posted 04-06-2004 11:22 PM            

— George W. Bush's mother Barbara on ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003





130 SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ - REPORTS

A Pentagon source has said up to 130 US troops have been killed in fierce fighting in Iraq.

The large scale battle, described as "intense", has taken place in the town of Ar Ramadi, 20 miles west of Fallujah.

Sky News' David Chater said: "None of this is official yet - none of it is confirmed."

But he added: "It sounds very much like this is being carried out by men who are militarily trained."

posted 04-06-2004 11:53 PM            

Unconfirmed reports say several people were killed when a US warplane dropped bombs on a residential area of the town after a mortar attack on troops.

The US command has vowed to "pacify" Falluja, where four civilian contractors were killed on Wednesday.

Falluja lies in the heartland of resistance to the US-led occupation.

Extended operation

US troops closed off entrances to Falluja with earth barricades ahead of the planned operation, code named "Vigilant Resolve".

About 1,200 marines and two battalions of Iraqi security forces were poised to enter the city to arrest suspected insurgents, Associated Press news agency quoted Lt James Vanzant of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force as saying.

"The city is surrounded," Mr Vanzant said.

"It's an extended operation. We want to make a very precise approach to this. ... We are looking for the bad guys in town."

US aircraft were reported to have struck a residential area in the city, killing many people according to witnesses.

There has been no confirmation by the US-led coalition.

The operation was to last several days, the US military said.

Horrific images

The four US contractors - working for Blackwater Security Consulting - were ambushed and killed as they drove through Falluja last Wednesday.

FALLUJA FLASHPOINT
28 April 2003: US paratroopers shoot dead 13 demonstrators
May 2003: Grenade and gun attacks on US troops become a routine occurrence
November 2003-January 2004: Three helicopters are shot down in the area with the total loss of 25 lives
31 March 2004: Four US contractors killed and mutilated

Images from Iraq haunt US
Falluja anger on the rise
An angry crowd surrounded the cars, throwing stones and setting the vehicles ablaze.

The corpses were dragged from the wreckage and television pictures showed one burnt body being kicked and stamped on, while at least two were tied to cars and driven through the streets, witnesses said.

Adults and children hacked the bodies to pieces, before lynching two of the charred remains from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Two of them were hanged from a bridge.

posted 04-07-2004 02:51 AM            

The No-Win War
Iraq is in melt-down. As of this typing, the US is engaged in firefights with the Iraqi people on at least 7 different fronts. Sky News reported 130 US dead, a number that was quickly retracted. Other reports have the Italian and Spanish forces being pushed into retreat, and the British “negotiating”.

I say the Iraqi people because Bush and his hatchet-man Bremer have succeeded in uniting the Sunni and Shi-ite. The Arab media is already blaring the pledge of the two groups to set aside their differences in the face of their common enemy, the United States. Contrary to the spin put on the fight by the mainstream media, the US military is not arrayed against a few loner “Saddam loyalists” or “Sadr militia”. The US military is staring down their gun barrels at the entire united Iraqi people.

This puts a new political dimension on the war. Bush cannot continue to “pacify” (translation: “murder”) the Iraqi people without casting himself as the new Saddam Hussein. One of the justifications given for the Iraq war was that the government of Iraq under Saddam was killing the Iraqi people. Now we have the government of Iraq under Bush killing the Iraqi people. It will be a tough sell why one is okay and the other is not. Every new Iraqi death underscores Hans Blix’s observation that Iraq was really better off under Saddam then under the US Occupation.

There is, to put it bluntly, no way to win this war. Even if Bush simply wipes out the Iraqi people, it will not be seen as a victory because the US will have failed in its stated objective to bring western-style freedoms to the Iraqi people. It is a bitter irony that the present conflict was sparked when the US occupiers shut down a newspaper for “wrong reporting” (i.e. wounding Bremer’s vanity). There never were any weapons of mass destruction. Everyone knows that was a lie. And with Saddam in jail, the US has already lost any justification to have stayed this long in Iraq in the first place. Continued occupation will make the US the most hated and mistrusted nation on Earth. Outright defeat would only be marginally more damaging to the US.

There is no way out of this mess for the US Government. There is nothing that the US can do which will be seen as a moral victory.

