"Troops to stay in Iraq despite 'progress'"

By Charles Aldinger

Tue Jun 21,12:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite reported successes against the insurgency in Iraq, a top U.S. military commander said on Tuesday the United States was unlikely to begin reducing its 135,000 troops there before elections late this year.

"At this point, I would not be prepared to recommend a draw-down prior to the election, certainly not any significant numbers," Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters from Iraq.

But Vines said significant reductions could begin early next year following a referendum on a planned constitution this October and a subsequent national election on a new Iraqi government in December.

Vines spoke a day after President Bush acknowledged the Iraq war was "tough" going.

But Bush refused to back down from assertions that progress was being made.

With his popularity falling amid mounting casualties, Bush is spending the next few weeks defending the U.S.-led war and plans to mark next Tuesday's anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty with a speech.

Since the United States formally turned over sovereignty to Iraq on June 28, 2004, more than 860 U.S. troops have been killed.

Vines said, "Since that time, there's been significant progress throughout the country."

More than 1,720 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and with 80 deaths, May was the deadliest month for American forces since January, and June is on pace to match May.

The continued deployment of roughly 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq also is putting strains on the U.S. military and the U.S. Army has fallen far behind in its recruiting.

Bush has come under fire by Democrats and even some Republicans for an overly optimistic view of the war.

Many have urged him to make a public acknowledgment of the difficulties facing the United States.

On Tuesday, an influential Republican lawmaker, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said the U.S. effort in Iraq ranked as a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being disaster.

"The key to it is telling the American people it's going to be long and it's going to be hard and difficult," McCain told NBC's "Today" show.

COMPLACENCY

Vines warned that polls in the United States showing a majority of Americans now oppose the U.S. military presence in Iraq suggested "they don't have a good perception of what is at stake here."

"There is a bit of a complacency with elements of our population," he said, because there have been no attacks on the United States since September 2001.

"Quite honestly, I think we have a pretty clear-cut choice: We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad or we deal with it when it comes to us," Vines said.

Speaking as U.S. and Iraq troops continued a series of operations against insurgents in Iraq, Vines said the insurgency currently appeared to be "static," neither shrinking nor growing.

"I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a significant change in four months, absent a political breakthrough," Vines said.

"I suspect we will probably draw down capability after the elections because Iraqi security forces are more capable."

He said U.S. forces could be cut by as many as four or five brigades early next year.

An average American brigade numbers about 3,000 troops.

"A huge, bold shift that injects a lot of risk into the situation is probably not a wise course of action," Vines said.

Some U.S. lawmakers, including a small number from Bush's own Republican Party, have called for setting a deadline to begin withdrawing American troops.

But the White House and Pentagon have rejected that saying insurgents would simply wait for a withdrawal and then renew their violence.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "much progress" had been made in Iraq in the past year.

"There will no doubt be frustrating delays and difficult setbacks."

"But let us not lose sight of the fact that all over Iraq today, Iraqis are debating nearly every aspect of their political future."

Annan wrote as he headed to Brussels for a Tuesday conference on Iraqi reconstruction where the security situation there was expected to dominate.

A U.N. official said the purpose of the article was to highlight an international conference in Brussels and U.N activities.

It was not meant to say that "everything is wonderful in Iraq."

I'm sure you meant that as a joke, Livyjr, but there's a tragic irony to it. You see, the Army now GUARANTEES citizenship to the undocumented grunt AND HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY. Talk about incentives for enlisiting in the Army.

That's one reason why there are so many Hispanic names over in Iraq.

I just hope they come back alive and in one piece.

June 21, 2005

"Rice Urges Egyptians and Saudis to Democratize"

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN, NY Times

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 21 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, delivering a challenge to the United States' closest allies in the Arab world, called on Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Monday to embrace democracy by holding fair elections, releasing political prisoners and allowing free expression and rights for women.

"For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither," Ms. Rice declared at the American University in Cairo.

"Now we are taking a different course."

"We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."

Praising President Hosni Mubarak for taking some "encouraging" first steps toward democracy, she said Egypt's elections "must meet objective standards that define every free election," including freedom of assembly, speech and press.

As for Saudi Arabia, where Ms. Rice flew after speaking in Egypt, she said that "brave citizens are demanding accountability from their government" and that "many people pay an unfair price for exercising their basic rights."

She praised "some first steps toward openness" in the holding of municipal elections.

But she condemned depriving women of the right to vote and the arrests of some dissidents.

Ms. Rice's appeal, some of the toughest talk in the Arab world from a secretary of state, drew a mixed reaction, including criticism from Egyptian opposition groups demanding an even harder line.

On the other hand, the Egyptian foreign minister, dismissing her comments, said Egypt's planned elections were already going to be free and fair.

Some of the 600 listeners at the university complained that her call for freedom was undercut by American indifference to Israeli "war crimes," mistreatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib and the continuing violence in Iraq.

The criticism was similar to what erupted last month after Laura Bush praised Mr. Mubarak for taking a "bold step" in planning multiparty elections, even as protesters were being arrested and opposition groups complained about election requirements barring independent candidates.

"We were shocked at the statements made," Hany Enan, one of the founders of an Egyptian movement demanding that Mr. Mubarak step down, said of Ms. Rice's remarks.

She added, "I don't think the content of her remarks met the expectations of the people or the opposition."

Officials traveling with Ms. Rice said they were prepared for such criticism.

"Most of the region's leaders won't like what they hear, and most people will resent it," one American official said on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to prejudge Arab reaction.

"But in the long run, her speech will make people think about the problem."

The reaction illustrated the quandary that the Bush administration faced in navigating the demands for sweeping changes and a desire not to offend close allies or to apply separate benchmarks to different countries, depending on their status as friends.

Ms. Rice criticized Egypt and Saudi Arabia for intimidating or locking up protesters, for example.

She also met with Ayman Nour, a Parliament member whose arrest this year prompted the secretary to cancel a visit to Egypt.

But she did not meet with leaders of the outlawed Islamist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood, though it is probably the most popular opposition group.

"Egypt has its laws, it has its rule of law, and I'll respect that," Ms. Rice said, explaining the decision not to meet with the Brotherhood.

In her speech, she assailed Syria as a police state, and then Iran, where the election for president on Friday got no praise even though it has been more competitive than Egypt's is likely to be.

"The appearance of elections does not mask the organized cruelty of Iran's theocratic state," she said.

Her criticism of Egypt, by contrast, came in a conciliatory tone, accompanied by reminders that the United States has its own history of slavery and racism.

"The United States has no cause for false pride, and we have every reason for humility," she added.

In Riyadh, her remarks in Cairo received a curt reaction from Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, who dismissed her appeal for the release of the dissidents.

"They have broken the law," Prince Saud said at a post-midnight news conference with Ms. Rice, adding that Saudi Arabia would use its own judgment of what changes were best.

Ms. Rice's speech had been billed in advance as a bold change for the United States.

"This is a great region of the world, the cradle of civilization," she implored her audience.

Noting that the entire region of 22 countries had a collective economy the size of Spain's, she added:

"How can that be the case?"

"It certainly isn't anything about the intelligence of the Arab people."

"It certainly isn't anything about their aspirations."

"It's about the absence of freedom and the absence of liberty."

Even critics of the American administration say the increasing calls by President Bush for democracy have helped inspire the Egyptian movement known as Kifaya, or Enough, which calls for Mr. Mubarak to step down.

He has served since 1981 without ever being challenged in an election.

Under pressure, Mr. Mubarak in February announced the first Egyptian election for president in which candidates will be able to run, but the National Assembly dominated by his National Democratic Party has been moving toward erecting an array of barriers against candidates outside its influence.

When Ms. Rice raised those problems at a news conference with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she got what appeared to be an airy rebuff.

"Who would object to fair, transparent elections?" Mr. Gheit said, turning to the secretary.

"Everybody wants fair, transparent elections."

"And it will be so, I assure you."

In another awkward exchange, Mr. Gheit reminded Ms. Rice that he had told her earlier that without "a settlement for the Palestinian problem," little could be done.

"That is crucial!" he added.

Ms. Rice, who traveled to Egypt from Jordan and Israel, where she had sought to coax the Israelis and Palestinians toward a solution, retorted with a smile, "That's what we're working on."

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article.

Just goes to show, eh, jeffmoskin, that sometimes, it's just best not to joke about something, because it could come true, and no, I was not at all aware of this, what you are talking about, although I certainly find it believable!

I actually had not heard that, at all!

Maybe he could hire Hessians, too!

And Brunswickers, as well!

They did that kind of work for the other George, and so ....

Send those Hessians and Brunswickers over here.

"Bring em on"

Seriously, though, BushCo's policy gives new meaning to the term "mercenary."

Especially when they are talking about your FAMILY.

I have never heard that either.

Just like Livyjr, I find it believable.

A.B.

You know, jeffmoskin, Mr. A.B., as hard as it may be to believe from some of my own rhetoric in here, I truly believe in being charitable towards others, and that would have to include George W. Bush, and compassionate, as well, and I really wrestle with all of this, as a result!

And I do wonder about "God", and how "God" might be viewing my own actions down here on this earth of OURS, at any given time, and here, then, I always end up going back to my own "raising" as an American, as opposed to being a Frenchman, or a German, which I could be by heritage, but am not, by the circumstances of where I was born, and into what it was that I was born "into", which is an American coming onto the scene, right at the close of WWII, when Mr. A.B. was just getting back here after serving in that war, and that you, jeffmoskin, were a young person in, observing as young people do, whatever it was that you were observing, here in OUR America, the day before I was born!

And that takes us over into "values", I suppose it could be called, and there is where each of us becomes unique, I think, because in a class of children in any given school in OUR America, or in the world, probably, not every child allegedly taught the "same", ends up with the same "value system", and that could not be more apparent between myself and George W. Bush, who are the same age, and so, supposedly, should have been exposed to similar circumstances in OUR early life, unless George W. Bush was born into some parallel universe where there had been no WWII, and hence, no returning veterans, such as Mr. A.B., to influence the generation just being born, which was mine and George W. Bush's!

As a child, I was taught, right from the get-go, that life was a thing of responsibility, and so ....

And life was also a thing of "law", because THIS NATION at one time was a land of tyranny, and repression, instead, and it had fought a bloody war with England, so as to end that condition, and as a result, we were supposed to be a beacon of hope and freedom for beleaguered peoples all over the world!

And those were not just trite and empty sayings!

Or at least they were not supposed to be!

And now?

I have a lot of trouble "recognizing" anything of the America that I was brought up to know and respect in this present incumbent's administration, while at the same time, I have no trouble at all recognizing a lot of what our former enemies used to be all about, especially this thing about now having mercenaries out in the field, in the name of America, the way George III had his foreign mercenaries brought over here, in 1776 and after "to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation", and to be truthful, I find that to be quite troubling, in and of itself.

And when you couple that with the gross indifference that most people I encounter seem to have to all of this, well, one just has to wonder "if folly will always be our nemesis!"

White-collar crime!

Crime committed by OUR "betters", so that they can keep up with the "Jones", I guess, who themselves are politically-connected "white collar criminals", but being of the "better sort", well, we just look the other way, Livyjr, unless you want to find yourself cross-eyed and drooling for the rest of your natural life, after taking the "cure" down there in the alleged politically-connected Samaritan Hospital in the City of Troy, New York ......

"Soares honors vow to voters - District attorney creates unit to focus on white-collar crime cases in Albany County"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, June 22, 2005

ALBANY -- Six months after taking office, Albany County District Attorney David Soares rolled out his promised public integrity unit, a bureau of prosecutors who will investigate white-collar crimes and elected officials.

First on the list is a case of absentee ballot fraud that rocked a special county legislative primary last year.

The new bureau also will focus on the interplay between public officials, private real estate development and the lobbying community.

It will report directly to Soares.

"Issues of who you are and who you know will no longer factor into the process," Soares said.

"No one is above the law."

Christopher Baynes, a veteran Drug Unit chief, will staff the unit, along with Linda Griggs, a former claims investigator with the state Insurance Department.

Samuel Spitzberg, a former U.S. Army Judge Advocate General captain, a special assistant U.S. attorney and senior associate for both Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte & Touche, will join them.

Soares said his goal is to add two other prosecutors and an investigator in the future.

He said he hoped a series of new grants would help pay the positions.

Laura Conley O'Hanlon, a veteran attorney, has been hired to work in the Appeals Unit but will assist in public integrity, as needed, Soares said.

The cum laude graduate of Albany Law School has worked for the state Tax Commission and in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Unveiling the Public Integrity Unit makes good on a promise to provide one system of justice for everyone, Soares said.

Although the state attorney general's office already operates a public integrity unit, its focus is statewide, Soares said.

His will be local.

"It's time for us to step up and assume our responsibility," Soares said.

"(In the past,) this office has not prosecuted those cases as aggressively as it could have."

"I am going to do that."

The list of pending white-collar criminal actions awaiting prosecution includes the case of David W. Stephenson, an emergency room physician who was recently arrested and charged with the illegal sale of prescription drugs over the Internet.

Soares said other pending investigations have been prompted by a number of leads provided by state Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

end quotes

The new bureau also will focus on the interplay between public officials, private real estate development and the lobbying community.

And we shall see!

Soares is a Democrat in a REPUBLICAN-controlled state, and everyone is just waiting to see where this is going to go, because what he is going to tackle, if this is not just another bunch of hype, is really the "bread-and-butter" that feeds the coffers of the "REPUBLICAN MACHINE" that has been carefully constructed in the State of New York since maybe the mid-1970's to protect this exact type of conduct, and so, like us, Soares is going after a monolith, without apparent seams anywhere in its carefully constructed facade!

And so ....

Will Soares and his "White-Collar Crime Unit" end up being BRANDED as dangerous mental patients, too?

Will they too have to take the "cure", for the good of themselves, and "society"?

Stay tuned for further developments !

http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/hispan...no_military.asp



The Military: What's in it for Latinos/as?

by Carol Amoruso, Hispanic Village Feature Writer

[Today is 11/30/03.]

José Antonio Gutiérrez was the second soldier to die fighting for the U.S. in Operation Iraqi Freedom. José Angel Garibay's death followed shortly thereafter. Both men entered this country undocumented, and while neither was a United States citizen at the time of his death, they are citizens now. Both had enlisted in the U.S. Marines with hopes of fulfilling their dreams. José Antonio Gutiérrez, 22, an orphan and hard-knocks poet, had hopped trains at age 11 from Guatemala before crossing the border into California. His dream was to become an architect. The military had promised him an education and he had promised to bring his sister, Engracia, to the States. José Angel Garibay came from Mexico with his mother when he was an infant. They also settled in California where she found work as a housekeeper. 21 year-old José Angel Garibay wanted to be a career soldier.

Green card draft

In a controversial decree, President George Bush announced, in July, 2002, that non-naturalized soldiers serving honorably in the "war on terrorism" could significantly step up the process of citizenship and apply immediately or upon enlisting. Citizenship could be granted within 6 months, shortcutting the normal wait of nearly 5 years civilians must endure. Once naturalized, soldiers are permitted to apply to have family members naturalized, but there are no provisions for financial or other benefits to families of the dead. Also in the decree were the provisions that allowed for the posthumous citizenship granted Gutiérrez and Garibay.

