On the topic of The Third Estate Sunday Review's editorial, Kayla e-mails Robert Parry's "For Bush, Iraq Lies Are Fundamental:"

More than two years and 1,600 dead U.S. soldiers later, George W. Bush’s defenders concede Iraq may not have had weapons of mass destruction, but the defenders still get their backs up when someone accuses Bush of lying. A mistake maybe, but a lie never!
That defense is anchored in their assessment of Bush’s fundamental decency as a born-again Christian who would never knowingly mislead the American people, especially on something as important as sending U.S. soldiers off to war.
Which is why it’s important to look at Bush’s assertions about his supposed desire to avert the war through good-faith diplomacy in late 2002 and early 2003. Since the entire world watched those events unfold, the known facts can be matched against the more recent words of Bush and his senior advisers.
If Bush has lied about that pre-war history as a way to justify his actions – especially after the WMD rationale collapsed – it follows that he shouldn’t be trusted on much of anything about the war. That’s especially true when contemporaneous records contradict his version of the facts.

Parry, rightly goes on to address the Downing St. Memo. The Sunday Times of London's most recent piece hadn't been published yet (Parry's article was published on May 22nd).

Here's Parry on the Downing St. Memo:

The memo added, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force. … The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."
The British memo corroborates earlier statements from former Bush administration insiders, such as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, that Bush had long wanted to invade Iraq, a determination that hardened after al-Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Parry's asking the question of when is the mainstream press going to stop reporting carefully chosen, isolated tid-bits and present the overall picture. It's a damning picture for the Bully Boy, no question.

But while the pieces are being assembled, let's note (again) Democracy Now!'s "Arab American Publisher Says Bush Told Him in May 2000 He Planned to "Take Out" Iraq:"

OSAMA SIBLANI: I met with the President, and he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: You met with the President of the United States?
OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

That's an excerpt from the segment that aired March 11, 2005. It's another issue the mainstream media has ignored.

There's a great deal in the public record that's being ignored.

From the Downing St. Memo the Sunday Times published on the first of May, we know that evidence was shaped to make the case for war. From the Sunday Times most recent article yesterday, we know that bombings were increased pre-war in 2002. At a time when Bully Boy and his co-horts were speaking of weapons (nuclear, chemical, biological), drone planes and other nonsense that didn't bear out. But while alarming the people (and some in Congress) with this talk of peril, the reality is that we increased bombing with the hopes of inviting a war.


To look at the two reports from London's Sunday Times is to realize the difference between "mistake" and "lie." Those who feel the Bully Boy was "mistaken," need to explain why his actions appeared to invite an attack from Saddam Hussein. If he truly was mistaken, he believed Iraq had the "mushroom cloud," et al capabilities that he and his cohorts endlessly talked about. If that's the case, why invite Iraq to use them in 2002?

And why the silence on the assertion made by Osama Siblani (publisher of The Arab American)?

It's past time for the mainstream press to report on what foreign newspapers and journalists like Amy Goodman, Robert Parry, et al have been reporting on in this country.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

The mayhem continues in Iraq, with today at least 40 people dead, including five US soldiers in Diyala province as the meltdown of the failed US-led occupation continues.
Two suicide bombers detonated themselves after walking into a crowd of police officers in Hilla, south of Baghdad. The policemen were demonstrating outside the mayor's office to protest a government decision to disband their Special Forces unit.
In yet another horrible PR move (or attempt to raise sectarian tensions?) by the US military the head of Iraq's largest Sunni political party, Mohsen Abdul Hamid was detained from his home early this morning in western Baghdad. Of course his head was promptly bagged and his hands tied before he was taken away to be interrogated. His three sons were also detained with him. Stun bombs and bullets were said to be used during the raid, according to his wife.
It just so happens that his party, the Islamic Party, opposes the new US-backed security operation now engulfing Baghdad because they believe the security forces will disregard the rights of innocent Iraqis.
Later today he was released and the military admitted it made a mistake.
The military statement concerning the matter said, "Coalition forces regret any inconvenience and acknowledge (Abdul-Hamid’s) cooperation in resolving this matter."
Abdul Hamid refused their apology in the Arab media, and stated that he was humiliated when US soldiers held their boots on his head for 20 minutes.

The above is the latest from Dahr Jamail and is entitled "Things are getting worse by the day."

From The Independent, we'll note Elizabeth Davies' "Iraqi suicide bombers kill dozens in show of defiance against crackdown:"

Insurgents determined to flout an Iraqi-led security offensive in Baghdad put on a bloody show of defiance with a dual suicide attack which left up to 30 people dead and more than 100 injured.
The attacks, carried out in the predominantly Shia town of Hillah, south of Baghdad, came on the second day of Operation Lightning, the biggest security sweep in the capital since the war ended in 2003.
Two insurgents loaded with explosives mingled with a crowd of Iraqi policemen protesting against a decision to disband their unit. They staggered their attacks to maximise the number of deaths.
One of the bombers blew himself up in the midst of the 500-strong crowd shortly before 9am, causing chaos in the street outside the mayor's office. A minute later and 100 yards further along the road, his comrade detonated his charge, striking many of those running from the first blast.

