MPG'S DAILY RAPSHEET AND BLOTTER  ON THE "GREAT GAME"  - links page

@ www.reficultnias.org
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ===

Editor's note : From now on each weekly blog page will have several items culled from the past called  "9/11 - From The History File" : It's for those who didn't know, and also for those who forgot....or are trying to forget.

Editor's note - War Update, War Alert, War Warning, Red War Warning and War Imminent - refer to articles regarding the upcoming war with Iran.  In the order they appear as shown above, they  represent less serious to more serious possible threats of war. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Tuesday April 22nd 2008 - links page

No posts. - mpg

Monday April 21st 2008 - links page

The left has lost its nerve and its direction  ---  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080420_The_left_has_lost_its_nerve_and_its_direction.html
A quote...."The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers' rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside. -- Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation's political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves." -- Article also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8420/
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

In midst of recession, Halliburton rakes in billions.  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/21/8420/
A quote...."Economists are forecasting a recession, U.S. company profits in almost all sectors are taking a hit, and many American families cannot say they are better off than they were eight years ago. But one giant oil services company is weathering the economic storm quite well. Reuters reports Halliburton “said on Monday that first-quarter profit rose 6 percent as customers in markets including the Middle East and Asia spent more on oil and gas exploration and production”:" -- Since they won't thank you this website editor will do his level best.... To the men and women in the US's armed forces on behalf of the shareholders at Halliburton, thank you, thank you, thank you, for your sacrifice and for a very profitable five years of war.  Let's drink a toast and give three cheers for another "hundred years" worth of wars....Hip Hip Hooray!! - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

VA Confirms 18 Vets Commit Suicide Everyday  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jason_le_080421_va_confirms_18_vets_.htm
A quote...."In a stunning admission, top officials at the Veterans Health Administration confirmed that the agency’s own statistics show that an average of 126 veterans per week —6,552 veterans per year—commit suicide, according to an internal email distributed to several VA officials."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sunday April 20th 2008 - links page

A Guide to 'NYT' Scoop on Media Compliciity With Pentagon War Propaganda
  ---  http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003791665
Must Read - A quote...."NEW YORK The front-page David Barstow epic in today's New York Times on how the Pentagon, starting in 2002, assembled a crew of retired military officers to disseminate propaganda via all-to-willing network and cable news outlets is drawing wide attention (see other story). Barstow aptly refers to this as "a kind of media trojan horse." -- Even if it confirms what many have already sensed the details are truly damning and shocking -- more Orwell than oh, well. And it continues up to the present day, with the revelation that Gen. Petraeus met with members of this propaganda group just two weeks ago (he had met with them previously, as well). "Anything we can do help," one analyst described this most recent meeting. -- The Pentagon referred to the analysts as "message-force multipliers."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pentagon propoganda over torture and Iraq revealed
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pentagon-propoganda-over-torture-and-iraq-revealed-812735.html
Related article - A quote...."The Pentagon and the US media have been exposed for using pre-programmed “military analysts” to win hearts and minds of Americans over the war in Iraq, torture and detentions in Guantanamo Bay. - Kenneth Allard, an NBC military analyst and teacher at National Defence University, described the propaganda exercise as a "coherent, active," sophisticated information operation."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

NYT Investigation Exposes Pentagon Pimps & Propaganda Operation  ---  http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=313180
Related article - A quote...."If you thought the US media had hit a new low with last week's ABC Debate Debacle, read Sunday's New York Times's 10,000 (plus) word cover story, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand." -- Using 8000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records, accessed through suing the Pentagon, the NYT report exposes the Pentagon's propaganda machine, its control over access and information, and its selling of the "war on terror" --beginning with the buildup to the Iraq war. As someone posting here put it, Goebbels would be proud."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/pentagon-propaganda-antiw_b_97684.html
Related article - A quote...."The Sunday Times' article detailing the massive, secret coordinated campaign by the Pentagon and all the leading television news channels to sell and defend the administration's Iraq policy is a critical piece of investigative journalism. David Barstow provided meticulous and aggressive reporting, even referencing how The Times'amplified Pentagon "surrogates" without sufficient disclosure for readers.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pentagon uses military analysts as ‘puppets’ to push talking points.
  ---  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/19/pentagon-uses-military-analysts-as-puppets-to-push-talking-points/
Related article - A quote...."A new New York Times article reveals that the Pentagon has wooed military analysts with private briefings and access to classified information “in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.”
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Major revelation: U.S. media deceitfully disseminates government propaganda  ---  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/20/nyt/index.html
Related article - A quote...."This morning's "blockbuster" New York Times article by David Barstow, documenting the Pentagon and U.S. media's joint use of pre-programmed "military analysts" who posed as objective experts while touting the Government line and having extensive business interests in promoting those views, is very well-documented and well-reported. And credit to the NYT for having sued to compel disclosure of the documents on which the article is based. There are significant elements of the story that exemplify excellent investigative journalism."

The New York Times article is shown below....
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?hp
Must Read - A quote...."In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure." -- posted 04-20-08 -- Hat's off to the Times on this one. - mpg

Editor's special note: - This article will take a while to work its way into the national dialogue, to become incorporated into this nation's consciousness, when it does the consequences may be unforeseen and possibly quite traumatic.  To say that this article will cause a massive upsurge in cynicism would probably be an understatement  It's doubtful that those currently serving  in the armed forces who weren’t in the "know" regarding these issues or who didn't personally profit from the defense contracts involved will feel favorably toward the current and former officers who besmirched their reputations and helped destroy the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of people who live in the Middle East by participating in this "racket".  ---  http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

These revelations are unfortunate, necessary, and most likely are just the beginning of what's to come. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Shoddy! Tawdry! A Televised Train Wreck!  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Must Read - A quote...."“THE crowd is turning on me,” said Charles Gibson, the ABC anchor, when the audience jeered him in the final moments of Wednesday night’s face-off between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. -- I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center:

“Shoddy, despicable!” — The Washington Post
  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041700013.html
“A tawdry affair!” — The Boston Globe
  ---  http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/04/17/tough_questions_on_gaffes_throw_both_off_message/
“A televised train wreck!” — The Philadelphia Daily News
  ---  http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/An_open_letter_to_Charlie_Gibson_and_George_Stephanopoulos.html

And those were the polite ones. Let’s not even go to the blogosphere. ---  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/DemocraticDebate/comments?type=story&id=4666956
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

McCain, the Retired Military "Analysts" and the Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/mccain-and-myth-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html
A quote...."I am quoted in this NYT piece today on John McCain's allegations that the US is fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq and that there is a danger of "al-Qaeda" taking over the country if the US leaves. -- Those allegations don't make any sense. McCain contradicts himself because he sometimes warns that the Shiites or Iran will take over Iraq. He doesn't seem to realize that the US presided over the ascension to power in Iraq of pro-Iranian Shiite parties like Nuri al-Maliki's Islamic Mission Party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. So which is it? There is a danger that pro-Iranian Shiites will take over (which is anyway what we have engineered) or that al-Qaeda will? It is not as if they can coexist. Since the Shiites are 60 percent and by now well armed and trained, how could the 1 percent of the 17 percent of the country that is Sunni Arab and maybe supports Salafi radicalism hope to take over?"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Third NSA Source Confirms: Flight 93 Shot Down By Air Force Jet http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_080419_third_nsa_source_con.htm
A quote...."WMR has received another confirmation, bringing the total number to three, that United Flight 93, hijacked on the morning of September 11, 2001, was shot down over rural Pennsylvania by U.S. Air Force jets scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. There are also reports that one F-16 scrambled from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia returned to base minus one air-to-air missile but the National Security Agency CRITIC report specified the interceptors that downed United 93 took off from Andrews."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Do you REALLY Want 9/11 Truth Revealed? Of course you do. So let's do it NOW!  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7080
A quote...."Just yesterday, Richard Greene of Air America radio announced that May will be a MONTH of Truth; not a bad result after only two days of WEEK Of Truth -- the potential is truly enormous! The bulldozer has indeed already begun to roll; but we -- ALL OF US -- have to do our part to keep it rolling. Otherwise, frankly, we might as well go sleep on the beach."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Michael Mukasey, Day of 9/11, Osama bin Laden – 9/11 Timeline Additions as of April 20, 2008
  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080420174723583
A quote...."More material has been added covering the NSA's surveillance of Ahmed al-Hada, father-in-law of alleged Pentagon hijacker Khalid Almihdhar. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney used the non-exploitation of calls between his phone in Yemen and the hijackers in the US to justify the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program in January 2006. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell attributed the failure to trace the calls to a 1981 executive order earlier this year, and Mukasey bizarrely then claimed that one of the calls was between the US and Afghanistan, rather than Yemen. This confused the media somewhat, and a group of congressmen asked Mukasey for an explanation."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

14 Point Destruction of the NIST & FEMA 9/11 WTC Reports  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7084
A quote...."The Open Civil Engineering Journal has just published an article by Dr. Steven E. Jones, Dr. Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, known for their criticism of the official explanations of the destruction of World Trade Center Towers 1,2 & 7 and for advancing the theory that explosives brought them down."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Sunday round-up - 5 articles - [ Day 27 ]

Fear in Sadr City as cleric threatens war  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3785041.ece
A quote...."April 21, 2008 -- At the southern entrance to Sadr City several Iraqi men on the US military’s payroll are sweeping the street in the latest attempt to stop al-Mahdi Army militia from recruiting new fighters. -- The number of people working on such US-funded projects is tiny, however, because Shia militants loyal to the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have ordered many in this Baghdad slum to stay away. Other residents simply prefer not to be associated with US troops, who are largely denounced as occupiers."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Renewed Clashes With Shi'ite Militias In Iraq  ---  http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=54604
A quote...."Monday , 21 April 2008 -- There have been intense clashes between Shi'ite militants and joint U.S.-Iraqi forces in several parts of Iraq. - In the southern city of Al-Basrah, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. and British forces launched an operation in the city's Al-Hayaniyah district, where radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's forces are concentrated."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Al-Sadr's followers refuse to disband militia in Iraq  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=135912
A quote...."Apr 20, 2008 15:02 EST -- Followers of hardline cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes Sunday in the showdown with Iraq's government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Rice calls anti-U.S. cleric a coward  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/162355
Full quote...."AP on: 21.04.2008 [05:00 ] -- BAGHDAD - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers. -- Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. -- "I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go to their deaths and he's in Iran."

Calamity Condi does it again....she has her very own "bring it on" moment.  In the spirit of her epiphany however, let's paraphrase what she had to say with just a few little twists  -- "Condi you've been sitting in Washington DC on your big butt along with your boss and a bunch of your Neocon friends for a very long time now, tell you what....why don't you and your buddies get off your fat asses, grab some M-16s and give a little help to all them young boys you guys sent over there to Iraq. Or is it all out war for anybody and everybody on the planet but you guys?  Is that the message you were trying to send Condi, that those young boys can go to their deaths while you and your Neocon cronies remain in Washington DC? - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US military threatens to hit back if Sadr launches war
  ---  http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2008/April/focusoniraq_April153.xml&section=focusoniraq
A quote...."20 April 2008 -- BAGHDAD - A top US general in Iraq on Sunday threatened to strike back at hardline Iraqi Shia leader Moqtada Al Sadr after he warned of a new uprising by his militia. - 'I hope Moqtada al-Sadr continues to depress violence and not encourage it,' said Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in the central Iraq Shia provinces of Babil, Wasit, Karbala and Najaf."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Sunday round-up - [ Day 27 ]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Middle East: Turning the Page on US Foreign Policy - Part I  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12717
A quote...."One would think that the title of my talk – "The Middle East: Turning the Page on U.S. Foreign Policy" – is fairly noncontroversial, as such things go. Yet the very idea of turning the page – that is, of making a significant change – in our policy in the region is considered heresy, and not only in foreign policy circles but in Washington, D.C., generally. The reason is because our Middle Eastern policy has become hopelessly politicized, locked into a formulaic and increasingly unrealistic stance highly detrimental to our national interest yet artificially maintained by one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Tomgram: 12 Reasons to Get Out of Iraq  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174921
A quote...."Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here's the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the "success" of the President's surge strategy, Americans sense this perfectly well. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56% of Americans "say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties" and this has, as the Post notes, been a majority position since January 2007, the month that the surge was first announced. Imagine what might happen if the American public knew more about the actual state of affairs in Iraq -- and of thinking in Washington. So, here, in an attempt to unravel the situation in ever-unraveling Iraq are twelve answers to questions which should be asked far more often in this country:"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