This war is a disaster, no matter what happens from here. And the American people, impoverished by the war, bereft of their children by the war, are starting to wake up from their long denial. They will be angry. They will want to know who is to blame for this disaster. They will want the hides of the men who lied us into this war for the benefit of a foreign power (as 9-11 Commission head Philip Zelikow admitted recently in a public speech) tanned and nailed to the barn door. They will want the hides of the media executives who whored themselves to the war machine, who clearly thought the sacrifice of other people’s children a small price to pay for higher ratings and increased FCC cooperation.

The bottom line is that those of us who had the courage to stand up and declare that this war was wrong, well, we were right. There is no way to avoid that now. There were no WMDs, Saddam hasn’t killed anywhere near as many of the Iraqi people as Bush has, and even Israel (the aforesaid foreign power) has recently admitted that it “overestimated” the threat from Iraq all along.

And those flag-waving morons, who sold other people’s kids and tax money in exchange for a free hot dog at those Clear Channel sponsored pro-war rallies? Well, they were all wrong. Their cries of “support our troops” ring hollow indeed with the news that every single military person serving in Iraq will be coming home contaminated with radioactive depleted uranium. Since DU has a half life of 4.5 billion years, it is safe to assume that their unoffending wives, children, friends, and co-workers will be contaminated as well. They (and you) will spend the rest of your lives facing increased risk for cancer, leukemia, and birth defects because of this war based on a lie.

Admiral Yamamoto was correct. The American people are slow to anger, but once roused, can be a giant filled with a terrible resolve. I cannot imagine any self-respecting people continuing to obey a government that lied the nation into a war that impoverished the people, trashed the economy, killed our kids, and left the survivors and everyone they come in contact with chronically ill for the rest of their lives, all for the benefit of a foreign power. That’s the sort of thing that got Charles the First in trouble.

Other pundits today have speculated that this might be the beginning of the end. I am inclined to agree.

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posted 04-07-2004 06:29 AM            

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Country Joe

You know...these toads started this mess....my solution is pull all the troops out and have all of
these CHICKENHAWK neo-cons do thee fighting themselves. BETTER still...have
THEM clean up all the depleted urainum as well.

posted 04-07-2004 03:22 PM            

1776, who wrote that opinion article above about the Iraq situation? Link? Author?

If it was you, WOW!

I cannot imagine any self-respecting people continuing to obey a government that lied the nation into a war that impoverished the people, trashed the economy, killed our kids, and left the survivors and everyone they come in contact with chronically ill for the rest of their lives, all for the benefit of a foreign power. That’s the sort of thing that got Charles the First in trouble.

Other pundits today have speculated that this might be the beginning of the end. I am inclined to agree.

The problem is, both houses are Republican. Impeachment has been considered by many from the start of all this fiasco. But until some Republicans wise up, we have to vote them out!
===========================

from http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news

Bush job rating in poll drops to a new low --As of last week, Bush's overall job approval was at 43 percent, a low for his p-Residency, according to a poll reported on Monday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press; 47 percent disapproved of his job performance. [More people come out of their comas every day.]

Amid credibility questions, Bush approval rating sinks in California --Doubts about the credibility of Dictator Bush's statements to the public and poor reviews of his handling of the economy and the war in Iraq have led to a sharp drop in his job approval rating in California, a new poll found. The California Consumer Confidence Survey found that just 38 percent of adults in the state said they approve of Bush's job performance, while 50 percent said they disapprove.

Poll finds Bush is losing support across California --A new poll shows Dictator Bush's approval ratings in California have plummeted, even in the state's most GOP-dominated conservative areas.

Voters in Inglewood reject Wal-Mart measure --Voters in this Los Angeles suburb rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build a warehouse-sized store while skirting zoning, traffic and environmental reviews. With 27 of 29 precincts reporting, Inglewood voters opposed the initiative, with 65.6 percent voting 'no' and 34.3 percent voting 'yes,' said Gabby Contreras of the city clerk's office.

Voters go to the stumps in bitter Wal-Mart referendum --Voters in a southern California city went to the polls in a bitter referendum to decide if retail behemoth Wal-Mart will be allowed to override planning laws to open a giant new super-store. The chain has taken its plans directly to voters in a ballot initiative that could sideline local officials and allow the sprawling complex to be built without the usual traffic studies, environmental reviews and public hearings.

U.S. studies increasing troops in Iraq --U.S. military commanders have begun studying ways they might increase troops in Iraq should violence spread much more widely, a senior officer said Monday.

US considers Iraq reinforcements --The US is examining the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq if the situation there gets out of control, a top Central Command official has said.

On the brink of anarchy · US fight on two fronts [as Hitler did?] · Arrest warrant for Shia radical · Bush firm on Iraq handover --The Bush dictatorship was last night facing a nightmare scenario in Iraq, fighting on two fronts against Sunni and Shia militants less than three months before it is due to hand over power to an Iraqi government.

=======================

I protested Vietnam and I protested this embroilment starting in Sept. of 2002!

posted 04-07-2004 07:54 PM            

These people (NEO-CONS) are 100% NUTS, INSANE, Flipped-out. I'm convinced that they really want to bring on armageddon.

Anything to get their New World Order.

posted 04-07-2004 09:44 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by increase 1776:
Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
— George W. Bush's mother Barbara on ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

---

posted 04-08-2004 07:25 AM            

BLOODLINES OF THE ILLUMINATI.

You see....she won't waste her "beautiful mind" on those dead peasants fighting their wars....

posted 04-09-2004 07:20 PM            

I was a junior at San Jose State University in '70 and active in protests! We followed the Bezerkley crowd! LOL!

Yeah, we Boomers are quite politically active once again, after raising the kids and working hard! Some are running for president, even!

posted 04-10-2004 03:01 PM            

On that awful day, Guardsmen fired M-1 rifles, .45 pistols and a shotgun for 13 seconds, killing Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, ROTC student William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer who was on her way to class, while wounding nine others. Many Americans were outraged at the shootings but the vast majority were not, apparently believing that a nation at war was threatened by "radical" challenges on college campuses and elsewhere and that a government at war was perfectly justified in spying on its dissenting citizens and sending provocateurs to disrupt antiwar opponents. (On May 14-15, 1970, in Jackson, MS., Phillip Gibbs, a Jackson State junior, and James Green, a bystander and high school student, were killed by officers called to the scene following disturbances and student protests against the Vietnam war and continuing bias against blacks. A dozen students were also wounded by gunfire. Again, no one was ever convicted. (See, for example, Tim Spofford’s Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College Kent State University Press).

Antiwar protests in Kent erupted following Richard Nixon’s TV speech announcing on April 30 that the US had invaded Cambodia, thus expanding a war he had once pledged to bring to an end. The following day Nixon denigrated antiwar students as "bums."

At Kent State and in the neighboring town of Kent, there had been some student vandalism and property damage. The college ROTC building was set afire on May 2nd for which students were initially blamed and soon the Ohio National Guard was dispatched to the school. On May 3rd, one day before the shootings, Ohio Governor James Rhodes, a pro-Nixon conservative running for the Senate, described antiwar students as "worse than the Brownshirts and the Communist element and also the night riders and vigilantes. They are the worst type of people that we harbor in America."

In the years following that horrifying afternoon there have been judicial, journalistic and historical investigations, a trial, and yearly memorials to the dead and wounded. But for most Americans, there is only historical amnesia. In 1975 a civil suit brought by the parents found for the defendants, but an appellate court overturned the verdict. Still, after nine years, the worn out plaintiffs opted to settle with Ohio for the modest sum of $675,000 and a statement signed by Rhodes and the Guardsmen saying, "We deeply regret those events and are profoundly saddened by the deaths of four students and the wounding of nine others which resulted." The families of the dead and the surviving wounded also stated their feelings. "We have learned through a tragic event that loyalty to our nation and its principles sometimes requires resistance to our government and its policies – a lesson many young people, including the children of some of us, had learned earlier. That has been our struggle – for others this struggle goes on. We will try to support them."

To this day, we don’t know to what extent the Nixon White House and other agencies may have been involved. We do know that, according to a government memo dated October 9, 1973, "undercover federal narcotics agents were present on the Kent State University campus on May 4, 1970." Also, it since been widely alleged that still other agents had been or were still on campus. Then, too, the government’s infamous COINTELPRO program, aimed at crushing antiwar dissent, was in full bloom on May 4th. Was Kent State on its agenda? And did Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, neither of whom had any affection for antiwar dissenters, really want a fair investigation?

