Category: War on Terrorism
A real eye opening article
This is a real eye opener, it comes via The Republic Broadcasting Network:
John Yoo: The President’s Executioner (via Global Research)
The title of this article – The President’s Executioner – is a play on words. It refers to professor John Yoo, who teaches law at Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley. But this man – mild-mannered by all appearances – is not what he seems. He is the man who was, more often than nearly any other, behind the White House decisions to violate the international laws of war. He was the one who told the White House how to get away with committing war crimes. While he may have been a henchman for others who instructed him to make the arguments he did, he repeatedly refused to reverse himself, both while he worked in the Department of Justice and after he left that office and returned to academia.
But it was also during this time period, as we now know, that the Department of Justice became “politicized.” Instead of executing the laws as it should have been doing, the Justice Department became an instrument of President Bush, executing his wishes.
And John Yoo executed White House wishes to twist the law into something it was not and was not meant to be.
Yoo, however, did more than execute orders. The so-called “Torture Memos,” in the writing of which Yoo was an active and primary participant, opened the door to such abuse of the laws that some detainees were actually murdered. For all practical purposes, they were executed, without a trial or guilty verdict.
Thus, the President’s Executioner.
Go read the whole thing, it’s quite the eye opener. 
Cross-Posted @ The American Nationalist News Service
Editorial: I just lost all respect for Hillary Clinton
Undoubtedly, you already know what it is that I am referring. The statement by Hillary Clinton that she would obliterate Iran, that country attempted an attack on Israel with nuclear weapons.
Here is the snippet of the interview, that is coming up on Good Morning America.:
She did, however attempt to back off the statement on MSNBC:
My friends, this is nothing more than a page out the George W. Bush playbook. Was it not Hillary Clinton, when confronted by some facts about her policies, fly into a screeching premenstrual rage, about Barack Obama’s tactics being right out of the playbook of Karl Rove? Now, with the table’s turned and Hillary being under the gun, Hillary herself does the same exact thing, only notches up the rhetoric more. Yet, she gets a free pass, because she is trailing, because she is the underdog. Not from this writer she does not.
This Nation, for the last 6 years, has been in quagmire called Iraq. We were lead into this war, based upon intelligence that, in fact, was found to be false. Yet, this administration has continued to move the goal posts as to the reason we had to remain in Iraq. Yet our President in his stubbornness and blind allegiance to a totally flawed and poisonous political ideology has almost strained our Military to the point of almost breaking the back of those of whom we entrust our safety, our lives, our well being.
Now we have some so-called underdog Presidential candidate who is attempting to compare herself to Franklin D. Roosevelt, or John F. Kennedy, both paramount leaders in the annals of the history of America, all so she can attempt to appeal to those who think striking Iran might just be a good idea.
The tough reality is, that involving this country in another military escalation of this sort would do nothing more than further strain and possibly destroy what military we have left. This is outside of the scope of instituting a military draft. Not to mention, any sort of Military action, outside of the approval of the United Nations would result in further destabilization of that very region. Not to mention the United States relations with our allies in the region.
I am not sure exactly what Hillary Clinton is attempting to do, but it could spell the very end of her bid for the office of President of United States.
More Coverage At Memeorandum
Did the Pentagon try and shape the war’s image?
Red Meat for the Democrats, but it doesn’t surprise me. Of course, Some are living in denial. Some more than others.
The Article: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand (Via New York Times)
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.
I’d head on over and read it, it is a 11 page report on how the Government attempted to shape the image of the war, Gitmo and the whole deal. It is no big surprise to me. See, I know how Neo-Conservatives work, they know no bounds. War is just a means to justify making a profit. Even it means sacrificing some of our own. Now, I won’t sit here and attempt to compare Neo-Conservatives to Nazi’s, that’s going a wee bit overboard. But there are striking similarities. But to say that they’re exactly alike, that’s pushing it. Even I won’t get drawn into such foolishness.
Now, before anyone accuses me of being a Liberal, and just hating conservatives, Let me set you straight, I grew up in Church, I have the Christian morals instilled in me as a child. I know that Homosexuality is immoral, I do not believe in gay rights, at all. I believe abortion, of any sort, is quite frankly, murder.
However, I also know that there is evil within the Conservative Party. The Neo-Conservatives, who are, made of, or at least originally were, made up of ex-Democrats, who brought their warmongering mentality with them. They crossed over, when the Democrat Party began to embrace the civil rights movement. Some of you might remember the Dixiecrat debacle, that was the first wave, the second wave was in 1964, when the civil rights bill was passed.
Many Democrat’s and most real Conservatives, felt that the bill was wrong, in that the civil rights act should have been a State issue and not one of Federal Government. Notably, one of those people was Barry Goldwater, A Conservative, of whom many Liberals hold up today as some sort of a hero. I just don’t understand, why some Liberal talk show hosts, claim to love a party, who in fact, turned on their father’s in 1964, and painted him as mentally unstable. Odd bunch they are.
Another thing that I’d like to point out is that not every person in America, who holds to any sort of Conservative convictions, considers the Republican Party to be on the mark. One only need go to NewsWithViews and WorldNetDaily to see that there are many people out there that just feel that the G.O.P. is not the party of old. Now I realize that those links might generate a giggle among some of you, and yes, there is some propaganda on those sites. I don’t deny that. But there’s a whole bunch of truth on them sites too. On average, the truth to propaganda ratio on those sites is about 10 to 3, really. This is why I read them.
The people that quite frankly disturb me, are the people who blindly accept what the G.O.P. says and does, as pure Gospel, those are the strange folk.
Others on this article: Washington Monthly, Democracy Project, Weekly Standard Blog, Emptywheel, The Garlic, The Gun Toting Liberal™, Blue Girl, Red State, Firedoglake, Feministe, Matthew Yglesias, Economist’s View, Truthdig, SWJ Blog, Macsmind, Blog entry, Corrente, Think Progress
A Video, that everyone needs to watch…
I think everyone needs to watch this:
It’s pretty scary, but all true.
If you enjoyed this video, please consider a donation to this Blog. Click here to listen to a message from me, about why I need the donations.
On This day……
It was on this Day, April 19, 1775, on which Americans took up arms against their king, and bled, at the crack of terrible dawn.
Jules Crittenden has the full account. It’s because of these men, that we’re free today.
God Bless Our Military. It was because of these brave men, that we’re free today.
God Bless America.
Here’s a great tune:
Any of you liberal hosebags don’t like it, you can suck it, as far as I’m concerned.
Blogs 4 Borders Video Blogburst #52
The true costs of illegal immigration: Healthcare!
100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders. When will the madness end?
100% Preventable follow up: One family faces the crushing grief caused by open borders and lax enforcement.
This has been the Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst. The Blogs For Borders Blogroll is dedicated to American sovereignty, border security and a sane immigration policy. If you’d like to join find out how right here.
If you operate a patriotic business, website, blog or are simply a generous individual with a patriotic bent and would like to sponsor a show you can contact us about that here.
A new Progressive Jewish PAC
(via Huffington Post)
Video:
Quote:
At last, at long last. There will be a hard money lobby in Washington that represents progressives on Israel/Palestine issues, that lobbies for Israeli/Palestinian peace, that acts as a counterweight to AIPAC.
(Snip!)
Unlike the existing groups, this group will actually support candidates for office.
Right now, they are taking nominations for who they should support in the fall. Make the best case that your favored candidate will work to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace. That’s exactly the dynamic we need: candidates competing to do the most to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, as opposed to competing to do the opposite.
There is no time like the present. This week, former President Carter is meeting with the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Syria. As Carter has said, "There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
Of course, as the Washington Post notes, it will be the case for the foreseeable future that AIPAC will have more money and more people.
But that misses the fact that those with less money can have more influence when they are telling the truth, if they can just muscle their way to the microphone.
While I must agree with the content of this video, the rhetoric used by those on the far right, is not what the majority of the main stream America believes.
On the other hand, the idea that Jimmy Carter met with a convicted terrorist living in exile, totally burns my boots. Hamas is a terrorist organization, and anyone who meets with them, supports that mentality. Sorry Liberals, I don’t believe there is any way anyone, who claims to be Pro-American, could go and meet with someone, who is against the values that America stands for, and supports Islamic rule. Sorry, I don’t buy the diplomacy line.
For all we know, Hamas helped fund the Sept 11’th attacks in America.
Cross an Al-Qeada Boss? Get a nasty Memo!
That’s what the LA Times is reporting.
But they’ll cut our heads off, hypocritical bastards. 
Others: The New Republic, Commentary, democracyarsenal.org, Independent Liberal, Swampland and Secular Blasphemy
An Excellent Video
I like this video. I think no matter what your opinion is of the Iraq War and Politics behind it. Our troops deserve nothing but our support. Anyone one who does anything other than this, quite frankly, is un-American.
What strikes me, is how the person the introduced this, is like so no interested in handling the story. He can’t even smile when doing a report? Can you say Bias?
Cross Posted @ The American Nationalist News Service and Chuck’s Place
Editorial: Answer to a very stupid Question
Tom Blumer at Pajamas Media asks this question.
Quote:
The current president has done more than any other to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa. Why haven’t the media noticed?