India Warns against Military Action against Iran  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8702010870
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- India on Saturday said that military action or sanctions against Iran would exacerbate the situation and that it favored a solution which involves Tehran. -- Sanctions or military action - none of them is a lasting solution and will only exacerbate the situation. We need to evolve something that involves Iran," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said in an interactive session at the India Global Forum in New Delhi. -- Menon said India has made its stand quite clear that while Iran may have the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy it also has an obligation to various international commitments it undertook."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Carter presses Hamas to back Gaza peace talks  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/20/israelandthepalestinians.usa?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
A quote...."Hamas was locked in an internal debate in Damascus yesterday over proposals put forward by former United States President Jimmy Carter for a unilateral ceasefire with Israel and more political flexibility, Palestinian politicians said. - Carter left the Syrian capital yesterday for Riyadh after an early morning meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. In more than four hours of talks on Friday night, they discussed how the Islamist group could be drawn into a Middle East peace plan and end its opposition to peace talks between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah faction."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Israel says probes death of Reuters cameraman  ---  http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC078836.htm
A quote...."GAZA, April 20 (Reuters) - The Israeli army said on Sunday it was investigating the death of a Reuters cameraman in the Gaza Strip last week and declined to say why one of its tanks opened fire, killing the journalist and five other Palestinians."
For more on this issue see....Killing a Messenger  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mpgrapsheet-blogpg-mpg-012707#MESSENGER
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Can Carter open eyes of Americans?  ---  http://www.bt.com.bn/en/opinion/2008/04/18/can_carter_open_eyes_of_americans
A quote...."THE Gaza Strip is bracing for more violence after Israel "reciprocated" with ground and air attacks killing 18 Palestinians, one a cameraman for an international news agency, for the killing of three Israeli soldiers by Hamas fighters on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hamas bears "direct responsibility" for the fighting. Israel has reportedly threatened to launch a widescale operation to oust Hamas from the Gaza Strip but local media have speculated that it may wait until after the Jewish Passover holiday, which begins tomorrow."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iranian official: Asian traders make up for losses due to German sanctions  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976375.html
A quote...."Germany's reduction in trade with Iran as part of sanctions imposed by the West is not hurting the country as competitors from Asia step in to fill the gaps, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari said Friday. -- The economic sanctions against Iran were put in place in efforts to discourage the Islamic Republic from developing its disputed nuclear program."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Summit in a Bedouin's tent  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080418/105391530.html
A quote...."MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Andrei Murtazin) - Never before has Putin held high-level talks in a Bedouin's tent, but Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar Qaddafi, who is a son of the desert, would not have it any other way. Libyan protocol sets his Azizia residence, not far from Tripoli, as the only receiving area for all foreign guests."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Qatar Says China to Receive Gas Diverted From U.S. and Europe  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/162320
A quote...."April 19 (Bloomberg) — Qatar, the world's largest producer of liquefied natural gas, is diverting supplies destined for the U.S. and Europe to China because the Asian country pays more, Qatar's oil minister said today. -- A supply agreement this month between Qatar and China ``is a diversion from Europe and the U.S., ``not new production, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah told reporters as he arrived in Rome for the International Energy Forum. ``We are not in the charity business. Whoever will give me the best price, I will follow him.''
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

PARAGUAY:  Historic Elections End Six Decades of Rule  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42057
Special Note - A quote...."ASUNCIÓN, Apr 20 (IPS) - Former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo was elected president in a landslide victory Sunday in Paraguay, putting an end to 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party. -- With 52 percent of the ballots counted, the presidential candidate of the centre-left Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC) took 40 percent of the vote against the 31 percent garnered by governing party candidate Blanca Ovelar, who ceded defeat. -- Five exit polls had previously indicated that Lugo, known as "the bishop of the poor", was three to six percentage points ahead of Ovelar, the first-ever female presidential candidate of the National Republican Alliance, better known as the Colorado Party."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Paraguay cracks six decades of iron fist one party rule  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13204&formato=HTML
Related article - A quote...."Former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo won a historic victory in Paraguay's Sunday presidential election, signaling the demise of more than six decades of one-party hegemonic rule in one of South America’s poorest countries."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ecuador's leader purges military and moves to expel American base  ---  http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1539
A quote...."MANTA, Ecuador: Chafing at ties between American intelligence agencies and Ecuadorean military officials, President Rafael Correa is purging the armed forces of top commanders and pressing ahead with plans to cast out more than 100 American military personnel from an air base here in this coastal city."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Dockers' protest forces arms cargo away from Durban port  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3671565.ece
A quote...."A Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe was last night forced to turn back after South African unions refused to unload it, claiming that to do so would be “grossly irresponsible”, South African media reported. -- The reversal is a humiliation for President Mbeki, who had said that the Government was powerless to stop the shipment of three million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and more than 3,000 mortar rounds and mortar tubes to President Mugabe’s armed forces." -- If you ever saw the movie Lord of War,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War  ---  there was a scene in it where Yuri Orlov, an arms dealer, is about to deliver two truckloads of exactly the same sort ammunition to army units which will be used to slaughter thousands of innocent tribes people in a refugee camp.  His brother fails to stop him but dies trying....this is that scene.  And the dockworkers won. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pope blesses U.N. flag, calls for “binding international rules”  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6283
A quote...."Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, warning nations against undermining the authority of the United Nations by acting unilaterally. The Pope also found time to bless the U.N. flag."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Where's George?  ---  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14144
This one's fun - mpg - A quote...."So what ever happened to George W. Bush, the worst chief executive this nation has ever endured? - This is an election year. Aren't we supposed to be evaluating the legacy of the previous administration?"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The 2008 Election Will Be Stolen  ---  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14146
A quote...."A new collection of essays edited by Mark Crispin Miller called "Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008," tells the story better than any single source I've seen yet. - The Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida in 2000 that would have made Al Gore president. This is not speculation. The recount was later done."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Swiss National Bank announces new injection of U.S. dollar liquidity  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/april2008/180408Swiss.htm
A quote...." The Swiss National Bank will offer up to US$6 billion (€3.8 billion) in short term credit to ease strains in jittery financial markets, the central bank said Friday. -- SNB's move will come in an auction of so-called repo loans, or repurchase agreements, to renew a similar measure of US$6 billion made last month in concert with the European Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Alistair Darling plans unprecedented £50bn bank bailout  ---  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/property_and_mortgages/article3783516.ece
A quote...."An unprecedented £50 billion injection to bail out Britain’s ailing banking system could be doubled if it fails to stave off a collapse in the housing market. -- Alistair Darling will today tell MPs that the Bank of England is to allow lenders to swap assets [crap] for government-backed bonds in an attempt to restore confidence and ease the effects of the credit crunch."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Housing slump hits Spain  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/hous-a21.shtml
A quote...."The clearest indication of the impact of the global credit crunch is the sharp slowdown in the housing sector. The housing slump in Spain is particularly sharp. -- There are now very few areas in the country where you cannot see new building developments filled with banners displaying the phone numbers of people desperate to sell them. In the capital Madrid, buildings are littered with “For Sale” signs. Hardly a day goes by without stories appearing in the media of developers abandoning half-finished apartment buildings and leaving buyers with the terrible prospect of never seeing their homes finished. Growing numbers of borrowers are missing mortgage payments for the first time and figures have doubled from last year."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

No need for OPEC to raise output now: president  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/No_need_for_OPEC_to_raise_output_no_04202008.html
A quote...."OPEC president Chakib Khelil said on Sunday that the oil-producer cartel should not increase output now because the market was well-balanced. -- "There is no need for OPEC to raise its production now ... Any increase in output will not affect oil prices because there is a balance between supply and demand," Khelil said in comments cited by the KUNA news agency."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Saturday April 19th 2008 - links page

George Galloway Resistance is NOT Terrorism  ---  http://youtube.com/watch?v=iv9asv2iPR4 ---  (YouTube - 9 min 19 sec - Added: April 16, 2008)
Must View -Video - From the history file - Editor's note: Although this magnificent George Galloway interview was just posted a few days ago, it's obviously from an interview he gave during the height of Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon....the one that Israel's own Winograd Commission declared they lost  ---  http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-01/2008-01-30-voa44.cfm?CFID=228107386&CFTOKEN=29612843  ---  and the one where they carpeted the entire south of Lebanon with over....
four and a half million  ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/02/mil-080218-irin01.htm
cluster   --- http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2192969.0.the_terrible_human_cost_of_cluster_bombs.php
bomblets  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7937
during  ---  http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19670&Cr=Leban&Cr1=&Kw1=egeland&Kw2=mines&Kw3
the last seventy two hours  ---  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/344850_clustered.html
of their invasion.  A deliberately malicious act of pure, unforgivable, barbarous, cruelty. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Carter meets with Assad, Mashaal in Damascus
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1369&thisview=item&renewx=2008-04-19+01%3A41%3A38
Video - A quote...."Israeli deputy PM asked former US president to arrange a meeting with Hamas about prisoner exchange -- Despite condemning former US president Jimmy Carter's meetings with Hamas officials this week, a high-ranking member of Israel's government asked Carter to arrange a meeting with Hamas to discuss a prisoner exchange. Both the US and Israeli governments have officially distanced themselves from Carter's visit."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The US Palestine-Israel Fairytale  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8734
A quote..."A memorable quote in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) still carries a wealth of relevance. He writes, "They own the [holy] land, just the mere land, and that's all they do own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven't any business to be there defiling it. It's a shame and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Talking to Fisk - Truth as a Causality of War  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19771.htm
A quote...."Robert Fisk has a well-earned reputation as one of the most honest and hard hitting foreign correspondents in the British media. -- He has worked in Northern Ireland, where he exposed the presence of the SAS in the mid-1970s, as well as Bosnia, Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon. It was here, as a witness to the immediate aftermath of the Israeli-organised Sabra and Shatila massacre of 2000 Palestinian refugees, that his journalism took on its current form: angry, passionate, and as he puts it “partial on the side of the victims” – a style of journalism which, unfortunately, is not shared by many of his colleagues in the profession." -- Article also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19771.htm
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity
  ---  http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2008-04-
  ---  18T063931Z_01_L17436238_RTRUKOC_0_US-PALESTINIANS-CARTER.xml
A quote...."CAIRO (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive."  - Article also posted at ICH - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19770.htm
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/our-reign-of-terror-by-the-israeli-army-811769.html
A quote...."In shocking testimonies that reveal abductions, beatings and torture, Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron." -- Article also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19773.htm
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Carter's Peace Mission:  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19767.htm
A quote...."19/04/08 "ICH" -- --- Jimmy Carter arrived in Syria today in an effort to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He is scheduled to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal. Carter has been severely criticized in the western media for meeting with Hamas and was snubbed by Israeli leaders during his stay in Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, all refused to meet with the former president. They believe that Carter's trip undermines Israel's current policy towards the Palestinians and will force them to negotiate with a group they think is a terrorist organization."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

No Peace Without Hamas  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041602899.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
A quote...."GAZA -- President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is "business as usual" for the Palestinians." -- Article also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19772.htm
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Palestinian Children  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/palestinian-children.html
A quote...."Call me suspicious. Bound bodies found floating in a lake just don't seem to me very likely to be the victims of suicide"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Probe sought of whether Israel targeted media crew
  ---  http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2008-04-19T064803Z_
  ---  01_N18361642_RTRUKOC_0_US-PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-GAZA-REUTERS.xml
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - A leading human rights group called on Friday for an independent investigation into the death of a Reuters cameraman and other civilians in Gaza this week, saying Israeli forces may have targeted the media."
Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/19/8393/
For more on this issue see....Killing a Messenger  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mpgrapsheet-blogpg-mpg-012707#MESSENGER
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Saturday round-up - 8 articles - [ Day 26 ]