Immediately after the murders, rumors abounded that Jeffrey Miller was found with a gun (untrue), that a student sniper was in the area (also untrue) and that students burned the ROTC building (never proven). Nor do we know why the National Guard – that era’s safe harbor for men trying to avoid Vietnam – were called in and why they opened fire on unarmed college men and women.

Still, many began to ask questions and express doubts. Charles A. Thomas, for one, worked in the National Archives for twelve years and between May 1-4, 1975 was assigned to its Motion Pictures Unit to study and describe films of the shootings. He came to believe that, "none of the available footage showing dead and wounded students following the lethal volley had been used in assembling the compilation film shown at the public hearings" of the Scranton presidential commission in August 1970. " It looked very much," he concluded in Kent State/May 4 (Kent State University Press), edited by Scott L. Bills, "as if someone had doctored the evidence to minimize any impression of the Guard’s brutality and to plant the spurious notion that the soldiers had been confronted with a raging student mob."

After the Guard opened fire, Glenn Frank, a conservative Kent State geology professor, tried to convince its officers to stand down and then made an impassioned and successful plea to students, begging them to leave, lest they too be slaughtered. In the years following, Frank (now deceased) sought to understand what had happened. His son, Alan (a former Kent State student who by his own estimate was some fifty to seventy-five feet from the Guard when they opened fire and thought they were shooting blanks) is now at work on his father’s papers. His father, he says, had become increasingly dubious that justice had been served.

Perhaps the closest we have come to a evenhanded though still extremely tentative verdict was that of the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest (the Scranton Commission, 1970) which, while liberally casting responsibility for the heated atmosphere leading up to May 4th, came down sharply on those who carried the weapons: "The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable."

Failing the discovery of a "smoking gun," a deathbed confession, or the release of all

local, state and federal documents, we may never know exactly what happened and why. All the more reason, then, to convene an independent Truth Commission with subpoena power to scrutinize archives opened and those still closed and re-interview everyone still alive to try to answer whether a government at war in Asia extended its war to a college campus.

Isn’t it time that the nation learned the truth?

posted 04-15-2004 03:53 AM            

"The Energy Crisis"
'World Struggle for Power and Wealth'
Michael Tanzer
ISBN 0-85345-346-2
page 135, Tanzer states that with rising oil prices,
Japan and Western Europe will suffer greatly while the US will fare better as a result of US oil companies sharing OPEC profits.
But if the US is threatened with loss of revenue:

quote:

---

it would be much cheaper to invade and take over the OPEC countries...

---

quote:

---

the US will sit back and watch the treasuries of Western Europe and Japan empty... with (the US)ultimate threat being military intervention.

---

quote:

---

...miliitary intervention would raise the threat of...prolonged guerrilla warfare in the Middle East,
it will not be chosen lightly.

---

Tanzer explains that Kissinger (among others) floated trial balloons after the October war, about military intervention:

quote:

---

...warning the OPEC governments not to nationalize American oil companies in the Middle East nor to set prices so as to reduce the companies profitability sharply.

---

Thus: If I read Tanzer correctly,
After 19 Saudis flew planes into the WTC,
Bush et al. decided to warn Saudi Arabia by invading nearby nations.

BTW,
On page 13, Tanzer cites a 1952 chart by "the Independent Petroleum Association of America"
Listing frequent "boy who cried wolf" warnings that oil reserves were about to be depleted.
Each time (from 1866 to 1947) new reserves were 'found' soon after prices increased.
eg:
1914 "total future production only 6 billion barrels- US Bureau of Mines
1949 "End of US oil supply almost in sight"-Sec. Dept of the Interior

Tanzer also notes that by 1974, the oil companies had bought controlling interests in world coal and uranium reserves.

It's a shell game folks!

Rich people like the Bushes and Cheney consider workers to be disposable.

So long as the rich and powerful make lots of money, who cares how many poor people die.

No more "Cold War" but;
A "Bushwar" does the same trick:

to justify transfer of billions of tax monies to the Military Industrial complex that contributes (kickbacks) to Bush and his party's coffers.