Also from The Independent, Marcia e-mails to highlight Helen McCormack's "Claims of abuse at Guantanamo are revealed:"

Confidential papers detailing tribunal hearings held at Guantanamo Bay have revealed a further raft of allegations of US mistreatment of detainees held at the detention camp.
Detainees, including Jamil el-Banna, the Jordanian national who has lived in Britain since 1994 and is still held at the camp, alleged a range of mistreatment during tribunal hearings. One man said that the authorities' interrogation practices had rendered him incontinent. Another alleges that dogs were used as a means of intimidation.
The transcripts of tribunal hearings were released by the US Department of Defence after an application under the US Freedom of Information Act by the American news agency Associated Press.
The agency said it had received 1,000 pages of documents after a lawsuit with the US government. It was not clear whether allegations of mistreatment shown in transcripts of tribunals had been either logged or investigated, the news agency said.

From the ACLU, we'll note "Guantánamo Prisoners Told FBI of Qur'an Desecration in 2002, New Documents Reveal:"

New documents released by the FBI include previously undisclosed interviews in which prisoners at Guantánamo complain that guards have mistreated the Qur'an, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. In one 2002 summary, an FBI interrogator notes a prisoner’s allegation that guards flushed a Qur'an down the toilet.
The disclosure comes on the heels of controversy over a Newsweek report saying that government investigators had corroborated an almost identical incident. Newsweek ultimately retracted its story because a confidential government source could not be confirmed.
"The United States government continues to turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "If we are to truly repair America's standing in the world, the Bush Administration must hold accountable high-ranking officials who allow the continuing abuse and torture of detainees."

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching")

Memorial Day Special: Preventive Warriors
Today on Memorial Day, the traditional day to honor all US military veterans, we bring you the full documentary about the Bush administration’s national security strategy: "Preventive Warriors," produced by Michael Burns and Greg Ansin.
The film features many of the leading thinkers and intellectuals of our time including Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Tariq Ali and more.

We'll note Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut today:

Did you know that on the eve of the Iranian presidential election, that country--with 70 percent of its population under 30--has 75,000 bloggers? I find that pretty stunning--and I'm usually skeptical of blog-hype.
Blogging has gone international in a big way. And in Iran, blogging means that news, ideas and rumors are bypassing traditional censors. As one of Iran's leading bloggers recently pointed out at opendemocracy.net, Iran's blogs are generating "an unprecedented amount of information [and] pre-election news has...been much more transparent." In fact, Hossein Derakhshan argued, " it will probably be one of the most open and transparent elections Iran has ever seen."
The internet is playing a major role. This is the first time, for example, that most of the major candidates (except the oldest ones) have their own websites. And with an estimated three or four million internet users in Iran, blogs are opening up Iranian society and culture--despite the enduring threat of government censorship and imprisonment of journalists and activists.

From CounterPunch, we'll note Sharon Smith's "The Road to Abu Ghraib:"

Even before the Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003, human rights organizations were raising allegations of torture at U.S. prisons in Afghanistan.
At the time, the State Department dismissed their allegations as "ridiculous" (just as the White House recently feigned outrage when Newsweek claimed that Guantanamo interrogators flushed the Koran down the toilet--even as evidence surfaced that they urinated on it). As recently as December, military spokesperson Lt. Col. Pamela Keeton claimed an Army investigation "found no evidence of abuse taking place" in Afghanistan, according to the BBC.
All that changed last week, when the New York Times exposed the sadistic killing of two Afghan detainees in December 2002--both kicked to death, while chained to the ceiling by their wrists at the Bagram air base--based on the Army's own leaked investigation. The Army investigation is just the tip of the iceberg, however, as mounting evidence exposes an expansive and overlapping system of torture and killing at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.
Afghan prisons, along with Guantánamo, provided the hands-on training for the interrogation techniques made famous at Abu Ghraib. Many of the same interrogators who honed their skills at Bagram ended up at Abu Ghraib in 2003--both times under the direction of Capt. Carolyn A. Wood.

From CounterRecruiter, we'll note "Texan Says Military Recruiters Threatened to Kill Him:"

From KHOU in Texas: "More people are coming forward with Army recruiting horror stories after the 11 News Defenders investigation that exposed a recruiting scandal. They're sharing similiar stories about military recruiters using hardball tactics to persuade young people to enlist.
Will Ammons, 20, signed up for delayed entry at the Lake Jackson Army recruiting station last year. But soon afterwards, he fell in love and changed his mind before he ever shipped out. That's when, he says, Army recruiters crossed the line and started harrassing him.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

From Democracy Now!:

'Nightline' leerá nombres de soldados fallecidos
Más de un año después de la controversia que generó lalectura de Ted Knoppel de los nombres de más de 800soldados estadounidenses muertos en Irak, "Nightline"planea un programa sobre el Memorial Day (día de loscaídos) donde se leerán los nombres de 900 soldadosmuertos desde entonces.

Resistencia iraquí derribó helicóptero
En Irak, un helicóptero militar estadounidense fuederribado cerca de la fortificación de la resistenciaen Baquba, tras recibir disparos de armas de bajocalibre. El helicóptero presuntamente apoyaba afuerzas comandadas por Estados Unidos en la zona. Lascadenas de noticias CNN y CBS informaron que elhelicóptero llevaba a dos tripulantes. Combatientes dela resistencia atacaron otro helicóptero, pero nolograron derribarlo.