Shia Schism - A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick04192008.html
A quote...." April 19 / 20, 2008 -- The old war was primarily between the Sunni community -- which contested the American occupation -- and an Iraqi government dominated by the Shia in alliance with the Kurds. That conflict has not ended. But the most important battles likely to be waged in Iraq this year will be within the Shia community. They pit the US-backed Iraqi government against the supporters of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who represents the impoverished Shia masses of Iraq. ‘The Shia are the majority in Iraq and the Sadrists are a majority of this majority,’ a former Shia minister told me. ‘They make up 30 to 40 per cent of the total Iraqi population.’ The population of Iraq is 27 million: on this ex-minister’s calculation, up to ten million of them support Muqtada."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Scott Horton Interviews Patrick Cockburn  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/04/14/patrick-cockburn-3/
Audio Interview - A quote...."April 14th, 2008 -- Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent and author of Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the Struggle for Iraq, discusses the past, present, future and importance of the Sadrist movement in Iraq, America’s employment of “al Qaeda in Iraq,” and the disaster of the occupation."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Radical Iraqi Cleric Threatens New Uprising  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html
A quote...."Published: April 19, 2008 -- Filed at 4:35 p.m. ET -- BAGHDAD (AP) -- Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a ''final warning'' to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare ''open war until liberation.'' -- A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sadr: Gates will be my enemy forever  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=51368&sectionid=351020201
A quote...."Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says he will not enter any kind of political process that would allow US forces to remain in Iraq. Al-Sadr lashed out at US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday, saying that he will always remain his enemy because he is 'the occupier of Iraq'. - "You have always been my enemy, and you will always be my enemy till the last drop of my blood," Sadr said in a statement. - The top cleric's remarks was a reaction to comments made by Gates in which he said those who are prepared to work peacefully within the political process in Iraq are not the enemies of the United States. - "Which political process do you want to involve me in when you are occupying my land," Sadr said."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iranian ambassador lashes U.S. offensive in Baghdad's Sadr City  ---  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/20/content_8012630.htm
A quote...."2008-04-20 06:37:07 -- BAGHDAD, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian ambassador to Iraq Saturday criticized the U.S. military operations in Baghdad's main Shiite bastion of Sadr City which killed many civilians. -- "We criticize the pounding of cities and the siege of people, which will aggravate the situations and make things worse," ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi told a news conference at the Iranian Embassy."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraqi Army Takes Last Basra Areas From Sadr Force
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?_r=2&ex=1366344000&en=
  ---  4696abac40599579&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
A quote...."Published: April 20, 2008 -- BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

[First] Battle to retake Basra was 'complete disaster'  ---  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/20/wiraq120.xml
A quote...."Last Updated: 12:34am BST 20/04/2008 -- The British-trained Iraqi Army's attempt to retake Basra from militiamen was an "unmitigated disaster at every level", British commanders have disclosed. -- Senior sources have said that the mission was undermined by incompetent officers and untrained troops who were sent into battle with inadequate supplies of food, water and ammunition."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

In Sadr City's new wall, shadows of Gaza, Vietnam
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1368&thisview=item&renewx=2008-04-20+01%3A09%3A57
Video - A quote...."Sunday April 20th, 2008 -- Aijaz Ahmad: Wall meant to partition Sadr City's residents is population control ahead of elections"

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Saturday round-up  - [ Day 26 ]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Brilliant Disguise: Bush Torture, Obama and The Boss  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1487/135/
A quote...."We offer now a telling juxtaposition of stories.
First is the Guardian's new excerpt  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/19/humanrights.interrogationtechniques
of Phillipe Sands' new book, Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty, and the Compromise of Law. (Another extract was published earlier
in Vanity Fair,  ---  http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/guantanamo200805?printable=true&currentPage=all
which we examined here.)  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1478/1/  ---  Sands' book lays out in great detail the process by which the highest officials of the American government – including the President, Vice President and the Secretary of Defense – with great deliberation and malice aforethought constructed a regimen of systematic torture which they knew, to a certainty, violated existing American and international law.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pakistan Tests Long-Range Nuclear-Capable Missile, AFP Reports
  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNsHp3_EnGyA&refer=home
A quote...."April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan test-fired a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the military."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. commanders urge wider Pakistan attacks: report
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1934369820080420?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
War Expansion Alert - A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have recently urged expanding the war effort, possibly including U.S. attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants inside Pakistan's tribal areas, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions." -- There they go again.... mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US commanders sought authority to attack inside Pakistan: report  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_commanders_sought_authority_to_a_04202008.html
War Expansion Alert - A quote...."US military commanders operating in Afghanistan have sought permission to attack Pakistani militants hiding in tribal areas inside Pakistan, but so far have been denied it because of diplomatic considerations, The New York Times reported on its website."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pope says unilateral acts undermine United Nations
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1564528320080418?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A quote...."UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Countries that act unilaterally on the world stage undermine the authority of the United Nations and weaken the broad consensus needed to confront global problems, Pope Benedict said on Friday."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Neocon NATO Delusions  ---  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/editors2
A quote...."At the recently completed NATO summit in Bucharest, the Bush Administration took another step in its seven-year effort to transform the transatlantic alliance into an organization with a more global mission supportive of Washington's broader foreign policy goals. The Administration was able to win approval for an increase in NATO forces in Afghanistan, for its plan to deploy a missile defense system in Central Europe ostensibly aimed at a future Iranian nuclear threat, and for further enlarging NATO membership with the admission of Albania and Croatia and with promises of future membership for Georgia and Ukraine."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Kazakhstan and Central Asia’s Great Game
  ---  http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2008/April/opinion_April74.xml&section=opinion&col=
A quote...."NURSULTAN Nazarbayev, the last First Secretary of Soviet Kazakhstan, his ruled his Central Asian nation as its autocratic President ever since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Nazarbayev has led the transformation of a Soviet central planned economy into an oil and gas superpower courted by Russia, EU, China, India, and the United States."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Siniora says Welch's visit achieved no breakthrough  ---  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=91196
A quote...."BEIRUT: Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Friday that US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch's visit has not achieved any breakthrough in the ongoing political standoff in Lebanon. Siniora added that the Lebanese must depend on themselves if they really wanted to break the impasse."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Back in the USSR: Soviet Internet domain name resists death  ---  http://dwb.fresnobee.com/24hour/technology/story/3865305p-13498621c.html
A quote...." MOSCOW (AP) The Soviet Union may be in the dustbin of history, but there's one place the socialist utopia lives on: cyberspace. -- Sixteen years after the superpower's collapse, Web sites ending in the Soviet ".su" domain name have been rising - registrations increased 45 percent this year alone. Bloggers, entrepreneurs and die-hard communists are all part of a small but growing online community resisting repeated efforts to extinguish the online Soviet outpost."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Kuwait gears up to host World Islamic Economic Forum  ---  http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1900776&Language=en
A quote...."Kuwait will soon be hosting the 4th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIFE), April 29-May 1 under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Paraguayans head to the polls  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A30DEB57-3D42-477A-B8C9-9769BE06944B.htm
A quote...."Paraguayans are set to vote in presidential and congressional elections that could be a strong test to the Colorado Party, the world's longest-ruling political party"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Exxon's CEO's pay jumps 29% last year as profit soars  ---  http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/413438
To all the men and women in the US's armed forces.  Even if you lost a limb, an eye, or your life, you can be proud in the knowledge that you made CEO Rex Tillerson and many others like him who are captains of the oil industry, very happy and wealthy men. – Congratulations on your sacrifice. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Chalabi's Lobby  ---  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/roston
A quote...."With the invasion of Iraq still three years in the future, Ahmad Chalabi would step into the lobby of the modern granite office building at 1801 K Street in Washington--the heart of the nation's lobbying corridor. He would walk past the security guard and ride the elevator up to the ninth floor. The ride was, in some sense, one small vertical leg of Chalabi's journey back to Iraq. This particular way point was the office belonging to Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey (BKSH), one of the most powerful lobbying firms in the United States, owned by public relations powerhouse Burson-Marsteller."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

"Hero" John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04192008.html
Special Note - A quote...."John McCain’s been getting kid-glove treatment from the press for years, ever since he wriggled free of the Keating scandal and his profitable association – another collaboration, you might say -- with the nation’s top bank swindler in the 1980s. But nothing equals the astounding tact with which his claque on the press bus avoids the topic of McCain’s collaborating with his Vietnamese captors after he’d been shot down."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/
Must Read - A quote...."If one could graph the degree to which Bush has arrogated unto himself the powers of a dictator, the so-called 'unitary executive', the upward curve of such a graph is the mirror image of his 'popularity' --at its greatest in the minutes and hours following 911."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

After The ABC News Debacle: How To Change Media - Why Making Media The Issue Is Crucial For Saving Democracy  ---  http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14132
How ironic that in the same week that the National Association of Broadcasters gave actor Tim Robins a platform to challenge media gatekeepers to open the airwaves to more perspectives ABC NEWS gave us all a classic example of how a network can dumb down a presidential debate and turn it into a disgraceful hit job rather than an enlightening hit."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?hp
Must Read - A quote...."In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

How Republicans Quietly Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections  ---  http://www.alternet.org/democracy/82348/
A quote...."Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Internal Justice Dept. Investigation Includes Yoo Torture Memo  ---  http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/
A quote...."Just how bad were John Yoo's now-infamous torture memos? -- After numerous calls from Congress for the DoJ to get digging, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility told Congress in February that it is busy investigating Yoo's infamous August, 2002 torture memo. That one, signed by then Office of Legal Counsel chief Jay Bybee, limited the definition of torture to physical pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It was the administration's so-called "golden shield" which permitted the CIA to use its most aggressive interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Torture Questions Hover Over Chertoff - posted at Consortium News  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/
  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/041908b.html
A quote...."John Yoo and some other Bush administration lawyers who built the legal framework for torture are now out of the U.S. government, but one still holds a Cabinet-level rank – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.In the summer of 2002, Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, offered assurances to the CIA that its interrogators would not face prosecution under anti-torture laws if they followed guidelines on aggressive techniques approved by the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where Yoo worked."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

California home prices fall 26 percent amid foreclosures  ---  http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D903SMT80.htm
A quote...."A glut of foreclosed homes helped prompt a 26 percent plunge in California home prices in March, highlighting a trend that experts said is likely to continue as low, introductory interest rates expire for people who bought near the height of the housing boom. -- More than 38 percent of California homes sold in March had been foreclosed at some point during the previous year, DataQuick Information Systems said in its survey released Thursday."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Darkness starts to fall across America's malls  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/20/useconomy.retail
A quote...."The Green Acres Shopping Mall in Valley Stream, Long Island, is a desolate concrete island adrift in an almost empty parking lot the size of several football fields. Dark and empty storefronts are found on each of its three levels and what shops remain open are as tired and lifeless as the bewildered shoppers meandering aimlessly about, as if in search of some long-forgotten loved one."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

China passes US as second-biggest exporter  ---  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/china/article3767910.ece
A quote...."Another stellar performance by China, which recorded a 26 per cent rise in its merchandise exports to $1.2 trillion, enabled it to surge ahead of the US to be ranked the world's second biggest exporter and is breathing down the neck of top-placed Germany." -- "In 2007, buoyed by strong performances by dynamic emerging economies such as China. India, Brazil, and Russia, world merchandise trade in value terms increased by 15 per cent to $13.6 trillion (£6.8 trillion). - Emerging countries accounted for more than half of the world's trade growth last year, Mr Low added."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Friday April 18th 2008 - links page

Afghanistan moves to center stage  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD19Df02.html
A quote...."The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. The "lameduck" George W Bush administration in Washington faces an uphill task to gain mastery over the equations developing on multiple levels. -- Meanwhile, some questions arise. Are these statements and public stances essentially more prudent and prophylactic than provocative? Do they stem from a genuine concern in the region that the US is simply unable to forge ahead in the war? Or do they signify the stirrings of a concerted regional challenge to the US mission?"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Video: final footage of Reuters journalist killed in Gaza  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3764160.ece
Must View - Video - A quote...."The editor-in-chief of Reuters demanded that Israel launches a "thorough and immediate investigation" into the killing of one of its cameramen in the Gaza Strip yesterday (David Byers writes)."

There's absolutely no doubt the tank crew deliberately targeted him.  You can see the anti-personel "flechette" round burst, at a guess, about ten to twenty yards right in front of him.  Keep in mind it was a clear sunny day, he was standing in the open, one thousand yards away and clearly visible to the tank crew.  The crew would have been using the tank's optics to fire the shell at him.  Optics that are designed to hit targets at much greater distances, in bad weather, while the tank is in motion.  They probably were able to see the brand name on the camera he was using, and that's precisely why they murdered him, to make an example.

This sort of activity is utterly intolerable and it's about time the United States
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/uskillingthemessenger-weblist-mpg-112907  ---  and Israel stop murdering reporters just because they don't like what their films or articles reveal about these two nation's activities.