Two Reasons, for one there is an election taking place, just in case you forgot, and the main stream media is also too busy covering our President ripping our Constitution to shreds and violating the various Geneva conventions.
Let me give you some working examples…:
These Videos come from one of the best political shows on American television, his reporting transcends political parties and appeals to Americans who still believe in that Constitution and the values it stands for.
The Videos:
and finally, one of the most telling of videos ever to be broadcast on National American Television, This Commentary, by one of the highest rated Political Television Commentators out there:
Now as to your question about AIDS, While I know and personally believe AIDS is a horrible and dreadful disease, it is being over shadowed by a Presidency that is, in the most Conservative of terms, shameful. George W. Bush and his clan of Neo-Conservative, war-mongering, thugs have disgraced America, Disgraced the Republican Party, possibly to the point of never, ever, being able to gain access to the White House, for the next four to six years or possibly and quite frankly, hopefully, for longer than this. Why? All because a very simple minded man, who felt he needed to out accomplish his Father, and in the process has put the United States of America in one of it’s worse positions in foreign relations, in it’s many years of existence as a Nation.
Now it would be easy, to dismiss me as some disenfranchised, Anti-American, Liberal with an attitude, but allow me to make some very valid points here. When the John Birch Society, Writers at NewsWithViews.com, WorldNetDaily, like Dr. W.R. Marshall, Ph.D, Cliff Kincaid, Chuck Baldwin, Devvy Kidd, Joseph Farah, Ilana Mercer are saying that the President of the United States of America has abused his powers, disgraced the Nation and totally ignored the Constitution all for his perverted and rather narrow sighted political view, then something is very wrong.
And yet, the Republicans just continue to sit, like mindless trolls and continue to allow this man to completely and abjectly, lie to them and tell them that he is protecting America. All because of a now dead, half baked, Former Democrat, Former President told some reporters, "Thou Shall not speak against thy fellow Republicans". I am sorry, But I do not, for one second, believe that Ronald Reagan meant that you should sit idly by and watch as some criminal warmonger destroys America, the values it was based upon and the Constitution that serves, as the very underpinnings of founding principles of this Nation.
I will end this rather lengthy Blog entry, turned editorial with this thought, if the Republican Party and Conservatives in America do not wake up to the fact that they have been betrayed, lied to, and double crossed by the most evil of persons, within the Conservatives and within the Republican Party. The Republican Party will, in fact, go the way of the Whig Party of old.
I truly hope that they awake from their slumber before then.
Republicans Reportedly "transitioning" away from the FISA Telecom Immunity fight….
Glenn Greenwald Reports that The Hill is reporting the following:
I’m still traveling and so have only a little bit of time to comment, but The Hill is reporting that the GOP is de-prioritizing their efforts to enact the Rockefeller/Cheney FISA bill:
"House Republicans are poised to shift their focus from national security to the economy, hoping to rally opposition to what they claim are Democratic plans to raise taxes amid the economic downturn.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected to announce Thursday that the House GOP floor emphasis will transition away from passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and earmark reform to "stop the tax hike.""
I tend to think that the Republicans, at least the ones in the Senate realize that they are not going to win this fight and that it could cost them some serious votes in the coming election. So, I tend to think they’ve changed their priorities.
Unlike some of the more of the ardent Right Wingers or as the rest of the World calls them, the Right Wing Lunatic Fridge, I know that if these companies get immunity, America’s Justice system would be totally undermined. Now, do I believe that the Bush Administration broke the law? I do not know that, as I have zero proof of such claim.
My feelings are, if the Bush Administration has done nothing wrong, then what do they have to hide? If they’ve done nothing wrong, they should not have a problem with the investigations or lawsuit, because they would be vindicated.
Unlike some of the more far right Conservatives, I do not believe that Corporate power should be protected. Every American, of any Religious persuasion, and yes, that does include Muslim, have the right to legal recourse, if they feel that they’ve been unfairly investigated. That is one of our Nation’s founding principles.
Others: Think Progress
Did Petraeus Overplay His Hand?
Philip Carter thinks so…
The Article: Petraeus Overplays His Hand (Via Intel Dump @ WaPo)
Except that in making this pitch, Petraeus and Crocker overplayed their hand. They overstated the threat posed by al-Qaeda in Iraq in an effort to justify the mission — a mindset that has generated a deeply flawed strategy. They also overplayed the surge’s success — downplaying or discounting factors that likely did more to create today’s improved security conditions. While their "Anaconda" strategy looks cool on a PowerPoint slide, it confuses the issues of control and influence, putting too much stock in America’s ability to engineer success in Iraq. And, perhaps most tellingly, the two men made the case for perseverance without placing Iraq in the context of vital U.S. national interests, offering only apocalyptic predictions of what would happen if we don’t stay the course.
