michaelroloff - 9:07 PM ET February 10, 2006 (#2660 of 2660)bushomoff!!
Thursday, February 09, 2006 Growing questions about whether Bush lied today about the supposed threat to LA that he supposedly foiled by John in DC - 2/09/2006 04:58:00 PM 1. Los Angeles Mayor knows nothing about the supposed threat: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President Bush's announcement of new details on a purported 2002 hijacking plot aimed at a downtown skyscraper, and described communication with the White House as "nonexistent." "I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the mayor said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't expect a call from the president — but somebody." 2. Bush's claim to have thwarted an attack on LA is disputed by former FBI official TODAY BUSH SAID: Bush Touted Thwarting of Post 9/11 U.S. Terrorism Plot. In a speech today, Bush told members of the National Guard Association of a foiled 2002 Al Qaeda plot to fly a plane into LA's US Bank Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. Bush said that the terrorist's plan was put into place after 9/11 but "was derailed in early 2002, when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al Qaeda operative." Bush added, "Subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target and how al Qaeda hoped to execute" the plot, and helped other allies capture the ringleaders." - Washington Post, 2/9/06 BUT IN 2004: FBI Counterterrorism Official Said He Knew of No Thwarted Al Qaeda Attacks. After a CIA official claimed last year that the government had "probably prevented a few aviation attacks against both the East and West Coasts" since 9/11, John Pistole, the FBI's counterterrorism director, said he was "not sure what [the CIA] was referring to." - 9/11 Commission Testimony, 6/16/2004; New York Daily News, 6/17/04

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Who's in Guantanamo? "...40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban." This is a human rights crime, but Bush doesn't care about human rights. Maybe the Hague will.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/02/whos_in_guantan.html
================== Vice President Cheney and The Fight Over "Inherent" Presidential Powers: His Attempt to Swing the Pendulum Back Began Long Before 9/11 By JOHN W. DEAN http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060210.html Friday, Feb. 10, 2006 Vice President Dick Cheney has stirred up an old fight in Washington. He sent a rookie, however, to make his case publicly. It did not work. ============= William Kristol on the Danish cartoon "anguish": [is very funny indeed, if only LEEDS/ANDREW had a sense of humor!] "U.N., E.U. and Muslims link in call to curb protests," read the Financial Times headline last week. A "U.N.-brokered statement," the paper reported, was issued "in an effort to curb days of protests, some violent some peaceful, at the publication and republication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. 'The anguish in the Muslim world at the publication of the offensive caricatures is shared ..." Oh, the anguish! And why not? http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/697dhzzd.asp ================== Ex-CIA Official: Bush Administration Misused Iraq Intelligence http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0210-09.htm ================ L.A. Mayor says he was blindsided by Bush, who gave new details about supposed plot to blow up tower. Is this Bush propaganda? Does a Horse Eat Oats? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/growing-questions-about-whether-bush.html

The right to caricature God…and his prophets Doug Ireland 7 - 2 - 2006 " Believers in free speech must resist Islamist attempts to enforce theocratic censorship, says Doug Ireland. http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-europe_islam/caricature_3245.jsp ============ A carnival of stupidity Neal Ascherson 6 - 2 - 2006 FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" The conflagration over Danish cartoons of Islam's prophet reveals that Europe's balance of freedom, mutuality and coexistence is at a trigger-charge moment, says Neal Ascherson. http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-europe_islam/cartoons_3242.jsp ================== MORE BELT-TIGHTENING IN STORE FOR IRAQIS By Nidhal al-Laithi http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2006-02-08%5C184.htm Iraqis will have to do without their almost free food rations and stand yet another spiral of hikes in fuel prices. This exactly what any new government must to do to meet conditions the World Bank and international creditors and donors have set for the country.... ========================== The world as a battlefield Paul Rogers 9 - 2 - 2006 The linguistic shift from "war on terror" to the "long war" reflects a deeper rethinking among United States political and military leaders. http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/battlefield_3251.jsp =================== World Is at its Warmest For a Millennium ANDREW LEEDS BRAINS HAVE BEEN COOKED! THAT EXPLAINS THE WIDE SPECTRUM OF THEIR MUTUALLY INCLUSIVE VOCABULARY WHICH CONSISTS OF "LIAR LIAR LIAR MORON MORON MORON" http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0210-07.htm