One last thing about this issue.....you'd have to be a real low life coward, a despicable thuggish piece of human garbage, to fire a tank shell or a sniper bullet at an unarmed reporter, or for that matter innocent civilians, simply because you didn't like what they have to say about you and your occupation.  - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Amnesty calls for investigation into killing of cameraman and other civilians  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43191&s1=h1
Related article - A quote...."London, (PIC)-- Amnesty International has called on the Israeli government to immediately order a full and independent investigation into the killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. -- At least 18 Palestinians, including children and other unarmed civilians, were killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. More than 30 others were injured in attacks by Israeli planes and by ground forces using tanks in the Gaza Strip. -- Those killed included Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, who was struck by fire from an Israeli tank. He had travelled to the scene in a car clearly marked "TV-Press". He was killed as he started to film the tank."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

A Divided Baghdad - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/  ---  (YouTube - 2 min 47 sec - Added: April 11, 2008)
  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19765.htm
Video - A quote...."This is the reality of life in Baghdad now!"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

For more on this issue see....The US's New Map of the Middle East
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/newmemap-peters-nwa-cached-092507
See also...Divide and rule
  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m37133&s1=h1
See also...The Plan -- according to U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.) YouTube - 1.37 min
  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
See also...US Support of Terror
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306
See also...US Sponsored Civil Wars
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussponsoredcivilwars-weblist-mpg-101107
See also...Iraqi politicians blast vote in U.S. Senate on partition
  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/01/MNL4SH9N7.DTL
See also...[US] Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq
  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092601506.html
See also...Kuwait's ruler rejects any partition of Iraq http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-10-04T091435Z_01_L04504616_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-KUWAIT.xml
See also...Al-Maliki rejects [US] Senate proposal to partition Iraq
  ---  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/333678_iraq29.html
See also...Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis reject US partition idea
  ---  http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/140838-Iraq%27s+Shiites+and+Sunnis+reject+US+partition+idea
See also...US Senate votes to divide Iraq
  ---  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22490525-2703,00.html
See also...US support Death Sqds
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/usdeathsquads-weblist-cmplt-111406
See also...False Flag Ops - Al-Askari Mosque Bombing
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/falseflagops-weblist-mpg-082006#AL-ASKARI_MOSQUE
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Top Neocon Calls For Destruction Of Constitution  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57215
This is old news of course, what's new is they're actually saying it out loud instead of just doing it. - mpg -- A quote...."In a recent edition of the Austin-American Statesman a book review of Phillip Bobbitt’s new book Terror and Consent goes into how the book calls for the shredding of the Constitution. The article written by James E. McWilliams features an image of the Constitution being torn with a big bold headline that states “Everything must go.” The words “How to Fight Terrorism”, are put in place of where the Constitution is torn."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Friday round-up - 8 articles - [ Day 25 ]

PBS's Bill Moyers Journal -- Leila Fadel: News From Sadr City  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/profile.html
Must Watch Video - A quote...."April 18, 2008 -- As the war in Iraq moves further into its fifth year, bombings and shootings continue — especially in Sadr City. Among the journalists on the ground in that conflicted area is Leila Fadel, the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Company. Fadel spoke with Bill Moyers when she was in New York to receive the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. -- Fadel's work is not only featured in the 30 McClatchy  ---  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/  ---  newspapers around the country, but in her blog, Baghdad Observer."  ---  http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/baghdad/
Watch Video  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/watch.html
Read Transcript  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/transcript1.html
Listen to Podcast - QT  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1202.mp3
Comment  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2008/04/ask_leila_fadel.html
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Sadr City Fighters Lay Defenses Amid Latest Official Efforts at Calm
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?ex=1366344000&en=133634a7a0df44c7&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Must Read - A quote...."Published: April 19, 2008 -- BAGHDAD — As the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters squatted in the Sadr City district’s main highways on Friday, planting homemade bombs less than a mile from Iraqi and American troops, his political bloc offered on Friday to negotiate with the Iraqi government to end fighting in the area." -- Also posted at uruknet  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43194&s1=h1
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Can Iraq's Parliament Fight Back?  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041808J.shtml
A quote...."Friday 18 April 2008 -- A surprise announcement by Iraq's Cabinet on Monday opened up the possibility that resistance to a prolonged US occupation may come from a much-ignored source: the Iraqi Parliament. --  Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration, moving into the third round of negotiations with the Bush administration over a "status of forces agreement" (SOFA) to establish a long-term US military and economic presence in Iraq, declared that the agreement must be approved by Parliament before it becomes law. Previously, Maliki had maintained that Parliamentary ratification was unnecessary."  --  This article has been posted in this section because it appears Maliki's little anti-al-Sadr adventure has constrained some of his political options.  And as a result, unlike King George, he has now re-determined that he will indeed need the Iraqi Parliament's approval to establish the status of forces agreement" (SOFA) with the US. Otherwise known as a "treaty", a concept our ever so feckless, lazy, spineless and good for absolutely nothing Congress has yet to grasp. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Teeth in the Jellyfish - A Confirming Moment in Basra  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/lind04172008.html
A quote...."Apri1 17, 2008 -- When Iraqi Prime Minister al-Kerensky sent his "army" to fight the Mahdi Army in Basra, President Bush called it "a defining moment." It turned out instead to be a confirming moment. It confirmed that there is no state in Mesopotamia."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Al-Sadr followers denounce wall Americans are building  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
A quote...."Fri Apr 18, 6:53 PM ET -- BAGHDAD - Followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military's construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, the scene of renewed clashes Friday between his militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraqi troops face off with Sadr followers  ---  http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1891640820080418?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
A quote...."Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:37pm BST -- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi troops clashed with Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia on Friday in what was described as some of the heaviest fighting in Baghdad for weeks."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraqi troops surround Sadr office  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/162191
A quote...."Apr 18, 2008 11:12 PM  -- Iraqi troops cordoned off the Basra office of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's followers on Friday and prevented them holding prayers in a move that seems sure to inflame tensions. -- The government and Sadr followers confirmed the operation, which comes nearly a month after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Sadr's Mehdi Army militia in Basra, sparking violent clashes across the south and in Baghdad."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

330 killed, 1621 injured in Sadr City clashes in three weeks-Medic
  ---  http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=76708&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1
A quote...." Baghdad, Apr17, (VOI)-At least 300 individuals were killed and 1621injured during the clashes that erupted in the Shiite slum of Sadr city over the last three weeks, a Medic source said on Thursday. -- "300 persons were killed and 1621 injured during the heavy fighting and airstrikes that have taken place in Sadr city since March25," a medical source told Aswat al-Iraq –Voices of Iraq- (VOI)."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Friday round-up - [ Day 25 ]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

America's allies in Iraq under pressure as civil war breaks out among Sunni
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americas-allies-in-iraq-under-pressure-as-civil-war-breaks-out-among-sunni-811801.html
A quote...."God is Great," screamed a man seconds before he blew himself up, killing 10 people in a restaurant in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq. A series of suicide bombings have shown over the past week that al-Qa'ida in Iraq, though battered by defections over the past year, is striking back remorselessly at Sunni Arab leaders who ally themselves to the US." -- First the US played Iraq off against Iran and than played Iraq off against Kuwait, that was country against country.  Than the US played off Shi'a against Sunni, against Kurd, that was sect against sect.  Now the US is playing off Sunni against Sunni and Shi'a against Shi'a, that's faction against faction.  The US's elites won't be satisfied until at the very end, every single Iraqi is trying to kill every other Iraqi.
For more on this issue see....The Method - 05-07-07 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/themethod-blog-mpg-050707
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

IRAQ:  Chaos Hardening Sectarian Fiefdoms - posted at Counter Currents  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/
  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/gharib180408.htm
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad?"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Torturers in the White House: Why Is This Story Being Ignored?  ---  http://www.alternet.org/rights/82483/
A quote...."The biggest news of the last week went virtually uncovered by the mainstream, print media. ABC News first reported last Wednesday that top Bush Administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, and George Tenet, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld met to discuss which particular torture techniques should be used against Al Qaeda suspects in U.S. custody."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Inquiry into death of British priest during Pinochet period  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13196&formato=HTML
A quote...."Arrest orders have been extended for six Chilean naval officers allegedly involved in the abduction and torture of a British Catholic priest and other political prisoners during the early days of the September 1973 military coup that ousted elected Socialist president Salvador Allende."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

POLITICS:  Can the U.S. and Iran Share the Middle East?  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42044
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Apr 18 (IPS) - By negotiating a Shiite truce, Tehran embarrassed Washington last week and arguably proved itself to be a more potent stabiliser of southern Iraq. -- Iran's role in Iraq came as a sharp reminder that the George W. Bush administration's accusations of Iranian mischief notwithstanding, Iranian influence in Iraq is both undeniable and multifaceted. As Washington starts to come to terms with this reality, the Middle East inches closer to its moment of truth: Is the United States ready to share the region with Iran?"  --  No, but Iran and Saudi Arabia could.  The Saudis would provide funding and reconstruction help, the Iranians would provide security guarantees and both would begin the process to form a Muslim Middle Eastern Economic Union with a common currency that is NOT pegged to the dollar.  Well it's a good idea.  To any Muslim who reads this it's that or McCain’s "one hundred years of war"....it's your choice. – mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran, Turkey Agree to Boost Security Cooperation  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8701300362
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian and Turkish officials signed a memorandum of understanding aimed to develop cooperation in security issues in the future, Turkish Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Total, Shell Face Last Chance for Iran Deals  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8701290371
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran said on Wednesday a June deadline would be the last chance for France's Total and Royal Dutch Shell to finalize deals on developing two major oil and gas assets in the Persian Gulf." -- For more on this issue see....The US is After Europe Too! - 03-23-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/theusisaftereuropetoo-blog-mpg-032308
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

EGYPT:  Election Brings Victory Without Votes  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42048
A quote...."CAIRO, Apr 18 (IPS) - The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of long-time president Hosni Mubarak swept Egypt's nationwide municipal council elections last week. But while NDP officials lauded the contest as "fair and transparent", opposition groups say their candidates never stood a chance."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

South African union refuses to unload Chinese arms destined for Zimbabwe  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57331
A quote...."JOHANNESBURG: A South African union has refused to unload arms from a Chinese ship destined for Zimbabwe, in a politically charged move challenging President Thabo Mbeki's handling of relations with the neighboring state." -- "The 300,000-strong South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, known as Satawu, said it would not unload the weapons in the port city of Durban because Mugabe's government might use them to crack down on opponents in the disputed election." -- This goes to show, when people act together to prevent mayhem and murder, they can do a world of good. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

South America unites against USA’s predatory instincts  ---  http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1530
A quote...."South America has established a military and political bloc to oppose NATO. Proponents of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez are going to be supported by Brazil that adopts a reasonable attitude and plays a major role in the region. Officially, the reason for a new bloc was the recent conflict between Ecuador and Columbia. But the actual aim is to weaken the US influence in the region that has been the area of its vital interest for 200 years."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Venezuela:  Democracy, Socialism and Imperialism - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19762.htm
A quote...."  17/04/08 "ICH" -- -Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez remains the world’s leading secular, democratically elected political leader who has consistently and publicly opposed imperialist wars in the Middle East, attacked extra-territorial intervention and US and European Union complicity in kidnapping and torture.  Venezuela plays the major role in sharply reducing the price of oil for the poorest countries in the Caribbean region and Central America, thus substantially aiding them in their balance of payments, without attaching any ‘strings’ to this vital assistance."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Venezuela raises foreign oil tax  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7349986.stm
A quote...."Foreign oil firms operating in Venezuela will pay higher taxes on profits made in the country, under laws approved by parliament."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

61 years of right-wing rule could end in Paraguay
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1363&thisview=item&renewx=2008-04-18+15%3A32%3A52
Video - A quote...."Party of former Catholic bishop could make Paraguay the next Latin country to vote in the left -- Paraguayan voters appear to be ready to end 61 years of right-wing rule in the Latin American country in a national election this Sunday. -- Fernando Lugo, a former bishop and head of the Patriotic Alliance for Change, is leading in the polls against the incumbent Colorado Party, which has ruled Paraguay without interruption since 1947."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Losing Latin America ... All the Way to Tierra del Fuego -- The Bush Legacy  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/ross04182008.html
A quote...."For George Bush, the March 1 anti-terror strike by the Colombian air force under U.S. guidance on a FARC guerrilla camp deep in the Ecuadorian jungle had everything to do with legacy."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bolivians sue ex-[Bolivian]-president in U.S. over deaths  ---  http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/16/bolivia.lawsuit.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world
A quote...."MIAMI, Florida (AP)  -- A group of 10 Bolivians is suing the country's former president and defense minister in federal court in Florida over their government's response to protests in 2003, which left 67 civilians dead and injured 400 more. -- The Bolivians say the two men have escaped accountability in Bolivia by relocating to the United States and must be forced to pay damages for the deaths of innocent family members."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Netanyahu Says 9/11 Good for Israel - Ahmadinejad Calls 9/11 ["suspect"]  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080417105806382
A quote...."The United States said Wednesday it was "speechless" after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced doubts about the accepted version of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. -- "I am not sure what you say about a statement like that. It leaves one speechless," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. -- "It is just misguided, misinformed rhetoric," McCormack said." -- By the way, for those Americans who are still unfamiliar with Washington's twisted "new-speak", McCormack's statements are commonly referred to  as "non-denial, denials".  In other words....he didn't deny the fact 9/11 was "suspect". -- Think about that for awhile. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