Andrew Sullivan weighs in:
But that was their carefully prescribed task. I don’t fault them. They’re not responsible for overall strategy. At one point last year, I was worried that Petraeus was being used politically. I was wrong. He’s been a magnificent general, in a near-impossible situation. Ditto Crocker. Along with Patrick Fitzgerald, they strike me as among the most impressive public servants of our time.
Now that is a bit overstated, I think, Because I personally believe that General Patraeus is, in the Bush Administration’s eyes, a pawn. A Pawn in a Neo-Conservative chess game.
While I admire Patraeus for doing his job, I think he knows what he is doing. He’s keeping his head down, and doing his job, and when the President is out of office. He will write a book, that will basically indict his bosses. I could be wrong, but I think General Patraeus is holding his cards to his vest and will tell all, when it’s all over with.
Should be interesting indeed.
Others: Washington Post and SWJ Blog
No end in sight…
Hmmmmm… I guess that movie was correct.
The Article: Frustrated Senators See No Exit Signs (via washingtonpost.com)
Asked repeatedly yesterday what "conditions" he is looking for to begin substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after this summer’s scheduled drawdown, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said he will know them when he sees them. For frustrated lawmakers, it was not enough.
"A year ago, the president said we couldn’t withdraw because there was too much violence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "Now he says we can’t afford to withdraw because violence is down." Asked Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): "Where do we go from here?"
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said: "I think people want a sense of what the end is going to look like."
But the bottom line was that there was no bottom line. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker echoed what they said seven months ago in their last update to Congress — often using similar words. Iraq’s armed forces continue to improve, overall levels of violence are lower than they were last year, and political reconciliation is happening, albeit still more slowly than they would like.
That’s because with this Presidential Administration, there is no exit sign!
That’s the way his Neo-Conservative planners wanted it. To keep us in that war forever! That’s because Neo-Conservatives believe in perpetual war! Even at the expense of the Nation’s Military.
That’s Neo-Con Game, and we’re playing it…. At our Tax Expense.
A good Movie:
Buy the Movie:
Amazon.com: No End in Sight
Others: Washington Wire, Slate, Times of London, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Real Clear Politics, New York Times, SWJ Blog, Sister Toldjah, New York Post, Connecting.the.Dots and Intel Dump and more via Memeornadum
White House does John Conlee?
Seems so…
Via Think Progress:
During today’s White House press briefing, deputy spokesman Tony Fratto admitted that the White House has, at least up until recently, been looking at Iraq through “rose-colored glasses.” Responding to a question about the rising violence in Iraq, Fratto said, “I think we have thrown out all of the rose-colored glasses in how we look at Iraq and try to look at it through clear lenses as to what is going on in the country.” Fratto later added: “Like I said, we threw out the rose-colored glasses. I think we have a clear-eyed view of what’s happening in Baghdad.”
Think Progress has the video.
Cue John Conlee:
But then again, hasn’t George W. Bush’s Presidency been served by looking through those glasses?
Others: Salon and The Carpetbagger Report
Living proof that our Government is staffed blatant idiots….
I saw this and I thought, "Has common sense went totally out the window?"
The Article: For the Record: Seriously, What is the FBI Doing? (via Investigative Project on Terrorism)
Quote:
In February, we exposed the latest FBI (and CIA) outrage, advertising for recruits in a pro-terrorist, anti-American magazine, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) – (see: Looking Under a Rock: FBI and CIA Hit New Low in Recruitment Drive). Both of our top national security agencies had placed online advertisements on the webpage of a magazine that included a hagiography to a terrorist the FBI had worked almost a decade to investigate and prosecute, Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian.
Just over a month later, it is clear that the FBI has learned nothing. The agency is advertising for recruits in the Arab American News, another publication with a long history of support for terrorism, terrorists and terrorist organizations. The current edition has an editorial titled, "Let our people go!," under an ad banner recruiting for the FBI (which also appears on the home page of the website), about accused Iraqi spy Muthanna al-Hanooti, which states:
Arab American political activist Muthanna al-Hanooti was arrested and jailed this week by federal officials upon arrival at Detroit Metropolitan Airport returning from a trip to the Middle East. The following day he was charged with two counts of conspiracy and three counts of lying to the FBI about working for agents with the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein. (emphasis added)
Screen shot of said website:
I mean, really gentleman, can we be anymore stupid than this? Advertising on a pro-terrorist website??!?! Somebody dropped a huge ball here, somewhere along the line.
That’s our wonderful government, being ran incompetent ogres, who base their terror warnings on "Gut Feelings".
…..and we PAY these people??!?!
Others: The Jawa Report and Little Green Footballs