Maria selected the two items above from Friday's Democracy Now! Headlines. When we decided to do that last week to spotlight the new feature at Democracy Now! (NEW FEATURE: Democracy Now! is now offering the program's daily news summary translated into Spanish. Los Titulares de Hoy ), I hadn't even thought about the holiday was approaching. Due to various committments on members who speak Spanish, we elected to hold off on Friday's Headlines until today. Thanks to Maria for selecting two items. Please try to pass on the word that Democracy Now! is now providing their Headlines in Spanish (that's in text and audio).

Here are the two items that Maria selected in English:

Nightline To Read Names Of Dead
And, more than a year after a firestorm of controversysurrounded Ted Koppel's reading of the names of morethan 800 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, ''Nightline''plans a Memorial Day broadcast where they will readthe names of the 900 who have died since then.

Iraq Resistance Downs Us Helicopter
In Iraq, a US military helicopter was brought downnear the resistance stronghold of Baquba after comingunder small arms fire. The helicopter was reportedlysupporting US-led forces in the area. CNN and CBS newsreported that the downed helicopter had been carryingtwo crew members. Resistance fighters also hit asecond helicopter but failed to bring it down.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

In Baghdad there's talk of the latest "Operation Lightning".
It hasn't yet been implemented in our area but we've been hearing about it. So far all we've seen are a few additional checkpoints and a disappearing mobile network. Baghdad is actually split into two large regions- Karkh (west Baghdad) and Rasafa (east Baghdad) with the Tigris River separating them. Karkh, according to this plan, is going to be split into 15 smaller areas or sub-districts and Rasafa into 7 sub-districts.
There are also going to be 675 checkpoints and all of the entrances to Baghdad are going to be guarded. We are a little puzzled why Karkh should be split into 15 sub-districts and Rasafa only seven. Karkh is actually smaller in area than Rasafa and less populated.
On the other hand, Karkh contains the Green Zone- so that could be a reason.
People are also anxious about the 675 check points. It's difficult enough right now getting around Baghdad, more check points are going to make things trickier. The plan includes 40,000 Iraqi security forces and that is making people a little bit uneasy.
Iraqi National Guard are not pleasant or upstanding citizens- to have thousands of them scattered about Baghdad stopping cars and possibly harassing civilians is worrying.
We're also very worried about the possibility of raids on homes.

The above is from Riverbend's blog Baghdad Burning. Note, she goes on to critique Thomas Friedman's recent column and community members won't want to miss that.

From Haaretz, Brad e-mails Roni Singer's "Top Israeli execs held in industrial espionage case:"

Dozens of leading commercial companies and leading private investigators were named Sunday as suspects in a massive industrial espionage investigation that local police have been conducting for the past six months.
The companies suspected of commissioning the espionage, which was carried out by planting Trojan horse software in their competitors' computers, include the satellite television company Yes, which is suspected of spying on cable television company HOT; cell-phone companies Pelephone and Cellcom, suspected of spying on their mutual rival Partner; and Mayer, which imports Volvos and Hondas to Israel and is suspected of spying on Champion Motors, importer of Audis and Volkswagens.
Spy programs were also located in the computers of major companies such as Strauss-Elite, Shekem Electric and the business daily Globes. Police are currently investigating several other companies that may have been involved in the affair, which was under a court gag order until Sunday.

From Scotland's The Herald, we'll note Vicky Collins' "Wind of change sweeps Scotland:"

A QUIET revolution is sweeping the country.
It has involved hundreds of schools, community groups and small businesses turning to wind turbines and solar panels to provide their power.
According to new figures, there has been an upsurge in small-scale renewable energy projects, with a 14-fold increase over the past five years.
They are supported by the results of a new survey showing that about 70% of Scots would consider installing a renewable energy device in their home.
The survey and figures were released after Friday's announcement that Windsave, the Glasgow-based firm, has signed an exclusive agreement with British Gas to install wind turbines on private and local authority-owned properties.

From Australia's ABC, we'll note "QCs believe Corby's innocent:"


Lawyers recruited by the Federal Government to help represent Schapelle Corby say they have a growing feeling that the woman convicted of smuggling drugs into Bali is probably not guilty.
One of the QCs appointed by the Federal Government, Tom Percy, says he has met Corby's legal team in Bali.
Western Australia lawyer John Davies is a junior barrister to WA QCs Tom Percy and Mark Trowell, who accepted a request from the Federal Government to assist in Corby's appeal against a 20-year jail term for smuggling marijuana.
The WA lawyers were originally approached to assist in the Corby defence in March.
Speaking on ABC Radio, Mr Davies said the lawyers were concentrating on how they could assist Corby's appeal.
"From what I've seen of the way the case has gone and from what I know of the evidence at this stage, which is by no means comprehensive, I have a growing sick feeling in my stomach that we have somebody who's very probably not guilty sitting in Kerobokan Prison," he said.