9/11 "Week of Truth" Featured on Air America - TONIGHT - FRI 4/18  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7061
Program Alert - A quote...."Air America  ---  http://www.airamerica.com/  ---  explores 9/11 Truth, and the escalating success of the national Week of Truth Action. Listen in at 9:15 pm eastern time, via internet or radio."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Speaking of "Truth"....some more fun stuff regarding ABC's "Debates"

Jon Stewart Eviscerates ABC’s Hacktacular Debate  ---  http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/18/jon-stewart-eviscerates-abcs-hacktacular-debate/
Video - A quote...."The first hour of last night’s debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse…" --*Jon Stewart*
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

ABC criticized for handling of Democratic debate
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1740256020080417?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews
Some quotes...." LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Critics excoriated ABC on Thursday for its televised Democratic presidential debate, slamming the network for "shoddy, despicable" moderators who they said favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama and dwelled on "gossip" instead of issues. -- Critics ripped ABC journalists Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton staffer, for wasting time during Wednesday's debate on questions like why Obama wasn't wearing an American flag pin or rehashing old disputes." -- "Nearly 17,000 comments flooded ABC News' Web site, many of them pouring scorn on the moderators, who were booed by the auditorium crowd near the end of the debate."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

ABC Hosts Heckled After Debate: "The Crowd Is Turning On Me"  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/16/abc-hosts-heckled-after-d_n_97124.html
Video - A quote...."Reflecting what seemed to be the main consensus of the night - that ABC botched this debate, big time - Charlie Gibson tells the crowd there will be one more, superfluous commercial break of the night and is subsequently jeered."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

An Open Letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708B.shtml
A quote...."It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because - like many other Americans - I am still angry at what I just witnesses, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" - especially when it's one journalist speaking to another - tends to be a genteel, colleagial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Hillary Clinton Commits Media-Assisted Suicide  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mellowin_080417_hillary_clinton_comm.htm
A quote...."Last night was Hillary's last night. It is the beginning of the end for her long, distinguished political career. With the help of moderators Charles Gibson and former Clinton Campaign Advisor George Stephanopolous, Hillary was willing to do her best FOX News Anchor imitation, and effectively end any chance she had to be a Democratic Candidate for President, or any other office, for that matter."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====
US power failure a 'dismal' turning point  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD17Dj05.html
Special Note - A quote...."Instead of turning to the more American notion of decentralized power, American reformers began looking to Europe and particularly Otto von Bismark's Germany. Not only was industrial society creating new vast private entities of power, it was also growing government bureaucracies. The American system gradually began to use government as a counterbalance to the power of corporations. In doing so the system needed to keep growing government bureaucracies as corporate power grew, until finally with the New Deal an agreement was reached. Antitrust basically was abandoned and a regime of regulation, bureaucratically controlled, was instituted to quell corporate power. -- Unfortunately for advocates of the New Deal, the acceptance of concentrated power in the form of corporations was a recipe for democratic failure. The idea that government could regulate such entities proved short lived, as corporations gradually gained control over the government...."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. Economy: Philadelphia Factory Index Declines (Update1)  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acwOLMTVhKgc&refer=home
A quote...."April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region shrank by the most since 2001 and the number of Americans receiving jobless benefits jumped to a four-year high as the economic slowdown showed little sign of abating."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Leading economic indicators rise after 5 months of declines  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_bi_ge/leading_economic_indicators
A quote...."The New York-based Conference Board said its forecast of future economic activity rose 0.1 percent in March, compared to a 0.3 percent decline in February. Economists had expected a 0.2 percent March increase."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Citigroup cuts value of investments by $14B in 1Q  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_citigroup;_ylt=Aif2VuYH54bdisUuJ8KVI.Zv24cA
A quote...." NEW YORK - Citigroup's 9,000 job cuts and $14 billion in write-downs suggest that even if the worst of the credit market volatility is over, the industry is now in a conservative, cost-cutting mode. -- With banks expecting more loans to go sour, people can expect tight lending standards for many months — perhaps years — to come."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

UK’s second bank shareholders asked to inject cash  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13199&formato=HTML
A quote...."Britain's second largest bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, is to ask shareholders for about £10 billion of extra cash to improve its financial position, reports BBC."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Silly Season Is Upon Us - http://www.fcnp.com/national_commentary/the_peak_oil_crisis_the_silly_season_is_upon_us_20080416.html
A quote...."The great irony in all this is that the problem is simple to understand. World crude oil production has been essentially flat for the last three years while 1.3 billion Chinese, 1.1 billion Indians, and another quarter billion or so living in oil exporting countries continue to increase their oil consumption at a prodigious pace. Incidentally, the Chinese just announced that their diesel imports during the first quarter of 2008 were up seven fold over 2007."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Gas prices push closer to $3.50 a gallon, oil hits $117 - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices;_ylt=AqXtTlmdFiI0EXZUzpxKauhv24cA
A quote...."NEW YORK - Retail gas prices set new records Friday on their seemingly relentless march toward $3.50 a gallon, and diesel prices pushed further above $4 a gallon. Crude futures, meanwhile, surged to a new record of $117 a barrel."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Thursday April 17th 2008 - links page

Ramzy Baroud - Where are the Iraqis?  ---  http://www.metimes.com/Opinion/2008/04/16/ramzy_baroud_-_where_are_the_iraqis/2791/
Must Read - A quote...."Five years after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception – the cost to the Iraqi people themselves. -- Through all the special coverage and exclusive reports, very little is said about Iraqi casualties, who are either completely overlooked or hastily mentioned and whose numbers can only be guesstimated. Also conveniently ignored are the millions injured, internally and externally displaced, the victims of rape and kidnappings who will carry physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. -- We find ourselves stuck in a hopeless paradigm, where it feels necessary to empathize with the sensibilities of the aggressor so as not to sound "unpatriotic," while remaining blind to the untold anguish of the victims....."


Weary of War? Don’t Collaborate  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/17/8344/
Must Read - A quote...."Before U.S. lawmakers imagine ways to spend Iraq’s possible “surplus”, they should be asked about the “rights” of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The U.S. waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. people. Did Iraq have any “rights” after it invaded Kuwait? An aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Indeed, the international community — via the U.N. Security Council — continues to punish the Iraqi people for the crimes of Saddam Hussein’s regime by requiring Iraq to pay five percent of its oil revenues as “war reparations” for the prior regime’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 - 91 (with virtually all of the remaining payments going to the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia or those country’s state owned oil enterprises)."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/04/bushs-conspiracy-to-create-american_16.html
Must Read - A quote...."Political "evil" allows people to assuage their consciences in numbers. A person who might never hang a man, might do so in a mob. Lynchings and torchings of black people were most often done by groups -not by individuals. While psychologists may diagnose individuals as 'psychotic', the more harmful effects are sustained when the group as a whole exhibits such symptoms and acts upon them. A 'mob' can be, in the vernacular, crazy! Can the same be said of an entire nation? Is America, under Bush, nuts?"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Why is America Still in Iraq? The Answer is: Pride  ---  http://www.blacknews.com/news/gwen_richardson401.shtml
A quote...."Houston, TX (BlackNews.com) - Last week, General David Petraeus and Ryan C. Crocker, the American envoy to Baghdad, testified before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees to provide an update on the status of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The news was not encouraging."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US needs more war funds by June-Bush budget chief  ---  http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16345945.htm
A quote...."WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday warned that the U.S. Congress must approve additional money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of May or risk the start of Defense Department layoff notices."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Center for Constitutional Rights Supports National Lawyers Guild Call for Dismissal and Prosecution of John Yoo
  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/17/8342/
A quote...."On April 1, a secret 81-page memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003 was made public. In that memo, Yoo advised the Bush administration that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel would not enforce U.S. criminal laws, including federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. The week after the publication of Yoo’s memo, the National Lawyers Guild issued a press release calling for the Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California to dismiss Yoo, who is now a professor of law there. The NLG also called for the prosecution of Yoo for war crimes and for his disbarment.  --  Two days later, the Center for Constitutional Rights released a letter supporting the NLG’s call for Yoo’s dismissal and prosecution."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

FBI email says Bush signed exec order authorizing torture  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3187.shtml
A quote...."President George W. Bush’s comment to ABC News -- that he approved discussions that his top aides held about harsh interrogation techniques -- adds credence to claims from senior FBI agents in Iraq in 2004 that Bush had signed an executive order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees." -- Also posted at BLN  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6257
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Trying CIA Kidnappers and Torturers in Absentia  ---  http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-04-16.asp
A quote...."Twenty-six CIA agents are scheduled to go on trial today for kidnapping. Unfortunately, all of them will be tried in absentia because the Bush administration, which has long claimed to be against torture, refuses to send the accused kidnappers to Italy, where the prosecution is taking place."  --  For more on this issue see....Fun & Torture - It's a Pleasure.  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/funandtorture-blog-mpg-020307
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Stewart: Despite denials, Bush aides actively managed harsh interrogations
  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Stewart_Bush_aides_actively_managed_interrogations_0416.html
Must View - Video - Jon Stewart and 'The Daily Show' lambasted, in the lively mix of satire and seriousness Stewart is famous for, President George W. Bush and key past and present members of his administration over their repeated assertions that the United States doesn't use torture against its enemies." -- OK, it's horrible....and hilarious. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Thursday round-up - 3 articles - [ Day 24 ]

My militia is more untouchable than yours  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD18Ak02.html
A quote...."Apr 18, 2008 -- In a make-believe world where the green, green grass of the "surge" is alive with the sound of music, the George W Bush administration and US counterinsurgency ace General David Petraeus - not to mention presidential candidate Senator John McCain - keep assuring American public opinion the "surge" (now reconverted into a "pause") is working.  --  But back in real life, an Iraq transfixed by no less than 28 militias is burning - again - all over, even in "invisible" (at least for Western media) places. Couple that with the relentless Bush administration narrative of "blame, blame Iran" and we have American public opinion strangled by a formidable disinformation octopus."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Who Do They Think They're Foolin'? - Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs04172008.html
A quote...."Apri1 17, 2008 -- Recently, the Green Zone parliament in Baghdad drafted a law that would forbid any political party that has an armed wing from participating in the upcoming regional elections in Iraq. This law comes on the heels of an announcement by the Green Zone leader al-Maliki stating very similar terms. The obvious target of this law are the forces behind al-Sadr known as the Mehdi Army. Other factions in Iraqi politics that might be affected include the various Sunni groups that maintain an armed wing not approved by the US and those few secular parties that remain in Iraq and feature armed elements."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

