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

[Livyjr]

And speaking of George ....

As he rapidly fades to being little more than a footnote in a history book ...

Like Crassus before him .....

"Oh, yeah ....."

"That guy ...."

We have from America's George as follows .....

YADA, YADA, YADA .....

"Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

1 hour, 14 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Bush, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said Wednesday he remains confident Osama bin Laden "will be brought to justice" despite a so-far futile five-year hunt.

Bush also suggested that the United States and India, where he was headed next, have still not reached a deal over U.S. help for India's civilian nuclear program.

"People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan," Bush said as he stood side-by-side with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Amid extremely tight security, Bush made the surprise visit in Afghanistan at the onset of a scheduled visit to India and Pakistan.

"It's a thrill to come to a country which is dedicating itself to the dignity of every person who lives here," said Bush said, making his first visit to Afghanistan.

For his part, Karzai greeted Bush as "our great friend, our great supporter, a man who helped us liberate."

Asked about the search for bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States, and of the president's call for getting him "dead or alive," Bush said the search for bin Laden and his associates continues.

"It's not a matter of if they're captured and brought to justice, it's when they're brought to justice," Bush said.

Bush flew here secretly to support the fledging Afghan government in the face of rising violence from al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Bush's entourage flew into the city from Bagram Air Base in a flotilla of heavily armed helicopters.

Two door gunners on a press helicopter fired off a short burst of machine gun fire at unknown targets as the aircraft flew low and fast over barren countryside.

Bush arrived safely at the presidential palace where he was greeted by Karzai.

The two leaders spoke with reporters during a brief news conference after their meeting.

Afterward, Bush presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new U.S. embassy in Kabul.

He told embassy workers they were "on the front line of freedom's march."

Before leaving Afghanistan, Bush was to give a pep talk to U.S. troops at the air base where he landed and departed.

Asked twice at his news conference about bin Laden, Bush said, "I am confident he will be brought to justice."

"What's happening is that we've got U.S. forces on the hunt."

"... There are Afghan forces on the hunt, not only for bin Laden but also those who plot and plan with him."

"We've got Pakistan forces on the hunt."

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The suspected presence of Taliban militants in Pakistan has become a source of tension in relations with Afghanistan.

More than two dozen suicide attacks in recent months have fueled Afghan suspicions that militants are operating out of Pakistan.

Bush said that, when he is in Pakistan later this week, he will raise the issue of cross border infiltrations with Pakistan's president.

Of hopes to be able to announce a nuclear agreement with India, Bush said that, "This is a difficult issue."

"This is a difficult issue for the Indian government."

"This is a difficult issue for the American government."

He said officials of both governments were continuing talks, even as he headed to India.

Bush has promised to sell India nuclear technology and materials to help it with its civilian nuclear energy program, but the deal is hung up on reaching accord on how to ensure that the assistance isn't diverted into weapons programs.

"Our relationship with India is broader than our discussions about energy," Bush said.

"Ours is a strategic relationship."

U.S. restrictions on providing nuclear assistance to India, slapped on after India's nuclear weapons testing, remain in place.

Bush was accompanied by his wife, Laura, who visited Afghanistan in April 2005.

Vice President Dick Cheney visited there in December 2005.

"We're impressed by the progress that your country is making," Bush told Karzai.

"I come as a friend and an ally."

end quotes

All the federales say ......

They could have had him any day .....

They only let him slip away ...

Because of those big bucks that he had to pay ....

For them to turn their backs and look the other way .....

And I am surprised that George W. Bush does not have a NATURAL-BORN KILLER like Dick Cheney out there ON THE HUNT for Osama bin Laden .....

Of course, it just might be that the BIG GRIZ is afraid of something that might actually shoot back .....

And so ....

Safer hunting for OUR Dick, then ...

Things like real small and helpless birds .....

And scrawny old Texas lawyers .....

And so ...

[jeffmoskin]

Thinking of you, Livyjr:


(March 01, 2006 -- 12:22 AM EST // link)

This is a post to let you know that I exercised some self-control and didn't do the post about how Gateway Computers has made a covert pact with Satan to sell substandard computer hardware and back it up with service so bad it is guaranteed to push even a relatively well-balanced individual to the brink of insanity. Just wanted to let you know that.
-- Josh Marshall


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[Livyjr]

And while we are on the subject of "reality" in here ...

Where everything is virtual ....

Including us ..

We have from that "other dimension" out there as follows .....

News of the FREIGHT TRAIN WINDS which rolled through here so many days ago ....

Wrecking havoc and destruction in their wake ....

Kind of like George W. Bush in his passage through this world of OURS ......

When you think on it ...

"Clues confirm wind's power - Some meteorological sleuthing shows recent storm was a whopper"

By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 1, 2006

The wind that tore through Saratoga County on Feb. 17 was one of the fiercest ever recorded in the Capital Region.

But it took some after-the-fact detective work to confirm the data were really caused by wicked winds and not just malfunctioning machines.

The detective in this case was Steve Pertgen, who has worked for the National Weather Service in Albany for 26 years.

He is the one who must weigh the data against all other evidence and decide if a reading appears to be accurate or a glitch.

For instance, a weather service thermometer in Albany will occasionally insist the outdoor temperature is over 200.

The morning of the wind storm saw gusts in the Capital Region of 66 mph in Columbia County and 60 mph in Fulton County.

But a reading from the Saratoga County Airport at 9:52 a.m. caught Pertgen and his co-workers' attention.

For six minutes, the wind gauge recorded gusts of 85 knots, roughly 98 mph.

"I was questioning it."

"We were all questioning it."

"No one else saw any damage in that area, and with (winds) so high you would expect some."

Emergency management officials in Saratoga County had seen no damage that might that corresponded with hurricane-force winds: 98 mph winds would have ripped roofs off buildings or moved vehicles.

Several days later, Pertgen paid a visit to Saratoga County.

As he drove up Middle Line Road in Milton, he saw downed fences and signposts, as well as serious damage to some homes in a trailer park near the airport.

At the airport, he saw a single-engine plane with wings designed to give the vehicle lift at wind speeds over 80 mph.

It seemed to have bounced.

Though the plane was tied down during the storm, Pertgen said, he saw dents in the asphalt where it had broken one of its moorings and lifted several feet in the wind.

And just along the airport's perimeter, a portion of a chain-link fence had apparently blown down.

Pertgen thought leaves had collected against the fence, creating a solid surface for the wind to push.

"As you could imagine, it would take quite a bit to push down a chain-link fence with leaves."

"You don't think of what wind can do," he said.

That clinched it for him.

Pertgen determined the wind gauge recorded huge gusts resulting from a downburst, a passing thunderstorm at the edge of the moving weather front.

But he still hesitates to call the reading a record.

No official wind records are kept for Saratoga County, so it's possible that gusts have been higher.

It's certainly higher than any gust recorded at the Albany Airport in the last 56 years.

In May 1998 wind gusted to 82 mph, in a storm that touched off a tornado in Mechanicville and cut power to 60,000 homes.

In November 1950, wind speeds rose to 70 mph in Albany and reached 90 mph in New York City.

The most recent windstorm was a front that stretched across New York and raced east.

Steven DiRienzo, another meteorologist at the Albany weather service office, said the winds lined up with each other, traveling in unison at different altitudes, making one massive and very rapid front.

"I've never seen the models forecast a front to move from Rochester to Boston in six hours, but that's exactly what happened," he said.

The storm brought sustained winds of 60 mph or more.

Trees buckled and power lines snapped, cutting electricity to tens of thousands of National Grid customers in the region.

In Saratoga Springs, state Department of Transportation worker George Green was killed when wind toppled a pine tree onto his pickup truck as he drove through Saratoga Spa State Park.

Thousands of people remained without heat or electricity through the weekend, and authorities opened emergency shelters to give people a break from plunging temperatures.

And that happened with plenty of warning.

The weather service first began to alert the public of high wind dangers on the previous Tuesday.

DiRienzo said advances in meteorology have given forecasters the ability to warn people of dangerous weather further in advance, but it's still not perfect.

The 98 mph gust was almost 30 mph higher than the highest winds forecast.

"We generally can give people 72 hours' warning that something serious is going on, but even right up to an event things can change."

"(Storms) can make a sharp turn, or not turn when you expect them to."

Dan Higgins can be reached at 454-5523, or by e-mail at dhiggins@timesunion.com.

AIR POWER

One of the highest wind speeds ever recorded in the Capital Region measured 98 mph on Feb. 17 at the Saratoga County Airport. Here are the three highest readings from a weather station at Albany International Airport:

May 31, 1998 82 mph

July 15, 1995 77 mph

Nov. 25, 1950 70 mph

Source: National Weather Service

end quotes

By way of example, I live between Rochester and Boston .....

And driving west on the New York State Thruway at the legal speed limit .....

It is about four hours to Rochester ......

While Boston is three and a half hours to the east .....

SO ...

If the wind did it in just six hours .....

It had to be speeding ...

In which case ...

It should have gotten a ticket ...

And paid a fine ...

Like we would have had to do if we were going that fast ...

And so ..

I think we need some new laws up here, and a lot tougher enforcement program, which would probably have to be from the federal government ...

Since these murderous winds are seemingly hiding out in mountainous areas of some states west of where I am ...

And then ...

They are crossing state boundaries as they come out to maraud around out here ....

SAY .....

You don't think ...

Could it be ...

al-Quaida?

They used to call the wind MARIAH ...

But now, that has changed ....

Oh, woe is us ...

And where oh where is George W. Bush, the NEW SHERIFF in town when you need him ...

And that answer is that he is never around ...

EXCEPT WHEN THERE IS CREDIT TO BE GRABBED FOR SOMETHING THAT HE DID NOT HIMSELF REALLY DO ....

And then he will be there ...

So long as it is a good photo-op ...

And the SECURITY is really tight ....

For OUR George gets scared easily ...

And so ...

[Livyjr]

Thinking of you, Livyjr:

(March 01, 2006 -- 12:22 AM EST // link)

This is a post to let you know that I exercised some self-control and didn't do the post about how Gateway Computers has made a covert pact with Satan to sell substandard computer hardware and back it up with service so bad it is guaranteed to push even a relatively well-balanced individual to the brink of insanity.

Just wanted to let you know that.

-- Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

Well, jeffmoskin .....

The GATEWAY SAGA .....

I finally did get my computer fixed ...

After calling the office of GATEWAY CEO Wayne Inouye and telling his answering machine that I was one real ***ed-off old man out here with a lot of time on my hands and a BLOG-Site out here in the endless uncharted realms of CYBERSPACE where I was going to scream and scream and scream about being screwed by GATEWAY and its incompetence, and perhaps worse .....

Then I got a call from CORPORATE ESCALATIONS, as it was called ...

And I got some "personal service" ....

And after an interminable period of time, it seemed ...

Finally, I got my own computer back to me, and in working order .....

BUT NEVER AGAIN .....

And talking to a computer tech up here, it is not only GATEWAY that might be pushing out inferior crap at inflated prices, but DELL as well ....

Catch the suckers on the front end ...

When they pay too much for what is not going to work when they get it ...

And then ...

Have the suckers (US) pay for maintenance agreements ...

And then ..

When the computers don't work ...

We are told it is OUR fault ...

Or that the companies are not responsible ...

Because the crap was really made by some other corporation such as Intel ..

And so ..

[Livyjr]

"Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

"People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan," Bush said as he stood side-by-side with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"It's a thrill to come to a country which is dedicating itself to the dignity of every person who lives here," said Bush said, making his first visit to Afghanistan.

Yeah, George ...

The world is watching alright .....

And some are calculating PROFITS .....

"Report: Afghan Opium Stymies U.S. Efforts"

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 54 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Opium production and trafficking account for one-third of Afghanistan's economy and is complicating U.S. efforts to rebuild the country and its government, a State Department report said Wednesday.

The number of acres under opium cultivation dropped 48 percent last year, but output declined by only 10 percent because of good weather, the report said.

Opium is the main ingredient of heroin.

"Afghanistan's huge drug trade severely impacts efforts to rebuild the economy, develop a strong democratic government based on rule of law, and threatens regional stability," the report said.

It said dangerous security conditions and corruption are hindering government and international efforts to combat the drug trade and provide alternative incomes.

The reduction in planting, the report said, may be credited to several factors, including a surplus crop from 2004 and public information efforts against poppy cultivation.

The annual report, mandated by Congress, was released shortly after President Bush made an unannounced four-hour visit to Afghanistan while en route to India.

The 900-page study, titled "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report," examines production, trafficking, money laundering and financial crimes in all countries.

The report offered a generally upbeat assessment of the situation in Colombia, the world's leading producer of cocaine.

Colombia had a record year in 2005 for drug eradication and interdiction, and in the extradition of suspected traffickers to the United States, the report said.

Even so, the report said the Colombian government detected "massive replanting and reconstitution efforts" by traffickers in some areas.

Cocaine is derived from coca, which is cultivated largely in areas under the control of illegal armed groups that earn substantial sums from trafficking in cocaine and heroin.

In some other countries, the report said:

_Coca cultivation has increased in Peru and Bolivia.

_Opium poppy production in Pakistan decreased by 58 percent last year. But Pakistan "is on the frontline of the war against drugs as a major transit country for opiates and hashish from neighboring Afghanistan."

_There was no change in Mexico's role as the principal transit country for cocaine entering the United States. Mexico also served as the main foreign source of marijuana consumed in the U.S. as well as a major supplier of heroin.

_Venezuela is a key transit point for drugs leaving Colombia, a situation aggravated by "rampant corruption at the highest levels of law enforcement and a weak judicial system."

"As a result, organized crime flourishes, with seizures and arrests of underlings more an annoyance than a threat," the report stated.

The Bush administration has clashed repeatedly in recent months with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
___

On the Net:

State Department: http://www.state.gov/

[Snuffysmith]

Where Are the Good Americans?

By JEREMY BRECHER & BRENDAN SMITH

Anyone who sees the photographs of the victims of the Nazi concentration camps must wonder how human beings could ever have allowed such things to happen. They must wonder how people of good will could have stood by while their government committed atrocities in their name. In the wake of that nightmarish era, people often asked, "Where were the good Germans?"
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12123.htm

[Livyjr]

Where Are the Good Americans?

By JEREMY BRECHER & BRENDAN SMITH

An old friend of mine was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne in WWII .....

So he got a full-paid tour of the battlefields of Europe during WWII ....

Courtesy of OUR government ...

And being on the ground, as an infantryman .....

He had a lot of contact with the German people as our army made its way across Germany .....

And that is something that we always pondered when we would speak of those times ...

Where were the good Germans ....

And when I was young and being educated, that was a subject of conversation in the classroom as well ....

HOW WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT .....

How that could not happen over here ..

Because of OUR form of government, supposedly ...

And because of how we were educated, supposedly ....

And because we were supposedly free and independent as individuals .....

So that, SUPPOSEDLY, it would be very difficult or impossible to convert us over into being herd animals as the Germans allegedly were during WWII .....