The decree gave a boost to the "green card draft," a policy that is pushed, no matter the country's mood towards immigrants, when troops are needed for combat. While the decree was welcomed by many as a just reward for service and loyalty to an immigrant's adoptive homeland, there are also many detractors. Extreme but vocal are those who want to end immigration completely along with any amenities to immigrants. At the other pole are those who see a cynical rather than magnanimous hand at play. Says Carlos Montes of Latinos Against the War in Iraq, "If someone's a resident and they're in the army, I would support their becoming citizens, but it should not be used as a carrot. "

Why enlist?

These developments underlie the basic question: What does military service have to offer young Latinos and does it offer a viable and rewarding career path?

A visit to the Armed Forces official web site is suggestive. And alluring (see http://www.todaysmilitary.com/index.php ). There is a version of the site in Spanish (the only "foreign" language) and diversity is stressed. An array of personnel, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and of varying ethno-cultural stripes, is pictured on the pages. Education and a career path within the military are most stressed as the reasons to enlist.

People who serve can receive payment for up to 100 percent of their college tuition and payment of college loans previously incurred. Careers in over 140 job categories within the military are offered after active duty is completed, with salaries comparable to entry level positions in the corporate sector. In addition, Uncle Sam will pay housing and food benefits for most enlisted personnel and their families. There is no mention on the site of the likelihood of combat; the copy makes it a point to explain that 80 percent of all military personnel serve in noncombat roles.
Solomon amendment

Recently there has been a rush on recruiting spurred by the Solomon Amendment, passed, in 1996, during the Clinton administration. While providing additional support for on-campus recruiting, the Amendment also denied federal support for programs, such as Latino and African-American Studies, at institutions with no ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) facilities, a move seen by some as arm-twisting.

Hispanic Access Initiative

Latino recruiting was given additional impetus two years later by the Hispanic Access Initiative. The Hispanic Access Initiative provides for ROTC recruiters to especially target colleges and high schools with a sizable Latino student body. Recruiters may obtain access to high school students' addresses and phone numbers and are free to contact them at home unless parents object. Says Montes, who works out of Los Angeles, "The Marines are all over the East L.A. high schools where there is a high Latino enrollment. They have carte blanche in the schools, they make presentations, they take the kids out to dinner, show them videos and get their phone numbers and addresses."

The Pentagon's goal, as stated by John McLaurin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Human Resources, is to boost Latino enlistment from 10 to 22 percent by the year 2025, when the overall Latino population is projected to rise to 25 percent.
Creative, aggressive recruiting

So vigilant has been the Latino thrust that, according to several stories, recruiters are plumbing Mexico's border towns for volunteers, documented or not. Reports L.A.-based reporter Andrew Gumbel in the London daily, the Independent, "Recruiters have even crossed the border into Mexico - to the fury of the Mexican authorities - to look for school-leavers who may have US residency papers." (Pentagon targets Latinos and Mexicans to man the front lines; 9th October, 2003)

Marcos Vinicius Gonzalez, U.S. correspondent for the Mexican daily, "La Jornada," who lives in San Diego, goes further. He reports regular trips across to recruit young Mexicans, mostly in the schools. Often they are rebuffed, he says, by school authorities. In one particular incident, he relates, after school authorities would not allow the recruiters access, school personnel were ordered not to discuss the situation with the press. (Mr. Gonzalez would only speculate that the order came from the Mexican government.) Gonzalez believes there is a virtual press black-out on these recruiting efforts.

With regard to the purported illegal recruiting of the undocumented, Montes reports, " I've had a student tell me straight out: a Marine recruiter called him and he told him, 'Look, I'm undocumented, I'm not a citizen, I'm not even a resident,' and the marine recruiter told him, 'Well I can put in a word for you, I can talk to the authorities for you.'" Montes doubts that, in this and most other instances he's heard of, the recruiter could have made good on his promise. "What I'm seeing," he continues, "is that the recruiters, in order to recruit more people, are making false promises of either residency or citizenship."

Montes pointed out, on the other hand, that it was discovered after José Antonio Gutiérrez' posthumous citizenship was conferred that he was undocumented. And he mentioned the recent case of Juan Escalante, recently returned from his tour of duty in Iraq to face possible dismissal from the Army and the deportation of his parents because Escalante is undocumented. Escalante's parents' lawyer is charging that the 2002 Bush decree protects the family because it mentions both "aliens and noncitizen nationals."

High profile Latinos

Latinos not persuaded to sign up on campus, in high school, or on the streets, may be encouraged to enlist inspired by high-ranking, high-profile Latinos. Three-star general, Ricardo S. Sanchez, is in charge of all coalition ground forces in Iraq. Sanchez grew up poor in a poor town in deep South Texas, son of a single mother who struggled to obtain an education for her six children and for herself. He began working at age 6 and joined the J[unior]ROTC in high school before winning an Army/Air Force scholarship to Texas A&I College. Sanchez is one of only nine Hispanic generals ever to serve in the U.S. Army.

Another high-profile Latino is Louis Caldera, Secretary of the Army under Bill Clinton. The son of poor Mexican immigrants, Caldera forged his way to both Harvard business and law schools. Caldera became a vigorous campaigner for Latino recruitment, bolstered by the Hispanic Access Initiative.

Combat bound

Latinos are the most likely group to see combat. A recent study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center (www.pewhispanic.org) revealed that while nearly 10 percent of all enlisted personnel are Latinos, close to 18 percent find themselves on the front lines. They also occupy the lowest rungs of the military hierarchy. A generally lower educational level may partially explain these numbers, obviating significant advancement up the ranks which moves one out of harms way. Moreover, since a large number of Latinos are not citizens, they are also prevented from achieving positions requiring security clearance.

Like Gutiérrez and Garibay, Latinos seem to gravitate towards the Marines. 14 percent of the Marine Corps is Latino. These high numbers may be due to the aggressiveness of Marine recruiting, especially in the West. Marines have the highest casualty rates among all branches of the service.

With no data available from the Pentagon, and based only on empirical evidence and observation, it appears that a great number of the Iraqi war casualties are Latinos. Dr. Jorge Mariscal of the University of California at San Diego, guestimates, by the surnames reported and the CNN footage and web site bios of the fallen, that approximately 20 percent are Latino.

Rodolfo Arcuña, Profesor of Chicano studies at the California State University, Northridge, sees the targeting of Latinos and other third world youth as insidious. It's an aspect, he says, of "the Bush factor," or, "let the others do the dying for you." In a printed article, Arcuña pointed out that Latinos have traditionally been clay ducks on the military firing line. In Vietnam, he noted, "80,000 Latinos served, incurring about 19 percent of all casualties." The majority of these soldiers had been drafted—compulsory service was ended in 1973—from amongst the poor and working class, not privileged nor savvy enough to secure deferrals as university students, or fudged poor health or psychological deferrals, nor enter temporary exile in Canada or Europe, as had done many middle class youth.

Patriotism prompts

Serving in the armed forces can mean more than salary, career and educational opportunity. Just as the greatest wavers of American flags after 9/11 seemed to be immigrants, it is understandable that the most vulnerable amongst us would want to sign on to a society they could wear like a protective badge of patriotism. Most brown-skinned immigrants fear being confused for terrorist ilk by Joe (and Jane) America. Moreover, many feel new-found patriotism and gratitude that this country has given them more than they had before they came. But, this is a tough economy, especially for the hard-working (Latino) immigrant with few skills: trades are not easily come by, salaries, when justly paid, can be pitiful, benefits usually out of reach: an offer of a steady pay check with benefits, attached to the promise of travel and maybe escaping your grim surroundings, can be an offer that can't be refused, especially when pitched by a zealous achiever who may even speak your own language. The potential of combat, even death, may be repressed or naively seen as an adventure.

Some believe that a return to the lottery draft would be more equitable and begin to level the playing field along racial and economic lines. Congressman from Harlem, Charles Rangel, is amongst them. Rangel maintains that, if the sons and daughters of the powerful in this country were eligible to serve, even be put on the front lines, they would think twice about committing troops to fight wars.

Fallout

The bright eyes may become clouded by misfortune, and the buoyant tails deflated by disillusionment after a tour of duty, especially in the war and morale-ravaged lraqi arena. Says Montes, "Sure, they get them out of East L.A. or the barrio, but they put them into a system where they're trained to kill. Then they send them to desert training, jungle training, teaching them to kill, then they go in and get killed. A lot of Latinos are getting killed now."

If the soldier escapes the battlefield alive—of course, the great majority will--he or she, may still be a victim of great hardship. The Pentagon has revealed that an inordinate number, over 4,500, of troops have been evacuated out of Iraq for reasons other than injuries. What these reasons are, the military would not reveal. The first cause is usually illness. Over one hundred cases and two deaths from pneumonia have been acknowledged, an alarmingly high number. Pneumonia is known to be one of the side effects of the Anthrax vaccination all troops must take and of the fallout from Depleted Uranium. When it was announced that the Pentagon would be using the insidious spent radioactive compound in its bombs, there arose a great but unheeded outcry. The military also reports 17 suicides in Iraq and 24 other deaths the cause of which has not been released. An additional 504 soldiers have been evacuated for psychiatric reasons.

Many of the evacuees returned Stateside have been deprived of care. The Pentagon recently admitted to deplorable conditions at Fort Stewart where Gulf returnees are being held pending medical and other interventions. They are crammed into cement training barracks with no indoor latrines. CNN and other news feeds report waiting times of up to 45 days to get needed medical attention or under a necessary procedure, such as an MRI.

The soldiers have also had to grin and bear the unexpected upping of their deployment to the Persian Gulf as well as a cut of 25 percent in their combat pay.

Alternatives

Both Montes and Arcuña propose that the alternative to military service for young Latinos is not the streets, or, at best, the factories and restaurant kitchens, but an education. Montes notes that he has seen many returnees, who enlisted because of the promise of learning a trade or getting a good job, come home empty handed and empty-pocketed, with no training and no job, the three or fours of years active duty all come to naught. He also notes that "the research I've done is that 57percent of the people that join the armed forces never use the GI bill [providing for college tuition]. These youth, if they had the right preparation and training in [high] school, they could go straight to college."

Says Arcuña, "I'm totally against joining the military as a way out. I say go to college and get a good job." He notes that the Pentagon spends between $8,000 and $10,000 to recruit each Latino. Both activists support using that money for educational alternatives, to keep Latinos in school and to further their education as well.

Bottom line

Perhaps the bottom line is not who serves, where, and what's to be gained by military service. But a lesson taken from amongst the last words, written to a friend, of undocumented, Guatemalan, poet, Marine, Lance Corporal José Antonio Gutiérrez:
"The only thing I do not understand is, why wars? Why do we fight against other human beings if, at the end of our time – friends or enemies – we all end up in the same place, buried in cemeteries and many times forgotten."

Well, thanks for that, jeffmoskin!

It's interesting that some time ago, within the last two years, I was talking with some recruiters, and they told me point-blank that without at least a "green card", someone could not serve in OUR military!

However, during Viet Nam, there were non-citizens serving, and so, I wondered!

And why wars?

Obviously, that young man just does not understand what "GLOBALIZATION" is really all about, does he?

I wonder how come George W. Bush isn't hiring Germans, though, like the Roman Emperors did, and "Fat George" of England?

Probably because he is getting a better deal on Mexicans?

That old bottom-line!

Economics!

Go with the best deal you can get, and since they are only mercenaries, who really cares where they come from, or how they die, since mercenaries are property, anyway, like suitcases and cattle!

"U.S. Spy Plane Pilot Dies in Asia Crash"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 40 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane involved in a mission in Afghanistan crashed while returning to its base in the United Arab Emirates, killing the pilot, the military said Wednesday.

U.S. Central Command said the crash occurred in "southwest Asia," a term that can be a substitute for the Middle East.

"The Airmen of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing mourn the loss of a true American hero in the service of his country," said Col. Darryl Burke, the unit's wing commander.

The wing has been based at the al-Dhafra air base near Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, since early 2002.

The wing flies various types of aircraft, including aerial refueling tankers.

It was visited in August by Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Burke appointed an interim investigation board to determine the cause of the crash.

It was not clear when the results of the investigation would be completed.

The location of the crash could not be released "due to host nation sensitivities," U.S. Air Force Capt. David W. Small, a Central Command spokesman, said in an e-mail when asked for more information.

In Washington, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the plane had completed a mission related to Operation Enduring Freedom and crashed while returning to its base.

A U.S. security team was at the site of the crash, he said.

The U-2 operates at an altitude of more than 70,000 feet, beyond the range of most surface-to-air missiles.

It has been used by American forces for decades.

In January 2003, a U-2 crashed in South Korea.

The pilot ejected to safety, but four Koreans on the ground were injured.

A U-2 was shot down May 1, 1960, over Soviet territory while photographing Soviet missile installations.

After parachuting to safety, pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured and later convicted as a spy.

He was held for almost two years before being traded for a KGB captive.

end quotes

Ah, yes, the famous U-2 incident, and Francis Gary Powers!

How could anyone then alive forget that!

Another one of those times when the world was going to end in a puff of smoke, and a huge flash of light, all over an incident of trespassing!

I remember it well!

And how could I not?

After all, that is all we heard about for weeks and weeks afterwards, as I remember it, anyway!

Mental trauma!

Boy, was there a ton of it in those days, or what, jeffmoskin?

"Lobbyist May Have Cost Tribe Millions"

By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer

Wed Jun 22,10:28 AM ET

ELTON, La. - Though far removed from Washington, the Coushatta Indian tribe quickly learned the cost of influence in the Capitol:

"Wire all funds."

"Professional Services, $3,405,000.00," one of the tribe's lobbyists, now under investigation, wrote the Coushattas in 2002.

Other invoices such as this one from Michael Scanlon, a business partner of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, carry similar commands for large sums."

Before it was all over the tribe had spent $32 million of its casino profits on a lobbying effort that many now question as exorbitant, and tribal members had ousted their leadership.

Along the way, Abramoff directed the tribe to make tens of thousands of donations and once directed tribal leaders to cancel $55,000 in checks to House Republican leader Tom DeLay and divert them to other groups.

DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority and Americans for a Republican Majority never reported receiving any checks from the Louisiana tribe to federal or state regulators, their reports show.

The donations, however, are recorded in memos and ledgers kept by the tribe.

"Enclosed please find a check for $10,000 to the Texans for a Republican Majority."

"This check needs to be reissued to America 21," Abramoff, now under criminal investigation, wrote the Coushattas in a May 2002 letter obtained by The Associated Press.

America 21 is a Nashville, Tenn.-based Christian group focused on voter turnout that helped Republican candidates in the pivotal 2002 elections that kept DeLay's party in control of the House.

Months earlier, the tribe was asked to cancel a $25,000 check to Americans for a Republican Majority and send that money instead to a group called Sixty Plus that helped Republicans in their two-year effort to get a Medicare prescription drug benefit through Congress.

People familiar with Abramoff's transactions with the Coushattas, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of ongoing grand jury and Senate probes, said Abramoff redirected the checks at the request of one of DeLay's assistants.

The aide asked Abramoff to get the checks changed, expressing concern that donations from tribal casinos shouldn't appear on the rolls of DeLay's conservative political groups, the sources told the AP.

Don McGahn, a lawyer who represents one of DeLay's groups, said he had no immediate comment Tuesday.

Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff, declined to comment.

Abramoff is under investigation by the Senate and a federal grand jury over allegations he and a colleague overcharged Indian tribes for their lobbying.

Abramoff, whose ties to President Bush and DeLay are also under scrutiny, denies wrongdoing.

Kent Cooper, a former federal election regulator, said the transactions show how powerful leaders and special interests can hide money from a system that relies on public disclosure as its ethical safeguard.