POLITICS:  Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42029
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - In testimony before Congressional committees last week, Gen. David Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's late March offensive in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what U.S. officials had expected. -- What Petraeus did not reveal is that al-Maliki was deliberately upsetting a Petraeus plan to put U.S. and British forces into Basra for a months-long operation to eliminate the Mahdi Army from the city."  --  Editor's note: Regarding the author’s contention that Petraeus was solely responsible for planning the attacks against al-Sadr, that's highly unlikely.  In the immortal words of Admiral William Fallon...."Patraeus is an ass-kissing little chicken sh-t".  Petraeus wouldn't make a move without asking Cheney, and Cheney went there two weeks before the operation and told Maliki to get off his butt and launch the attack....then if you've noticed, Cheney’s up and disappeared. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ex-CIA Analyst Outs Cheney  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57066
A quote...."What could have possessed Prime Minister Maliki to rush headlong into a battle he was thoroughly unprepared for? The Bush Administration has responded with certainty about only one thing: they were not involved in the planning. But former CIA analyst Ray McGovern says that Maliki "can't scratch his nose without asking Petraeus to make sure there aren't extra body guards around," much less plan an offensive without him. Moreover, McGovern suspects that that the initiation of the Basra offensive came not from Maliki, but from Vice President Cheney." --  posted 04-15-08
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Ex-CIA analyst on Petraeus and Cheney  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1323&thisview=item
Must View - Video - A quote...."Ray McGovern: Was Cheney behind Iraqi army's failed Basra offensive?"  posted 04-11-08
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Maliki snubbed U.K. in Basra http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Emerging_Threats/Briefing/2008/04/10/maliki_snubbed_uk_in_basra/1454/
A quote...."BASRA, Iraq, April 10 (UPI) -- The relationship between Britain and Iraq soured over the fight in Basra as the Iraqi prime minister shunned British forces favoring American help instead. - British forces are stationed in Basra, securing and monitoring the southern port city throughout most of the war. But the Iraqi government opted to call 550 U.S. troops into the fight to help Iraqi national forces fight Shiite militias there instead, The Times of London said Thursday." -- Editor's special note....Maliki didn't "snub" the British.  Maliki had been planning this assault with Cheney for the last several months against al-Sadr, to preempt his predicated political success in the upcoming elections....and the Brits were neither informed nor invited. - mpg - posted 04-10-08
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Paltry result of Iraqi [Nouri al-Maliki's and Cheney's] offensive quiets U.S. withdrawal talk - A Satirical Edit -- posted 04-01-08
  ---  http://reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/paltryresultofiraqioffensive-strobel&youssef-mcclatchy-cached-040108

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Thursday round-up - [ Day 24 ]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pentagon institute calls Iraq war 'a major debacle' with outcome 'in doubt  ---  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/34101.html
Special Note - A quote...."WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt" despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. Begins Freeing Thousands of Captives in Iraq  ---  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120848406669625219.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
A quote...."US trying to stave off U.N. mandate to free all prisoners by end of 2008  18 Apr 2008 U.S. commanders in Iraq have begun releasing thousands of detainees and expect to free more than half of the 23,000 held by American forces, according to senior military commanders. 'Insurgents' suspected of posing security threats can be held for years without being brought to trial. The United Nations mandate allowing the U.S. to detain Iraqis expires in December. The military would theoretically have to free all prisoners by the end of the year unless Washington and Baghdad strike a bilateral deal giving the U.S. the right to continue holding suspected 'insurgents." -- *CLG*  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. Begins Erecting Wall in Sadr City  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43165&s1=h1
A quote..."BAGHDAD — Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital." -- Iraq is becoming one big, ugly, open air prison....just like Gaza. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

NYT Iraq War Timeline Whitewashes History (Part III: Burying News of Iraqi Dead)  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/nyt-iraq-war--1.html
What is WRONG with the New York Times?? - mpg - A quote...."To mark the recent fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, The New York Times published an interactive timeline.  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/18/world/middleeast/20080319_IRAQWAR_TIMELINE.html#tab1  ---  This is the third in a series of posts exploring the most misleading statements and glaring omissions from its Iraq War history. (If you missed either of the first two parts, you can read them here  ---  http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/03/special-report.html  ---  and here).....
  ---  http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/03/special-repor-1.html  ---  " -- Editors note: Regarding the criticism of the John Hopkins study, (a.k.a. the Lancet Study), it should be made clear to everyone, including the Times, that Tony Blair’s Government was warned not to criticize the study because the report's methodology was sound and could not be faulted. Only BS-Bush down played the report's findings, naturally echoed by our nation's presstitutes mindlessly repeating everything our liar in chief said about it."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

See also....Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6495753.stm
See also....Lancet was right - shock  ---  http://www.newstatesman.com/200704020023
See also....Ministers were told not to rubbish Iraq deaths study  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/26/freedomofinformation.iraq

Related article....New York Times posts loss
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN1737787120080417?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) posted a surprise loss on Thursday as the economic downturn added to pressure on newspaper advertising and left the publisher with worse-than-expected quarterly results." -- Perhaps the Times should concentrate on the NEWS instead of Bush's BS? - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Why avoiding US government help has become a norm  ---  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=90990
Must Read - A quote...."You have not read this in the news before. Three months ago, an American citizen was kidnapped in Northwest Pakistan. He was murdered and his body was just recently recovered by his bereaved family. I learned about the kidnapping Protection-Firms-for-Executives shortly after it happened, when my dear friend Ayesha wrote to tell me that her brother, Imran, had been abducted in Northwest Pakistan, and that she still, bravely, expected him to be recovered."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pressure mounts for talks with Hamas
http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1360&thisview=item&renewx=2008-04-17+14%3A29%3A45
Must View - Video - A quote...."Against the backdrop of former US president Jimmy Carter's visit to the Middle East, 19 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a fresh round of violence in Gaza." -- For more on this issue see....US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussponsoredcivilwars-weblist-mpg-101107#PALESTINE


 Jimmy Carter and the Art of Growing Up  ---  http://tonykaron.com/2008/04/15/jimmy-carter-and-the-art-of-growing-up/
Related Article - A quote...."You could say Jimmy Carter was tempting fate by meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal — after all, his entirely appropriate evocation of apartheid in reference to the regime Israel has created on the West Bank earned him the label “Holocaust-denier” from the more demented end of the American Zionist spectrum. But Carter, bless him, is sticking to his guns, making the rather straightforward adult argument that has eluded so much of the U.S. political mainstream that the only way to achieve peace is to talk to all of those whose consent it requires."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

IOF artillery shells Palestinian hospital  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/162016
A quote...."GAZA, (PIC)-- Two IOF artillery shells slammed into the Wafa'a hospital east of Gaza city at dawn Wednesday severely damaging the ground floor, X-ray department and the laboratory, the hospital administration said in a press release. -- The shelling also severed electricity, water and telephone lines, it said, strongly denouncing the act especially when the hospital serves hundreds of aged persons, wounded and handicapped."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Twelve Years Ago My Children Were Killed in Lebanon  ---  http://www.alternet.org/story/82577/
A quote...."Twelve years ago, my children were killed in the shelling of a United Nations compound in Qana, Lebanon, during a trip to visit their grandmother. The compound was supposed to be a safe haven, a place to take refuge. More than 100 innocent people, almost half of them children, were killed in the attack, and even more were seriously injured, including U.N. personnel. My mother lost her arm."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Gaza: The Holocaust Continues  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/odsg170408.htm
A quote...."The latest Israeli war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip have resulted in the brutal killings of 21 Palestinians, including 6 children, within the last 12 hours. More than 40 have been injured. Fadel Shanaa, a Reuters cameraman, was amongst the dead. His visibly marked car was targeted by an Israeli missile in an attempt to cover up crimes committed in day light."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

MIDEAST:  Just The Place To Be, And Not To Be  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42040
Must Read - A quote...."Fadel Shana was killed Wednesday because he was in the firing line, but also because, eyewitnesses said, he had begun to film the tanks that were firing. A barrage of metal shrapnel pierced his body as a tank missile landed close to him."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Israeli shell killed Reuters cameraman: Gaza doctors http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1632826120080417?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A quote...."GAZA (Reuters) - Tiny darts sprayed from a controversial missile used by Israel killed a Reuters cameraman in Gaza, local doctors said on Thursday -- though Israeli forces would not say whether one of their tanks fired the fatal shot. -- A medical examination and X-rays showed several 3 cm (inch) -long spikes, known as flechettes, in the body of Fadel Shana, a 23-year-old Palestinian. He was killed on Wednesday as he filmed an Israeli tank dug in about a kilometer (1,000 yards) away."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Des Browne ‘misled MPs over seizure of British sailors in the Gulf’  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3768243.ece
Special Note - A quote...."The Defence Secretary has been accused of misleading Parliament over the capture of 15 British sailors and Marines in the Gulf last spring as it emerged that Iran has kept £1 million of seized military equipment. -- The Conservatives said that Des Browne was “less than frank” after The Times disclosed Ministry of Defence papers showing that the Britons were seized in disputed waters, not Iraqi territory." - underline by website editor.

Russia tightens ties with Georgian rebel areas ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL164428920080416?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
A quote...."MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia announced on Wednesday it would establish legal links with neighboring Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a move Georgia condemned as a breach of international law."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Recruiting Spies in the Peace Corps: Washington’s blunder in Bolivia strains relations with the Morales government
  ---  http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2008/03/recruiting-spies-in-peace-corps.html
A quote...."In February, allegations surfaced that the U.S. embassy in La Paz, located in western Bolivia, has been asking Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars to provide intelligence information to the U.S. embassy about foreign nationals in Bolivia."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The National Future of Belarus  ---  http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5155
A quote...."Last December Vladimir Putin of Russia paid a visit to Aleksandr Lukashenka of Belarus. This prompted local and international media to speculate on whether the visit was to clinch a deal between the two presidents for a (re)unification of Belarus with Russia. Belarusian nationalists bemoaned the prospect while tacitly admitting that they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Although nothing came of the meeting, the issue remains on the agenda."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

NORAD Releases Mother Lode of 9/11 Tapes  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6254
A quote...."The Web site governmentattic.org says NORAD and U.S. Northern Command "have released a copy of their audio files, telephone conversations and situation room discussions, from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."  -  And governmentattic.org has posted them all to its site, in .zip files linked within a .pdf document. - It was a little labor intensive getting to the files & I think they're mislabeled. so I've sorted them out & saved you some headaches. here are the direct download links:"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US Senators ask FG to free detained film makers  ---  http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6836&Itemid=44
A quote...."Fourteen members of the United States Congress, yesterday, called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to release the four American filmmakers being held since April 12. -- The lawmakers said they were deeply concerned that these individuals have been held for so long without any apparent cause.  The Congress called for the immediate release of the group and urged President Yar'Adua to ensure their full protection during their entire time in Nigeria."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Leaving Cheyenne Mountain - How I Learned to Start Worrying and Loathe the Bomb
  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174920/william_astore_war_games
A quote...."It took more than four years just to excavate and construct that mountain redoubt outside of Colorado Springs, that Cold War citadel whose two huge blast doors weighed 25 tons each. Within its confines, under 2,000 feet of Rocky Mountain granite, fifteen buildings were constructed, each mounted on steel springs, each spring weighing nearly half a ton, so that, when the Soviet nukes exploded, each building would sway but not collapse. -- When it became operational in 1966, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was the ultimate bomb shelter. Its 200 or so crewmembers were believed to have a 70% likelihood of surviving a five-megaton blast with a three-mile circular error of probability, even if the surrounding countryside became an irradiated wasteland." -- Also posted at TruthOut
  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708T.shtml
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Public must fight to maintain net neutrality  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/17/EDM11064UL.DTL
A quote...."The Internet is an engine of economic growth and innovation because of a simple principle: net neutrality, which assures innovators that their next great idea will be available to consumers, regardless of what the network owners think about it."Also posted at CommonDreams   --- http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/17/8361/  ---  For more on this issue see....The Last Bastion of Freedom is Falling - 05-30-06 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/lastbastionoffreedom-essay-mpg-053006
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Barbara Tucker freed from prison today (pictured with Brian Haw)  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/162109
A quote...."She was imprisoned by sentence of district judge snow at horseferry road magistrates court last week after she refused to answer police bail for an arrest which took place outside parliament on the 26th february after an incident where she harangued alan duncan mp for his collusion in crimes of humanity and other war crimes committed in iraq. "
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The dumbest debate in America?  ---  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/niall_stanage/2008/04/the_dumbest_debate_in_america.html
A quote...."What is it about Philadelphia? The city last month hosted one of the most impressive moments of the presidential campaign to date: Barack Obama's forthright speech on race. But last night, the very same venue - the National Constitution Centre - witnessed one of the worst events: the dismal ABC News debate between the Democratic candidates."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Worst. Debate. Ever  ---  http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/04/worst_debate_ever.html
A quote...."Almost a year since the Democrats had their first debate of the presidential campaign, and what did we get in the latest one? A stinker, an absolute car crash - thanks to the host network ABC. It was worse than even those debates last year with 18 candidates on stage, including crazy old Mike Gravel."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Very Serious Debate, Starring The Very Serious George & Charlie
  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-very-serious-debate-s_b_97231.html
A quote...."I don't really even need to write this. The nation has witnessed, firsthand, George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson for who they really are: pandering yellow journalists. Carnival barkers. They're Penn & Teller without the talent or insight. -- To wit... 50 minutes without a single substantive question. Fifty. "