All I can say, all these years later, is how mistaken all those teachers really were ......

[Livyjr]

Roman Disaster at Carrhae (cont'd)

By Brian Dent

Then the horrifying drumming began again, and Crassus finally learned his son's fate.

The Parthians rode forward with Publius' head on the point of a spear, and, Plutarch wrote, "scoffingly inquired where his parents were, and what family he was of, because it was impossible that so brave and gallant a warrior should be the son of so pitiful a coward as Crassus."

And that talk of how whole populations of people can seemingly turn real stupid in a short amount of time is a good segue back to Crassus .....

Crassus the PIG-HEADED Roman fool who lost his head in the desert, like George W. Bush, over wild and grandiose schemes intended to HEAP GLORY upon the perpetrator of those GLORIOUS DEEDS .........

Roman Disaster at Carrhae (cont'd)

By Brian Dent

Crassus for once kept himself together, and made no outward show of dismay.

He even tried to exhort his men with a patriotic speech, but Plutarch claimed that "he saw but few who gave much heed to him."

When he ordered a cheer, the army only "made a faint and unsteady noise."

Whether Crassus knew it or not, the battle of Carrhae was lost, but his legions, seeing no better option, fought on, suffering heavy losses, until nightfall.

At that point, Plutarch wrote, Crassus "wrapped his cloak around him, and hid himself."

That night, Cassius and some other officers who saw that he had suffered a complete breakdown, took upon themselves the decision to withdraw all the able-bodied troops they could to the town of Carrhae, leaving their wounded behind.

When the retirement began, however, and the wounded realized they were being abandoned, Plutarch noted that a "strange confusion and disorder, with an outcry and lamentation," seized the camp.

This dreadful wailing of the wounded seems to have horrified the escaping legionaries, so that instead of slipping away quietly they simply ran, "as if the enemy were at their heels."

In the confusion and the dark the fleeing columns became separated, with the result that some groups never made it to Carrhae, and those that did wandered in throughout the long night.

The Parthians, though aware of the Romans' escape that night, made no effort to pursue them.

The next morning they entered the abandoned camp and slaughtered the surviving wounded, to the number of 4,000.

They also picked off a number of stragglers who got lost on the night march to Carrhae.

Four companies were surrounded on a nearby hill and all but 20 killed - the survivors escaping with their lives only because the Parthians let them go, out of admiration for their bravery.

While that slaughter went on, the main Parthian force was laying siege to Crassus and the surviving Romans in Carrhae.

Surena himself rode to the city gate and demanded the delivery of Crassus in chains as a precondition of any negotiations.

Incredibly, Crassus at first entertained the fantastic hope that the Armenians would come to his rescue, until his officers brought him to his senses.

The Romans ultimately decided to split divide their army into small groups and go their separate ways under different commanders, again under cover of darkness.

The final pathetic phase of Crassus' campaign began when he opted once again to hire a local guide to lead him and his 1,500-man contingent in their breakout.

Not surprisingly, that guide also turned out to be a spy.

That night, Plutarch wrote, he led Crassus out of Carrhae and "into the midst of morasses and places full of ditches," so that the Romans were hopelessly lost as morning broke, then disappeared.

Crassus' band did find their way to a road, but were immediately forced to retreat back into the thickets when the Parthians discovered them.

The Parthians attacked, but Crassus was momentarily saved when another band of wandering Romans, also misled, spotted his position and came to his rescue.

By then the spy had informed Surena of Crassus' position and the Parthian general treacherously offered the Romans a truce, claiming that he intended to let them go home under honorable terms.

Crassus reluctantly went to Surena's camp to discuss the terms and was promptly murdered.

The rest of the Romans in Crassus' contingent either surrendered or were hunted down and killed.

A number of Romans did manage to escape from Carrhae that night, including the group led by Cassius.

Plutarch estimated the final count of Roman casualties to be 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured.

In the aftermath of Carrhae, Surena led his army back to Seleucia in a procession he mockingly called a "triumph."

A captured Roman soldier who physically resembled his late commander was placed at the head of the army, forced forced to wear women's clothes and to answer to the name of Crassus.

Surena's soldiers marched behind, each carrying a Roman head.

Behind them came Parthian singing women, chanting what Plutarch described as "abusive songs on the cowardice and effeminacy of Crassus."

Surena delivered Crassus' head and one of his dismembered hands to King Orodes at a feast, which was held to celebrate the marriage of Orodes' son to the sister of the Armenian king.

Surena's reward for his great victory, according to Plutarch, was to be executed, "out of mere envy."

But Orodes would join the general he betrayed in 38 BC, at the hands of his own son, Phraactes.

The young man at first tried to poison his father, but when Orodes began to recover, Phraactes "was forced to take the shortest course, and strangled him."

As for Rome, the immediate effect of Carrhae, apart from the disgrace, was the upsetting of the political situation caused by the death of a triumvir.

With Crassus dead, the rule of three became a rule of two.

But even that proved to be one ruler too many.

The way was now clear for civil war, as Pompey and Caesar squared off to fight for supremacy in Rome.

Parthian Sequel: Mark Antony in the East

Seventeen years after the Battle of Carrhae, Marcus Antonius, aka Mark Antony, tried to redeem Roman honor by re-invading Parthia.

But his campaign fared little better than that of Marcus Licinius Crassus, with the notable exception that Antony came back alive.

Antony's official pretext for the campaign was to recover the standards and prisoners lost by Crassus, but his true motives were remarkably similar to Crassus'.

a member of the Second Triumvirate, Antony sought military glory to counter-balance the power of his co-ruler, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the future Emperor Augustus.

Indeed, only the threat of losing his political prestige could bestir Antony from the bed of his paramour, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII.

Antony's first move upon entering Parthian territory in 36 BC was to lay siege to the city of Phraata.

But Antony was in such haste to depart for Phraata (according to Plutarch, to conquer it quickly and return to Cleopatra) that he failed to bring along any siege equipment, including his 80-foot ram.

As a result his army was routed and he decided to suspend the campaign.

Antony's troubles were only beginning.

As he tried to march his army back to the safety of Armenia, he was abandoned by his disgusted ally, King Artavasdes - the same Artavasdes who so preoccupied Crassus' thoughts in 53 BC.

Food supplies ran out, and many of the soldiers became sick.

Meanwhile, the Parthians, led by King Phraates IV - the regicidal son of the late Orodes II - harassed the column throughout its march.

At least Antony did not repeat the most glaring mistakes of Crassus' venture.

He did not trust Phraates' offer of safe passage in return for surrender, and refused the services of a guide in a journey across the desert, instead following a course over hilly terrain that was unfavorable to Parthian cavalry.

He also made better use of his own cavalry, actually driving the Parthians from the field in several skirmishes.

Hunger and disease continued to wrack the army, however, and at one point some of Antony's troops actually mutinied.

Plutarch reported that rioting legionaries stormed into his tent, and "broke all his rich tables and cups, dividing the fragments among them."

Antony thought that the Parthians were attacking the camp, and ordered his armor-bearer to run him through with his sword if the base should be overrun.

Order was finally restored the next morning.

At last, 27 days after the retreat from Phraata, Antony's ragged troops reached safety, where Plutarch said they "kissed the ground for joy, shedding tears and embracing each other in their delight."

Twenty-four thousand Romans perished in this ill-starred campaign, half from disease.

Antony next went into winter quarters, where Plutarch wrote that he anxiously awaited Cleopatra's arrival and passed his time "in wine and drunkenness."