"This shows how easy it is for interest groups, lobbyists or politicians to manipulate or redirect money into whatever avenue is dark and free of roadblocks, and the average person never sees any of it," Cooper said.

Tribal leaders who provided $32 million for Abramoff's lobbying efforts now question why money they intended to benefit DeLay causes was often disguised or routed elsewhere.

"There's a pattern of trying to keep high profile entities out of the picture," Coushatta council member David Sickey said.

"To me it tells me there's some effort at concealment."

The Coushatta tribe had hired Abramoff, a well-connected Republican lobbyist and fundraiser for Bush, to lobby in Washington on various pieces of legislation affecting their casinos such as the Indian Gaming Act, labor provisions and efforts to make it tougher to approve new gambling facilities, according to lobbying reports filed on Capitol Hill.

The tribe was flush with cash at the time from its booming casino.

Internal memos show Abramoff specifically advised the tribes when to send political donations and to whom.

Invoices show that among the charges was a $185,000 payment for use of a Washington arena skybox Abramoff leased.

The AP reported earlier this year that DeLay treated some of his donors to a May 2000 performance of the Three Tenors opera singers in Abramoff's skybox.

A few weeks later, DeLay took a trip to Europe arranged by Abramoff.

The House leader reported that the trip was paid for by an interest group, when in fact it was underwritten in part by Indian tribes.

DeLay has said he was never told that tribes bankrolled his trip.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee chaired by Republican John McCain of Arizona was set to examine the relationships between Abramoff and the tribes at a hearing Wednesday in Washington.

In August 2001, more than a year after the skybox and European trip, the Coushatta tribe was told that a $25,000 check to DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority should be "voided and reissued" to Sixty Plus, the tribal memos show.

Later, one of Abramoff's assistants would ask the tribe to void and reissue a second check to ARMPAC, this time for $20,000.

"Jack Abramoff asked me to forward these checks to you that have been returned from the various groups because they need to be reissued with either different addresses or names," the assistant wrote in April 2002.

A month later, the request came in to reroute the $10,000 donation from Texans for a Republican Majority to America 21, the Christian organization that works on voter turnout.

A ledger titled "Coushatta Requests" shows thousands of dollars next to the names of dozens of congressmen and political action committees, Democrat and Republican alike — though mostly Republicans.

A tribal official said the "requests" were actually demands made by Abramoff.

The men who signed the invoices for Abramoff and his colleague Michael Scanlon have been thrown out of office in tribal elections over the last several weeks.

"We still haven't gotten to the bottom of it," said Verlis Williams, on his first day on the job at the tribal council office.

"We have no idea of the extent of it."
___

Associated Press writers John Solomon and Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.
___

On the Net:

The documents cited in this story can be viewed at: http://wid.ap.org/inv/050621tribaldonations.html

And since we are on the subject of George W. Bush, and influence-peddling, of course .......

"Afghan Violence Shatters Pakistan Alliance"

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

Wed Jun 22,12:42 PM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - Three months of intense fighting has killed more than 550 people and rattled confidence in Afghanistan's future.

As the battles — and the bodies — have piled up, senior Afghan officials are pointing an accusing finger at a familiar foe: Pakistan.

An alleged plot by three Pakistanis to assassinate the U.S. ambassador has wiped away the thin veneer of civility between Kabul and Islamabad, with Afghan officials saying it is evidence their eastern neighbor is not doing enough to stop terrorism, or is complicit in it.

The rift is bad news for Washington — which counts both countries as essential allies in the war on terrorism.

Afghan officials have charged for weeks that Taliban and al-Qaida agents were slipping in from Pakistan — and that they were behind two deadly suicide bombings, the kidnapping and killing of Afghan security forces, and several major confrontations with the U.S.-led coalition.

Defense Minister Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press last week that rebels were receiving support from "regional powers" rattled by Afghanistan's request for a long-term U.S. and NATO presence.

"There is no doubt that there are countries in this region that have their own designs, and have had from long ago, and they are always trying to exploit the vacuums that have been created here," Wardak said.

He didn't single out any country, but strongly hinted he was referring at least partly to Pakistan.

Officials here say Islamabad is eager to resume its traditional role as regional power broker, and feels threatened by Kabul's warm relations with Pakistan's archrival, India.

Pakistan vehemently denies any involvement in terrorism, saying it has done more than any other country in the fight against al-Qaida.

About 70,000 Pakistani troops have fanned out along the border, and Islamabad boasts turning over 700 al-Qaida suspects to the United States.

In Islamabad, Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed expressed outrage at the Afghan statements.

"Let us make it clear that Pakistan as a state is not involved in any unlawful activity on the Afghan soil, and such claims and allegations from the Afghan side must stop," he said.

"No Taliban leaders are hiding here."

Ahmed said his government supports Afghan President Hamid Karzai, despite domestic sentiment against the policy.

"We have paid a political price by supporting him, but this support will continue," he said.

Pakistani political analyst Talat Masood said that both countries have a history of blaming each other for their woes, and that the public war of words was a dangerous distraction.

"The more they blame each other publicly, the more their relations are strained and the cooperation gets worse, to the advantage of the militants," he said.

Washington has been forced to walk a tightrope to try not to offend either side.

President Bush phoned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

Pakistani and Afghan officials say Musharraf and Karzai also spoke Tuesday, with Musharraf pledging total cooperation.

U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts said Monday that foreign militants, backed by networks channeling them money and arms, had come into Afghanistan to try to subvert parliamentary elections slated for September.

He said that for "operational security reasons" he could not identify the networks, nor say who supported them.

Since March, more than 550 people — including at least 29 U.S. troops and more than 360 rebels — have been killed in a surge of violence across the south and east.

Fighting on Tuesday alone claimed more than 85 lives in one of the bloodiest single confrontations since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.

Afghan calls for Pakistan's help in stopping the violence have grown more strident.

After the assassination plot against U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was revealed, Kabul officials took the gloves off.

"Some senior members of the Taliban, including some who are involved in killings and are considered terrorists, are in Pakistan," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said Tuesday at a Kabul news conference.

Violence is worst near the border, Ludin said.

"Our people are dying, our schools are getting burned, our mosques are getting blown up and our clergy are getting assassinated," he said.

"Some provinces of the country, especially in regions that are close to Pakistani soil, are insecure in many ways."

A senior official close to Karzai scoffed at suggestions that rogue elements of Pakistan's intelligence service, InterServices Intelligence, or ISI, might be supporting militants without Musharraf's knowledge.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the issue's sensitivity, said Pakistan had played a major role in keeping Afghanistan's October presidential election safe, sealing the border and going after terrorists.

But that cooperation has ended, and Afghan officials say they now think Pakistan was less than sincere.

Ludin said he was not giving up on relations improving, but he offered only cautious optimism.

"Neither Afghanistan nor the international coalition against terrorism will achieve success if we don't get the level of cooperation from Pakistan that we have had in the past," he said.

"We are hopeful and we are confident that that (cooperation) will be forthcoming ... but at the moment as far as the situation goes, we still have more work to do."
___

Munir Ahmad in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report.

"People say, how can I help on this war against terror?"

"How can I fight evil?"

"You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."

- George W. Bush laying forth his own plans on how to whup Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the French, Washington, D.C.; September 19, 2002

Well, George, why not start here, 'cause this sure sounds like TAY-RIZM to me, anyway, and everyone knows, TAY-RIZM is sure evil:

"Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods NYC Park"

34 minutes ago

NEW YORK - An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane.

Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News.

"It was quite a lot of fluid."

"On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."

Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said the company was unlikely to make a second attempt to break the record, set by a 21-foot ice pop in Holland in 1997.

The giant ice pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren't sure why it didn't.

It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning.

end quotes

Sounds like TAY-RISTS probably used a laser, or something anyway, maybe a gamma-ray concentrator, to melt this giant ice-pop in the hopes of shutting down New York City and scaring all of America half-to-death in the process, so that the TAY-RISTS could then conduct an airborne invasion of Dubuque, Iowa to force America to have to capitulate, and pull its troops out of Fernando Poo, and Togo, too!

And for some "home-town" news of the war agin tay-rah, or is it the war on tay-rah, or is it a war of terror?

"Jailed soldier awaits decision - Military says hearing on court-martial not yet set for Schaghticoke man accused of killings"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Like the civilian justice system in many states, the military has the death penalty for soldiers convicted of murder.

But an execution hasn't happened since 1961.

The issue has come up as public interest has grown in the case of Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez, 37, of Schaghticoke, who is charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of two of his commanders in Iraq.

He will likely face a court-martial and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Martinez, a soldier in the 42nd Infantry Division, is accused of killing Capt. Phillip T. Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen June 7 in Tikrit.

The last American soldier executed was Army Pvt. John A. Bennett, who died April 13, 1961, after being convicted of raping and trying to murder an 11-year-old girl while stationed in Austria.

"There was a 15-year period where there was no death penalty," said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

President Ronald Reagan reinstated it, but no one has been put to death under it since.

"Eventually some president is going to have to make the decision," Fidell said.

"Neither President Clinton nor President Bush has done so."

"In the military, you can't have an execution without the affirmative personal approval of the president of the United States."

Martinez is being held in a military facility in Kuwait.

Locally, Martinez' family has declined to discuss the case.

In the days since Martinez' arrest became public Thursday, his family's home on River Road in Schaghticoke has been posted with multiple no-trespassing signs.

Col. Russ Catalano, rear detachment commander with the 42nd Infantry Division, spoke to the family.

"I visited the family to inform them of the charges that were placed against Sgt. Martinez," he said.

"I needed to provide them with information on what services are provided to them: counseling, the Red Cross."

Catalano said he knew Martinez when the two worked together at the Watervliet Arsenal for about three years.

Martinez handled the receipt and distribution of equipment and supplies and supervised about five other employees, he said.

"I know him professionally."

"I was his third-tier supervisor," Catalano said.

Whenever Martinez was given an assignment, he said, "he always made sure it got done."

"I never had a problem with him."

The next step for Martinez is for the Army to hold an Article 32 hearing, where a commander decides whether to recommend that the case go to a general court-martial and whether it should be considered a death penalty case.

"In an Article 32 proceeding, there is generally a lieutenant colonel or above, a senior officer, who sits and listens to evidence," said Mark Sacco, an Albany attorney who served as a Marine Corps lawyer until 2003.

Those hearings are much different from a civilian grand jury.

"You can actually see the evidence against you, and you can question it and challenge it," Sacco said.

Col. Bill Buckner, chief of public affairs at Camp Victory in Baghdad, said via e-mail Tuesday no hearing has been set for Martinez and no decision has been made on where it will be held.

The hearing officer makes a recommendation to the general who oversees the soldier's division.

The general can accept the recommendation or reject it.

Should Martinez face a court-martial, he can seek to have at least one-third of the jury be made up of enlisted personnel of his rank or higher.

It takes two-thirds of the panel to convict; but unlike civilian juries, they only vote once.

"When they vote, if it's 6-6, that's an acquittal," said Charles W. Gittins, a Middletown, Va., attorney who handles only military cases.

If it is a death penalty case, there must be at least 12 members to hear it.

If not, a minimum of five is needed unless the accused opts to have a single judge.

If a guilty verdict is issued, the court-martial moves to a penalty phase with the same jurors hearing evidence.

The death penalty can only be considered if there was a unanimous finding of guilt.

After hearing evidence, each member writes down what penalty he or she proposes, Gittins said.

The members vote on each possible penalty, starting with the least serious.

A sentence of 10 years or less in prison requires two-thirds of the members to approve.

A sentence of 10 years or longer requires approval from three-fourths of the members.

A death penalty verdict must be unanimous.

The general who convenes the case is the first level of appeal.

After that, the defense can take its case to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, a three-member panel of uniformed lawyers.

The case then goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, five civilian judges appointed by the president who serve 15-year terms.

Death penalty cases must be heard by this court, Gittins said.

In case you were wondering what ever became of Mr. Powers...




http://www.combat-diaries.co.uk/diary26/di...pter5warren.htm


On August 1, 1977, Francis Gary Powers was killed when the traffic helicopter he was flying for a Los Angeles radio station ran out of fuel. The New York Times reported: "The 47 year old aviator, who had survived the downing of his U-2 over the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960, died when he Bell Jet Ranger helicopter crashed near a Little League baseball field in the San Fernando Valley suburb of Encino. George Spears, a cameraman for the television station KNBC, also died. The initial indications were that the helicopter had run out of fuel. James Turner, an official of the Federal Aviation Administration control tower at Van Nuys had received a message from an unidentified helicopter pilot at 12:36. The pilot said he was low on fuel and was granted approval for an expedited, direct approach to the airport. Francis Gary Powers crashed at 12:38 p.m. An official of KNBC checked in by radio with his supervisors at the station at about 12:25 p.m. said he was returning to Van Nys for fuel and asked what his next assignment would be. He was told he would probably be assigned to cover another brush fire near Los Angeles this afternoon. Station officials said he mentioned nothing about being short of fuel. One witness told a fireman that the tail rotor of the helicopter fell off before the crash, but this was not immediately confirmed." Powers had worked for KNBC for nine months. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash, and determined that it was a case of too long a flight with too little fuel, because it found the tank and fuel lines totally empty. The National Transportation Safety Board never examined the instruments (which were largely intact) to determine whether the readings they registered to Francis Gary Powers were accurate. [NTSB Powers Rep.; NYT 8.2.77; Ross & Wise Inv. Gov. p226]


And now you know the rest of the story.

Incredible, jeffmoskin, just incredible!

I never did know what had become of him after he was released by the "EVIL EMPIRE", and now, I do!

Kind of makes you wonder, don't it, about whether or not God or nature really ever intended for this one guy to be a "flier"!

SAY .....

You don't think he ran out of gas, over there in Russia, too, do you, and that being shot down business was just a ruse to cover that up?

"Motive still unclear in alleged 'fragging' - Schaghticoke soldier involved in dispute with insurance company over fire at his house"

Albany, New York Times Union
Staff and wire reports
First published: Monday, June 20, 2005

A Schaghticoke soldier accused of killing two of his superior officers is in a legal dispute with Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. after the insurer accused him of burning down his Cohoes home in 2002 to collect on a policy whose value had been doubled six weeks before the fire.

On Sunday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the motive for the alleged "fragging'' in Iraq is unknown.

"I don't know of any of the dynamics behind it."

"It may come out at trial."

"We have to wait for all the facts to come out.''

Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez previously told fellow National Guardsmen, "If I can't sell my house, I might as well burn it down,'' the insurer said in court pleadings obtained by the Times Herald-Record of Middletown.

Martinez, 37, denied any involvement in the fire.

Police records show the cause was determined to be accidental.

Martinez is suing Liberty Mutual for payment on the policy.

"We believe that the plaintiff, utilizing his knowledge of electrical wiring, has cleverly created the impression that this fire was of electrical origin,'' Liberty Mutual lawyer Thomas O'Connor wrote in court papers in September.

Martinez has an associate degree in electronics.

The military says Capt. Philip Esposito of Suffern, Rockland County, and 1st Lt. Louis Allen of Milford, Pa., were in Esposito's room at an Army base in Tikrit outside of Baghdad on June 7 when they were killed by what at first seemed like enemy mortar fire.

But the Army said forensics investigators ruled that out when they determined the blast pattern at the scene was inconsistent with a mortar attack.

On Thursday, the Army charged Martinez with two counts of premeditated murder.

He is being held in Kuwait.

