Headlines for August 31, 2006

- UN: Israel Dropped 90% of Cluster Bombs in War's Final Hours
- Hezbollah Renews Call for Prisoner Swap
- Israel Rejects Annan Call To End Lebanon Blockade
- Annan: Ending Israeli Occupation Key to Mideast Peace
- Pentagon Believes Iran Up To 8 Years From Nuclear Weapons
- Monitors Accuse Sri Lankan Forces of Aid Worker Massacre
- Chile Establishes National Day of the Disappeared
- California To Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- US Tenders New Contract For Monitoring Iraq War Coverage

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Shocking Lancet Study: 8,000 Murders, 35,000 Rapes and Sexual Assaults in Haiti During U.S.-Backed Coup Regime After Aristide Ouster A shocking new report in the British medical journal the Lancet on human rights abuses in Haiti finds that 8,000 people were murdered and 35,000 women and girls raped during the U.S.-backed coup regime that followed Jean Bertrand Aristide. Those responsible included Haitian police, United Nations peacekeepers and anti-Lavalas gangs. We speak with the co-authors of the report. [includes rush transcript - partial]

Eyewitnesses Account: UN Forces Open Fire on Poor Haitian Neighborhood United Nations troops in Haiti opened fire last week on a poor neighborhood outside of Cite Soleil. We show footage of the raid, speak with a writer and activist who witnessed the raid and hear from the mother of a nineteen year-old who was killed in the raid.

Women Recount Gang Rape, Abuse at Hearing Against Haitian Death Squad Leader Emmanuel Constant Two women have testified at an evidentiary hearing in a civil case against a former Haitian death squad leader living in New York City. The suit against Emmanuel "Toto" Constant was launched in December 2004 by a group of women who suffered gang rape and other abuses from Constant's forces. We speak with the lead attorney in the case.

Public Outcry Forces Ohio to Delay Destruction of Presidential Ballots A public outcry in Ohio has forced the state to delay its plans to destroy the ballots from the contested 2004 Presidential elections. Allegations of fraud and disenfranchisement in the state continue to cause people to question the results which declared Bush the winner by a 130,000 vote margin. We speak with Steven Rosenfeld, co-author of the forthcoming book, "What Happened in Ohio."

"I Am Not Willing To Kill Or Be Killed For Something I Don't Believe In" - AWOL Soldier Refuses to Return to Iraq We hear from a soldier who is refusing to fight in Iraq. Mark Wilkerson has been AWOL for more than a year and is turning himself in at Fort Hood in Texas today. In a taped video statement he says, "I am not willing to kill or be killed for something I don't believe in. My morals said going to Iraq was not the right thing to do." I was not going to live a life of violence."

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

Interior Minister Narrowly avoids bombing;
Bush faces Choice of Withdrawal or Draft

The Bush administration's call-up of 2500 US Marine reservists who have already given 4 years of service shows how desperate it is becoming for military manpower in Iraq. A veterans' organization maintains that this sort of thing is unsustainable, and that Bush will have to move to a draft or else begin a drawdown of US troops soon.

Ellen Knickmeyer updates us on the current status and activities of the Mahdi Army and Sadr Movement of Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. The state of the movement is strong.

Iran wants to help southern Iraq with internet technology. Can you say "back door" in Persian?

The US installation of Iran-linked Iraqi religious Shiite parties in power has made Iran the key power in Iraq, according to a British think tank.

As the US Battle for Baghdad has put an extra 3500 US troop in the capital in an attempt to make an long term impact in reducing guerrilla and militia violence there, the guerrillas have been moving their operations elsewhere.

The troops were brought south from Mosul, giving the guerrillas greater freedom of movement in Iraq's second city. So, a suicide bomber with a bomb belt detonated his payload near a police station, killing 2 persons and wounding 8, including policemen.

Reuters reports other incidents of civil war violence:

"BAQUBA - Eight people, including two policemen, were gunned down in different incidents in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said." . . .

Iraqi police pulled out six bodies from a small river near Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb went off in the southern Saidiya district of Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said. '

A roadside bomb in the Dura neighborhood of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed 2 persons and injured 5, including traffic policemen.

The bomb narrowly missed the Minister of the Interior, Jawad al-Bulani, whose convoy was passing through. The Interior Ministry is in charge of internal security for Iraq.

The article continues:

' AMARA - One British serviceman was wounded and two others slightly hurt during a prolonged mortar barrage on Tuesday on a British base near Amara, 365 km (230 miles) south of Baghdad, the British military said on Wednesday.

FALLUJA - Three civilians and three traffic policemen were wounded by a roadside bomb near a U.S. patrol in Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said. '

British troops had made a raid into Amara in hopes of catching a major terrorist figure. They were fired on as they withdrew.

The Pakistan Tribune/ wire services add:

"Police in Amara said two civilians were killed in crossfire between British forces and Mehdi Army militiamen."

Joe Lieberman agrees with a rightwing radio talk show host on Middle East policy.

Beirut War Diary

Rasha Salti's Beirut War Diary.

Syria is threatening to close its borders with Lebanon if UN troops are stationed along the borders of the two countries. Lebanon is extremely vulnerable to this threat, since Syria is key to its hinterland trade routes, to Jordan, Iraq, and the Gulf. Currently its sea trade has been embargoed by the Israelis.

It has emerged that Israel is insisting that the UN police the main Lebanon-Syria border crossings to prevent further weapons shipments from Iran and Syria to Hizbullah.

In my view it would not be possible for UN checkpoints to effectively stop such smuggling, given the long and rugged border between the two countries. I suppose the theory is that you couldn't get a big truck with a big missile across on dirt roads and would have to take that through a border checkpoint with a good paved road. But couldn't you just smuggle the components on the back roads and just assemble them in Lebanon?

And, wouldn't it be easier for the Israelis to give back the land they stole in 1967 to Lebanon and Syria and make peace, and let the Palestinians have their little state, and pay reparations for 1948, so then they wouldn't have to try to police all their neighbors all the time? They are getting worse at the policing over time, anyway.

posted by Juan

 

 

 Big arrests, big charges, big headlines and every government
> abuse magically becomes justified, but here are the post-headline
> numbers you don't see:
>
> ------------
>
> Of all British Muslims who have been arrested on terror charges...
>
> Only 12% are actually charged with any crime...
>
> Of all those are arrested, only 2% are convicted of anything...
>
> And nearly all on minor offenses that have nothing to do with
> terrorism.
>
> ------------
>
> Politically motivated arrests of innocent people, designed
> for maximum media impact to terrorize YOU.
>
> That's what the "War on Terror" is all about.
>
> In less than five years, these scary stories have cost
> Americans $430 BILLION - not including the over $300 BILLION
> spent on the Iraq War - and not to mention the loss of our
> Bill of Rights protections.
>
> How serious was the "liquid bomb" threat?
>
> Here's a clip of some overly ambitious TV journalists who
> let the cat out of the bag before the story "solifified."
>
> Someone must have slapped the reporters back into place
> after this clip aired because the line of inquiry they
> opened was never continued.
>
> Short clip:
>
> http://www.brasscheck.com/videos/911/9116.html
>
> - Brasscheck
>
> P.S. Please share with friends and colleages and if you're
> part of a social computing network, give BrasscheckTV a thumbs
> up. Thanks. It's the only way we can get the word out.
>
> ----------------------------------
>
>
>
> Brasscheck TV
> 2380 California St.
> San Francisco, CA 94115

 

Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Political Science for Dummies. This time, wiith cows!

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.


REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the
other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised
when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating
you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent
quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature' s private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to
milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote
for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is
the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.