Blaming Artavasdes for his failure, Antony kidnapped the Armenian king, had him bound and displayed him in Egypt, where the Roman commander awarded himself a triumph for this great victory.

But triumph or not, it would be many years before Rome dared venture again into a war with the Parthians or their successors, the Sassanids.

B.D.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article was written by Belleville, Illinois-based contributor Bryan Dent. For further reading, he recommends: Plutarch's Lives and Warfare in the Classical World by John Warry.
This article was originally published on TheHistoryNet.com in June 2005 issue for Military History magazine.

[Livyjr]

And that talk of how whole populations of people can seemingly turn real stupid in a short amount of time is a good segue back to Crassus .....

Crassus the PIG-HEADED Roman fool who lost his head in the desert, like George W. Bush, over wild and grandiose schemes intended to HEAP GLORY upon the perpetrator of those GLORIOUS DEEDS .........

Roman Disaster at Carrhae (cont'd)

By Brian Dent

Crassus for once kept himself together, and made no outward show of dismay.

He even tried to exhort his men with a patriotic speech, but Plutarch claimed that "he saw but few who gave much heed to him."

When he ordered a cheer, the army only "made a faint and unsteady noise."

And while we are on the subject of PIG-HEADED FOOLS and the GLORIOUS DEEDS that they perpetrate in their passings on this earth of OURS ....

We have George ...

And his ....

And I'll tell you what ...

If that boy comes around to your country offering you some "DEMOCRACY" ......

Watch out ....

He's not out there to change anything ..

He just don't like competition ..

That's all ....

"Pace: Torture, Killings Widespread in Iraq"

By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 48 minutes ago

SYDNEY, Australia - Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday.

John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"But now, no."

"Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."

Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse.

"It is certainly as bad," he said.

"It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam."

Pace, currently a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, spoke as sectarian tensions in Iraq push the country to the brink of civil war.

There has been a surge in religious violence in Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and a spate of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.

The situation has been made worse by extremist Shiite militia operating within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, said Pace, who singled out the Badr Brigade, which makes up a large chunk of the Iraqi security services and military.

He said militia and insurgents are responsible for threatening morgue staff in Baghdad not to perform autopsies on bodies of apparent victims of torture and killings.

"They are told it is not necessary, and not in their interests," he said, adding that both militia and insurgents were "trying to minimize any chances" that their activities could be investigated and prosecuted.

Pace, who spent much of his two years in the post in Iraq, said he visited the morgue in Baghdad once a week when he was in the city and regarded it as a "barometer" of the level of violence in the country.

He declined to provide more specific details about the threats, citing fears for the safety of morgue workers.

He said that around three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to the morgue each month were categorized with "gunshot wound" as the cause of death — a phrase Pace says is a euphemism.

"Nearly all were executed and tortured," he added.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which ran the Badr Brigade.

Badr claims it is no longer an armed militia.

But former Badr commanders hold key posts in Interior Ministry commando units, which are regarded by Sunnis as nothing more than death squads.

In November, the U.S. Army raided an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad and found 158 tortured and starved Sunni prisoners.

"They have caused havoc," said Pace, referring to the Badr Brigade.

"They do basically as they please."

"They arrest people, they torture people, they execute people, they detain people, they negotiate ransom and they do that with impunity."

end quotes

REPUBLICAN-style politics on the march through this world of OURS .....

With George W. Bush as their IMPERATOR ....

Like Crassus before him ....

And a whole host of other tyrants as well ....

In whose footsteps America's George treds ....

And where, oh where are the "good poeple"?

Besides huddling in fear, or dead, as the REPUBLICANS take full control of this world of OURS ...

Through their SURROGATES, of course, such as this BADR BRIGADE ....

And so ....

[jeffmoskin]

An old friend of mine was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne in WWII .....

So he got a full-paid tour of the battlefields of Europe during WWII ....

Courtesy of OUR government ...

And being on the ground, as an infantryman .....

He had a lot of contact with the German people as our army made its way across Germany .....

And that is something that we always pondered when we would speak of those times ...

Where were the good Germans ....

And when I was young and being educated, that was a subject of conversation in the classroom as well ....

HOW WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT .....

How that could not happen over here ..

Because of OUR form of government, supposedly ...

And because of how we were educated, supposedly ....

And because we were supposedly free and independent as individuals .....

So that, SUPPOSEDLY, it would be very difficult or impossible to convert us over into being herd animals as the Germans allegedly were during WWII .....

All I can say, all these years later, is how mistaken all those teachers really were ......

Having a few years on you, Livyjr, I always wondered, growing up, the same thing - - WHERE WERE THE GOOD GERMANS?

And later, in college, I wondered, 'how could the same people who produced Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, as well as modern science and mathematics, have been taken over IN SUCH A SHORT TIME by fanatics?

I don't ask myself those questions anymore.

[Snuffysmith]

ADMINISTRATION
What Bush Was Told About Iraq
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 2, 2006

Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.


The president received highly classified intelligence reports containing information at odds with his justifications for going to war.


Position papers, expert contacts and other resources from Policy Council members are available below.

The first report, delivered to Bush in early October 2002, was a one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that discussed whether Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes was for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon.

Among other things, the report stated that the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were "intended for conventional weapons," a view disagreeing with that of other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which believed that the tubes were intended for a nuclear bomb.

The disclosure that Bush was informed of the DOE and State dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies.

When U.S. inspectors entered Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime, they determined that Iraq's nuclear program had been dormant for more than a decade and that the aluminum tubes had been used only for artillery shells.

The second classified report, delivered to Bush in early January 2003, was also a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, this one focusing on whether Saddam would launch an unprovoked attack on the United States, either directly, or indirectly by working with terrorists.

The report stated that U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that it was unlikely that Saddam would try to attack the United States -- except if "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime" or if he intended to "extract revenge" for such an assault, according to records and sources.

The single dissent in the report again came from State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, which believed that the Iraqi leader was "unlikely to conduct clandestine attacks against the U.S. homeland even if [his] regime's demise is imminent" as the result of a U.S. invasion.

On at least four earlier occasions, beginning in the spring of 2002, according to the same records and sources, the president was informed during his morning intelligence briefing that U.S. intelligence agencies believed it was unlikely that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States.

However, in the months leading up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and Cabinet members repeatedly asserted that Saddam was likely to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or to provide such weapons to Al Qaeda or another terrorist group.

The Bush administration used the potential threat from Saddam as a major rationale in making the case to go to war. The president cited the threat in an address to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, in an October 7, 2002, speech to the American people, and in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003.

The one-page documents prepared for Bush are known as the "President's Summary" of the much longer and more detailed National Intelligence Estimates that combine the analysis and judgments of agencies throughout the intelligence community.

An NIE, according to the Web site of the National Intelligence Council -- the interagency group that coordinates the documents' production -- represents "the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community regarding the likely course of future events" and is written with the goal of providing "policy makers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information -- regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy." (The January 2003 NIE, for example, was titled "Nontraditional Threats to the U.S. Homeland Through 2007.")

As many as six to eight agencies, foremost among them the CIA, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the INR, contribute to the drafting of an NIE. If any one of those intelligence agencies disagrees with the majority view on major conclusions, the NIE includes the dissenting view.

The one-page summary for the president allows intelligence agencies to emphasize what they believe to be the conclusions from the broader NIE that are the most important to communicate to the commander-in-chief.

The President's Summary is among the most highly classified papers in the government. References to the summaries are contained in footnotes in the so-called Robb-Silberman report -- officially, the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction -- that was issued in March 2005 on the use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. The White House has refused to declassify the summaries or to give them to congressional committees.