Martinez's family refused to speak with reporters.

His civil lawyer, Eugene Spada, told the Times Herald-Record that the trial in the insurance case was scheduled to begin in September.

Martinez, who is married and has two teenagers, joined the National Guard in 1990.

Esposito, 30, was a 1997 graduate of West Point and worked at the Salomon Smith Barney investment firm in New York City.

He is survived by a wife and 19-month-old daughter.

Allen, 34, taught high school science in Tuxedo, Orange County, and lived in Milford, Pa., with his wife and four sons, ages 1 to 6.

"As families grieve, soldier awaits fate - Suspect in killings could face death penalty as kin buries 1 of 2 officers slain in Iraq"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Saturday, June 18, 2005

If found guilty of murdering his commanding officers, a Schaghticoke soldier could be sentenced to death, a military spokeswoman said Friday.

Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, 37, is accused of killing two commanders on June 7 at Forward Operating Base Danger in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

Martinez was charged Wednesday with two counts of premeditated murder after military officials say he blew up his superiors and tried to make it look like a mortar attack.

"If tried as a capital case, his sentence could be death," said Capt. Patricia Brewer, a military spokeswoman at Central Command in Iraq.

The charge, along with supporting evidence, will be forwarded through the chain of command for review and recommendations on how to proceed, military officials said.

Details on any possible motive for the attack could not be obtained Friday.

Officials had first believed the explosion was a mortar attack that struck the window on the side of the building where Capt. Phillip T. Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen were located at the time.

Three days after it happened, however, a criminal investigation was announced when explosive ordnance personnel determined that the blast pattern was inconsistent with that of a mortar attack.

Martinez was deployed to Iraq earlier this year after first being sent in May 2004 to Fort Drum for pre-deployment training.

A member of the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division since 1990, he served as a supply specialist.

Brewer said the decision on whether to try Martinez as a capital case will be made by the commander of the 42nd Infantry.

Martinez is being held in a military jail in Kuwait.

"The soldier is represented by the Army Trial Defense Service," she said.

Martinez could also seek a private defense attorney, but it was not known Friday if he had done so.

Martinez, who lived in Cohoes prior to moving to his father's home in Schaghticoke, is the first soldier charged with "fragging" -- or killing a superior officer -- since the Iraq war began.

However, the charges against Martinez are the second time a U.S. soldier has been charged with killing fellow Americans during the Iraq war.

Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death in April after being found guilty of staging an attack on fellow soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division.

That 2003 attack came in Kuwait and killed two officers and wounded 14 soldiers.

A person answering the phone at Hector Martinez's Schaghticoke home Friday said the family would have no comment.

In July 2003, Martinez became a full-time employee of the National Guard as supply sergeant in Headquarters Company.

His base pay was $2,859.90 per month.

He was deployed with many state Guard soldiers after the World Trade Center attacks, and he received medals for that service, including the Global War on Terror Service Medal awarded this year.

The dead soldiers were buried this week, Esposito in Nanuet, Rockland County, on Wednesday and Allen on Friday in Middletown.

Esposito graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1997 and had lived in Suffern, Rockland County, with his wife and 19-month-old daughter before being activated by the New York National Guard.

According to the Journal News of Westchester County, Maj. John Schurtz, Esposito's commanding officer when he served in Fort Hood, Texas, eulogized Esposito as the best second-in-command an officer could ask for.

He described him as a meticulous officer who had high standards for himself and his soldiers.

"Phil anguished for a long time over being in the military and trying to raise a family."

"He made no secret that that was one of the most difficult choices he had to make," Schurtz said after the public eulogy.

Allen, of Milford, Pa., is survived by his wife and four young sons.

According to the Middletown Times Herald-Record, Capt. Mark Walsh, a friend of Allen's, described him as a devoted teacher and family man who loved kids.

Just before Allen was deployed, Walsh ribbed him for allowing his boys to run around the home.

Allen told him, "Eh, you gotta have the kids running around the house," Walsh said.

"That's the last thing I heard him say."

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

"Soldier called a killer - Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez of Schaghticoke accused in "fragging" deaths of officers in Iraq"

By BRUCE A. SCRUTON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, June 17, 2005

The Army has filed murder charges against a Rensselaer County soldier, saying he blew up two of his commanders near Tikrit and tried to make it look like a mortar attack by insurgents.

Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez of Schaghticoke was formally charged Wednesday and the case is being referred through the chain of command for review and recommendations on how to proceed, according to a news release from the Department of Defense.

Martinez, 37, is a New York National Guard soldier and, as a supply specialist, is assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 42nd Infantry Division.

That division is headquartered in North Greenbush and is on active duty in Iraq, in charge of military operations in the area around Tikrit.

But while the main body of 42nd Infantry troops have been in Iraq since early this year, Martinez has been there since May 2004, according to the state Division of Military and Naval Affairs in Latham.

The incident occurred June 7 at Forward Operating Base Danger. Capt. Phillip T. Esposito, 30, of Suffern, Rockland County, and 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa., were killed.

Esposito was commander of Headquarters Company, while Allen was the company's operations officer.

Initial reports were that an insurgent mortar round had struck the window of a building that the two commanders were in, but ordnance experts later determined the blast pattern was inconsistent with a mortar attack.

On June 10, military officials said a criminal investigation into the blast was under way.

The formal charges of premeditated murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice were lodged on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that Martinez is believed to have allegedly used some kind of explosive device, possibly a grenade, in the attack, military officials said on condition of anonymity because the matter was still under investigation.

Martinez is being held in a facility in Kuwait, according to the military.

Martinez, who joined the National Guard in December 1990, lived for a time on Congress Street in Cohoes.

However, the apartment burned a couple of years ago and he and his wife, Tamara, moved across the river into his father's home located at the dead end of River Road in Schaghticoke.

On Thursday afternoon, a military officer was seen leaving the home, which sits on the side of a hill overlooking the Hudson River.

Thursday evening, a young man walked out of the house and said the family would not have any comment.

Several cars were parked in the yard next to the house and at the bottom of the driveway at the turn-around at the end of River Road.

A former neighbor on Congress Street, who asked that his name not be used, said Martinez seemed to be a quiet, hard-working man.

The neighbor said he believed Martinez worked at the Watervliet Arsenal.

On Thursday night, the arsenal could not confirm Martinez's employment status.

Kent Kisselbrack, a spokesman for the Division of Military and Naval Affairs, said National Guard soldiers normally spend only a year in Iraq and could not say why Martinez was still there.

He also did not immediately know whether Martinez' unit was called up a year ago or if he was called up to fill a slot in another unit.

Most recently, however, Martinez was part of the 42nd Headquarters Company, which began its year of duty in January.

The 42nd was a regular Army unit in both World Wars and in 1947 was reactivated as a National Guard Division for New York.

Now, the division has units in nine different states.

The division got its Rainbow Division nickname from then-Col. Douglas MacArthur, who served as its first chief of staff during World War I.

The division, he said, "stretches like a rainbow from one end of America to the other."

In 1989, the division's headquarters was moved from New York City to a new armory in North Greenbush, just south of the Troy city line.

The 42nd is in charge of a huge swath of central and northern Iraq, which includes Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

Forward Operating Base Danger is headquarterd in one of the former dictator's palaces on the banks of the Tigris River.

Allen was a science teacher at George F. Baker High School in Orange County and was deployed to Iraq just a few weeks ago.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and four sons, ages 1 to 6.

Esposito is survived by his wife and 19-month-old daughter.

This is the second known case in which a U.S. soldier has been charged with killing fellow Americans during the Iraq war.

Hasan Akbar, a 34-year-old Muslim, was sentenced to death in April.

He was found guilty of staging an attack on fellow soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in the opening days of the invasion.

That 2003 attack came in Kuwait and killed two officers and wounded 14 soldiers.

However, the Martinez case is the first so-called "fragging" incident.

The term came into use during the Vietnam War and means a soldier intentionally killed a commanding officer, often through use of a fragmentation grenade.

Between 1969 and 1971, the Army reported 600 fragging incidents in which 82 Americans were killed and another 651 were injured.

His motive remained unclear Thursday.

Martinez will be provided with a military defense counsel from the Army's Trial Defense Service.

He can also hire his own civilian attorney.

"Staff Sgt. Martinez has been and will continue to be afforded the extensive rights under the Uniform Code of Military Justice," said Col. Billy J. Buckner, a spokesman for the Multinational Corps Iraq.

Whether the death penalty will be sought in this case will be determined as part of the review and recommendations up through the chain of command.

Bruce A. Scruton can be reached at 454-5462 or by e-mail at bscruton@timesunion.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Well, he certainly earned the "fickle finger of fate" award. Imagine, having been shot down (yes, I really DO believe he was) over USSR, going through KGB interrogs, finally getting traded for Rudolph Abel (?), coming back to America and getting a cushy job flying a TV news chopper...

HE RUNS OUT OF GAS AND GETS KILLED.

A classic, if you ask me.

Livyjr, I believe you have really nailed it with that statement.

There was a time when the misadventure or folly or dishonest action on the part of one of our elected officials would arouse the ire of an entire population.

I find this still to be true when it comes to local politicians.

Let a councilman or a mayor of a town, large or small, get caught doing something less than honorable, and the front page of the local paper will headline the event.

Local columnists will milk several days worth of columns out of it.

People and their neighbors would shake their heads, discuss it at length, and be up in arms.

The transgression might involve a few thousand dollars, perhaps a bribe, padding an expense account, something of that sort. The transgressor would find his political career effectively over, perhaps even some jail time would be applied.

These rules do not seem to apply to presidents, vice presidents, and others in the inner circle.

Occasionally, events cause punishment to " higher ups " i.e. Nixon, almost to Clinton. Usually it is not the breaking of the rules or being caught that cause these exceptions. I believe it is a combination of a hostile congress and the approval of the media.

How can Bushco get caught in so many lies, so many actions harmful to the the American people, even so many stupid moves and still get reelected? Still have so many citizens approve of him?

The answer is not so obvious. Yes, he still has a majority of congressman that feel their careers are closely dependent on his approval by the voters.

And as Livyjr so astutely points out, the inexplicable indifference so many people seem to have.

Do these people really not want to know the truth?

A.B.

Not here, Mr. A.B., some 500 or 600 miles to the east of you, across Lake Erie, and the State of New York, if I have got the distance down right, give or take a 100 miles or so.

And that really begins to point out a lot of regional differences between people, here in OUR America.

And I know how foolish and dangerous it is to make generalizations, and so, I do it cautiously, but still, here where I am, to be a politician at the local level, and to stay there, you seem to have to be the most corrupt ones on the block!

And nobody says a word, starting with the local media.

Now, I think that is in part because I live within a certain radius of the state capital, where politics plays such a dominant part in who gets a job, and who gets punished for speaking out, but even from my readings about the Revolutionary War, there was a big perceived difference between people in New York, versus people in New England, versus people in the southern states, and as I have traveled around, I have come to the conclusion that we are not all the same, when it comes to tolerance of corruption and ineptness in OUR governments.

New York State, and especially Albany, the present state capital, has a history of corruption that goes back to the 1600's, in fact, and it is probably one of the longest histories of corrupt government in the United States.

People in the past were able to deal with this by simply moving westwards, and so they did!

Look at your state, Mr. A.B, for an example!

Yours is what I call a "clean slate" state, in that it came out of the old Northwest Territory, which had, right from the start, a "charter" that set it on a different course than what was the case in the original 13 states, which had ROYAL, which is to say corrupt government in place at the time of the American Revolution.

During the Revolution, New York City itself was a Loyalist city, by and large, and New York State was one of the hold-out states in ratifying the United States Constitution, which can be interpreted a host of different ways perhaps, but to me, there has been a kind of osmotic factor going on in OUR America since, where people who did not want or accept corruption simply went west to those places like the Northwest Territory that later became such progressive states as Ohio and Wisconsin, while those who were weaker and so couldn't move, or resist corruption stayed back here, where corruption had been the regular course of BID-NESS for so long a period of time as to be the way things are!

And that is still what you hear people saying today, up here, "Oh, Livyjr, you're just wasting your time, you damn fool!"

"Don't you know that that's the way it has always been, and you're not going to change anything?"

Well, Mr. A.B. I do know that's the way it has been, and I do know that I haven't made a dent in it, and so, I wish we had some people with some more integrity and guts up here, but I think those people went west!

And that just is the way it is!

And speaking of differences in "tolerance" as one moves farther from the cesspit of New York State politics that is located at the top of State Street Hill in Albany, New York:

"More council calls to resign - Felony indictment against Schenectady councilman unites parties in new effort"

By ANNE MILLER, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, June 17, 2005

SCHENECTADY -- A more serious felony indictment against a Schenectady councilman accused in a beating case has united Democrats and Republicans in new calls for his resignation.

City political leaders say that while Councilman Peter Della Ratta, 33, is innocent until proven guilty, the negative attention the case has generated detracts from government business.

Mayor Brian U. Stratton, a Democrat, and city Republican party chief Armando Tebano renewed their efforts to get Della Ratta, 33, to quit on Thursday.

"We don't need any more bad press," Tebano said.

Stratton said his fellow Democrat should leave office.

"We've been a city that's been through police scandal, through financial mismanagement," said Stratton.

"I have a fondness for Peter and I like him as an individual, but this goes beyond that."

Della Ratta wasn't talking.

He faces charges of second-degree assault, a felony, and third-degree assault, a misdemeanor.

His attorney, E. Stewart Jones, said he would make no comment until after Della Ratta's arraignment, set for 9 a.m. Thursday.

City police first arrested Della Ratta on April 8, three days after he allegedly punched Mark Maiorello, 21, in the face.

Police said the fight broke out when Della Ratta allegedly caught his former employee with his ex-girlfriend in an apartment on South Church Street the night of April 5.

Maiorello was taken to Ellis Hospital for treatment after the fight.

Amid the bruises, hospital records showed he also suffered a broken nose.

Della Ratta was originally charged with a misdemeanor, but the grand jury upgraded one of the charges to a felony.

He faces a minimum of five years probation if convicted.

"It really wasn't determined that there was felony conduct until we examined the medical records" from Ellis Hospital, said Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III, who has stepped in as a special prosecutor at the request of Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney.

Under state law, Della Ratta would lose his office if convicted of a felony, said L. John VanNorden the Schenectady city deputy corporation counsel.

Until then, the city cannot force him out.

"It's a charge that has nothing to do with his duties as a city councilman," VanNorden said.

Second-degree assault is D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Elected officials facing felony charges are not unheard of.

One of the most notorious cases involved North Greenbush Town Board member John Ramahlo Sr. who was convicted in 1993 of killing his wife.

In that case, Ramahlo's own Republican party encouraged him to stay, which he did, until his conviction.

VanNorden said there have been no criminal charges against a Schenectady council member at least during his 15 years in the corporation counsel's office.

Anne Miller can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at amiller@timesunion.com.

Good old Rensselaer County.

When I was in the Army, and said that I was from near Troy, New York, people from across America would say, "Oh, that's where Mame Fay is"!

Mame Fay, of course, was a famous "Madam" in Troy in the early 1900's, when some older folks still living were still young, and her "establishment" was safely ensconced right behind the Police Station in Troy, near the now-demolished train station!

It used to be said, and still is, actually, that if you want to commit a murder, come to Rensselaer County to do it, and Mr. Charlie "Legs" Diamond himself was on trial in Troy, and was acquitted of something, just before he was murdered himself over across the river in Albany, the oozing cesspit of New York State politics.