Regarding the three articles shown above....it appears two of this nation's presstitutes were dumb enough to show just what a puppet theater the "mass-media" and this nation's elections have always been.  This is considered to be an unforgivable sin by our illustrious wealthy elites, these gentleman’s careers may be severely shortened by their lack of discretion.  What a shame, a real tragedy for journalism, this website editor weeps for them. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====
 
Michel Husson: A Structural Crisis of Capitalism  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708G.shtml
Interview - Benoit Pradier Interviews Michel Husson L'Humanité -- A quote...."The difference between now and 1929 is that governments understand the mechanisms of the crisis better now than they did then. This crisis was born from the bursting of the real estate bubble and is a relatively classic phenomenon. But what's new is the chain reaction that [was] unleashed. Financial deregulation and "securitization" led to very deep - and also extremely opaque - imbrications between investment banks and speculative funds. One rediscovers every day the scale of cumulative losses, which the IMF has just evaluated at $945 billion. The immensity of these losses explains why central banks' interventions have been unable to arrest the movement. The Fed lowered its rates below the inflation rate, injected liquidities, de facto purchased a big investment bank (Bear Stearns) and exchanged $200 billion in Treasury Bills for questionable mortgage loans. But nothing did the trick: the real estate market continues to plunge and every day brings its share of bad news. Such a crisis can remain confined neither to the financial sphere nor to the United States: the United States is in recession and the IMF has just revised its forecasts for the global economy down again. It forecasts growth of 1.4 percent for France in 2008 and 1.2 percent in 2009 and does not foresee a recovery until 2010."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Resurrecting Greenspan - Hillary Joins the Vast, Rightwing Financial Conspiracy  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson04172008.html
A quote...."On Monday, March 24, presumably representing Wall Street--as any New York senator must do in view of its dominant financial role in the state's political campaigns--Hillary Clinton proposed that Congress show its bipartisan spirit by appointing an "emergency working group on foreclosures," to be led by none other than Alan Greenspan and earlier Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Her idea was for them to come up with a plan to alleviate the subprime and financial crisis. This seems like calling in arsonists to help put out the fire that they and their own constituency had set in the first place."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Fed fails to learn inflation lesson  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD18Dj02.html
Must Read - A quote..."Since 2002, a number of key indicators have signaled rapid inflationary pressures, casting an ominous cloud over the US economy: the US dollar has depreciated by about 75% relative to the euro, crude oil prices have increased fivefold, gold prices have increased threefold, and all commodities prices have been rising at a rate approaching 25% per year. "

Editor's note: Everybody who voted for Bush has absolutely no-right, or justification, to complain about losing their jobs or the pain they'll experience from the coming stagflation.  This whole "thing" of the Neocons is an EXACT replay of Vietnam and its economic aftermath and should surprise no one.

What was it Bush tried to say once...."Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."  Those "Americans" who voted for King George....they did it to themselves, they cannot blame anyone else....they did this "thing" to their children and to everyone else in this country, it's their fault and their’s alone.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Meltdown of U.S. Dollar Underway as China Dumps the Currency  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8718
A quote...."(NaturalNews) Comments by China that it intends to move away from its reliance on the dollar triggered a sharp drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and heightened worldwide fears about the U.S. currency's stability. Chinese Central Bank Vice Director Xiu Jian said that his country is planning to shift much of its $1.4 trillion national currency reserve from dollars to more stable currencies, such as the euro or Canadian dollar. After these comments, the dollar fell to record lows relative to other currencies -- the lowest ever against the euro, the lowest in a generation against the British pound, and the lowest in 57 years against the Canadian dollar."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Fed's inflation gauge isn't realistic, critics say  ---  http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080417-9999-1n17inflate.html
A quote...."You've seen the cost of a gallon of premium gas breach the $4 mark at local stations. You've seen the price of milk, eggs, corn and bread surge at your supermarket. Yesterday, the government confirmed that prices are continuing to rise at a very brisk pace."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Merrill Lynch posts losses of 6.5 billion in first quarter  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13184&formato=HTML
A quote...."Merrill Lynch posted its third straight quarterly loss, its first of 2008, after more write-downs linked to the embattled credit markets. The world’s largest brokerage lost 6.5 billion US dollars in write downs on subprime mortgages and other risky assets."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Nano "Popcorn Balls" Increase Dye Solar Efficiency 250%  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57105
A quote...."A team of academics based at the University of Washington have announced an exciting breakthrough in dye-sensitized solar cell technology. - Researchers studying solar cell configurations discovered that by using a design based on a popcorn ball (tiny spheres grouped into bigger porous spheres), efficiency in cheap solar cells was more than doubled."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Wednesday April 16th 2008 - links page

How US Capitalism Will End US Military Adventurism  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19756.htm
Must Read - A quote...."Most Americans know instinctively, beyond the fog of flag-waving and hollow hymn singing, deep in their souls, that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a crime of monstrous proportions, one committed in their name, with their permission, by those they elected and those they armed and equipped, a crime they could end at any time but do not. Any student of history also recognizes this aggression to be just the latest in a series of heinous crimes committed on innocents around the globe by the modern world's most egregious and dangerous country, a country once blessed, now drunk on power, cursed with addictions to venality, gangsterism, careless obese consumption and usury the likes of which has never been witnessed before. With so much original promise squandered America has allowed itself to become a vampire culture, consuming all it touches including its own natural wealth, its principals and institutions, its legacy, and in a final maddened act of social cannibalism devouring the future of its young and itself."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Decline Of The American Empire And The Rise Of The Newer World Order  ---  http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1519
A quote...."Much like the time leading up to World War I, coalitions and regional blocs could form to contest American supremacy. If one of these entities could consolidate its power quickly enough, a new bipolar world could emerge. Potentially, China, a pan-Arab coalition, or a unified European Union (EU) could become this new superpower."  -- *Robert DeYeso*. Newer World Order The Return to a Multipolar Era 2006
Also posted at BLN  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6241
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraq Still Bleeds  ---  http://watchingamerica.com/News/771/iraq-still-bleeds/
A quote...."THE events of April 9, 2003 still haunt me. Nearly all TV stations aired the moment when the US-led forces marched through the streets of Baghdad heading toward the city center. A number of heavy tanks were soon to stop in the so-called Paradise Area in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran homes in on the Caspian  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JD17Ag01.html
A quote...."This week, Tehran hosts the 22nd meeting of representatives from the five littoral states in the Caspian Sea region - Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - working overtime to put together a new "convention for the legal regime of the Caspian Sea". -- Oh boy, this is going to send the Neocons BALLISTIC !!!  Don't the Iranians and the rest of the countries bordering the Caspian Sea know that the entire area belongs to the US MIOC elites??  The MIOC elites are going to be very angry with these people, one would sure hope everyone out there is building bomb shelters. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Wednesday round-up - 10 articles - [ Day 23 ]

Basra: Echoes of Vietnam  ---  http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5154
Must Read - A quote...."April 16, 2008 -- While the Americans have tried to distance themselves from the disaster by claiming that Maliki never consulted with them, historian Porter argues that the claim is ludicrous. “No significant Iraqi military action can be planned without a range of military support functions being undertaken by the U.S. command,” he writes, pointing out that U.S. trainers are embedded with every unit in the Iraqi security forces.” -- "Rather than as an assault on “criminal militias,” virtually every independent observer saw the attack as an effort by Maliki and the Americans to take control of Basra’s oil resources preliminary to turning them over to private oil conglomerates. Standing in the way of both those goals was the nationalist-minded Mahdi army as well as Iraq’s oil and dockworkers unions." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/16/8318/
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Al-Sadr Tightens the Screws - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1731022,00.html
Some  quotes...."Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2008 -- Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threw down yet another challenge to the Iraqi government, demanding that policemen and soldiers Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fired for refusing to fight al-Sadr's militia be reinstated "after honoring them."  --  "The demand, which came before another burst of Sunni insurgent violence north and west of Baghdad, is unlikely to be heeded by Maliki. Still, it underscored the political weight of Sadr's voice. Sadr's Mahdi Army has effectively stopped an advance by U.S. and Iraqi forces into its strongholds in Baghdad and Basra after weeks of fighting. On Monday Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said American troops operating at the edge of Sadr City in support of Iraqi troops would not press deeper into the area. That means any decisive push into the heart of the Mahdi Army stronghold in east Baghdad would be left to Iraqi security forces, which so far have been unable to deal any meaningful blows against the militia."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Soldiers surrendering to Mahdi Army…better safe than sorry?
  ---  http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=76427&NrIssue=2&NrSection=4
A quote...." Basra, Apr 15, (VOI) -- M.N., a conscript in the Iraqi Army's 14th Division formations, did not know that Operation Saulat al-Forsan (Knights' Assault) was targeting the Mahdi Army in specific. -- "I believed that our mission was to serve the people. I surrendered because I did not want to fight our brothers. They're Shiites like us, not Israelis," he said."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Two commanders in Basra are sent back to Baghdad  ---  http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/africa/17iraq.php
A quote...."BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government recalled to Baghdad on Wednesday the two security commanders who led the recent troubled operation in the southern city of Basra that set off fighting across the south and in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods. -- The commanders, Lieutenant General Mohan al-Fraiji, who led the Iraqi Army's operations against Shiite militiamen, and General Jaleel Khalaf, who led the police, were asked to return to high-level positions they had held previously at the Ministry of Defense."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Occupation in fragments  ---  http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/892/re92.htm
A quote...."10 - 16 April 2008 Issue No. 892 -- American support for the government of Nuri Al-Maliki during the conflict is clear proof that there exists a "grand deal" between the US administration and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) under Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim and the Daawa Party under Al-Maliki to divide Iraq into three federal regions: one, which is already there, for Iraqi Kurds; a second for Iraqi Shias in the southern provinces; and third for Iraqi Sunnis in the west of Iraq. Sadr has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the idea of a federal southern Iraq, as has Mohamed Al-Yaaqoubi, leader of the Fadhila Party. Many Iraqi secular political leaders, such as Iyad Allawi, and Sunni religious leader Harith Al-Dhari also oppose federalism. The fierce military confrontation in Basra and Baghdad was a culmination of tension between the two sides as members of the Mahdi Army came under heavy pressure from government- backed militias, mainly the Badr Brigades and Al-Baqir, and the Iraqi police and armed forces."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

US and Iraqi military continue push into Sadr City  ---  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/iraq-a16.shtml
A quote...."16 April 2008 -- US and Iraqi troops are continuing operations against strongholds of the Madhi Army—the militia aligned with cleric Moqtada al-Sadr—in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra. The vast working class slums of Sadr City, home to more than two million people, have been under siege for the past fortnight despite an announcement by Sadr on March 30 calling his militiamen off the streets."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Airstrike kills 4 in Basra, 2 die in Sadr City clashes - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D902TEH83&show_article=1
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AP) - Apr 16 06:35 AM US/Eastern -- Warplanes struck militants firing rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqi soldiers in a Shiite militia stronghold of the southern city of Basra on Wednesday, killing four of the gunmen, the British military said."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iraq's Biggest Aid Agency?  Muqtada al-Sadr & Co  ---  http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/16/901428.aspx
A quote...."BAGHDAD – April 16, 2008 9:00 AM -- For Um Wissam, a small office packed with food aid in Shiite-dominated Sadr City is a lifeline. With her son killed two years ago, the widow has nowhere else to turn for support. - "They're really great," she said. "They give us whatever they possibly can." - "They" are fervent anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Al-Hakim's Iraq and Sadr's Iraq - http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/04-2008/Article-20080416-57a1b2b7-c0a8-10ed-01e2-5c735ff528a8/story.html
A quote...."16/04/08 -- Tehran sided with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and al-Hakim against al-Sadr. Iran had bet on both sides for a number of reasons. The most important of these reasons is that al-Hakim was and remains the most enthusiastic supporter of federalism. He did not object to the constitution that sets out a federal identity for Iraq, made up of sects and ethnicities - "The Arabs (in Iraq) are a part of the Arab Nation". On the other hand, al-Sadr opposed the constitution, federalism and the division of the country's wealth, and this naturally is not in Iran's interest."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

    Battle in Sadr City  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041608U.shtml
    Bill Moyers Journal
    t r u t h o u t | Programming Note

    Airtime: Friday, [April] 18, 2008, [this Friday] at 9:00 PM (EDT) on PBS (check local listings at....
    Go to Original). --- http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html