The summaries stated that both the Energy and State departments dissented on the aluminum tubes question. This is the first evidence that Bush was aware of the intense debate within the government during the time that he, Cheney, and members of the Cabinet were citing the procurement of the tubes as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program.

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 12, 2002, the president asserted, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon."

On October 7, 2002, less than a week after Bush was given the summary, he said in a speech in Cincinnati: "Evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahedeen' -- his nuclear holy warriors.... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

On numerous other occasions, Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and then-U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte cited Iraq's procurement of aluminum tubes without disclosing that the intelligence community was split as to their end use. The fact that the president was informed of the dissents by Energy and State is also significant because Rice and other administration officials have said that Bush did not know about those dissenting views when he made claims about the purported uses for the tubes.

On July 11, 2003, aboard Air Force One during a presidential trip to Africa, Rice was asked about the National Intelligence Estimate and whether the president knew of the dissenting views among intelligence agencies regarding Iraq's procurement of the aluminum tubes.

Months earlier, disagreement existed within the administration over how to characterize the aluminum tubes in a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to the U.N. on February 5, 2003. Breaking ranks with others in the administration, Powell decided to refer to the internal debate among government agencies over Iraq's intended use of the tubes.

Asked about this by a reporter on Air Force One, Rice said: "I'm saying that when we put [Powell's speech] together... the secretary decided that he would caveat the aluminum tubes, which he did.... The secretary also has an intelligence arm that happened to hold that view."

Rice added, "Now, if there were any doubts about the underlying intelligence to that NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the president, to the vice president, or to me."

The one-page October 2002 President's Summary specifically told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that the use of the aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort... INR and DOE believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons uses."

The lengthier NIE -- more than 90 pages -- contained significantly more detail describing the disagreement between the CIA and the Pentagon's DIA on one hand, which believed that the tubes were meant for centrifuges, and State's INR and the Energy Department, which believed that they were meant for artillery shells. Administration officials had said that the president would not have read the full-length paper. They also had said that many of the details of INR's dissent were contained in a special text box that was positioned far away from the main text of the report.

But the one-page summary, several senior government officials said in interviews, was written specifically for Bush, was handed to the president by then-CIA Director George Tenet, and was read in Tenet's presence.

In addition, Rice, Cheney, and dozens of other high-level Bush administration policy makers received a highly classified intelligence assessment, known as a Senior Executive Memorandum, on the aluminum tubes issue. Circulated on January 10, 2003, the memo was titled "Questions on Why Iraq Is Procuring Aluminum Tubes and What the IAEA Has Found to Date."

The paper included discussion regarding the fact that the INR, Energy, and the United Nations atomic energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, all believed that Iraq was using the aluminum tubes for conventional weapons programs.

The lengthier NIE also contained a note regarding the aluminum tubes disagreement:

"In INR's view, Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose.

"INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets."

One week after Rice's comments aboard Air Force One, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration declassified some portions of the NIE, including the passage quoted above, regarding INR's dissent regarding the aluminum tubes.

But the Bush administration steadfastly continued to refuse to declassify the President's Summary of the NIE, which in the words of one senior official, is the "one document which illustrates what the president knew and when he knew it." The administration also refused to furnish copies of the paper to congressional intelligence committees.

That a summary was also prepared for Bush on the question of Saddam's intentions regarding an unprovoked attack on the United States is significant because the administration has claimed that the president was unaware of intelligence information that conflicted with his public statements and those of the vice president and members of his Cabinet on the justifications for attacking Iraq.

According to interviews and records, Bush personally read the one-page summary in Tenet's presence during the morning intelligence briefing, and the two spoke about it at some length. Sources familiar with the summary said it was highly significant that the president was informed that it was the unanimous conclusion of the intelligence agencies participating in the production of the January 2003 NIE that Saddam was unlikely to consider attacking the U.S. unless Iraq was attacked first.

Cheney received virtually the same intelligence information, according to the same records and interviews. The president's summaries have been shared with the vice president as a matter of course during the Bush presidency.

The conclusion among intelligence agencies that Saddam was unlikely to consider attacking the United States unless attacked first was also outlined in Senior Executive Intelligence Briefs, highly classified daily intelligence papers distributed to several hundred executive branch officials and to the congressional intelligence oversight committees.

During the second half of 2002, the president and vice president repeatedly cited the threat from Saddam in their public statements. "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us," Cheney declared on August 26, 2002, to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

In his September 12 address to the U.N. General Assembly, Bush said: "With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September the 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors."

In an October 7 address to the nation, Bush cited intelligence showing that Iraq had a fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons. "We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States," the president declared.

"We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America," he added. "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints."

In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, the president once again warned the nation: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

In March 2003, as American, British, and other military forces prepared to invade Iraq, the president repeated the warnings during a summit in the Azores islands of Portugal and in a March 17 speech to the nation on the eve of the war. "The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological, or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country," Bush said in the March 17 speech. "The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it."

Senior Bush administration officials say they had good reason to disbelieve the intelligence that was provided to them by the CIA, noting that the intelligence the agency had provided earlier regarding Iraq was flawed.

And more recently, a 511-page bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on prewar intelligence regarding Iraq concluded: "Despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was little useful intelligence collected that helped analysis determine the Iraqi regime's possible links with Al Qaeda."

The White House declined to comment for this story. In a statement, Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council said, "The president of the United States has talked about this matter directly, as have a myriad of other administration officials. At this juncture, we have nothing to add to that body of information."

The 9/11 commission concluded in its final report that no evidence existed of a "collaborative operational relationship" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, adding, "Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."

[Snuffysmith]

I also posted this in the Book Corner:


Save the planet-- one guillontine at a time.
In the future, people will look back at this era and wonder that we Americans spent our lives and our fortunes battling fascism in Italy, Germany and Japan in World War Two, only to watch our own country slide into a new kind of fascism "Neo-Conservatism" It's easy to see how our country is transforming itself into an Italian-style form of fascism.

Here are some books to enlighten and give hope:
'Strategic Ignorance : Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress'
'Prelude to Terror : The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network'
'Kiss My--Left Behind'
'Towel Snapping the Press : Bush's Journey from Locker-Room Antics to Message Control (Communication, Media, and Politics)'
'Veering Right : How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes'
'The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism: Global Reactions, Global Consequences'
'Fascists in Christian Clothing : The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy'
'It Can't Happen Here (Signet Classics (Paperback))'
'Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to The White House'
'The Jolly President : Or Letters George W. Bush Never Read'
'What We've Lost : How the Bush Administration Has Curtailed Our Freedoms, Mortgaged Our Economy, Ravaged Our Environment, and Damaged Our Standing in the World'
'Jaded Tasks : Brass Plates, Black Ops & Big Oil-The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co.'
'The Raw Deal : How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal'
'Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco'
'State of War : The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration'
'How America Lost Iraq'
'Voyage to a Stricken Land : Reporting from Iraq - A Woman's Inside Story'
'In the Belly of the Green Bird : The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq'
'Gulliver Unbound : America's Imperial Temptation and the War in Iraq'
'Imperial Grand Strategy: The Conquest of Iraq And the Assault on Democracy (Ak Video)'
'Neo-Conned! : Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq'
'Dreams of Freedom : A Ricardo Flores Magon Reader'
'Squandered Victory : The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq'
'Banking on Baghdad : Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict'
'Globalization and Empire : The U.S. Invasion of Iraq, Free Markets, and the Twilight of Democracy (Albma Rhetoric Cult & Soc Crit)'
'Why War"" : The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez'
'Eyes of the Storm : The Story in Pictures of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita'
'Overthrow : America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq'
'Neo-Conned! Again : Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq'
'Not One More Mother's Child'
'Crimes of War : Iraq'
'Tell Them I Didn't Cry : A Young Journalist's Story of Joy, Loss, and Survival in Iraq'
'The War on Terrorism and the American 'Empire' after the Cold War'
'New World Empire : Civil Islam, Terrorism, and the Making of Neoglobalism'
'The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism: Global Reactions, Global Consequences'
'Death Etc.'
'Humanitarian Intervention and Safety Zones : Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda (Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies)'
'In Conflict : Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive'
'The Death of Media : And the Fight to Save Democracy (Melville Manifestos)'
'Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America'
'The Jungle : The Uncensored Original Edition'
'I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite! Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition'
'Graham Greene: The Enemy Within'
'The Baptizing of America : The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us'
'10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military'

[Livyjr]

I don't ask myself those questions anymore.