Also from ABC, we'll note "Abu Ghraib protest interrupts Rice speech" because we love CodePink (this was reported Saturday by Australia's ABC):


Amid tight security at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall, three women and one man pulled on black hoods and cloaks and stood on their seats.
Ms Rice initially continued her speech on American foreign policy under President George W Bush.
However, she paused when the protesters shouted "Stop the torture. Stop the killing. US out of Iraq," as police led them out of the auditorium.
[. . .]
"We feel we made our point," said Ms [Medea] Benjamin, a founding director of the human rights group Global Exchange.

There are a number of great articles at Open Democracy. We'll highlight three that Gina noted but there's a great deal up at that site.

First, Chandra D. Bhatta's "Nepal’s civil war: from security to politics:"

The politics of Nepal in the first five months of 2005 have been dominated by a spiralling series of events: King Gyanendra's coup in February, the state of emergency and the imprisonment of political leaders and activists. The international community (led by India, the United States and Britain, Nepal's chief backers), responded by suspending development and military aid to Nepal, though in India’s case the ban on military supplies proved short-lived.
After nearly three months, Gyanendra in theory lifted the state of emergency and released key political leaders. It appears that the royal government may regain some sort of working "legitimacy" with the international community who have been backing the Nepali war for nearly a decade.
[. . .]
Any solution now rests entirely on the maturity of the actors involved: the traditionalists headed by the king (who wants to keep patrimony as the source of power) parliamentary political parties (who in theory believe in representative democracy, but have neglected to assimilate social movements into the system), and the Maoists (who have not yet been able to convince the majority of their strategy of state transformation and have largely discredited themselves by their terrorist approach). In these conditions, and with a Nepali population and diaspora hungry for democracy, the only chance for peace in Nepal lies not in "stability" but in a genuine democratic politics.

Second, Manjushree Thapa's "Democracy in Nepal and the 'international community:'"


The international reaction following King Gyanendra's military coup on 1 February 2005 has been mostly heartening for Nepalis. Until that date, we felt doomed to be characterised as simple, happy mountain folks inhabiting a Shangri-la, who deserved to be ruled by a deity-king, no matter how unjust. Maoist insurgency tended to be viewed as an anachronism, even fey: trouble in paradise. Meanwhile, Nepal's real story – the decades-long (and continuing) struggle to establish and retain democracy – seemed destined to be overlooked. It was just not picturesque.
But the world's condemnation of King Gyanendra's military coup has made Nepalis feel that we are not being abandoned at this, the most traumatic and transformational era in our history. Still, Nepalis are wary about the international community's trustworthiness, for any vestigial commitment to democracy in Nepal it has shown in the past has proved fickle.
In part this unreliability is because the outside world simply could not understand Nepal after democracy was won in 1990. It has been difficult enough for Nepalis to clarify this chaotic period even to ourselves. We were not prepared for the challenges of democracy. There were no democratic institutions, and very little democratic practice in either public or private spheres in 1990. The caste structure – with the Chettri, Bahun and "high-caste" Newar groups at the top – remained rigidly in place. It was widely felt that any move in the direction of equal rights for women would destroy Nepali culture. Any mention of ethnic rights could be met with accusations of harbouring separatist, anti-national, even treasonous sentiments.

Third, we'll note Brian Cathcart's "Polio: a war not yet won:"


One day it could rank among the greatest collaborative achievements of humankind, the fruit of decades of work by millions of people across the globe, at a cost of billions of dollars – but today, with triumph almost in sight, it may be in jeopardy. The campaign to rid the world of polio is suddenly on the defensive, with the virus popping up in countries previously thought clean and the flow of money to fund immunisations running dry.
Only a few years ago there were hopes that this year, 2005, would see the final case, the very last of all the many millions of children to be crippled or killed by this virus down the centuries. But instead the number of countries where people are catching polio has doubled to twelve and just this month a fresh pocket of infection turned up in Indonesia, where no one had caught the disease for a decade.
Proving that sickness, too, is globalised in the modern world, a strain of the virus from northern Nigeria travelled first to Sudan, on to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and then across the ocean to Java – perhaps carried by migrant workers, perhaps by Muslim pilgrims going to and from Mecca; no one knows.
And just as it becomes clear that the huge effort to immunise millions of young children must be redoubled, the coalition of organisations leading the drive – the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef, Rotary International and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States – announce that they are $50 million short of the funding they need to carry on the effort past July.

This is an issue that Rebecca's noted and noted at her site Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude.

From the Irish Examiner, we'll note Amy Teibel's "Israel releases prisoners in overdue gesture:"

ISRAEL'S Cabinet yesterday approved the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners, a long-overdue gesture Israel had agreed to as part of a Mideast truce package. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Cabinet that the prisoner release would strengthen Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and "the moderate forces in the Palestinian Authority."
Sharon's appeal meshed with recent US efforts to shore up Abbas in the face of severe challenges from Palestinian militants. The ministers voted 18-3 to approve the release. A ministerial panel will now meet to compile a list of those eligible to be freed.
No one directly involved in deadly attacks on Israelis would be released, but Israel might be more flexible than in the past and free prisoners who haven't completed two-thirds of their terms, a government official said.