michaelroloff - 5:50 PM ET February 9, 2006 (#2633 of 2660)a few more fine links to interesting pieces
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18730 The Biggest Secret' By Thomas Powers State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen Free Press, 240 pp., $26.00 1. The challenges posed to American democracy by secrecy and by unchecked presidential power are the two great themes running through the history of the Iraq war. How long the war will last, who will "win," and what it will do to the political landscape of the Middle East will not be obvious for years to come, but the answers to those questions cannot alter the character of what happened at the outset. Put plainly, the President decided to attack Iraq, he brushed caution and objection aside, and Congress, the press, and the people, with very few exceptions, stepped back out of the way and let him do it. =============== Think Again: Islamist Terrorism By C. Christine Fair, Husain Haqqani Posted January 2006 Pundits and politicians of all stripes are quick to offer their wisdom on what fuels Islamist terrorism. It just so happens that much of what they say is wrong. Poverty doesn’t produce terrorists, a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem isn’t a cure-all, and young Muslim men aren’t the most likely to turn to terror. If we are going to fight a war on terror, the least we can do is understand who we are fighting..... Other factors, such as perception of a threat to Islam and opinions about the role of religion in government, have a significantly greater impact on support for terrorism than age or gender. The bottom line? Ideology and beliefs matter more than social or economic status, age or gender. Focusing outreach and counterterrorism efforts on young, unmarried Muslim males will only overlook enormous sections of Muslim populations who support terrorists. Madrasas Are Terrorist Factories" That’s an exaggeration. Do madrasas (ultra-conservative religious schools) produce students who are less tolerant towards other religions, opposed to the rights of women, and more likely to support militant means for resolving disputes between Muslims and non-Muslims? Definitely. But this is not tantamount to training for terrorism. None of the 9/11 hijackers attended a madrasa. And there is no evidence that any of the terrorists involved in major international terror attacks during the last four years ever enrolled as regular students in a madrasa, though they may have passed through madrasas on the way to terrorist training camps. Given their total lack of Western education, madrasa students are not particularly useful to any modern day employer, including terrorist groups. They cannot blend into a Western nation or mount sophisticated operations requiring technical expertise. They lack linguistic ability and competence in even basic forms of technology because such skills are not generally taught at madrasas. Some madrasa students do not even have basic mathematical skills, necessary for mounting even moderately sophisticated terrorist operations.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3359&fpsrc=ealert060130

Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data Program May Have Led Improperly to Warrants By Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 9, 2006; Page A01 Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events. The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by House Committee Squashes Torture Queries By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 8, 7:56 PM ET WASHINGTON - Republicans easily defeated three resolutions seeking information about the Bush administration's policies on torture after a heated committee hearing. Rep. Henry Hyde ( news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said Democrats who submitted the resolutions should "at least silently confess to themselves that their
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0208-01.htmhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060209/ap_on_go_co/congress_torture;_ylt=AsCp2Z0_QP7MmEvSwx04EIFp24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html Russ Feingold On the President's Warrantless Wiretapping Program http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0208-34.htm Ted Rall The Bland Leading the Blind: The Nanny Press and the Cartoon Controversy http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0208-20.htm Alfred McCoy Why the McCain Torture Ban Won't Work http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0208-28.htm Look guys, over there! On your left! Amid the rubble of the worldwide uproar over the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Bush administration sees an opportunity -- to whip up ill will toward two of the many Islamic countries involved in the protests. In an amazing coincidence, they just happen to the two countries where the neocons have long coveted some type of military action in Bush's second term: http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002763.html PINR's December 2005 in-depth analysis on Iraq is still very relevant, and can be found at: "What to Expect in Iraq After the December 15 Elections" http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=412 Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0208-05.htm