And there is a real sad thought, jeffmoskin ......

[Livyjr]

Way out here they have a name for wind and rain and fire ....

The rain is Tess , the fire's Joe, and they call the wind al-Qaida ....

al-Qaida blows the stars around, sets the clouds a'flyin ....

In George W. Bush's head, anyway ....

Out here they have a name for rain wind and fire only ......

When you're lost and all alone, like poor Dick Cheney .....

There ain't no name for lonely .....

I'm a lost and lonely man without a star to guide me, says George W. Bush .....

al-Qaida, blow my love to me, I need my Saudi "friend" beside me .....

al-Qaida, al-Qaida, they call the wind al-Qaida .....

al-Qaida, al-Qaida .....

George W. Bush thinks even the wind is al-Qaida .....

"Riots Bring Concern of al-Qaida 'Schools'"

By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer

Thu Mar 2, 2:09 PM ET

AMMAN, Jordan - Radicals riot in jails in Jordan and Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida convicts break out of a Yemen cell block.

In the struggle to contain extremists, holding such prisoners together may lead to more unrest — or turn jails into "schools" where al-Qaida passes on its violent ideology.

"It is a huge problem."

"The spread of jihadism has increased significantly as has the number of people being arrested," Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terrorism expert, said Thursday.

A top Jordanian judicial official said Wednesday's riots at three prisons showed that detained militants were likely using the Internet, mobile phones or visitors to pass messages.

"What happened in the prisons was very dangerous and we have to find out how the detainees coordinated with each other," said Judge Ali al-Dhmour, secretary-general of the Justice Ministry.

Some people ask whether it might be better to hold militants in prisons in the West, or perhaps to devote more effort to rehabilitation.

But Washington has shown a clear interest in having Mideast governments hold such prisoners so those governments can interrogate them — often with little human rights oversight — and pass information to the U.S. government.

Rehabilitation efforts, meanwhile, have been spotty.

Egypt had success in dampening Islamic extremism in a previous generation, and Saudi Arabia claims to have converted some al-Qaida sympathizers to less radical views.

But Yemen's rehabilitation effort is criticized by Western officials who say it just returns dangerous people to the streets.

Experts say a key problem in Jordan is the lumping together inside jails of common criminals and Islamic extremists, including members of the al-Qaida in Iraq network headed by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"These jails are like schools or universities for Islamic extremists, where they influence other prisoners and spread their 'takfiri' views," said Sameeh Khreis, a Jordanian lawyer who represents militants.

The extremist takfiri ideology urges Sunni Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel, even fellow Muslims.

Among Khreis' clients is Azmi al-Jayousi, a Jordanian sentenced to death with al-Zarqawi for a 2004 plot to stage chemical attacks on targets inside Jordan, including the U.S. Embassy.

Jordanian officials said Wednesday's riots broke out when prisoners at one jail demanded that al-Jayousi and another al-Qaida-linked militant, Salem bin Suweid of Libya, be transferred to another prison.

Suweid is on death row for fatally shooting U.S. aid worker Laurence Foley in 2002.

Unlike al-Jayousi and Suweid, many suspected militants across the Middle East and North Africa are jailed indefinitely with no charges filed.

"Indefinite detention has a special way of driving people a little crazy and provides a greater incentive to riot," said John Sifton, a counterterrorism expert for the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

Jordan's riots came less than a month after 23 al-Qaida inmates, including one convicted in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, tunneled out of a high-security jail in Yemen.

Yemeni officials said they thwarted escape attempts by al-Qaida suspects at two other prisons this week.

In Afghanistan, a four-day rebellion that left six inmates dead and exposed security flaws at the Central Asian nation's main prison ended Wednesday when more than 1,000 inmates surrendered.

Officials said the last to give up were al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Al-Qaida and Taliban members have also escaped from high-security prisons in Afghanistan, including a U.S. military facility.

Seven Taliban rebels fled a Kabul prison Jan. 22, some six months after four al-Qaida militants broke out of jail at Bagram, the U.S. military's headquarters north of Kabul.

It was unclear if there was any direct coordination among the various events, but Jordanian political analyst Labib Kamhawi said there "is a (common) sense of injustice and anger on the part of the Islamist prisoners."

Yemen says it is trying to turn detained Islamic extremists away from radicalism and reintegrate them into the community through a reconciliation program.

But Western officials are critical of the effort, saying Yemen may just be trying to discourage attacks at home, rather than truly convert people from extremism.

One judge said last year the program doesn't focus on trying to keep Yemenis from going to Iraq, for example.

Yossi Melman, a respected Israeli intelligence writer, thinks it is possible to rehabilitate only a few extremists, leaving governments in "a no-win situation."

"If you release them, they will go back to the arenas of their crimes," Melman said.

"But if they stay in jail there are negative ramifications for Western governments and societies, because prisons are their best schools where they strengthen themselves and reaffirm their beliefs."

[Snuffysmith]

Never ever thought one of my most favorite John Stewart songs "They Call the Wind Maria" would be bastardized by the likes of George Bush and Al Qaeda. And I have been a John Stewart groopie since the Kingston Trio era. Now I'm dating myself. Bullets in the HourGlass.

[Livyjr]

As George W. Bush and his latest "BOY TOY" stop at the posh digs of RADIO SUPERSTAR RUSH LIMBAUGH to pick up Rush and Karl Rove and WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN Scottie "BOY" McClellan and Rick Santorum and Reverend Lusk, before heading off to Dick Cheney's posh Wyoming ranch to discuss STRATEGY for the up-coming congressional elections and to, well, you know, do some "GUY THINGS" .....

Like hang out by Dick's pool in their Speedo's and ......

Way out here they have a name for wind and rain and fire ....

The rain is Tess , the fire's Joe, and they call the wind al-Qaida ....

al-Qaida blows the stars around, sets the clouds a'flyin ....

In George W. Bush's head, anyway ....

Out here they have a name for rain wind and fire only ......

When you're lost and all alone, like poor Dick Cheney .....

There ain't no name for lonely .....

I'm a lost and lonely man without a star to guide me, says George W. Bush .....

al-Qaida, blow my love to me, I need my Saudi "friend" beside me .....

al-Qaida, al-Qaida, they call the wind al-Qaida .....

al-Qaida, al-Qaida .....

George W. Bush thinks even the wind is al-Qaida .....

Never ever thought one of my most favorite John Stewart songs "They Call the Wind Maria" would be bastardized by the likes of George Bush and Al Qaeda.

And I have been a John Stewart groopie since the Kingston Trio era.

Now I'm dating myself.

Bullets in the HourGlass.

Hope I have caused no undue stress, here, Snuf .....

It's just one of those things that popped into my head ...

And so ....

And maybe it is just the shock at the sheer audacity of Karl Rove re-constituting George W. Bush as the world's first openly gay WORLD LEADER .....

Talk about CHUTZPAH, will you ....

They say that that Karl Rove never sleeps ...

And that he has at least sixty ideas a minute for defeating the Democrats at every turn ...

And this clearly demonstrates that level of mental superiority that Karl Rove has over the Democrats ...

Who thought they were stealing a "wedge issue" from the REPUBLICANS with this port take-over deal that George W. Bush's GOVERNMENT has worked out with the UAE .....

While all the time ...

Karl Rove was planning to take a major swing to the LIBERAL side here, and he has stolen the show, in my estimation anyway .....

Karl Rove, the ARCHITECT, has succeeded in transforming George W. Bush into a man that men love to love ....

And so .....

[Livyjr]

And maybe it is just the shock at the sheer audacity of Karl Rove re-constituting George W. Bush as the world's first openly gay WORLD LEADER .....

And I have nothing against George W. Bush if he is in fact openly gay ...

I mean ...

Well, let's face it ...

IN ALL LIKELIHOOD ......

I am probably a LIBERAL in that regard .....

Which is to say, I don't discriminate .....

Although with George ...

And Karl Rove, especially ...

There is always that HYPOCRISY FACTOR ...

As well as outright FALSENESS ....

So that George might only be feigning being gay .....

For the sake of REPUBLICAN politics ...

Oh, well ....

Whatever ...

From that crowd, anyway ....

BUT THEY ARE CONSERVATIVES ...

So what can you expect from them?

Looking at a more LIBERAL story in here this morning ....

We have from antiquity .....

What is perhaps some proof that before these CONSERVATIVES came over here and overran the place with their "MANLINESS" .......

Their OVERT HUNK-I-NESS .....

Especially George and Dick Cheney in their Speedos .....

Proof that perhaps women had more rights here in OUR America than they do now under these CONSERVATIVE TALIBANS here in OUR America ....

"Peru, Mexico Finds Hint at Women's Roles"

By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer

Thu Mar 2, 4:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Archaeological finds from Mexico and Peru show that, long before Europeans arrived, women served as warriors, governors and priestesses.

An exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery includes little pottery jugs and massive stone images portraying women in a variety of roles in addition to traditional homemakers and care givers.

"Women were not only daughters, wives, mothers and grandmothers, but also healers, midwives, scribes, artists, poets, priestesses, warriors, governors and even goddesses in pre-Columbian society," said Judy L. Larson, director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in announcing the exhibit.

There's Xochiquetzal, a Mexican goddess of love and beauty, modeled in clay with an elaborate headdress and flowers in both hands.

She may not look seductive by western standards, but she's more endearing than a stone image, half life-size, of another Mexican goddess — Cihuateteo — with staring eyes and ferocious teeth.

Cihuateteo lurked at crossroads by night and caused illness.

The Moche people of northern Peru, whose tombs are among the most recently excavated, had an ugly goddess of their own, a moon goddess with a face like a skull who presided over the capture and sacrifice of human prisoners.

From Peru also comes a ceramic pitcher in the form of a central figure with a scepter, surrounded by seven women, and another of a long-haired young woman holding a baby.

Organized by the wives of the presidents of the two Latin American countries, the exhibition was promoted in Washington by first lady Laura Bush, who wrote in a foreword to the catalog that the objects in the show would inform Americans and visitors about women in the ancient Americas.

Of almost 400 objects in the exhibit, some go back as far as 4,000 years, comparable in age with civilizations in Egypt or Iraq.

When Spanish conquerors followed Columbus in the 1500s, those in Mexico met mostly Aztec people, and the conquerors of Peru met the Incas.

But there had been other peoples before them, who had been absorbed by the ruling groups of the time or had disappeared entirely.

Descendants of some, like the Mayas of Mexico, can still be identified by languages and customs today.

The exhibit will be on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, its final stop and the only one in the United States, until May 22.
___

On the Net:

National Museum of Women in the Arts: http://www.nmwa.org/

[Livyjr]

IS THERE ANYONE IN OUR GOVERNMENT WHO IS NOT CORRUPT?

"Former Congressman Gets Eight-Plus Years"

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer

25 minutes ago

SAN DIEGO - Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who collected $2.4 million in homes, yachts, antique furnishings and other bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress, was sentenced Friday to eight years and four months in prison, the longest term ever meted out to a congressman.

Cunningham, who resigned from Congress in disgrace last year, was spared the 10-year maximum by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns.

Cunningham, a Republican who resigned last year in disgrace, accepted money from defense contractors and others in exchange for steering government contracts their way and other favors.

Federal prosecutors sought the maximum and his attorneys asked for mercy, but Cunningham, choking up as he addressed the judge, focused on accepting blame.

"Your honor I have ripped my life to shreds due to my actions, my actions that I did to myself," he said.

"I made a very wrong turn."

"I rationalized decisions I knew were wrong."

"I did that, sir," Cunningham said.

[Livyjr]

"Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Bush, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said Wednesday he remains confident Osama bin Laden "will be brought to justice" despite a so-far futile five-year hunt.

Asked about the search for bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States, and of the president's call for getting him "dead or alive," Bush said the search for bin Laden and his associates continues.

"It's not a matter of if they're captured and brought to justice, it's when they're brought to justice," Bush said.

Asked twice at his news conference about bin Laden, Bush said, "I am confident he will be brought to justice."

"What's happening is that we've got U.S. forces on the hunt."

"... There are Afghan forces on the hunt, not only for bin Laden but also those who plot and plan with him."

"We've got Pakistan forces on the hunt."

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

end quotes

All the federales say ......

They could have had him any day .....

They only let him slip away ...

Because of those big bucks that he had to pay ....

For them to turn their backs and look the other way .....

And I am surprised that George W. Bush does not have a NATURAL-BORN KILLER like Dick Cheney out there ON THE HUNT for Osama bin Laden .....

Of course, it just might be that the BIG GRIZ is afraid of something that might actually shoot back .....

And so ....

Safer hunting for OUR Dick, then ...

Things like real small and helpless birds .....

And scrawny old Texas lawyers .....

And so ...

And winging our way over there to Pakistan ...

One of George W. Bush's STAUNCH ALLIES in George's GLOBAL WAR OF TERROR .....

Where they love America's George ...

Well ....

Probably about as much as anyone else does ....

Although this softer, more LIBERAL image that Karl Rove has George portraying these days may change that ....

SO ....

Whoever does know ....

And so ....

We have .....

"Bush Visits Pakistan Amid Protests"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

1 hour, 2 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Traveling under heavy security, President Bush showed solidarity with Pakistan in the global war on terror Friday as anti-American protests flared across this Islamic nation.

The visit probably put Bush closer than he's ever been to Osama bin Laden.

Air Force One flew through the night without lights to conceal the plane's profile as it delivered Bush and his wife, Laura, from India.

Two helicopters and a motorcade waited for the president at the airport, but it was impossible to tell whether he used a car or a chopper to get to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy compound, where he was spending the night.

Anti-American sentiment runs deep in this Islamic nation and the threat of terrorist attacks is ever present.

A day before Bush's visit, an American diplomat was killed in a suicide car-bombing at a U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi, a hotbed of Islamic militancy.

Bush is to spend all day Saturday in Islamabad, conferring with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, meeting with business leaders, attending a state dinner and even watching a cricket match — a passion of Pakistanis.