    Just back from being under fire in Sadr City this week, award-winning journalist Leila Fadel, Baghdad bureau chief for
    McClatchy, gives viewers on-the-ground analysis of the latest events and a close-up look at the state of the war

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Wednesday round-up - [ Day 23 ]
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Islamic Radicals Announce Accord with Sunni Tribes [in Iraq]  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/04/islamic-radicals-announce-accord-with.html
A quote...."The USG Open Source Center translates a speech by Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, the putative leader of the radical Islamic State of Iraq, which has committed many bombings in the center-north of the country."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Rising Afghan violence leaves U.S. scrambling for troops  ---  http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/865481.html
A quote...."WASHINGTON – While America's attention remains focused on Iraq, violence is escalating in Afghanistan, worrying senior U.S. defense officials and commanders who are struggling to find some 7,000 more American and European troops to combat resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida forces."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pak refuses [US] access to nuclear arsenal - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://us.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/16nuke.htm
A quote...."Pakistan on Wednesday ruled out giving any foreign official access to the National Command Authority, which is responsible for controlling the country's nuclear arsenal. -- Commenting on news reports that the United States had proposed to accredit an official deployed at the American embassy in Islamabad to the NCA, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said, "Delegations and individuals do meet the members of the NCA, but it is not possible to accredit an official to the NCA."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Defying Israel, Carter meets with Hamas  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1355&thisview=item
Video - A quote...."Former US President Jimmy Carter continued his tour of the Middle East,Tuesday, against the wishes of the Israeli and US governments, which have strenuously objected to his planned meetings with Hamas leaders. Carter met Nasser al-Shaer, a senior Hamas leader, and laid a wreath on the grave of Yasser Arafat. "I'm just trying to understand different opinions and communicate, provide communications between people that won't communicate with each other,"
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Hamas delegation in Egypt to meet Jimmy Carter  ---  http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/04/16/48415.html
A quote...."A Hamas delegation crossed into Egypt from Gaza on Wednesday for talks with Jimmy Carter after Israel barred the former U.S. president from visiting the Palestinian territory."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Survey: Nasrallah is the most admired leader in the Arab world - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975572.html
A quote...."Hezbollah chief Sheikh Nassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader in the Arab world, according to a poll released recently by the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. -- Nasrallah seems to be gaining in popularity, with some 26 percent of respondents voicing support for him. Syrian President Bashar Assad also won an increase in popularity, according to the poll."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Has Israel Finally Met Its Match? The Meaning of Hizbullah's Big Win  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/shahid04142008.html
A quote...."On January 31, 2008, when the Winograd Commission submitted its final report on the Second Lebanese War of July 2006, this was a first in Israeli history: a report on why the Israeli military had failed in a war."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Documents Obtained By ACLU Describe Charges Of Murder And Torture Of Prisoners In U.S. Custody  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43132&s1=h1
A quote...."NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The documents from the military’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), obtained as a result of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include the first on-the-ground reports of torture in Gardez, Afghanistan to be publicly released."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Border point with Iran turned into international crossing  ---  http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43134&s1=h1
A quote...."The unofficial border point of Haj Omran linking northern Iraq with Iran has been refurbished and turned into an international border crossing. - Iraq’s Kurdish north comprising the three provinces of Sulaimaniya, Arbil and Dahouk relies almost exclusively on trade with Iran. - Iranian goods, businessmen, companies and banks work openly in the area whose shops and supermarkets brim with imported Iranian commodities."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Pakistan Seeking to Strengthen Ties with Iran  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8701280763
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani Tuesday said Pakistan values its relations with Iran and the new government would take steps for further strengthening ties between the two brotherly countries."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

India to Partner Iran on Russia Rail Link  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8701280733
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and India have signed an agreement that would help establish a new rail link between Iran and Russia."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Brazil and Russia sign agreement to develop jet fighter  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13166&formato=HTML
A quote...."Brazil and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesday to jointly develop top-line jet fighters and satellite launch vehicles. Strategic Affairs Minister Roberto Mangabeira Unger said the agreement will lead to the development of fifth-generation jet fighters that are built using sophisticated engineering, such as composite materials, stealth technology and advanced radar."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

MEXICO:  Murder of Reporters Highlights Indigenous Divisions  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42018
A quote...."MEXICO CITY, Apr 16 (IPS) - The airwaves of "Radio Copala, the Voice That Breaks the Silence" only cover a few hectares in an indigenous region in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. But since the murder of two of the station’s four reporters, they have reached across borders."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Torture Memo  ---  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/gillers
Special Note - A quote...."The Justice Department is investigating the lawyers whose memos gave the Bush Administration the legal support it needed for waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques. We are "examining whether the legal advice in these memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys," H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote to two Democratic senators in February."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Bangor: War protesters use Tax Day to send message  ---  http://bangornews.com/news/t/city.aspx?articleid=163095&zoneid=176
A quote...."BANGOR, Maine — Opponents of the Iraq war spent Tuesday, the deadline for filing income tax returns, working to educate Mainers about the costs of war." -- Also posted at Common Dreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/16/8323/
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

CAMPOS: A tortured defense  ---  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/16/campos-a-tortured-defense/
Some quotes...."In 2003, when he was a deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, John Yoo wrote a long legal memorandum arguing that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to torture people. -- Furthermore, Yoo claimed, the president's power to torture can't be limited by Congress, the courts, or international treaties. As long as the torture is being carried out because the president believes it's necessary, Yoo argued, it's legal and cannot be made illegal. -- Yoo's arguments bothered some people quite a bit. His memo, after all, was not merely some academic exercise. Yoo provided the U.S. government with a handy legal justification for committing acts normally considered war crimes, and our government duly proceeded to torture hundreds of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at Guantanamo Bay (several of the victims died as a result). -- Yoo then returned to his tenured professorship at Berkeley's law school. Now some of the people who were unhappy with Yoo for helping our government commit war crimes are wondering whether any of this might be relevant to Yoo's current employment."  --  Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/16/8324/
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Pope and the President  ---  http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=310436
Some quotes...."Instead of posing with the pontiff he might want to listen to what this particular pope has to say about global warming, fighting poverty and, above all, promoting peace."  -- "He has said that the leaders of the world must do much more to feed the poor, fight disease and support the interests of workers rather than the bottom lines of corporations - And he has bluntly said that Bush's preemptive attack on Iraq and the subsequent occupation of that country does not follow the Catholic doctrine of a "just war."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Terrorism case [the Liberty City Seven] ends in second mistrial [for six of them] in Miami
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1636110320080416
Breaking News - Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:17pm EDT -- A quote...."MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. judge declared a mistrial on Wednesday for six men accused of joining forces with al Qaeda to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as part of an Islamic jihad against the United States. -- The decision was a setback for U.S. prosecutors. It was the second mistrial declared by District Court Judge Joan Lenard in the case involving the men from Miami's impoverished Liberty City neighborhood."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Liberty City Seven: Mistrial  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/the-liberty-cit.html
Related article - A quote...."Apparently Alberto Gonzales - the former US Attorney General (who will hopefully someday soon be standing with John Yoo at the Hague) - did not think anyone would notice his hyped up terra arrests before the elections or before important anti-civil liberties measures were to be passed by the Bush cabal.  But as with all of the cases that Gonzo helped push and his underlings helped deliver (with the exception of Jose Padilla), the case of the Miami six, does not hold up in court as today's mistrial has demonstrated."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

FBI Abuse of "National Security Letters" -- New Revelations - More on the FBI's NSL fake-out operation.  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8709
A quote...."The investigation into a suspected accomplice to mass murder was sidetracked because FBI bureaucrats sought additional powers they "desperately wanted," in order to escape judicial oversight and expand their brief to shower the public with flimsy National Security Letters. During 2004-2005 for example, the Bureau issued some 100,000 NSLs, often on no more than a hunch."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Conspiracy to Lie to Congress? - And even more on the FBI's NSL fake-out operation. - mpg
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=57071
A quote...."The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just published a report  ---  http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/report-nsl-ncstate  ---  on the misuse of a National Security Letter by the FBI. Using the Freedom of Information Act, they obtained FBI documents showing that the FBI purposely delayed an investigation in the 2005 London bombings. From the EFF blog:"  ---  http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/04/eff-issues-report-abuse-national-security-letter  ---  This is the US government in action, spending our tax dollars so they can sponsor fake intell, psyops operations, and fake-outs like this little gem here. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Financial Meltdown And The Madness Of Imperialism - posted at CounterCurrents  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/
  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/lotta160408.htm
Special Note - A quote...."[To the possessor of money capital] “the process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.”—  *Karl Marx*, Capital, Volume II, “The Circuit of Money Capital” -- This editor had no idea that Karl Marx of all people would predict the rise - and fall -  of a corporation like Enron.  Never forget that before they fell they were thinking of setting up a market to literally buy and sell....the weather. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Nothing for Families and Retirees - A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson04142008.html
Special Note - A quote...."If the move to a Unitary Executive of unfettered presidential power frightens you, America's radical right turn to Unitary Finance should compound your fears--and your debts as well. The financial events of the last two weeks of March 2008 demonstrate that the "economic royalists" and "money changers" whom Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) drove from the temple of finance have returned to mismanage our economy into dire straights of unprecedented risk--debt creation,  euphemized as "leveraging" and "wealth creation." -- Also posted at BLN  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6243
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

The Unmaking of the Market  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/16/8325/
A quote...."Once upon a time, we had a healthy and robust government — public structures to look out for the public good. From roads to water systems to schools to emergency management, we used our shared tax dollars to pay for our shared needs. Then, around the 1980s, corporations looking for the next business opportunity figured that attacking government could open up a whole new industry, making money off the things that make America work."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Hedge-Fund Managers Score Biggest Ever Payday  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/16/hedge-fund-managers-score_n_96912.html
A quote...."It's a good day to be a hedge fund manager. -- Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine has just released it's annual ranking of top hedge funds earners, and some of the salaries are astounding."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

U.S. Housing Starts Slide to Lowest Level in 17 Years (Update3) -- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=adO6C5qms8ew&refer=home
A quote...."April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Housing starts in the U.S. dropped more than twice as much as forecast in March to a 17-year low, signaling that declining construction will keep eroding economic growth this year."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

New York factory sentiment surges in April - Good news for a change. - mpg
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/new-york-factory-sentiment-surges/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B2EC38B76%2DA16D%2D4B74%2DA766%2D4D169DF27F0A%7D&dist=
A quote...."(MarketWatch) -- Encouraged by stronger orders and shipments, manufacturers in New York state were once again positive about the economy in April, the New York Federal Reserve Bank reported Tuesday."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Check out these two articles....
[Britain's] Factory inflation soars  ---  http://uk.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUKONS00346220080414
& French inflation surges to decade high in March  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7463107
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

And yet....U.S. consumer prices rise on food, energy March CPI rises [only] 0.3% and core rate gains [only] 0.2%
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-march-consumer-prices-rise/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7BA0DA57A4%2DB53E%2D4147%2D9CB3%2D114E90B2A99D%7D&dist=
A quote...."After virtually no change in February, the consumer price index for March rose 0.3% -- matching the estimate derived in a survey of analysts by MarketWatch -- as energy and food prices gained. See Economic Calendar." -- underline by website editor.

That's right folks, when using these astonishing figures the US's actual CPI inflation rate for the last two months has been just 0.15%. -- That comes to just 1.8% for a whole year -- ([Feb=0.0%] + [March=0.3%] = 0.15% / month * 12 = 1.8% per year).

You see people, all that "inflation" was just your misguided perceptions gone haywire.  It was all in your collective heads, a mass delusion caused by your over-active imaginations.

We really don't have any inflation according to Bernanke and his people.

Guess we don't have to worry about it anymore. - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Dollar Falls to Record Against Euro as EU Inflation Quickens  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5gvur5ht9hQ&refer=home
A quote...."April 16 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell to a record low against the euro after European inflation accelerated in March, reducing the chances that the region's central bank will follow the Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates."
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====

Iran's top cop busted in underground brothel  ---  http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/04/16/48378.html
This one was just too funny not to post. - mpg -- A quote...."Iran has arrested Tehran's chief of police, who was in charge of fighting vice, after he was caught last month with six nude women, a spokesman for the judiciary said Tuesday. -- Police chief Gen. Reza Zarei, was caught in a police raid on an underground brothel and found with six naked women believed to be prostitutes, which is illegal in Iran. -- His case is under investigation, spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said, refusing to elaborate." - underline by website editor - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ====