?

So what.

If these guidance systems are on the open market and anybody can buy them, there's no point to tracking them all down.

It's not as if Wang was trying to hide any of the transactions, which should have been a tip-off to the feds.

The money from China was wired directly to Wang's SEFCU credit union account, and he sent electronics back to his brother by snail mail.

Now the government is combing through Wang's tax returns to see if he declared the transactions.

This is beyond ridiculous.

If there was no crime, then hounding Wang amounts to malicious prosecution, regardless of the 9/11 embargo of our civil rights by the Bush administration.

Granted, in the cases of both Aref and Wang we do not know, and are unlikely to ever know with certitude, what is in their hearts, what their true motivations were.

With Aref, the evidence strongly points to making a buck.

With Wang, we just don't know.

Fair is fair.

The same can be said for not knowing what is in the hearts of the prosecutors.

Sad to say, their motivations are proving to be even murkier than those of the two men they are prosecuting.

As this Pataki Sting case continues along ...

It just seems to get weirder .....

And weirder ....

And still weirder, yet .....

And as one of the opinion pieces above says .....

It really is up the THE PEOPLE up here .....

Those who would be the jurors in this case .....

Which could be people just like you ...

Or me ....

To really be attentive .....

To just what has been going on here ....

Starting with this Pakistani dude .....

Who is not an American citizen ...

Or at least he was not back when he was arrested here in the State of New York .....

For scamming people .....

In a Motor Vehicles scam .....

Involving New York State driver's licenses .....

Which should have gotten his sorry *** deported ....

BUT INSTEAD ....

All of a sudden ....

He is now an FBI AGENT ....

And by scamming these two Pataki Sting suspects ....

This Pakistani ....

IS GOING TO BECOME AN AMERICAN ....

JUST LIKE YOU AND ME .....

EXCEPT HE IS GETTING TO BE ONE ...

BY HAVING A CRIMINAL RECORD .....

WHICH SOMEHOW GOES AGAINST OUR AMERICAN VALUES ...

AT LEAST AS THEY USED TO BE .....

BEFORE GEORGE W. BUSH ...

AND HIS CROWD ...

TURNED OUR LAWS ....

AND OUR CONSTITUTION ....

ON THEIR EARS ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

And while that bit of BUSHIAN HOCUS-POCUS ....

Known as the PATAKI STING .....

Is playing itself out .....

Up here in the federal District Court ....

For the Northern District of New York ....

Where the American concept ....

Of JUSTICE FOR ALL .....

Is turning into a real mockery ....

Let's take a jump over ...

To some of the other BUSHIAN HOCUS-POCUS .....

Which is plaguing OUR world ....

And our future .....

As a democratic REPUBLIC ....

And so ....

WHAT ELSE, OF COURSE .....

But scads more violence ....

Over there in George W. Bush's possession ....

Of Iraq ....

Despite the assurances .....

Of George ....

And Dick Cheney .....

That this on-going mess ....

Is somehow in OUR national interest .....

And is somehow making us "safer" ....

As a nation ...

Although they can never say how that is ....

And so ....

"Violence sweeps Iraq; more than 50 dead"

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:26 p.m., Sunday, August 27, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A wave of bomb attacks and shootings swept Iraq Sunday, killing dozens of people despite a massive security operation in the capital and appeals from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an end to sectarian fighting.

Al-Maliki insisted that his government was making progress in combatting attacks by insurgents and sectarian clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.

"We're not in a civil war."

"Iraq will never be in a civil war," he said through an interpreter on CNN's Late Edition.

"The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing."

Asked about U.S. allegations that Iran is supporting Iraqi groups involved in sectarian violence, al-Maliki said the reports were being investigated.

He said Iraqi authorities were in contact with Iran in order to determine the veracity of the information "and to prevent this interference."

The Shiite prime minister dodged a series of questions about Iraqi support for Hezbollah and whether his government had any intention of recognizing Israel.

"This issue is not on the table at this point," al-Maliki said of diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, adding that the issue of Israel should be handled by "international laws."

Across Iraq, Sunday's attacks left more than 50 people dead.

A group of assailants in three cars raked an open-air night market with gunfire, killing at least 12 people and wounding 25 others, police said.

The gunmen fired indiscriminately at throngs of people at the main market of Khalis, a mostly Shiite town 50 miles north of Baghdad, Diyala provincial police said.

Earlier in the day, another six people were killed and 14 wounded when a bomb exploded on the outskirts of the town.

The U.S. military command said two U.S. soldiers were killed -- one by small-arms fire in eastern Baghdad Sunday afternoon, and the other on Saturday night when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb southeast of the capital.

A U.S. official also said a U.S. armored vehicle was attacked on Sunday outside Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, "resulting in casualties."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the U.S. military command had not yet issued a statement on the incident, could not give details on the number of casualties or their condition.

In downtown Baghdad, a bomb in a minibus exploded outside the Palestine Hotel, killing nine people and wounding 16, while a car bomb outside the offices of a government-run newspaper left three dead and at least 29 wounded, police and witnesses said.

Two back-to-back suicide car bombings in the northern city of Kirkuk killed nine people and wounded 22, hours another suicide car bomb killed one person and wounded 16.

In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, a motorcycle bomb at a night market killed four people and wounded 15, the governor's office said.

Drive-by shootings also killed two people in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad; one in Numaniyah, a town near Kut, 100 miles southeast of the capital; and another three -- believed to be the bodyguards of a member of parliament -- in Dujail, 50 miles north of the capital, police in both cities said.

In Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of eight people in various parts of the city, Capt. Rasheed Al-Samerayi of Mahmoudiyah police said.

All had been handcuffed and blindfolded, he said.

The U.S. military command said Iraqi and coalition forces were expanding a security operation in the capital that aims to crack down on violence neighborhood by neighborhood.

Security forces were to cordon off and search all the buildings in the Sunni district of Azamiyah in north Baghdad, the command said in a statement.

Since Aug. 7, about 12,000 additional U.S. and Iraqi troops have been brought into the capital as part of the security effort, dubbed "Operation Together Forward," and have covered four of the most problematic capital neighborhoods.

The security sweep has already "resulted in a 36 percent reduction of murders across the city of Baghdad," said Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad.

British Ambassador to Iraq Dominic Asquith said that, while sectarian violence persisted, it had not reached the level of civil war.

"There is no question there is sectarian violence going on, inspired by people who are determined to fan the flames of sectarian violence," Asquith told reporters.

"That sectarian violence is very focused on Baghdad."

"And you know well that there are large areas of Iraq that are not affected by that sectarian violence."

"I've spent some of my time in Lebanon in earlier years and this does not look to me like civil war," he said.

On Saturday, the prime minister appealed to Iraqis to support his national reconciliation plan to end the bloodshed.

But the persistent killings showed that is still a distant goal, even though it was endorsed by hundreds of tribal chiefs at a conference on Saturday who signed a "pact of honor" to support the prime minister's effort.

------

Associated Press writers Yahya Barzanji, Vijay Joshi and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Baghdad.

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the subject .....

Of rampant and blatant BUSHIAN HOCUS-POCUS .....

In OUR America today ....

We have .....

"Hearings delayed for Marines in Calif."

Associated Press
Last updated: 8:45 p.m., Saturday, August 26, 2006

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Pretrial hearings for two Marines accused of kidnapping and murder have been delayed, a military official said Saturday.

Cpls. Marshall L. Magincalda and Trent D. Thomas were originally due to appear in court Monday, but their attorneys asked for more time, said Camp Pendleton spokesman Lt. Col. Sean Gibson.

Magincalda is now set to appear Wednesday, and Thomas's hearing has been pushed back until October, Gibson said.

Another Marine, Pfc. John J. Jodka III, is also set to appear at a hearing Wednesday.

The men are among seven Marines and one Navy corpsman accused of kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi civilian in the town of Hamdania last spring.

All are in the brig at Camp Pendleton and could face the death penalty.

Thomas also is charged with assaulting an Iraqi civilian in an unrelated incident April 10.

The hearings form a key part of an Article 32 investigation, where an officer determines if there is probable cause to bring a defendant to trial.

The delay is the latest in a string of changes to the hearing dates, and further postponements are possible.

Jane Siegel, an attorney for Jodka, said his defense team might request a continuance.

Investigators say the seven Marines and one sailor went into Hamdania, took a man from his home, tied him up, put him in a hole and shot him without provocation.

Through their lawyers and families, the men have denied any wrongdoing.

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the subject .....

Of rampant and blatant BUSHIAN HOCUS-POCUS .....

In OUR America today ....

We have .....

"Guilty plea in kickback scheme"

Associated Press
Last updated: 7:55 p.m., Friday, August 25, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A former U.S. Army Reserve officer admitted Friday that he steered millions of dollars in Iraq-reconstruction contracts in exchange for jewelry, computers, cigars and sexual favors.

Bruce D. Hopfengardner, 46, of Fredericksburg, Va., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud.

Hopfengardner served as a special adviser to the U.S.-led occupation forces, recommending funding for projects on law enforcement facilities in Iraq.

He admitted conspiring with Philip H. Bloom, a U.S. citizen with businesses in Romania, Robert J. Stein Jr., a former Defense Department contract official, and others to create a corrupt bidding process that included the theft of $2 million in reconstruction money.

Hopfengardner is the first military officer to plead guilty in the conspiracy.

Bloom and Stein already have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the scheme.

Hopfengardner's role was to recommend that the Coalition Provisional Authority fund projects to demolish the Ba'ath Party headquarters, rebuild a police academy and construct various other facilities.

Bloom, who controlled companies in Iraq and Romania, bid on projects using dummy corporations and Stein ensured that one of the firms was awarded the contract, according to court documents.

The businessman allegedly showered Hopfengardner and Stein with cash, cars, premium airline seats, jewelry, alcohol and even sexual favors from women at his Baghdad villa.

"A Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army today admits to a disturbing abuse of his position, in scheming with others to defraud the government for their own personal and financial gain," Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said in a prepared statement.

Court papers said Hopfengardner demanded that Bloom pay for a white 2004 GMC Yukon Denali with a sandstone interior.

At Hopfengardner's request, Bloom also allegedly paid the air fare for Hopfengardner and his wife to travel from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., while he was on leave in January 2004.

E-mails that prosecutors made public in April show that Bloom told his employees to spare no expense in satisfying the officials who controlled contracts in the CPA's regional office in Hillah, about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

As part of the plea agreement, Hopfengardner surrendered a car, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, camera equipment, a Breitling watch valued at $5,700 and a computer.

He also agreed to forfeit $144,500, prosecutors said.

end quotes

Hey .....

As the BUSHCOS say .....

If it feels good .....

Well ...

Go ahead and do it .....

After all .....

Everyone else is ....

And so ....

Somehow .....

It seems that going after just one BUSHCO ....

For corruption ...

Is like singling out just one driver .....

At the Indianapolis 500 ....

For a speeding ticket .....

For driving fast .....

And so ...

[Livyjr]

And then ....

There is what MOTHER NATURE .....

Might be dishing out to us ....

And so ...

I've been wondering what happened .....

To all the hurricanes .....

That we have been supposed to get this year ....

And here we go ....

Well .....

Maybe, anyway .....

And so ...

"Bush declares state of emergency in Fla."

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:16 p.m., Sunday, August 27, 2006

KEY WEST, Fla. -- A hurricane watch was issued Sunday for the Florida Keys and Gov. Jeb Bush ordered a state of emergency in anticipation of Tropical Storm Ernesto.

Ernesto, which had strengthened into a hurricane for about 10 hours, weakened back into a tropical storm by late afternoon with top sustained winds of 60 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Still, the Miami-based hurricane center said the storm could reclaim its hurricane status before reaching the southeastern coast of Cuba on Monday morning.

"It certainly looks like it's going to impact a significant portion of Florida before it's all over," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center.

Florida has been hit by eight hurricanes in the past two years.

Officials in the Keys told tourists to postpone any immediate plans to travel there and ordered those already in the island chain to leave.

All travel trailers and recreational vehicles were ordered off the islands immediately.

Residents were taking notice too: a Home Depot store in Key West was busy Sunday afternoon as customers shopped for generators and other storm-preparation equipment.

"We put up the storm shutters today and we're hitting the grocery store tomorrow," said Ben Cassis, who, along with his father-in-law, spent nearly $2,500 for a powerful generator Sunday.

The state of emergency directs counties to open their emergency management offices and activates the National Guard, among other things.

Bush canceled a scheduled trip to New York on Monday, choosing to stay in Tallahassee and monitor storm developments.

Ernesto, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Sunday.

The storm was expected to arrive in southern Florida by early Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Tourists including Jim Rogers, of Lodi, N.J., made preparations Sunday to leave the low-lying Keys, which are connected to each other by just one highway, U.S. 1.

Traffic leaving the Keys on the single evacuation route was steady but not heavy Sunday afternoon.

Rogers was part of a group of eight visiting Key Largo and had planned to stay in the Keys until Thursday or Friday.

Rogers said the group now might go to Naples, but they were not going home.

"You don't know where to go."

"You don't know where it's going to blow," he said.

"You don't want to be in Key West."

------

Associated Press writer Phil Davis in Tampa contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

"Of war and peace - History shows military victories can lay foundation for future strife and instability"

By ANDREW J. BACEVICH
First published: Sunday, August 27, 2006

In the wake of the war in southern Lebanon, claims of victory are legion.

Hardly had the shooting stopped than Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was asserting that Hezbollah had triumphed.

Others see Syria or Iran or even Shiite Islam as the big winner.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, seconded by President Bush, doggedly insists that Israel came out on top.

What are we to make of these competing claims?

What is victory anyway?

Ardently pursued, victory in the modern era has been remarkably elusive.

Genuine victory implies something more than military success; it must have a political dimension.

Even then, results often prove other than expected.

Understanding why requires that we appreciate the intimate relationship between war and politics.

"Victory" that defeats the enemy but leaves intact the issues giving rise to war in the first place is likely to prove hollow.

The ensuing "peace" is false; after a brief interval, hostilities are likely to resume.

World War I offers a classic illustration: At horrific cost, the Allies broke the German army, but did not break German ambition, which soon revived.

Worse, World War I served as a petri dish for political dysfunction in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and, especially, the Middle East.

The victory that in November 1918 appeared conclusive instead provided the incubus for future violence.

The 1945 Allied victory finally solved the German problem, crushing the hegemonic ambitions that had roiled European politics since the middle of the 19th century.

In this sense, victory produced something tangible.

Henceforth, Germany would be of Europe but would not rule Europe.

Americans like to think that victory in 1945 also solved the problem posed by Japan.

Did it?

Even today, as the controversial Yasukuni Shrine reminds us, many Japanese cling to a different understanding of the Pacific war's origins and justification.

As far as China and South Korea are concerned, victory in 1945 did not solve their Japan problem; that problem persists and is growing.

If East Asia becomes the locus of renewed great power competition between China and Japan, V-J Day will no longer look quite so decisive.

Military victory in 1945 as clear-cut as any in history emphatically did not produce peace.

Instead, it created the conditions for a new conflict, the Cold War, which began almost immediately.

Ambiguous shooting wars in places such as Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan ensued, as did a succession of conflicts in the Middle East.

In 1967, conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors yielded what appeared to be a decidedly unambiguous outcome.

With the United States mired embarrassingly in Vietnam, here was plucky little Israel rolling up its enemies on three fronts.

But what did this exemplary battlefield success produce?

Apart from preserving the Jewish state from destruction as a considerable achievement the fruits of victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the Six-Day War proved disappointing.

Beaten in battle, the Arabs were far from defeated politically.

A more dangerous conflict with Egypt ensued just six years later.

More tragically, victory-induced dreams of a Greater Israel served only to enlarge and aggravate Israel's Palestinian problem.

Out of the ugly, debilitating conflict that ensued came Hamas and Hezbollah.

Since 1967, Israel has won a thousand little fights, but victory that actually settles something remains a chimera.

The truth is that absent an Israeli willingness to engage in total war, as the Allies did against the Axis, the Palestinians will never submit and even then the Arabs would be unlikely to make peace.

When the Cold War finally ended in 1989, many in the West proclaimed it the greatest victory since 1945.

But it was a paradoxical victory: We did not defeat the enemy militarily, and yet the political issues underlying the Cold War had quietly vanished.

The Soviets gave up their empire and gave up promoting revolution.

We "won" without firing a shot.

Before Americans could contemplate the significance of this paradox, yet another shooting war intruded: Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

The Persian Gulf War produced a seemingly stupendous military victory for the U.S.-led coalition.

But events soon showed this to be an illusion.

Saddam survived, so the underlying political problem remained.

Americans celebrated their glitzy "Hundred-Hour War," but then somehow lost sight of the jousting that continued throughout the next decade as U.S. forces conducted hundreds of air strikes against Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 intent on correcting the "mistake" of 1991 by getting rid of Saddam.

Operation Iraqi Freedom also produced a slam-dunk victory.

This time we had finished the job.

Yet to our dismay, once again a military victory produced not peace but something akin to chaos, which continues to the present day.

How could this be?

It turns out that the Bush administration, seeing war as a strictly military enterprise, had misread Iraqi politics.

Instead of paving the way for democracy, using a U.S. army to remove the hated Iraqi dictator (and then keeping that army on hand to supervise the aftermath) merely released pent-up forces bent on using violence to achieve their ambitions.

In Iraq, as elsewhere in the Middle East, they do politics with guns.

Frustrated American hawks and some anxious Israelis now want to up the ante.

Believing that big victories require big wars, some advocate attacking Iran.

The appeal is clear: At least in its initial stages, a war with Iran would play to the U.S. or Israeli strong suit.

It would be a war of "shock and awe" rather than of ambushes and roadside bombs.

But even if a war against Iran were winnable militarily - a large assumption indeed - would victory solve our political problems?

History says don't count on it.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor at Boston University. He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

[Livyjr]

"Of war and peace - History shows military victories can lay foundation for future strife and instability" 
 
By ANDREW J. BACEVICH
First published: Sunday, August 27, 2006

Americans celebrated their glitzy "Hundred-Hour War," but then somehow lost sight of the jousting that continued throughout the next decade as U.S. forces conducted hundreds of air strikes against Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 intent on correcting the "mistake" of 1991 by getting rid of Saddam.

Operation Iraqi Freedom also produced a slam-dunk victory.

This time we had finished the job.

Yet to our dismay, once again a military victory produced not peace but something akin to chaos, which continues to the present day.

How could this be?

It turns out that the Bush administration, seeing war as a strictly military enterprise, had misread Iraqi politics.

Instead of paving the way for democracy, using a U.S. army to remove the hated Iraqi dictator (and then keeping that army on hand to supervise the aftermath) merely released pent-up forces bent on using violence to achieve their ambitions.

In Iraq, as elsewhere in the Middle East, they do politics with guns.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor at Boston University. He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.

WAR AS A PUBLICITY STUNT ....

Yeah, right, George, Karl and Dick Cheney, too .....

Park an aircraft carrier off the coast of California .....

Where it is safe from harm, of course ....

Have George W. Bush jump out of an airplane .....

And stand there ...

In his custom flight suit ....

Looking very MANLY MANLY, of course .....

Under a great big sign that says, wrongly .....

Or fraudulently .....

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

And the American public will just suck that scene right up ....

And they will believe ...

Mistakenly .....

That the great big sign is stating some kind of truth ....

Which it is not ...

And that will be that ...

And so ...

"Dozens killed in Iraq; 8 U.S. troops die"

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:35 a.m., Monday, August 28, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A surge in bloodshed Monday left nearly 50 people dead in a suicide car bombing and clashes between Shiite militia and Iraqi security forces Monday, in a brutal contradiction of the prime minister's claim that violence was decreasing.

In one of the deadliest weekends for U.S. forces in recent months, the U.S. military said eight U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday and Sunday in and around Baghdad, seven of them by roadside bombs and one by gunfire.

The deaths followed a day of bombings and shootings on Sunday, when more than 60 people were killed across the country, from the northern city of Kirkuk to the capital Baghdad and down to the south in Basra.

In the city of Diwaniyah, gunbattles between Iraqi forces and militiamen of the Mahdi Army loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr left at least 34 people dead and about 70 wounded, Iraqi officials said.

The fighting broke out late Sunday night when Iraqi soldiers conducted raids in three neighborhoods to flush out the militiamen and seize weapons, said army Capt. Fatik Aied.

He said the fighting continued Monday.

Dr. Mohammed Abdul-Muhsen of the city's general hospital said 34 bodies were brought in -- 25 Iraqi soldiers, seven civilians and two militiamen.

He said at least 70 people were injured, but could not immediately give a breakdown.

Fatik said the militiamen were using rocket propelled grenades and automatic assault rifles.

At least 10 militiamen had been arrested, he said.

Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, is a Shiite dominated city where the influence of Mahdi Army has been gradually increasing.

It already runs a virtual parallel government in Sadr City, a slum in eastern Baghdad.

But the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has found it difficult to rein in al-Sadr, whose movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr's backing also helped al-Maliki win the top job during painstaking negotiations within the Shiite alliance that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Al-Sadr mounted two major uprisings against the American-led coalition in 2004 when U.S. authorities closed his newspaper and pushed an Iraqi judge into issuing an arrest warrant against him.

But American forces have also been wary of confronting the Mahdi Army because of al-Sadr's clout over the government and his large following among Shiites, who are in a majority in Iraq.

Some 10,000 Iraqis have been killed in the last four months alone in unrelenting attacks by Sunni and Shiite extremists on each other's communities, as well as bombings and shootings by Sunni Arab insurgents.

In Baghdad, a car suicide bomber slammed into a police checkpoint outside the Interior Ministry in midmorning Monday, when traffic is usually heavy.

The blast could be heard more than a mile away, and smoke could be seen rising from the scene.

The blast killed 14 people, including eight policemen, police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.

He said 17 policemen were among the wounded.

The U.S. military said eight U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday and Sunday in and around Baghdad, seven of them by roadside bombs and one by gunfire.

More than 2,600 U.S. military personnel have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press Count.

The renewed violence undercut Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's claim that government forces were prevailing over insurgents and sectarian extremists.

"We're not in a civil war."

"Iraq will never be in a civil war," he said through an interpreter on CNN television Sunday.

"The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing."

His statement came on a day when Iraq saw a string of bombings and shooting across the country.

In one of the deadliest attacks, a group of assailants in three cars opened fire at an open-air night market in Khalis, a mostly Shiite town 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding 25 others, the town's hospital and police said.

A suicide bomber on a minibus near the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad killed eight civilians and wounded 18, the Iraqi government said, while two back-to-back suicide car bombings in the northern city of Kirkuk killed nine people hours after another suicide car bomb killed one person.

In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, a motorcycle bomb at a night market Sunday killed four people and wounded 15, the governor's office said.

--------

Associated Press writers Vijay Joshi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

end quotes

GO BACK TO SLEEP ...

GO BACK TO SLEEP ...

GO BACK TO SLEEP ...

This above is just some drivel from the LIBERAL news media ...

That is intended to make George W. Bush .....

Look weak and ineffectual .....

With CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS in OUR America ....

Looming large on the horizon ....

The mission in Iraq is really over ...

Because George W. Bush said it is ....

And he wouldn't have said that ...

If it wasn't true .....

And so .....

IF YOU WANT OUR AMERICA ....

TO BE AS SAFE AS IRAQ IS ....

VOTE REPUBLICAN .....

And you will have your wishes fulfilled ...

And so ...

[Livyjr]

What is going on in Iraq right now ....

Is a product .....

Of George W. Bush's GUT ....

Which is where his primary thinking is done .....

And so ....

If it looks like **** to you ...

What is going on over there now ...

As it does to me ....

Well ....

"Bush needs more smart thinking, less gut reaction"

By DAVID G. MYERS
First published: Sunday, August 27, 2006

Say this much for President Bush: He is not deaf to the inner whispers of his intuition.

"I know there's no evidence that shows the death penalty has a deterrent effect," he reportedly said as Texas governor, "but I just feel in my gut it must be true."

Six years and two wars into his presidency, the President still relies on his gut instincts.

His recent fly-in to Baghdad was, he explained to U.S. troops, "to look Prime Minister (Nouri) Maliki in the eyes -- to determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are."

The President's snap assessment?

"I believe he is."

He told Larry King in an interview last month:

"If you make decisions based upon what you believe in your heart of hearts, you stay resolved."

In flying by the seat of his pants, Bush has much company.

"Buried deep within each and every one of us, there is an instinctive, heart-felt awareness that provides -- if we allow it to -- the most reliable guide," offered Prince Charles, whose decisions also have been relentlessly second-guessed for much of his adult life.

For those disposed to follow their inner guide, today's pop psychology offers books on "intuitive healing," "intuitive learning," "intuitive managing," "intuitive trading" and much more.

So, when hiring and firing, fearing and risking, investing and gambling, should we follow Bush's example and tune down that analytical, linear, left-brained mind?

Should we stop obsessing over logic and data and trust the force within?

Today's psychological science documents a vast intuitive mind.

More than we realize, our thinking, memory and attitudes operate on two levels -- conscious and unconscious -- with the larger part operating automatically.

We know more than we know we know.

Studies show that as we gain expertise, even reasoned judgments can become automatic.

Rather than wend their way through a decision tree, experienced car mechanics and physicians will often, after a quick listen and look, diagnose problems.

Chess masters intuitively know the right move.

And Japanese chicken sexers use complex pattern recognition to separate newborn pullets and cockerels with near perfect accuracy.

Moreover, we're all experts when it comes to reading people's emotions.

Psychologists Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal report that after viewing mere "thin slices" of college professors' teaching -- three two-second clips -- observers' ratings of them correlate well with students' end-of-semester ratings.

To gain a sense of someone's energy and warmth, six seconds will often do.

So is our President smart to harness the powers of his intuition?

Or should he, and we, be subjecting our hunches to scrutiny?

Intuition is important, but we often underestimate its perils.

My geographical intuition tells me that Reno is east of Los Angeles and that Rome is south of New York.

But I am wrong.

"The first principle," said Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, "is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool."

In hundreds of experiments, people have greatly overestimated their eyewitness recollections, their interviewee assessments and their stock-picking talents.

It's humbling to realize how often we misjudge and mispredict reality and then display "belief perseverance" when facing disconfirming information.

We fear things that claim lives in bunches.

Smoking kills 400,000 Americans a year, and carbon dioxide looks to be the biggest weapon of mass destruction, but terrorists frighten us more.

We are told, but are unmoved by, statistics showing that the most dangerous part of air travel is the drive to the airport.

Intuition -- automatic, effortless, unreasoned thinking -- guides our lives.

But intuition also errs, and false intuitions may go before a fall.

After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bush felt that he had him sized up.

"I looked the man in the eye," Bush said.

"I was able to get a sense of his soul."

But the President has since expressed frustration at Putin's democracy-suffocating record.

Bush also told journalist and author Bob Woodward that intuition was a key to his decision to launch the Iraq war:

"I'm a gut player."

"I rely on my instincts."

Bush still insists that he made the right decision, but most Americans now disagree.

The President, like all of us, should check his intuitions against the facts.

He can welcome the creative whispers of the unseen mind, but only as the beginning of inquiry.

Smart thinking often begins with hunches but continues as one examines assumptions, evaluates evidence, invites critique and tests conclusions.

As Proverbs says: "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool."

David G. Myers, a social psychologist at Hope College in Michigan, is the author of "Intuition: Its Powers and Perils." He wrote this article for The Los Angeles Times.

end quotes

When the VEET NAM war was going on ...

George's GUT ....

Told him to cut and run ....

And get his *** out of harm's way .....

Which was probably a good move on his part ...

Since George just might not have had the right stuff to have lasted very long over there .....

And when George crawled into a whiskey bottle ....

And stayed in there for quite a few years ....

That was his GUT telling him ....

That "wrapping the whiskey blanket" around himself for comfort ....

Was what life had intended for him at that time ...

And once again ...

He was probably right .....

And when he stood on that aircraft carrier .....

And told us ....

That the mission in Iraq was over .....

Well .....

That **** came from his GUT as well ....

Right down onto OUR America's head ...

Like pigeon droppings from above ....

And so ...