And this Ramahlo case really took the cake, where the Republican Party itself became real militant and "in your face" to anyone that wanted this wife killer out of local politics!

"So what if he killed the b****!"

"He's a good guy, one of us, a REPUBLICAN to the core!"

Got any wife killers in your local government out there, Mr. A.B.?

And talking about "taking the cake", THIS IS SIMPLY INCREDIBLE ....

Should cities be allowed to seize homes and buildings for private projects as long as they benefit the public good? * 64339 responses

Yes, all parties benefit in the long run 3%

No, property owners will lose and developers gain 97%

"Homes may be 'taken' for private projects - Justices: Local governments can give OK if it's for public good"

Jack Sauer / AP file
This home in New London, Conn., is one of several at the center of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling. Susette Kelo and other homeowners had refused to sell their property for what their city said was a needed private development project.

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:23 p.m. ET June 23, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

The 5-4 ruling — assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as handing “disproportionate influence and power” to the well-heeled — represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex.

Those residents argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to “just compensation” for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment.

But residents involved in the lawsuit expressed dismay and pledged to keep fighting.

“It’s a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country,” said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up.

“I won’t be going anywhere."

"Not my house."

"This is definitely not the last word.”

Jobs, tax revenue cited

Writing for the court’s majority in Thursday’s ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community.

States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.

“The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue,” Stevens wrote.

He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

O’Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent.

She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,” O’Connor wrote.

“The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Thomas filed a separate opinion to argue that seizing homes for private development, even with “just compensation,” is unconstitutional.

“The consequences of today’s decision are not difficult to predict, and promise to be harmful,” Thomas wrote.

“So-called ’urban renewal’ programs provide some compensation for the properties they take, but no compensation is possible for the subjective value of these lands to the individuals displaced and the indignity inflicted.”

Homeowners refused to budge

The case involves Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., who filed a lawsuit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

The residents had refused to budge, arguing it was an unjustified taking of their property.

“I’m not willing to give up what I have just because someone else can generate more taxes here,” said homeowner Matthew Dery, whose family has lived in the neighborhood known as Fort Trumbull for more than 100 years.

New London contends the condemnations are proper because the development plans serving a “public purpose” — such as boosting economic growth — are valid “public use” projects that outweigh the property rights of the homeowners.

The Connecticut Supreme Court agreed with New London, ruling 4-3 in March 2004 that the mere promise of additional tax revenue justified the condemnation.

Issue across the country

Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned between 1998 and 2002, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.

In many cases, according to the group, cities are pushing the limits of their power to accommodate wealthy developers.

Courts, meanwhile, are divided over the extent of city power, with seven states saying economic development can justify a taking and eight states allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

In New London, city officials envision replacing a stagnant enclave with commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

“The record is clear that New London was a city desperate for economic rejuvenation,” the city’s legal filing states, in asking the high court to defer to local governments in deciding what constitutes “public use.”

The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families.

Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.

Where other states stand

According to the residents’ filing, the seven states that allow condemnations for private business development alone are Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and North Dakota.

Eight states forbid the use of eminent domain when the economic purpose is not to eliminate blight; they are Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington.

Another three — Delaware, New Hampshire and Massachusetts — have indicated they probably will find condemnations for economic development alone unconstitutional, while the remaining states have not addressed or spoken clearly to the question.

"Players in land venture connect to Bruno - Senator's son got friends to buy some homes in controversial project"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON and BOB PORT, Staff Writer and Senior editor
Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Thursday, June 23, 2005

Ask state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno about First Grafton Corp., his controversial real estate venture in eastern Rensselaer County, and his spokesman has a quick answer:

"The senator doesn't have a real estate company -- it's in a blind trust."

But just how blind is Bruno's 25 percent share?

It's true, the second most powerful state Republican did remove himself in 1992 from the board of directors of the company run by influential Albany lobbyist James Featherstonhaugh.

But "Feathers," a longtime close Bruno friend, then sold parcels of land to the senator's son, the senator's son's new girlfriend, the senator's son's snowmobiling friends, the wife of the senator's thoroughbred horse-racing friend and the son of the Republican supervisor in the town of Grafton.

Now the remaining acreage just off Route 2 has been sold to Massachusetts developer David Lipinski, of Stonybrook Land LLC, who plans to build out the rest of the 22-home luxury subdivision and carve a second access road around the leafy perimeter of Dyken Pond.

Lipinski said he never talked to the senator about the deal, though he recalled meeting Kenneth R. Bruno, the senator's son, and Theresa Russo, Ken Bruno's girlfriend, who is also a lobbyist.

Featherstonhaugh insists he never was steered to any buyer by Sen. Bruno, though he acknowledged Bruno's son brokered some deals.

He said he and Albany lawyer Douglas Rutnik invested cash in the venture some years before Sen. Bruno, his brother, Peter Bruno, and Glens Falls businessman Richard Carota, chief executive officer of Finch Pruyn, joined the venture.

The company was dissolved on May 31.

"Rutnik and I lost maybe less than $100,000," Featherstonhaugh said.

He said other investors lost a "substantial amount" of money.

Sen. Bruno, through a spokesman, refused to say how much.

Grafton Supervisor Tyler Sawyer said First Grafton received no special treatment, nor did his son.

Ken Bruno's home, which was recently appraised at $550,000, is assessed at less than half of that.

The massive home on Dyken Pond isn't the only edifice with the Bruno name attached to it in Grafton.

Just down the road from Bruno's subdivision, a multimillion-dollar senior center is about to be built with an infusion of state and federal grant money.

Of that, close to $600,000 has been arranged by Sen. Bruno.

And tens of thousands of dollars in state grants have been given to the local historical society and fire department.

It caps an era that began in 1991 when Bruno, R-Brunswick, introduced his 625-acre project to the mountainous and sparsely populated community by bulldozing a 1.7-mile road through the old-growth forest and wetlands without the necessary state permits.

Nearby residents were furious.

Then, in 1996, the state fined and suspended from practice one of First Grafton's engineers for manufacturing the state-mandated Environmental Quality Review Assessment that the Health Department said was at odds with actual conditions.

As the project continued to raise the ire of its country neighbors, it was stalled by a number of state and federal lawsuits.

But it finally kicked into gear in 2001 when the senator's son, who was then the Rensselaer County district attorney, laid the foundation for his own home on 10.8 acres.

Next in was Scott Newell, an avid outdoorsman and longtime friend of Ken Bruno, who with his wife, Tracie, purchased 8 acres in 2002.

However, he said his relationship with First Grafton has been as rocky as the soil.

"They told anyone what they wanted to hear to get the land sold," Newell said.

"They did a lot of bad things."

Among them, he said, was attempting to take a 15-foot-wide public accessway from his property; breaking a landowner covenant to keep the access road, Pond View Way, private by secretly deeding it to the town to make the development more marketable; and working to dissolve a stipulation to forever preserve several hundred acres as wild, Newell said.

"I've spent $15,000 in legal fees fighting them," he said.

Grafton Building Inspector Tom Withcusky chuckles when he thinks about the First Grafton effort, still largely an unrealized vision.

"Who in their right mind would want to move in here?" he mused.

"You couldn't give me that place."

"Maybe they thought if they built it, people would come."

"But I don't see them coming and it's been a really long time."

Everyone knows that anyone who builds in Grafton has to lug in their own fill to supplement the poor soil, Withcusky and other local officials pointed out.

First Grafton landowners also are on their own when it comes to securing state and local permits to dig wells and put in septic systems abutting the wetlands area.

Withcusky said that although he regularly visited Bruno's home to inspect it during the construction process, he couldn't recall the name of a single contractor involved in the project.

Kenny Bruno, or "Joe's Boy" as he is affectionately known hereabouts, was the Rensselaer County District Attorney in 2001 whose "office" was instrumental in covering over an August 7, 2001 assault in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, on a state licensed professional engineer who was investigating another licensed engineer and a land surveyor who was also Town of Poestenkill Planning Board Chairman for "manufacturing" a state-mandated Environmental Quality Review Assessment that was at odds with actual conditions on the property in question in the Town of Poestenkill, and his "office" accomplished this on August 22, 2001, by helping other REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County officials have this engineer conducting the investigation falsely and fraudulently declared a "dangerous mental patient", so that they could then have him committed to a secure CORPORATE psychiatric facility in the city of Troy, New York in order to protect the developer and engineer and the Town of Poestenkill!

A protection racket that would make the Mafia drool!

Power!

These days, don't leave home without it!

"Family matter or political violation? - Deal between Bruno, son raises questions"

By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON and BOB PORT, Staff writer and Senior editor
Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Thursday, June 23, 2005

ALBANY -- A year ago, Kenneth R. Bruno, a lobbyist, paid $50,000 to his father, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

To get the $50,000, Ken Bruno, a former Rensselaer County district attorney, borrowed it from a bank without any collateral.

And to get the loan -- an unsecured "signature line of credit" at 5 percent interest -- Bruno, the lobbyist, had his father, the senator, co-sign the loan agreement.

Thus, the father became personally responsible for his son repaying a debt that put money into the senator's pocket.

The peculiar financial transaction, revealed in sealed court documents obtained by the Times Union, raises a question: Why would a father and son, much less a senator and a lobbyist, do such a thing?

According to John McArdle, spokesman for Sen. Bruno, Ken Bruno was repaying a loan the senator had made two years earlier "tied solely to the construction and completion of a home for his family."

The senator declined to speak about the issue to reporters for the Times Union, but issued a written statement:

"For 30 years, every aspect of my life as a businessman and a public servant has been thoroughly scrutinized and examined."

"Despite numerous false allegations and inferences, my record has held up."

Government watchdogs, however, say the transaction may represent an illegal conflict of interest.

Ken Bruno now earns $50,000 a month, plus expenses, as an independent lobbyist, representing horse-racing businesses and the Oneida Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, among other clients.

Madison Square Garden, which has been in the news recently as it fought plans to build a stadium on Manhattan's West Side, pays him $15,000 a month.

"The public deserves to have an impartial review," said Blair Horner, director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog group.

Horner called for a special prosecutor.

"The governor should appoint someone with impeccable qualifications and the authority and resources and a history to review it," Horner said.

"Only then can the public -- and Senator Bruno -- see that the allegations are impartially reviewed."

"This raises really troubling allegations about definite conflicts of interest," said Rachel Leon, executive director of Common Cause of New York, a group that advocates honesty and openness in government.

"Albany is incestuous, with the tremendous power of a few who are all related or connected," she said.

Any review of the $50,000 payment-loan deal might begin with its timing.

Ken Bruno borrowed the cash to pay off his father in June 2004, at a time when he was deeply in debt and being sued for divorce by his wife, according to court records.

And the repayment occurred within weeks of the younger Bruno's wife issuing a subpoena for Sen. Bruno to appear at trial.

By quickly paying off his father, Ken Bruno removed any legal grounds for his wife to put the senator under oath in court.

Bruno's ex-wife, Mary Beth Bruno, later agreed to settle the divorce and the subpoena was withdrawn.

The transaction also exposes a loophole in disclosures required by state ethics laws.

If Ken Bruno were not Joe Bruno's son, state law would be clear:

Sen. Bruno would have been required to report the transaction on his financial disclosure -- as either a gift or repayment of a loan.

To have concealed it "knowingly and willfully with intent to deceive" would be illegal and could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor crime.

But the disclosure law does not apply to personal transactions with family members.

And the state's ban on gifts by lobbyists to lawmakers exempts "gifts from a family member."

More generally, state officials are covered by the Public Officers Law.

It states that a public official cannot have "any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect, or engage in any business or transaction or professional activity or incur any obligation of any nature, which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties in the public interest."

The question in the Bruno-to-Bruno deal may be whether the transfer of money represented a "substantial" conflict.

McArdle, the senator's spokesman, strongly denied Bruno's family loan is a conflict.

"To imply that a father helping his son and his family build a home is a conflict of interest goes beyond the bounds of reason and decency," he said.

"My son is no longer a public official and his personal life and the lives of his former wife and his children should not be subjected to treatment that would not be given to other private citizens," the senator said in the statement sent to the Times Union.

The Times Union has sought comment from Ken Bruno for several weeks.

Last week, he demanded the questions in writing, which the Times Union supplied last Thursday night.

Late Wednesday, Ken Bruno, through his attorney, Michael Assaf, said:

"Any suggestion of improper, unethical or illegal conduct on the part of Mr. Bruno in connection with this loan has no basis in fact and publication of any statement declaring or implying the same would be false and defamatory."

Last week, Ken Bruno was back in divorce court with his ex-wife, who is accusing him of failing to promptly pay her share of marital assets.

Mary Beth Bruno also said, in one court document obtained by the Times Union, she believes her ex-husband is concealing commissions on land deals in Rensselaer County "brought to the table by his father, Joseph L. Bruno."

Her evidence was enough to convince state Supreme Court Justice Leslie Stein to subpoena the records of First Grafton Corp., a real estate company started in the late 1980s by Albany lobbyist and lawyer James Featherstonhaugh and lawyer Douglas Rutnick.

First Grafton later drew investment by Sen. Bruno, his brother Peter, and Richard Carota, a Glens Falls business associate of Peter Bruno.

Featherstonhaugh continued to run the company until it was dissolved this year.

About 10 years ago, Bruno placed his one-fourth stock ownership of First Grafton in a blind trust to silence criticism that his business investment, and his association with a lobbyist -- Featherstonhaugh -- were conflicts of interest.

In a recent interview, Featherstonhaugh said the senator had not involved himself in First Grafton business since his legal trust was formed.

A lawyer representing the trust weighs in on behalf of the senator's investment, he said.

In any case, he said, the company's plan for developing acreage in Rensselaer County encountered steady opposition.

"Having Bruno as a partner turned out to make everything hard," Featherstonhaugh said.

"Senator Bruno has no interest in, nor did he participate in, any land sales or other activities with First Grafton because his interest was in a blind trust," the senator's spokesman said.

Featherstonhaugh arrived early last Thursday at the Albany chambers of Judge Stein accompanied by about a dozen boxes of what appeared to be company files.

The Times Union was barred from a conference between lawyers in the case.

Times Union lawyer Michael Grygiel asked for the proceedings to be opened to the public and the judge gave lawyers 30 days to respond.

Ken Bruno's unusual $50,000 transaction with his father has its roots in the lobbyist's enormous house -- a mansion with 5,000 square feet of enclosed living area built using a construction loan of less than $340,000.

It was built on land on Dyken Pond in Grafton Ken Bruno and his wife purchased for $44,000 from First Grafton.

Featherstonhaugh signed the deed.

Ken Bruno claimed in his divorce to have received the money from his father in April 2002, about the time his construction project was coming to a close.

In a financial statement filed in April 2004, as a part of his divorce, Ken Bruno listed the $50,000 as a liability.

Had it been listed as a gift, his wife could have claimed a share of it as an asset.

Had it not been listed at all, it would have increased her share of the equity in their home.

To pay off Sen. Bruno -- which had the effect of keeping Mary Beth Bruno from $25,000 -- Ken Bruno, the son, took out a loan at First Niagara Bank, formerly Troy Savings Bank.

His father co-signed the note -- the senator thus guaranteeing a loan to a lobbyist in order to pay money to himself.

Ken Bruno got an unsecured loan, meaning the bank has no property to seize if either lobbyist Bruno or Sen. Bruno fail to repay the debt.

Ken Bruno got an interest rate of 5 percent and a promise from the bank that none of the loan payments would be applied to other loan amounts overdue at the same bank.

Indeed, according to documents obtained by the Times Union, First Niagara gave the $50,000 to Ken Bruno at a time when he was already $628,000 in debt and had a "frequently delinquent" credit rating, including delinquent payments to First Niagara on his mortgage for the house.

State banking officials refused to comment.

Daniel J. Hogarty, former president of Troy Savings Bank and now a top executive with First Niagara, was out of town and couldn't be reached, according to his assistant, Linda Comstock.

Melissa Ryan, director of the Legislative Ethics Commission, refused to discuss Senate ethics rules and said the commission does not discuss past ethics cases, nor does it answer hypothetical questions about legislative ethics.

State Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira, who was appointed by Sen. Bruno to head the Senate Ethics Committee, would not comment on whether the Bruno money exchange should have been disclosed

"We only respond to verified written complaints," Winner said.

"So we have nothing to respond to."

Winner said it would be as uncomfortable to investigate his friend as it is "to sit in judgment" of any member of the Legislature.

"I have no doubt, in that event, that we would respond as we do to each and every written, verified complaint that depicts a violation of Public Officers Law," he said.

The ranking minority member of the Senate Ethics Committee also refused to discuss ethics rules, refused to discuss past ethics cases and refused to discuss any hypothetical questions.

"We don't talk about ethics," said Sen. William Stachkowski, D-Buffalo, the ranking minority member on the committee.

"Everything we do is secret."

Ahh, as we harken back to the 50s out here on the left coast. Mayor Norris Poulson, Norman Chandler (LA Times) and Walter O'Malley were cooking up the GREATEST land swindle of the century.

We are talking about the coming move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to their present location of...

Chavez Ravine! In the heart of Los Angeles...a centuries old community of mexican heritage who had been there since before there ever was a California.

So, you say, but you can't use the power of eminent domain to evict thousands of homeowners to build a ballpark.

True, but you COULD evict them to build a public housing project.

Which is exactly what they did, supported by the real estate people and proudly endorsed by the LA Times.

Of course, later on, when it turned out that they couldn't get the funding they needed to build that housing project, they HAD to do something with all that land they had appropriated...

Oh well, I guess you know the rest of the story.

And actually, folks, that is not actually true!

In 1989, then-New York State Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod issued a Report of Investigation of misfeasance and malfeasance in the Rensselaer County Department of Health as was investigated by the same licensed professional engineer whose August 7, 2001 assault in the Town of Poestenkill was covered over by Kenny "BOY" Bruno's "office", while he was serving as Rensselaer County District Attorney on August 22, 2001, and in that March 1989 Axelrod Report, which is a public record filed with the Rensselaer County Clerk's Office, at page 5, Dr. Axelrod confirmed in item #6 that:

"Developers may have evaded the realty subdivision regulations."

"The files (of the Rensselaer County Department of Health) contain instances of unenforced violations of Article IX and Public Health Law violations, i.e., sale of realty subdivision lots prior to plan approval/filing."

end quotes

Having personal knowledge of that investigation, I can state with authority that Senator Joseph "Big Joe" Bruno's Winfield Estates Subdivision in the Town of Brunswick, Rensselaer County, was one of those in question, and I can point to a March 27, 1989 Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for corroboration:

"According to (name deleted), the results of the State's investigation were that New York State laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, Rensselaer County laws were not being followed by the Rensselaer County Health Department, and there was very little 'enforcement activity' even in the face of illegal sales."

"(Name deleted) advised that other instances were discovered wherein lots within realty subdivisions were sold without County Health Department certification."

"These subdivisions are as follows:

Dutch Acres Subdivision - Town of North Greenbush
Holser Subdivision - Town of Poestenkill
Winfield Subdivision - Town of Brunswick
Algonquin Estates Subdivision - Town of Poestenkill"

"(Name deleted) advised that the Rensselaer County Health Department's oversight of realty subdivisions in that county is 'unsatisfactory'!"

"(Name deleted) also faulted the State of New York Health Department for not auditing Rensselaer County's program."

"(Name deleted) advised that he would not expect to find a worse county in the region (the Capital District region which comprises 17 counties)!"

"According to (name deleted), the object of any county health department is to protect the public and not to facilitate development."

"In the case of Rensselaer County ('Big Joe' Bruno's county), it appears that the Rensselaer County Health Department was in business to facilitate developers and development rather than to protect the public."

"Another specific violation occurred in the Winfield Estates Development, during the period 1986 to 1988."

"In this case, the land was offered for sale on August 4, 1987, however, (name of politically-connected engineer withheld), AFTER THE REMOVAL OF THE INVESTIGATING ENGINEER, did not approve these plans until November 16, 1988, shortly after he took over THE INVESTIGATING ENGINEER'S position."

"According to (name deleted), this process is exactly backwards as the land was sold before the plans were approved!"

end quotes

On May 1, 1989, this FBI investigation into "WHITE COLLAR CRIME" in Rensselaer County was shut down, tight, by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, after alleged political complaints received by that office from high-ranking New York State politicians, and the licensed professional engineer who conducted the investigation WAS FIRED BY RENSSELAER COUNTY, and was subsequently the victim of an uninvestigated hit-and-run assault on Liberty Lane in the Town of Poestenkill, for which he was then prosecuted by the Rensselaer County District Attorney for causing damage to the hit-and-run driver's vehicle, with his body, as a weapon!

In the meantime, Rensselaer County refused to prosecute Joseph "Big Joe" Bruno, and the rest is now history, regardless of what "spin" Joseph "Big Joe" Bruno and his lackeys and lickspittles and toadies might want to put on the matter, as is their privilege, here in OUR America, the land of liars and cowards and cravens, where it used to be the "LAND OF THE BRAVE, AND THE HOME OF THE FREE", in the days before the liars, cravens and cowards usurped political control and changed America into their image, instead!

You know, without your input in here, jeffmoskin, I might not know much, at all, because I didn't know about this, either!

What a story!

Of course, being more familiar with the east coast REPUBLICAN HELL-HOLE of Rensselaer County in the corrupt EMPIRE State of New York, I do know the story of a New York State licensed professional engineer who got fired by Rensselaer county for sticking his nose into these kinds of dealings, and who was then run down on Liberty Lane in the Town of Poestenkill, Rensselaer County, on December 29, 1989, by a hit-and-run driver, and who was then subsequently prosecuted by the Rensselaer County District Attorney for attacking the hit-and-run driver's brown Ford pick-up with his body .....

He was crazy, you see, a Viet Nam veteran, they say, and well, you know what that means, and it seems that this licensed professional engineer who was also a Viet Nam veteran flipped right out, and they do, you know, the engineers, I mean, and it seems that he ran down this poor sod's truck as the poor sod was racing down Liberty Lane, in a state of abject fear and TAY-RAH, trying to get away from this berserk engineer who was coming after him like a hurtling freight train, and the engineer actually out-distanced the speeding truck on foot, and he hurled his body at the truck in an effort to kill the poor sod driving it ....

Or at least that is what the New York State Police said in Poestenkill Town Court, to the REPUBLICAN who just happened to also be the judge there ......

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

And of course, we all know about engineers.

I am a recovering engineer myself. It takes more than twelve steps.

Here, in the corrupt EMPIRE State of New York, I think the Legislature has decreed that it is either 32.765 steps, or was it 87.90674?

Well, somewhere in there, anyway!

And both of those numbers are greater than twelve, and so, in New York State, anyway, you are right, jeffmoskin!

And yes, we do know about engineers, don't we!

I cannot resist:

Understanding Engineers – Take One

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, 'Take what you want'." The second engineer nodded approvingly , "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him. Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The Graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with an Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"


Understanding Engineers - Take Six

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last one said, "Actually it must have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"


Understanding Engineers - Take Seven

Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was
better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Understanding Engineers - Take Nine

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want. Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I’m a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girl friend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."


Understanding Engineers – Take Ten

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a
woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I
promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately
30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between
59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically
correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am
still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."

The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are
going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made
a promise, which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to
solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in
before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

And since we are on the subject of Karl Rove ......

Politics

"Democrats demand Rove apology - Bush adviser said liberals urge ‘understanding’ for 9-11 attackers"

The Associated Press

Updated: 4:03 p.m. ET June 23, 2005

NEW YORK - Democrats demanded Thursday that White House adviser Karl Rove either apologize or resign for accusing liberals of wanting “therapy and understanding” for the Sept. 11 attackers, escalating the rancor that threatens to consume Washington.

Rove’s comments — and the response from the political opposition — mirrored earlier flaps over Democratic chairman Howard Dean’s criticism of Republicans, a House Republican’s statement that Democrats demonize Christians and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s comparison of the Guantanamo prison to Nazi camps and Soviet gulags.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan came to Rove’s defense, saying the president’s chief political adviser was “simply pointing out the different philosophies and different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism.”

“Of course not,” McClellan said when asked by reporters whether President Bush will ask Rove to apologize.

What he said

Rove, in a speech Wednesday evening to the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, said, “Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

Conservatives, he said, “saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.”

He added that the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for “moderation and restraint” after the terrorist attacks.

During the 2004 campaign, Bush dismissed the notion of negotiating with terrorists and said, “You can’t sit back and hope that somehow therapy will work and they will change their ways.”

Rove’s comments quickly escalated the bitter divide between the parties that could get worse as Congress prepares for what may be a drawn-out political fight, possibly this summer, over a Supreme Court nominee.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer said Rover “took something that is virtually sacred to New Yorkers” — the tragedy of the Sept. 11 attacks — “and politicized it for political, opportunistic purposes.”

“Karl Rove is not just another political operative,” added New York’s other Democratic senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“He sits in the White House, a few doors down from the president.”

Rumsfeld caught in crossfire

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, Clinton urged Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to repudiate the “insulting comment.”

Rumsfeld replied that it “is unfortunate when things become so polarized or so politicized.”

Schumer and Clinton joined the four Democratic senators from Connecticut and New Jersey in a letter to Rove requesting that he immediately retract his comments.

“To try to score partisan, political points at the expense of the 3,000 victims and their families was unacceptable and opportunistic,” they wrote.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., wrote a similar letter to Rove from House Democrats.

Schumer said Rove’s comments might have been made in the heat of the moment and he was willing to accept an apology.

But “if they try to stonewall,” he said, “then I think resignation would be called for.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also said Rove, the political mastermind behind Bush’s election victories, should fully apologize for his remarks or resign.

Dean said Bush should “condemn Karl Rove’s desperate and divisive attempt to help the Republicans regain their political footing.”

Republicans condemn Pelosi

Republicans, meanwhile, have recently condemned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for calling the Iraq War a “grotesque mistake,” and demanded and finally got an apology from Durbin for his linking detainee abuse and Nazis.

And they were unapologetic about Rove’s comments.

“The Republican leadership priority is to have our troops hunt down, kill or capture terrorists before they try to attack us again at home,” said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

“The Democratic leadership priority is to actively engage in the politics of division and distraction that can undermine our national security in favor of a left-wing agenda,” he said.

Increasing public doubts about the Iraq war have emboldened Democrats to challenge the president’s policies.

Republicans, in turn, contend that criticism undermines the war on terror.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican running for re-election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, issued a statement urging both sides to keep politics out of the war on terrorism.

“We owe it to those we lost to keep partisan politics out of the discussion and keep alive the united spirit that came out of 9/11,” he said.

end quotes

United spirit?

Bull crap!

There was no "unity" after 9-11!

There was George W. Bush's way, or the highway!

I took the highway, myself, because as a twice-wounded Viet Nam combat veteran, I had a gut-full of incompetent "leadership" back then, and I am now too old to pretend that anyone can ever get to home, following behind an incompetent leader who sat there like a moon-struck fool, while this nation was being "attacked", on his watch, BECAUSE IT WAS HIS WATCH, and so, no one was looking!

Everyone was asleep at the switch, instead, like the LEADER!

Ask any Viet Nam combat veteran about incompetent leadership, and see what they say!

As for me, what I would say is that people like George W. Bush get people killed, and that is about the height of his achievement level, right now, today, besides a lot of fear-mongering, which these boys and girls are pretty good at ....

"Italy judge orders arrest of 13 CIA agents"

By AIDAN LEWIS, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:26 p.m., Friday, June 24, 2005

ROME -- An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts -- a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally.

The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

The arrest warrants were announced Friday by the Milan prosecutor's office, which has called the disappearance a kidnapping and a blow to a terrorism investigation in Italy.

The office said the imam was believed to belong to an Islamic terrorist group.

The 13 are accused of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured, Milan prosecutor Manlio Claudio Minale said in a statement.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome and the CIA in Washington declined to comment.

The prosecutor's statement did not name the suspects, give their nationalities or mention the CIA by name.

But an Italian official familiar with the investigation confirmed newspaper reports Friday that the suspects worked for the CIA.

The official also said there was no evidence Italians were involved or knew about the operation.

He asked that his name not be used because official comment was limited to the prosecutor's statement.

Minale said the suspects remain at large and Italian authorities will ask the United States and Egypt for assistance in the case.

The prosecutor's office said Nasr was released by the Egyptians after his interrogation but was arrested again later.

The statement said Nasr was seized by two people as he was walking from his home toward a mosque and bundled into a white van.

He was taken to Aviano, a joint U.S.-Italian base north of Venice, and flown to a U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, before being taken to Cairo.

It said investigators had confirmed the abduction through an eyewitness account and other, unidentified witnesses as well as through an analysis of cell phone traffic.

In March 2003, "U.S. authorities" told Italian police Nasr had been taken to the Balkans, the statement said.

A year later, in April-May 2004, Nasr phoned his wife and another unidentified Egyptian citizen and told them he had been subjected to violent treatment by interrogators in Egypt, the statement said.

Italian newspapers have reported that Nasr, 42, said in the wiretapped calls that he was tortured with electric shocks.

On Friday, the Milan daily Corriere della Sera cited another Milan-based imam as telling Italian authorities Nasr was tortured after refusing to work in Italy as an informer.

According to the testimony, he was hanged upside down and subjected to extreme temperatures and loud noise that damaged his hearing, Corriere reported.

Minale said the judge rejected a request for six more arrest warrants for suspects believed to have helped prepare the operation.

Judge Chiara Nobile ordered the arrests after investigators traced the agents through Milan hotels and Italian cell phones, said reports in Corriere and another daily, Il Giorno.

Il Giorno said all the agents were American and three were women.

Minale said a judge also issued a separate arrest warrant for Nasr on terrorism charges.

In that warrant, Judge Guido Salvini said Nasr's seizure violated Italian sovereignty, according to Italian news agency Apcom.

Nasr was believed to have fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and prosecutors were seeking evidence against him before his disappearance, according to a report in La Repubblica newspaper, which cited intelligence officials.

Corriere said Italian police picked up details, including cover names, photos, credit card information and U.S. addresses the agents gave to five-star hotels in Milan around the time of Nasr's alleged abduction.

It said investigators also found the prepaid highway passes the agents used for the journey from Milan to the air base.

The report said investigations showed the agents incurred $144,984 in hotel bills in Milan, and that two pairs of agents took holidays in northern Italy after delivering Nasr to Aviano.

Italian-U.S. relations were strained after American soldiers killed an Italian intelligence agent near Baghdad airport in March.

He was escorting a kidnapped Italian journalist after he had secured her release from Iraqi captors.

Germano Dottori, a political analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies in Rome, said it is not unusual for intelligence agencies to have squabbles with allied countries but that he could not recall prosecutors directly involved in investigating or apprehending agents involved.

"At some point the Americans will begin to think they can't trust the Italians," Dottori said.

$144,984 in hotel bills at FIVE STAR hotels!

Hhhhmmm!

REPUBLICAN leadership?

How about thievery, instead, along with a continuing daily dose of pure BULL ****!

"Pentagon leaders warn insurgency is still strong - Kennedy urges Rumsfeld to resign over Iraq"

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press
First published: Friday, June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Iraqi insurgency is as active as six months ago and more foreign fighters are emerging, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said Thursday.

But Pentagon leaders rejected calls for a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops.

Gen. John Abizaid testified at a contentious Senate hearing with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, where lawmakers of both parties expressed concerns.

"People are beginning to question, and I don't think it's a blip on the radar screen," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told Rumsfeld he should quit.

Rumsfeld said he had offered his resignation to President Bush twice, and the President had said no.

Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, acknowledged that U.S. troops, too, were becoming aware of the drop in the public's confidence.

"When my soldiers say to me and ask me the question whether or not they've got support from the American people or not, that worries me."

"And they're starting to do that," he said.

In back-to-back hearings of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, lawmakers vigorously questioned the Pentagon leaders.

Told by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, D-Mich., that his assessment of the insurgency contradicted Vice President Dick Cheney's, Abizaid said: "I gave you my opinion."

Cheney later Thursday defended his recent statement that the insurgency is in its "last throes," calling the violence is a final convulsion before the militants collapse.

On CNN, Cheney compared the fighting in Iraq to the Battle of the Bulge and combat on Okinawa in World War II, which preceded the surrender of Germany and Japan.

"The toughest battles ... both in Europe and in the Pacific, occurred just a few months before the end," said Cheney.

"I see this as a similar situation, where they're going to go all-out."

"They'll do everything they can to disrupt that process."

"But I think we're strong enough to defeat them."

The hearings came ahead of today's White House meeting between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

"We see good progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan ... but we are realistic."

"And we know that great change is often accompanied with violence," Abizaid said.

Said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Leaving before the task is complete would be catastrophic."

Rumsfeld was confident that public support would bounce back.

Addressing concerns about manpower, he said, "there isn't a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back."

Amid these developments:

The U.S.-led multinational force must stay in Iraq until Iraqi forces are fully prepared to defend the country by themselves, al-Jaafari said Thursday in Washington.

Setting of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces would be a sign of weakness, he told the Council on Foreign Relations.

American and Iraqi troops killed at least five al-Qaida-linked insurgents in a Baghdad neighborhood Thursday.

In the capital, four car bombings killed 15 people and wounded 28.

There also were reports that a Saudi al-Qaida fugitive, Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud, died in a U.S. airstrike last week near the Syrian border.

"I think we're strong enough to defeat them?"

DON'T YOU KNOW, DICK?

Is this guy Cheney for real?

What are we up against in Iraq?

3,000 insurgents?

And we have over 100,000 troops over there, riding around like sitting ducks in heavily armored HUMVEES that can't get out of their own way, with all the weight that they are carrying, and are unstable, as well, because of all that extra weight?

Iraq is the size of what, Montana, maybe?

Iraq has what, 20 million people, while we have 294 MILLION?

Incredible!

That anybody buys a single word this Cheney says!

And what exactly does he know about war, and insurgencies?

He was never in uniform!

He "didn't have the time" for it, remember?

Viet Nam?

Anybody remember what Dickie "BOY" Cheney did in the Viet Nam war?

Yes, little Johnny, you are dead right!

He sat on his dead ***, and he did not go!

And now he's an expert!

Yeah, Dick, that's right, you must be!

Yes, Dick, yes, Dick, yes, Dick ....

Right, right ....

Of course, Dick ....

"Democrats blast Rove for 9/11 talk - Clinton, Schumer tell White House aide to take back remarks about terror attacks disparaging liberals"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, June 24, 2005

ALBANY -- A battle broke out Thursday between New York's Democrats and Republicans over remarks made about the 9/11 attacks by President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, at a state Conservative Party fund-raiser in Manhattan.

Democratic U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer said Rove should apologize for comments he made Wednesday night they considered critical of Democrats.

At the fund-raiser, Rowe said: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Rove also said: "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said, 'We will defeat our enemies.'"

"Liberals saw what happened to us and said, 'We must understand our enemies.' "

Joined by state Democratic Party Chairman Herman "Denny" Farrell, Clinton and Schumer called on Republican Gov. George Pataki, who also spoke at the event, to repudiate Rove's comments.

But the governor refused, calling Clinton's request "hypocritical."

Clinton said Rove's lofty position as Bush's deputy chief of staff made an apology from him all the more necessary.

"To go to New York City and say what he said is just almost unimaginable," she said.

"Either he said something in a hasty, ill-conceived, reckless moment ... or he said it deliberately, as part of a continuing effort to divide Americans."

Pataki said he saw no reason to condemn Rove when Clinton had not done so when her fellow Democrats made controversial statements.

He cited Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who has called Republicans "evil" and "corrupt," and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who recently apologized for comparing America's treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the Nazis and Soviet gulags.

"I have absolutely no intention of asking (Rove) to apologize," Pataki said, adding that he didn't consider Rove's remarks divisive.

"Senator Clinton might think about her propensity to allow outrageous statements from the other side that are far beyond political dialogue."

State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik said, "Karl Rove was right" and accused Clinton of "trying to politicize acts of terrorism committed on our turf."

The controversy reached the White House on Thursday when Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Rove was "pointing out differences that exist in how we approach the war on terrorism."

Elizabeth Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

Like Dick "The Mouth" Cheney, Karl Rove also was too good to ever wear a uniform, and of course, that is probably a blessing to all those who never had to serve with him, as a result!

And like Dick Cheney, now, of course, Karl Rove is an expert on military matters, despite the fact that he knows nothing at all about them, other than what he hears others talking about, and if Karl Rove had less of an ego, what he might have understood is that IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR ENEMY, YOUR ENEMY CONTROLS YOU, THROUGH YOUR IGNORANCE OF HIM.

Giap knew that, and he knew OUR arrogance, and so, he played us like a Stradivarius, and we didn't win, because when the weak man knows he's weak, and accepts it, he can beat a strong man who knows he's strong, and so, never considers HOW he might be weak, since in his mind, he is strong, and strong always wins!

Well, guess what, folks!

That's BULL ****!

You win because you do know your enemy, and so, you do not let him use either his strength, or his weakness against you, to his advantage, but that is intellectual, and there is where Karl Rove and that crowd of his are just plumb lost, because they have contempt for intellect, and so, they are just plain STUPID, instead, and right proud of it, too, they are!

"Make America Safe, Not Divided"

Excerpts of remarks by Senator John Kerry on the Senate floor on Thursday, June 23, 2005.

"None of us here will ever forget the hours after September 11... and the remarkable response of the American people as we came together as one to answer the attack on our homeland.... [I]t brought out the best of all of us in America."

"That spirit of our country should never be reduced to a cheap, divisive political applause line from anyone who speaks for the President of the United States."

"I am proud, as my colleagues on this side are, that after September 11, all of the people of this country rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger."

"There were no Democrats, there were no Republicans, there were only Americans."

"That is why it is really hard to believe that last night in New York... the most senior adviser to the President of the United States [was] purposely twisting those days of unity in order to divide us for political gain."

"Rather than focusing attention on Osama bin Laden and finding him or rather than focusing attention on just smashing al-Qaida and uniting our effort, as we have been, he is, instead, challenging the patriotism of every American who is every bit as committed to fighting terror as is he."

Just days after 9/11, the Senate voted 98 to nothing, and the House voted 420 to 1, to authorize President Bush to use all necessary and appropriate force against terror.

And after the bipartisan vote, President Bush said:

"I'm gratified that the Congress has united so powerfully by taking this action."

"It sends a clear message."

"Our people are together and we will prevail."

That is not the message that was sent by Karl Rove in New York City last night.

Last night, he said: "No more needs to be said about" their "motives."

I think a lot more needs to be said about Karl Rove's motives because they are not the people's motives..."

"They are not the motives of a nation that found unity in that critical moment -- Democrat and Republican alike, all of us as Americans."

If the President really believes his own words, if those words have meaning, he should at the very least expect a public apology from Karl Rove.

And frankly, he ought to fire him.

If the President of the United States knows the meaning of those words, then he ought to listen to the plea of Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband when the Twin Towers came crashing down.

She said: "If you are going to use 9/11, use it to make this nation safer than it was on 9/11."

Karl Rove doesn't owe me an apology and he doesn't owe Democrats an apology.

He owes the country an apology.

He owes Kristen Breitweiser and a lot of people like her, those families, an apology.

He owes an apology to every one of those families who paid the ultimate price on 9/11 and expect their government to be doing all possible to keep the unity of their country and to fight an effective war on terror.

The fact is, millions of Americans ... are asking Washington for honesty, for results, and for leadership -- not for political division.

Before Karl Rove delivers another political assault, he ought to stop and think about those families and the unity of 9/11.

Dear Livyjr,

Just hours after learning about an outrageous speech delivered by Karl Rove, President Bush's most senior advisor, I went to the Senate floor -- and I spoke from my heart.

I want to share those words with you -- not as a Democrat or Republican, not as a liberal or conservative -- but as an American.

I've attached part of my speech to the end of this email.

I hope you will join me right now in signing an open letter to the President urging him to thoroughly reject Karl Rove's purposeful attack on the patriotism of those who dare ask the tough questions that best protect American troops.

Sign our open letter to President Bush now:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php

This isn't the first time that Karl Rove and other White House officials have sought to divide America in ways that make it harder to keep our country safe and our democracy strong.

But, it should be the last.

That's why I ended my speech with a call on President Bush to fire Karl Rove.

It is the only way the President can make it clear that he rejects Rove's effort to distort one of the most unified and patriotic moments in American history into a cheap, divisive, political applause line.

That, of course, is what is most outrageous about Karl Rove's claim that President Bush's political opponents offered "therapy and understanding for our attackers."

It isn't true.

In the days after 9/11, there were no Democrats, no Republicans.

We were all Americans, standing together.

President Bush acknowledged that unity in a clear and compelling way at the time.

Now, Karl Rove is purposely twisting those days of unity in order to divide us for political gain.

I hope you will act right now to join a growing chorus of Americans calling on the President to fire Karl Rove.

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rove.php

Please act right now.

Sign our open letter to the President and pass it on to others.

All Americans have to speak with one powerful voice in response to this outrage.

I will continue speaking out and I know I can count on you to stand with me.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/feat...ts.html#a003103

06.23.2005 Kristen Breitweiser

Karl Rove's "Understanding of 9/11"

Mr. Rove, the first thing that I would like to address is Afghanistan - the place that anyone with a true “understanding of 9/11” knows is a nation that actually has a connection to the 9/11 attacks.

One month after 9/11, we invaded Afghanistan, took down the Taliban, and left without capturing Usama Bin Laden - the alleged perpetrator of the September 11th attacks.

In the meantime, Afghanistan has carried out democratic elections, but continues to suffer from extreme violence and unrest.

Poppy production (yes, Karl, the drug trade) is at an all time high, thus flooding the world market with heroin.

And of course, the oil pipeline (a.k.a. the Caspian Sea pipeline) is better protected by U.S. troops who now have a “legitimate” excuse to be in that part of Afghanistan.

Interesting isn't it Karl that the drug “rat line” parallels the oil pipeline.

(Yet, with all those troops guarding that same sliver of land, can you please explain how those drugs keep getting through?)

Now Karl, a question for you, since you seem to be the nation's self-styled sensei with regard to 9/11: Is Usama Bin Laden still important?

Lately, your coterie of friends seems to be giving out mixed messages.

Recall that in the early days, Bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive.”

Then when Bin Laden slipped through your fingertips in Tora Bora, you downgraded his importance.

We were told that Bin Laden was a "desperate man on the run,” and a person that President Bush was not "too worried about".

Yet, whenever I saw Bin Laden's videos, he looked much too comfortable to actually be a man on the run.

He looked tan, rested, and calm.

He certainly didn't look the way I wanted the murderer of almost 3,000 innocent people to look: unkempt, panicked, and cowering in a corner.

Karl, I mention Bin Laden because recently Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, has mentioned that he knows exactly where Bin Laden is located but that he cannot capture him for fear of offending sovereign nations.

Which frankly, I find ironic because of Iraq--and let's just leave it at that.

But, when you say that “moderation and restraint” don't work in fighting terrorists, maybe you should share those comments with Mr. Goss because he doesn't seem to be on the same page as you.

Unless of course, Porter is holding out to announce that Bin Laden is in Iran.

(Karl, I want Bin Laden brought to justice, but not if it means starting a war with Iran - a country that possesses nuclear weaponry. The idea of nuclear fallout in any quadrant of the world is just not an acceptable means to any ends, be it capturing Bin Laden, oil or drugs. But, Afghanistan and Bin Laden are old news. Iraq is the story of today. And of course, it appears that Iran will be the story of next month. But, I digress.)

More to the point, Karl when you say, “Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war,” what exactly did you do to prepare for your war?

Did your preparations include: sound intelligence to warrant your actions; a reasonable entry and exit strategy coupled with a coherent plan to carry out that strategy; the proper training and equipment for the troops you were sending in to fight your war?

Did you follow the advice of experts such as General Shinseki who correctly advised you about the troop levels needed to actually succeed in Iraq?

No, you didn't.

It has always been America's policy that you only place soldiers' lives in harm's way when it is absolutely necessary and the absolute last resort.

When you send troops into combat you support those troops by providing them with proper equipment and training.

Why didn't you do that with the troops that you sent into Iraq?

Why weren't their vehicles armored?

Why didn't they have protective vests?

Why weren't they properly trained about the rules of interrogation?

And Karl, when our troops come home – be it tragically in body bags or with missing limbs – you should honor and acknowledge their service to their country.

You shouldn't hide them by bringing them home in the dark of night.

Most importantly, you should take care of them for the long haul by giving them substantial veteran's benefits and care.

To me, that is being patriotic.

To me, that is how you support our troops.

To me, that is how you show that you know the value of a human life given for its country.

For the record Karl, does Iraq have any connection to the 9/11 attacks?

Because, you and your friends with your collective “understanding of 9/11” seem to be contradicting yourselves about the Iraq-9/11 connection, too.

First, we were told that we went to war with Iraq because it was linked to the 9/11 attacks.

Then, your rationale was changed to "Iraq has WMD".

Then you told us that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was a "bad man".

And now it turns out that we are in Iraq to bring them "democracy."

Of course, the Downing Street memo clarifies many of these things, but for the record Karl: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; there were few terrorists in Iraq before our invasion, but now Iraq is a terrorist hot-bed.

America had the sympathy and support of the whole world before Iraq.

Now, thanks to your actions, we find ourselves hated and alienated by the rest of the world.

Al Qaeda's recruitment took a nose-dive after the 9/11 attacks, but has now skyrocketed since your invasion of Iraq; and most importantly, nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed because of your war in Iraq.

These facts speak for themselves.

(And, they speak very little about effectively winning any war on terror.)

Karl, you say you “understand” 9/11.

Then why did you and your friends so vehemently oppose the creation of a 9/11 Independent Commission?

Once the commission was established, why did you refuse to properly fund the Commission by allotting it only a $3 million budget?

Why did you refuse to allow access to documents and witnesses for the 9/11 Commissioners?

Why did we have to fight so hard for an extension when the Commissioners told us that they needed more time due to your footdragging and stonewalling?

Why didn't you want to cooperate so that all Americans could “understand” what happened on 9/11?

Since the release of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report, have you helped bring to fruition any of the commission's recommendations?

Have you truly made our homeland safer by hardening/eliminating soft targets?

Because, to me rebuilding a tower that is 1,776 feet tall where the World Trade Center once stood seems to be only providing more soft targets for the terrorists to hit.

Moreover, your support for the use of nuclear energy seems to be providing even more soft targets.

Tell me, while you write your nifty little speeches about nuclear power, do you explain to your audience how our nuclear plants will be protected against terrorist attack or infiltration?

What assurances do you give that nuclear waste will not find its way into terrorist's dirty bombs and onto our city streets?

And, how do you assure your audience that the shipment of radioactive material will not become a terrorist target as it rolls through their own backyards?

To date, you have done practically nothing to secure our ports, nuclear power plants, and mass transportation systems.

Imagine if the billions of dollars you spent in Iraq were spent more wisely on those things here at home.

Imagine what sort of alternative energy resources (bio-diesel, wind power, solar power, and hybrid automobiles) could have been researched and funded in the past three years.

Talk about regaining the respect and support of the world, that is the one way to do it.

Karl, if you “understand 9/11”, then why don't you understand that until we have a more environmentally friendly energy policy, we cannot effectively fight the war on terrorism.

By being dependent on foreign oil, we have no choice but to cozy up to nations that sponsor terrorists.

Moreover, because of oil, we may end up placing our troops and our nation at greater risk by having to invade certain oil-rich countries.

Our invasion of these countries merely serves to inflame would-be terrorists by reinforcing their notion that we are gluttonous and self-centered -- invading sovereign nations solely to steal their oil.

Forgive me Karl, but is that how you think you "win hearts and minds"?

Does that help in any way to "spread democracy"?

Finally Karl, please “understand” that the reason we have not suffered a repeat attack on our homeland is because Bin Laden no longer needs to attack us.

Those of us with a pure and comprehensive “understanding of 9/11” know that Bin Laden committed the 9/11 attacks so he could increase recruitment for al Qaeda and increase worldwide hatred of America.

That didn't happen.

Because after 9/11, the world united with Americans and al Qaeda's recruitment levels never increased.

It was only after your invasion of Iraq, that Bin Laden's goals were met.

Because of your war in Iraq two things happened that helped Bin Laden and the terrorists: al Qaeda recruitment soared and the United States is now alienated from and hated by the rest of the world.

In effect, what Bin Laden could not achieve by murdering my husband and 3,000 others on 9/11, you handed to him on a silver platter with your invasion of Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Which leads me to my final questions for you Karl: What are your motives when it comes to 9/11 and are you really sure that you understand 9/11?

Posted at 06:21 PM | permalink

"Bush trying to win over Americans on Iraq"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:56 p.m., Saturday, June 25, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As public support for his Iraq policy declines, President Bush is working to convince wary Americans that he has a military and political strategy for success in the war in which 1,730 U.S. troops have been killed.

In his radio address on Saturday, Bush warned that there is likely to be more tough fighting to come in Iraq.

And, as he did in his meeting at the White House Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Bush urged Americans to share their confidence in a positive outcome to the war.

"The Iraqi people are growing in optimism and hope," Bush said.

"They understand that the violence is only a part of the reality in Iraq."

In the Democratic radio response, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, alleged that the war has been conducted with "tactical and strategic incompetence."

"Two years later, America finds itself more isolated than ever before, the object of unprecedented international mistrust," Brzezinski said.

"As a result, we are not as safe as we should be here at home."

He said the war has turned Iraq into a training ground for terrorists and noted that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has not been captured.

"The violence in Iraq continues at increasing rates and American casualties continue to mount," Brzezinski said.

Bush's message that Iraqis are overcoming their fears and working to defeat those opposed to an Iraqi democracy is likely to be echoed in a prime-time address he'll make Tuesday from Fort Bragg, N.C.

The address at the home of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division will mark the first anniversary of the transfer of power from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraq's interim government.

The president told radio listeners his strategy for military success is to defeat members of Saddam Hussein's former regime and foreign and Iraqi terrorists and criminals responsible for the violence.

At the same time, the United States is helping train Iraqi security forces so U.S. troops can eventually return home.

Bush again turned aside calls in Congress and elsewhere for him to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops.

"The terrorists' objective is to break the will of America and of the Iraqi people before democracy can take root," Bush said.

"Two years ago, they tried to intimidate the Iraqi Governing Council -- and failed," he said.

"Last year, they tried to delay the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq -- and failed."

"This year, they tried to stop the free Iraqi elections -- and failed."

"Now the terrorists are trying to undermine the new government and intimidate Iraqis from joining the growing Iraqi security forces."

On the political front, Bush said the United States would continue helping Iraqis build a democracy.

He said al-Jaafari assured him the Iraqi government would meet its deadline to draft a new constitution.

By Aug. 15, Iraq's National Assembly is to unveil the draft of a constitution.

A ratification referendum would follow within two months.

If approved, the constitution will provide the basis for general elections by Dec. 15.

Trying to build public support and ally the concerns of Americans anxious for the war to end, Bush said, "Americans can be proud of all that we and our coalition partners have accomplished in Iraq."

"Our country has been tested before, and we have a long history of resolve and faith in the cause of freedom."

"Now we will see that cause to victory in Iraq."

Ongoing violence in Iraq has taken a political toll on Bush and has raised alarms in Congress.

Just over half of Americans now say the United States made a mistake going to war, and almost six in 10 say they don't approve of the way Bush has handled Iraq, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Friday evening, al-Jaafari told questioners at the National Press Club that the violence would not deter establishment of an Iraqi democracy.

"The challenges are very, very real but also is the determination of the Iraqi people."

He thanked Americans for their support and sacrifices on Iraq's behalf.

While Bush says progress is being made, Brzezinski points to a Pentagon warning that the Army Reserve is turning into a "broken" force.

In January, the military services' own estimates indicated that at the pace of U.S. deployments to Iraq, the Pentagon would be hard pressed by next year to provide enough reserve combat troops.

Army Reserve chief Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly advised at the time that his citizen militia was "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

"Patriotism and love of country does not demand endless sacrifice on the part of our troops in a war justified by slogans," Brzezinski said.

------

Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report.

While Mississippi has to relive the past, up here in the Town of Poestenkill in Rensselaer County in the corrupt EMPIRE State of New York, I am continually re-living the present, and outside of some details, there is not a lot of difference between the two .....

Down there they got, or had, the Ku Klux Klan as their "hate group", while up here, we got the "BID-NESSMAN'S PROTECTIVE" for ours.

Names are different but methods?

They don't change, when it comes to "hate groups", now do they?

Just different "target audiences" is all .....

"Killen trial forces Miss. to relive past"

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:25 p.m., Saturday, June 25, 2005

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. -- It's not the kind of thing folks talk about over sweaty glasses of sweet iced tea -- not in this polite little town of 7,300, where blacks and whites appear to live in harmony and strangers give each other friendly nods as they pass on the courthouse square.

But with the trial that led to the conviction of a one-time local Ku Klux Klan leader, the town has had to relive an era of beatings, church burnings and the killings of three civil-rights workers who were shot to death and buried in a red-clay dam.

The manslaughter verdicts against Edgar Ray Killen came on Tuesday, exactly 41 years after the killings of black Mississippian James Chaney and white New Yorkers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

Testimony had started on June 16, 41 years after Klansmen torched a black church to lure Schwerner -- the bearded 24-year-old they called "Goatee" -- to Neshoba County.

And Killen was sentenced on Thursday, June 23, exactly 41 years after authorities found the burned-out hulk of the civil rights workers' car.

"There's some sort of cosmic justice working somewhere," said Stanley Dearman, who was editor of the local newspaper, the Neshoba Democrat, from 1966 to 2000.

He had long pushed for the case to be reopened.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon gave 80-year-old Killen, a sawmill operator and part-time Baptist minister, the maximum sentence of 60 years -- 20 for each of the three deaths.

The trial could be one of the last of its kind, where prosecutors -- primarily in the South -- have revived decades-old cases against people who killed in the name of preserving segregation, said University of Vermont political scientist Howard Ball, who attended most of the trial.

"You probably won't see too many trials of these people because they're dying off," said Ball, whose book about the 1964 slayings, "Murder in Mississippi," was published late last year.

He's working on another book about the case, dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

"The hope is that this is the last of these trials of the generation of unregenerate Klansman, and the hope for the future is that we've gone past this era of violence and brutality and that the state is moving toward a more positive environment for all people," Ball said.

The case has helped shine a spotlight on other unresolved civil rights-era cases, including the 1955 slaying of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was kidnapped from his uncle's home in the Mississippi Delta after being accused of whistling at a white woman.

Three days later, his mutilated body was found in a river.

The investigation was reopened last year, and his remains were exhumed this month.

Black politicians in Georgia are also calling for prosecutors to bring charges for the first time in the unsolved 1946 lynchings of four black sharecroppers there.

Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., has called for the creation of a Justice Department unit focused on unsolved civil rights-era killings.

"This isn't symbolic," Talent said.

"This is the government trying to perform its law enforcement function."

Some in Philadelphia were left with a feeling of dissatisfaction that Killen was the only one convicted for a crime carried out by a mob.

"I hate he has to go down alone," said Nettie Cox, a member of the a local racial reconciliation group, the Philadelphia Coalition.

Patrick Smith, an executive committee member for a Georgia NAACP chapter, drove five hours from his home in Columbus, Ga., to watch the closing arguments in Killen's trial.

The slayings happened four years before Smith was born, but he said he was drawn to the trial by a sense of history instilled by his parents.

Smith said he still finds it sad that people of good conscience didn't stand up to Klansmen who committed violence against civil rights workers in the 1960s.

"I don't understand how complicit the good, Christian people can be when they do nothing or say nothing," Smith said.

P.J. Frederick came from her home in Hollidaysburg, Pa., for the trial with her cousin, Mary Ann Colledge of Baltimore.

Frederick, now 56, lived in this Mississippi town in 1976-77 as a worker for VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America, the domestic branch of the Peace Corps.

She taught reading and helped with black voter registration -- some of the same activities Schwerner and Chaney did and Goodman intended to do, had he lived more than a day after arriving in Mississippi.

"I'm surprised."

"I'm flabbergasted," Colledge said after the verdict.

"I just think justice was done."

"I think there's a little more light shining today and we're one step closer to the top of the mountain."

end quote

Up here, some day, we hope for the same outcome!

In the meantime, well, we just don't hold our breath!

"Newsview: Bush losing support for Iraq war"

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:56 p.m., Saturday, June 25, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is casting about for ways to turn the tide of public opinion on Iraq.

He is running into a growing level of skepticism, new strains in Republican unity and more frequent comparisons to the Vietnam conflict of almost four decades ago.

A new stepped-up public relations effort has yet to show results.

The next event is a prime-time speech on Tuesday at Fort Bragg, N.C., with U.S. troops as his backdrop.

Bush administration officials see the speech as a chance for the president to clearly spell out his goals -- and the stakes -- of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.

But analysts suggest it will take more than a finely honed speech to revive flagging public support or to reverse an alarming slide in military recruitment.

"I don't think anybody will be able to watch that speech without wondering where is the banner saying `Mission Accomplished,'" said Anthony H. Cordesman, an Iraq expert and former Pentagon intelligence official.

A banner hung on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, where Bush, wearing a flight suit, proclaimed an end to major combat in Iraq in May 2003.

Rather than using those in the military as a prop, Bush should "sit down, present a substantive picture of what we are going to do in Iraq, and then have that backed up in detail by members of the Cabinet and by the senior military."

"Otherwise, the most you can do is to persuade the already converted," said Cordesman, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

At a White House meeting on Friday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Bush said he would not lay out a U.S. withdrawal strategy or bow to pressure from war critics.

"I'm not giving up on the mission," Bush said.

The president also used his weekend radio address for the second week in a row to try to rally support.

"Our nation's mission in Iraq is difficult, and we can expect more tough fighting in the weeks and months ahead."

"Yet I am confident in the outcome," he said.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, responded for the Democrats by saying, "We deserve a realistic definition of success for a war that increasingly threatens to become a quagmire."

He contended that for the first time in U.S. history, "America is conducting a war without any effort at bipartisan consultation on our tactics, on our strategy, and on our goals."

Some 53 percent of people surveyed say the United States made a mistake going to war in Iraq in March 2003, according to an AP-Ipsos poll released Friday.

That is the highest number in AP-Ipsos polling who have said the war was a mistake.

Soon after Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, was captured in December 2003, almost two-thirds of those questioned said the U.S. made the right decision in waging war.

Public support has dropped since then, occasionally spiking after positive news such as January's elections in Iraq.

The poll numbers are approaching the levels of public discontent registered in the final years of the Vietnam War.

The administration says Iraq has not become a Vietnam-like quagmire -- but that word is being used more frequently to describe the political situation facing Bush.

Pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, suggested that comparisons with Vietnam might be a little off the mark.

Some 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam, while 1,700 have been killed in Iraq.

"The important thing here is opinions are headed south on this because the public is reacting very negatively to this ongoing casualty count."

"The public is very aware of how many people have been lost," Kohut said.

"We see a growing number of people who say you have to get our troops out of there," Kohut said.

But, unlike Vietnam, "the bottom hasn't fallen out on support for the war yet."

That may be of little comfort to Bush.

In recent days, Democrats have stepped up their criticism.

Volleys also have come from Republicans who are troubled by what they see as the administration's failure to give an honest assessment of the situation in Iraq.

The unity on the war that Republicans exhibited during last year's election campaign is showing cracks.

Nobody in the party wanted to weaken Bush before the election.

But with the 2006 midterm congressional elections approaching, members are thinking about their own status as they field increasing complaints on Iraq from constituents.

A withdrawal resolution was introduced in the House with the support of conservative Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., previously a strong war supporter.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told a Senate hearing that public opinion in his military-oriented and conservative state was turning against the war and it could become "a chronic problem" for the administration.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., suggested the White House was "completely disconnected from reality" in claiming the war was being won.

------

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.

end quotes

Why do people expect truth OUT OF George W. Bush when it does not seem that there was ever any IN THERE in the first place?

"Musharraf: Bin Laden whereabouts unknown"

By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press
Last updated: 9:45 a.m., Saturday, June 25, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's president said Saturday there were no authentic reports on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and anyone who believed the al-Qaida chief was in his country should give his location.

The comments by Gen. Pervez Musharraf came more than a week after U.S. Ambassador for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad claimed that bin Laden and fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar were not believed to be in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad did not say where the two were believed to be hiding.

"There are a lot of people who say that Osama bin Laden is here in Pakistan," Musharraf told reporters in Islamabad before leaving for an official visit to Saudi Arabia.

"Please come and show us where he is or tell us where he is."

"We will act on such information."

"He (bin Laden) could be anywhere."

Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

Musharraf said Pakistan was working closely with Afghanistan in that effort, taking steps to secure its border to prevent militants from crossing between the two countries.

"There is a total and complete understanding between us," he said of Pakistan's relations with Kabul.

Musharraf -- who abandoned support of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks -- spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai twice this week.

Musharraf would only say that "a small difference of opinion was discussed and resolved."

Last week, Karzai spokesman Jawed Ludin said Islamabad was not doing enough to fight the militants, adding that there would never be peace in Afghanistan until the two nations "join hands together to fight terrorism."