Hoping to boost the U.S. image among Muslims, Bush planned to call attention to American contributions to Pakistan after a devastating earthquake in October.

Bush said he would talk with Musharraf about Pakistan's "vital cooperation in the war on terror and our efforts to foster economic and political development so we can reduce the appeal of radical Islam."

In a farewell speech in New Delhi, Bush ran into trouble when he praised Pakistan as "a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world."

The White House hastened to correct Bush's reference to Pakistan as an Arab nation, and said he meant to say Muslim.

Bush's trip brought renewed attention on the frustrating manhunt for bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

Bin Laden and his followers are believed to be in hiding in the porous border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Earlier this week, Bush said it was simply a matter of when — not if — bin Laden was brought to justice.

There were anti-U.S. protests in cities and towns across Pakistan, with crowds burning American flags and chanting "Death to Bush."

About 1,000 stone-throwing people tried to march on the U.S. consulate in Karachi; police used tear gas and batons to stop them.

While many people here view the United States with mistrust, Pakistan has been an important U.S. ally in the Muslim world.

The Pakistani government says it has arrested about 700 al-Qaida suspects in the past four years, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even so, key terror leaders are still thought to be at large within its borders.

Musharraf seized power seven years ago in a bloodless coup and has reneged on a promise to relinquish his military post.

But Musharraf endeared himself to Bush after the 9/11 attacks when he switched Pakistan's allegiance from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and supported Washington in the U.S.-led war against its rulers.

Bush has promised to talk with Musharraf about the need for more democratic reforms.

In his speech in New Delhi, Bush extolled India's embrace of democracy and said it was the path all nations should follow.

"If justice is the goal, then democracy is the way," Bush said.

Pakistan has been roiled by anti-Western protests against Prophet Muhammad cartoons, which have left at least five people dead.

Bush has called on governments to stop violent demonstrations, and at the same time has urged the media to use restraint with material that might be considered offensive.

Pakistanis also were enraged by a U.S. missile strike in January targeting al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, who was believed to be attending a dinner party at a village in a northwestern region near the Afghan border.

Al-Zawahri apparently wasn't there, and the missile killed 13 residents, including women and children.

Bush was expected to face demands here for equal treatment with India, which signed a landmark nuclear deal with the United States this week providing nuclear reactors, technology and other material to New Delhi in exchange for its acceptance of international safeguards.

U.S. officials said Pakistan will not get the same reward, considering that just two years ago Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, was exposed as the chief of a lucrative black market in weapons technology that had supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The government denied any knowledge of his proliferation activities.

___

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad contributed to this report.

[Livyjr]

And IRAQINAM ......

How many more decades will we be talking about George W. Bush's IRAQINAM fiasco?

And how many more BILLIONS will George W. Bush and HIS REPUBLICANS in Congress be BLEEDING AND LOOTING from OUR treasury to finance George's GLOBAL WAR OF TERROR?

No answers to either question are available, says Scott McClellan, the VOICE OF GOVERNMENT, here in OUR America .....

"Iraqi Leader Assured of Continued U.S. Aid"

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer

43 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - President Jalal Talabani on Saturday underscored the need for a unity government in Iraq after a spasm of sectarian killing and said he had been assured U.S. forces would remain in the country as long as needed — "no matter what the period."

Talabani spoke to reporters after a meeting with Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, who met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Saturday.

Abizaid said he was "very, very pleased with the reaction of the Iraqi armed forces" during the violence that broke out after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra and reprisal attacks against Sunni Muslims that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

"We should understand that the terrorists are trying to create problems among the Iraqi people that can lead to difficulties between various groups," he said after a separate meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

"We should not fall into their trap."

"We are stronger than they are."

"We will ultimately prevail."

The surge of violence, which killed at least 500 people since last week, has tangled negotiations to form a new government after December parliamentary elections and threatened American hopes of starting a troop pullout this summer.

Iraqi soldiers and police — backed in one neighborhood by a Shiite militia the United States wants disbanded — enforced a driving ban that brought relative peace to Baghdad streets Friday.

But as normal traffic resumed Saturday, a bomb exploded at a minibus terminal in a southeastern suburb, killing at least seven people and injuring 25, police said.

Talabani said Abizaid assured him Saturday that U.S. forces "are ready to stay as long as we ask them, no matter what the period is."

"He added that forming a strong national unity government made up of all blocs in parliament will help in stabilizing Iraq and bringing peace," Talabani quoted Abizaid as saying.

However, Talabani said his Kurdish followers and their allies will fight for a second term for al-Jaafari.

Sunni, Kurdish and some secular politicians have asked the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, to nominate another candidate.

They accuse al-Jaafari of failing to rein in attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics in the aftermath of the bombing of the Shiite Askariya shrine.

"With all our respect to Dr. al-Jaafari, we asked them to chose a candidate who is unanimously agreed on by Iraqis," Talabani said.

"I want to be clear, it is not against Dr. al-Jaafari as a person."

"He has been my friend for 25 years."

"What we want is unanimity."

Al-Jaafari's supporters in the United Iraqi Alliance have vowed to resist moves to replace him.

But other Shiite leaders are troubled by his close ties to radical young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose support was key to al-Jaafari's nomination by a single vote in a Feb. caucus of Shiite lawmakers.

Hundreds demonstrated Saturday in Amarah and Najaf, in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland, in support of al-Jaafari's bid for another term.

Meanwhile, a string of explosions rocked Baghdad and areas in the volatile, religiously mixed region to the south.

The bus terminal blast occurred at the height of the morning rush, setting three minibuses on fire and damaging nearby market stands, police Capt. Ali Mahdi said.

The attack struck in a region where 19 people were killed when gunmen stormed an electricity substation and brick factory Thursday night.

Another bombing targeted an Interior Ministry special forces patrol in the Salman Pak area, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad, killing two members of the patrol and wounding two others, police Maj. Falah al-Mohamadawi said.

A Shiite lawmaker, meanwhile, was seriously wounded when gunmen in two speeding cars fired on his vehicle near Basra, Iraq's second city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

An aide for Qasim Attiyah al-Jbouri was killed and two bodyguards injured, police Capt. Mushtaq Kadhim said.

The attack against al-Jbouri, the former head of Basra's provincial council who ran for parliament on the United Iraqi Alliance slate, was the second in 10 days.

Gunmen on Feb. 24 kidnapped three of his children but freed them unharmed hours later.

Police also found at least four more handcuffed, shot-up bodies dumped in Baghdad and south of the capital.

The violence shattered the relative calm brought by Fridays' driving ban, which helped avert major attacks on the day Muslims congregate for the most important prayer service of the week.

Thousands of Shiites — frisked by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen in yellow button-down collar shirts and armed with Kalashnikov rifles and metal detector wands — knelt in prayer Friday at a huge outdoor service in Baghdad's Sadr City slum.

The militia that kept order was the same force accused of going on a rampage of reprisal attacks against Sunni Muslim mosques and clerics after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Police and aides to al-Sadr agreed Thursday night the anti-American cleric's militiamen would help government security forces patrol the poor Shiite neighborhood after it was hit by a deadly bomb attack.

The government decision to legitimize patrols by the Mahdi Army — which had been going on anyway — appeared to have tacit U.S. military approval, even though American forces have fought protracted battles with the Shiite fighters for control of southern holy cities and the Sadr City Shiite stronghold.

Acceptance of the higher profile for the Mahdi Army, if only for a time, signaled the extreme importance U.S. authorities have put on quelling deadly sectarian violence after the Samarra bombing.
___

Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub, Bassem Mroue and Bushra Juhi contributed to this report from Baghdad.