Also from the Irish Examiner, we'll note Ann Cahill's "FRANCE SAYS NON:"

FRANCE overwhelmingly rejected the European Union's constitution in yesterday's referendum, plunging the EU into crisis. The heavy defeat dreaded by EU leaders could weaken France in the 25-member bloc, stall European integration and unsettle some financial markets. French President Jacques Chirac, who urged voters to approve the charter, announced the result in a short televised address. He said the process of ratifying the treaty would continue in other EU countries."France has expressed itself democratically," Chirac said. "It is your sovereign decision, and I take note." Earlier, the Interior Ministry said that with about 83% of the votes counted, the constitution was rejected by 57.26% of voters. It was backed by 42.74%.

Lynda e-mails, from Germany's Der Spiegel, "Francois Mitterrand's Widow Says, 'I Will Vote No:'"

SPIEGEL: Madame, how are you going to vote at the EU constitution referendum on May 29?
Mitterrand: I continue to adhere to the logic of my commitment over the years for human rights, the Third World, and the fight against poverty. When I travel around the world, I always try to act as advocate for the victims of the economic system. I denounce the power of the economy over people, a system that turns individuals into elements in an economic equation, does not respect the poor and excludes everyone that does not live up to the principle of profitability.
SPIEGEL: Hasn't the globalization you are still fighting against long since become a reality in Europe?
Mitterrand: I can only reject a European constitution that emphasizes competition and profit as primary values. I am therefore going to vote No, but without taking part in any political campaign. Party politics hasn't interested me for a long time now.
SPIEGEL: Apparently, you are much further to the left than the majority of the Socialist Party...
Mitterrand: ...I often stood even farther to the left than my husband, because I was free of the restraints that come with being in government. He never resented that in me -- nor, by the way, did (former German Chancellor) Helmut Kohl despite my having reproached him for Germany's supplying of weapons to Turkey -- arms which were, in turn, then used against the Kurds. He didn't want to hear anything about it, but we remained on friendly terms.

Lynda also notes (from Der Spiegel) Ralf Beste and Alexander Szandar's "Europe's Atomic Anachronism:"

In early May, Germany's government said it was high time the US got its last remaining nuclear weapons out of Germany. Now -- out of fear of more trans-Atlantic strife -- the Germans are hesitating and hoping the situation will quietly solve itself.
The attractions of the small German town of Buechel, population 1,200, are neatly listed on the town's home page: an ancient beech tree called the Schmitzbuche ("a gem for hikers"), the Easter bazaar, Buechel's carnival celebrations and, last but not least, St. Josef's Chapel, built by "Gretchen Thome, a former knitting teacher and Buechel's postmaster for many years." But the Web site conveniently ignores another salient feature of this small community, located not far from the city of Cochem on the Mosel River: Buechel has the potential of transforming the world into a nuclear inferno.
Beneath the local military airfield, about 20 American B-61 nuclear bombs are stored in underground bunkers, heavily guarded by the 702nd Munitions Special Support Squadron, a special unit of the US Army.
At the command of the president of the United States, these weapons of mass destruction can be attached to German Tornado fighter jets within a very short period of time. The aircraft, flying low to avoid enemy radar, are capable of carrying their deadly payloads to targets deep within Russia, essentially spiriting them into the country "beneath the fence," to quote the manufacturer's enthusiastic marketing prose.
With 17,000 tons of explosive force, each weapon is at least ten times as destructive as the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
The Cold War ended more than 15 years ago, and yet the bombs of Buechel still have the potential to turn vast portions of Eastern and Central Europe into a nuclear wasteland. A total of about 480 nuclear weapons are currently being stored in Europe, with experts estimating that about 150 of these bombs are on German soil.
Seemingly unfazed by the fact that the Warsaw Pact countries have long since ceased to be enemies of the West, the United States, the supreme power within NATO, continues to support and practice the doctrine of "nuclear participation." What this means is that non-nuclear states like Germany are at least permitted to play a supporting role in handling the US' destructive arsenals. But these weapons, once intended to strengthen the bonds among NATO members in the face of the threat from the East, have since become an absurd relic of days gone by.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Editorial: Sunday Times says we attempted to goad Iraq into war in 2002, is Bush a liar or just willing to risk the safety of American citizens?

The Sunday Times has an article by Michael Smith entitled "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war." It opens with the following:

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".

We realize that our readers are far more intelligent than the mainstream press corp but indulge us as we address the above. The Bully Boy and his cohorts went around screaming that we didn't want a "mushroom cloud," that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons.

To accept those lies today, in the face of The Sunday Times of London's story, you have to accept that the Bully Boy was perfectly okay with the United States being attacked with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. If that were true, then the only response would be to call for an immediate impeachment. The leader of the country is not supposed to actively court the destruction of our nation.

But to believe the lies we were told, that truly is the most obvious conclusion.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that we were lied to. Everything we were told leading up to the invasion and everything that's followed can be characterized as lies and more lies.

Lying a nation into war is a pretty serious offense.

Now there are some who feel that the recent defense of Newsweek has awakened our press corps. We'd love for that to be the case. However, it can also be argued that the press is just closing ranks, protecting their own and still willing to swallow every lie the administration feeds them and duly spit it back out in a report.

Look, this is a serious matter. We'd even be willing to hold our tongues regarding Judith Miller and other stenographers if The New York Times or any other institution wanted to do now what they should have been doing in the lead up to the invasion, investigating the administration's claims and telling the people the truth.

Scott Shane, Douglas Jehl or Monica Davey (or anyone else) could be front paged with stories about the difference between what we were told and actual reality and we'd be willing to hold our tongues about Miller and the others. (Miller's the most infamous, she was far from the only one. And to date, no television program has issued any mea culpa that we're aware of.)

Why could a group of smart asses like The Third Estate Sunday Review do that? Because the bigger picture demands that Americans start getting some truth with their journalism. It's past time for some truth. We spent thirty minutes discussing this (Ava, Jim, Jess, Ty, Dona, Rebecca, Betty and C.I.) and we all agree that the truth coming out now (strongly and on the front page -- not tucked safely inside the paper where it can be ignored) is a great deal more important than Miller's head on a platter at this moment in time.

What we're saying is that we could take The Times running truth-telling stories without requiring them to note "by the way Judith Miller reported this differently." (Or any newspaper or TV program doing the same without making a point to name their reporters who got it wrong.) And here's a thought, who knows the lies that were told better than Miller? Get her committed to exposing reality and team her up with someone more trust worthy and let it rip. We're willing to bet that the sympathy she's been unable to garner for her current court issues, despite repeated attempts to garner sympathy, would suddenly emerge.

We're not going to spin here and say that all is forgiven and forgotten regarding Miller (to focus on The New York Times). That's not the case. It never will be. But if The New York Times wants to get back into the news business, we're perfectly willing to table our criticism of Miller for several months. Because we feel, and we can only speak for us, that the truth on the invasion/occupation is far more important than any individual reporter.

The latest from London's Sunday Times is explosive (as was the Downing St. memo). The press seems to have awakened a bit after the attacks on Newsweek. Our guess is that the way the domestic press handles the very serious issues emerging from across the Atlantic will tell us whether recent press coverage was about truth telling or protecting one of their own.

Lastly, we'll give credit to BuzzFlash for making The Sunday Times article their main headline.

As always, the editorial is the last feature (other than our "note") that we work on. As soon as we finish everything else, we rush around online (BuzzFlash is always one of the stops) to come up with potential topics for our editorial. There was no debate this week. All eight of us agreed that the only topic was The Sunday Times revelations. Congratulations and thanks to BuzzFlash for catching the story and prominently running it at their website.

posted by Third Estate Sunday Review @ Sunday, May 29, 2005

Note: This editorial was linked to yesterday. Jim, Ava, Jess, Ty and Dona gave permission for it to be reprinted in full. As noted, Betty, Rebecca and myself worked on it and you'll see it at their sites as well. Though The Third Estate Sunday Review was kind enough to give permission to run it in full at our sites yesterday, we all felt we would wait until Monday to allow the readers of The Third Estate Sunday Review to discover it first.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

In the last few months, the small commercial air service to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been carrying people the military authorities had hoped would never be allowed there: American lawyers.
And they have been arriving in increasing numbers, providing more than a third of about 530 remaining detainees with representation in federal court. Despite considerable obstacles and expenses, other lawyers are lining up to challenge the government's detention of people the military has called enemy combatants and possible terrorists.
A meeting earlier this month in New York City at the law firm Clifford Chance drew dozens of new volunteer lawyers who attended lectures from other lawyers who have been through the rigorous process of getting the government to allow them access to Guantanamo.
The increase in lawyers for Guantanamo detainees was set in motion last June when the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration and said the prisoners there were entitled to challenge their detentions in federal courts.
The rate at which lawyers have stepped forward for the task may be a reflection of the changing public attitudes about Guantanamo Bay and its mission.
"In the beginning, just after 9/11, we couldn't get anybody," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group based in New York that is coordinating the assigning of lawyers to prisoners. The earliest volunteers, Mr. Ratner said, were those who regularly handled death-penalty clients and were accustomed to representing the reviled in near-hopeless cases.


The above is from Neil A. Lewis' "In Rising Numbers, Lawyers Head for Guantanamo Bay" in the New York Times.

Rachel e-mails to note Carlotta Gall's "Gunmen Kill Afghan Cleric Who Condemned Taliban Leaders:"

A senior pro-government cleric was shot dead in his office on Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar in a brazen attack by suspected Taliban supporters firing from a motorbike.
In Kabul, meanwhile, kidnappers of an Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, released a videotape of her to a television station and demanded that the Italian authorities speed up negotiations for her release.
The cleric who was killed, Maulavi Abdullah Fayaz, leader of the Council of Clerics of Kandahar, was well known for his support for the government of President Hamid Karzai and his strong stance against the remnants of the Taliban leadership that continue to foment an insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan.


Eli notes Katharine Q. Seelye's "Ombudsmen Rebuff Move by Public Broadcasting:"


The Organization of News Ombudsmen, which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast ombudsmen from around the world, more than half of them in the United States, voted at its annual conference here last week to change its bylaws to allow full membership only to those who work for news organizations. The corporation, a quasi-governmental organization, provides some federal funds for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System; it does not itself gather or produce news.
The change allows for the corporation's ombudsmen - and others in allied fields but who are not part of a news organization - to become associate members. As such, they are denied voting privileges and the stamp of legitimacy as independent ombudsmen that full membership would suggest.
"We want members who are responsive to readers, not to governments or lobby groups," said Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, who was president of the ombudsmen's organization until last week when his term ended and is the ombudsman for NPR. "I was worried about the political nature of the appointment and I was worried about the precedent."
The move is a rebuff to Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the corporation, who decided that the corporation should have two ombudsmen as a way to bring balance to what he sees as a liberal bias in public programming and an anti-Israeli bias in NPR's Middle East coverage. (A survey by the corporation itself has shown that viewers and listeners do not share those perceptions.)
The move could also heighten tensions between Mr. Tomlinson and NPR because of Mr. Dvorkin's role in opposing the corporation's appointees. Mr. Dvorkin abstained from voting on the matter and from presiding over discussions of it, ceding to complaints within his organization that he had a conflict of interest. But he was instrumental in setting the policy.

Eli notes that while he'll applaud the decision not to include the two, he'll refrain from personally applauding Dvorkin who initially met with one of the two CPB overseers (let's not call them ombdusmen) to discuss the application. Eli steers us to this section of Seelye's article:


One of the critics of Mr. Dvorkin's handling of the matter was Jamie Gold, the readers' representative at The Los Angeles Times, who protested by quitting her post as the organization's treasurer, resigning from its board and declining to attend the conference.
"It was the ONO president's attempt to manipulate the CPB ombudsmen's application process from the beginning that I objected to," Ms. Gold wrote in an e-mail. "ONO values transparency. Jeffrey Dvorkin could have taken steps early on to make the entire process - their membership application, their request to attend the conference - transparent by recusing himself and handing it over to the ONO board. He didn't."

And that's really it for anything that interests members or myself this morning. That's partly due to it being Monday and a holiday. Monday's are a traditionally slow day for the paper. (And probably has to do with the fact that on Sundays we do the "stories from outside the US" items so we've already covered a number of topics that will make the Monday paper.)

But we aren't yet done. We're about to do an editorial. And note that when I'm offering my opinion it should be considered an editorial or an op-ed. Members grasp that and are quite aware that I can be wrong and often am. And that I admit that openly. But a number of visitors seem to be confused over this so we'll note clearly that what follows is an EDITORIAL. (You can pretty much look at everything here that way. Whether it's from members or myself. Even what we we choose to highlight is an editorial -- from stories in the Times to announcements of events.)

EDITORIAL:

Three members have sent in a lengthy article on two US citizens arrested yesterday on charges that the reporters (Julia Preston and Michelle O'Donnell) are more than happy to repeat at length as well as public statements from officials. As members ask in their e-mails: So where's the other side?

There hasn't been a conviction but it's hard to tell that from the article. Two reporters for the Times (O'Donnell gets the byline) and the best they can do is to note a remark made in a Florida paper. Balance and "balance" are under a lot of criticism these days. Most of it deserved. If there's one area that balance is needed, it's when it has to do with criminal chrages. Trials convict, not the press.

I'm not seeing it in my edition of the paper, the story, but Lucy, Bryan and Kayla e-mailed it to the site. Possibly it's an early version of a story that will go into print tomorrow.

If that's the case, it should be pulled until the Times does something more than read a Florida newspaper (one of the two men is from Florida, the other from the Bronx). With Lawrence Franklin the point was made, here, from the start that he was under suspicion, that he had been charged, and that he had been convicted of nothing. I am not inclined to think favorably on Franklin on many political issues, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

I'll praise the Times for their restraint in leaping to conclusions regarding Franklin (while noting again that if they were to do an investigation of their own and come up with details, they should publish them).

I won't praise the reporting online today. A statement unearthed from a Florida paper and a statement from a neighbor who never spoke with the suspect from the Bronx doesn't count as balance. Especially considering the serious nature of the charges.

What's the paper to do if they can't get anyone to talk? Well for starters, don't turn the entire piece over to chatty cathy Paul J. Browne of the New York police department. Now maybe after taking down all that dictation, bodies and minds were too tired to seek out the other side. Not too tired to review the charges and the public statements made by other law enforcement agencies. And this statement: " There was no answer late last night at Mr. ____'s apartment on Grant Avenue in the Bronx." quite frankly doesn't cut it. The two men were arrested on Friday, in raids on their homes, and the Times only learned of it "yesterday."

These are serious charges and if the paper can't determine who the men's lawyers are (must be about the only speculation authorities didn't want to share with the reporters) and can't do much in the way of research other than a) a trip down to the Bronx where they find a neighbor who knows nothing about one suspect and b) reading a Florida newspaper than the story, as written, doesn't need to be online.

Chatty cathy authorities are usually chatty cathies for a reason. The Times knows that. To construct an entire article around what authorities with vested interests in the charges isn't the reason we have freedom of speech in this country. We have free speech in this country to hold those in authority accountable.

The story, based on the information the Times actually has, is a two paragraph story at best:

First paragraph:

Early Friday morning raids took place in the Bronk and in Florida to arrest ____ and ____ who are now charged with conspiring "to train and provide medical assistance to Al Qaeda terrorists." Attempts to determine whom was legal counsel for either men were unsuccesful.

Second paragraph would be a brief summary of the charges. And that would be it. Not what public statements the FBI made, not what public statements David N. Kelley made. Not what public statements the police made. And not what the chatty cathy told reporters directly.

The Times has one side of the story and by going into, at length, presenting the prosecution's side (and only that side), they aren't serving the public interest. If the two men are guilty, a court will determine that, not the Times being spoonfed statements from authorities and not some chatty cathys. Had the Times launched their own investigation and found details of guilt, by all means share that. However, that's not the case -- as is made obvious by the fact that the Times can't even determine the name or names of whom is representing the two men charged.

The Times may feel that they live in die by their official stories. In this instance, the burden of proof is on the prosecution and that case will have to be made in court. As for the paper, its burden is to present both sides of very serious charges. Official sources or not, this is still America and we still, at present, operate under the presumption of innocent until proven guilty -- even if two reporters choose not to act under that presumption.

If serious efforts were made, the article gives no indication that they were, and the two reporters came up empty handed, the article should have been a two paragraph story as noted above. If the reporters were then pressed by editorial staff for more details . . . That an editor for the paper did not see the problems with this story is very sad. Reporters can get too close to a story and editors are supposed to provide more than a spell check or fact check (at the Times editors are supposed to be the fact checkers), they are supposed to be ensuring perspective. That didn't happen here. Maybe someone had a bad day.

Or maybe it was thought that since it was just going online and possibly not in print it didn't matter. That's not the case. Three readers of the Times have already spotted and e-mailed this site. There's no telling how many others have spotted it and will continue to spot it throughout the day. (I've read it since it was sent in, so up the known count to four.) Rudith Miller and the training at Hack University aside, the role of the press is not to argue the prosectuion's case for it. The article, as it is, does not belong up at the Times' web site.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

A BRITISH soldier was killed and four others injured yesterday in Iraq as security forces launched a high-profile crackdown against terrorists in Baghdad.The troops were travelling in the Maysan region on their way to a planned meeting with Iraqi security officials when a roadside bomb exploded near the flashpoint town of Amara.The latest death brings the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities in March 2003 to 88.As insurgents used suicide bombings and ambushes to kill at least 17 people and al Qaeda said it had launched a new offensive of its own across the country, a US Marine also died in a bomb attack north-west of Baghdad.



Tori e-mailed the above from Scotland's The Herald. It's an excerpt from Billy Briggs' "Roadside bomb claims 88th British soldier."

Kara e-mails Martin Patience's "In unsettled times" from Scotland's Sunday Herald:


The mother-of-five has relatives who live a five-minute walk away, but because she cannot cross the road that leads to the settlement, Hassanat has to take a two-hour round-trip to see them.
But all that could change following the unilateral disengagement plan by Ariel Sharon’s government to withdraw from the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, scheduled to start by mid-July. Nehaya Hassanat and her husband Jaber would then be able to take the short stroll to their relatives' homes.
The Salah al-Din road that runs in front of their house means all Palestinians will be able to drive from the top to the bottom of the Gaza Strip in less than an hour.
"For sure, the people will be happy when they [the Israeli settlers] leave," said Jaber, who works for the Palestinian security services. "It will be easier for me to travel south."
In the past, the couple says, the orange groves behind their house have been used as a launch pad for attacks on the Netzarim settlement. Less than two weeks ago, members of the Islamic group Hamas had fired homemade Qassem rockets at the settlement. But Nehaya Hassanat said that she and her family had nothing to do with the attacks, and pleaded with the militants to stop firing the rockets from near her house, for fear of a reprisal attack by the Israeli army.

From Al Jazeera, we'll note "Ex-Sudan rebel warns of new crisis:"

UN chief Kofi Annan has met anex-rebel leader who told him thatthe post-war return of hundreds of thousands of refugees to their homesin southern Sudan is mushroominginto a humanitarian crisis.
John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, told Annan at Rumbeik on Sunday that more than a quarter-million refugees have returned to homes around this former rebel stronghold since the signing of the January peace agreement with the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Now, Garang said, the war-ravaged region needs help feeding the returnees, who have not yet been able to go back to farming. "The UN food pipeline is empty," Garang told Annan.

There are some more entries for world news coming but I know a few people aren't on vacation and are waiting for something to go up here.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Brad just e-mailed this from Haaretz and we're going to post it as a single entry. It's Nathan Guttman's "Virginia grand jury to submit the indictments:"

The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file indictments against two former senior American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers - Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman - and, according to sources familiar with the affair, the charges will be subsumed under the Espionage Act.
A Virginia grand jury is now examining the evidence in the case, which involved receipt of classified defense information from Larry Franklin, a Pentagon official, and its transfer to the representative of a foreign country, Naor Gilon, of the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Sources involved in the case confirmed that the Espionage Act is on the agenda. However, there is also the possibility that the Justice Department is raising the intention to use that law with the purpose of reaching a plea bargain concerning a lesser offense, albeit one that is still covered by anti-espionage legislation in the U.S.
Presumably, if indeed such an indictment is filed against two former top-level AIPAC staff members, then Gilon's name will come up, even though he is not a suspect. Israeli officials say he was never questioned in the affair. Gilon heads the political department at the embassy.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]