August 12, 2008
Bush Tells Moscow To Leave Georgia ~ Followed By Russia Response
Bush tells Moscow to leave Georgia
Bush has warned Russia to reverse course in Georgia, saying Moscow's military strike there had damaged its world standing and endangered ties with the United States and Europe.
“Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people,” Mr Bush said at the White House today.
“Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.”
He said the Georgian Government already had accepted outlines of a peace agreement that the Russian Government previously suggested it would accept.
Its terms include “an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of forces from the conflict zone, a return to the military status quo as of August 6, and a commitment to refrain from the use of force,” Mr Bush said.
He noted that European leaders and officials were pressing for Russia's agreement to the peace plan.
“Russia's Government must respect Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Mr Bush said. “Russia's government must reverse the course that it appears to be on as a first step toward resolving this conflict.”
“Russia's actions this week have raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region.”
Mr Bush's comments came just after the UN Security Council began fresh talks on draft text calling for an immediate truce in the Russia-Georgia conflict, agreed by US and European diplomats after several days of discord.
Few details were immediately available about the draft UN resolution, but the proposed text was based on a three-point peace plan that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is trying to sell to Tbilisi and Moscow.
The French blueprint called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities; full respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia” and “the re-establishment of the situation that existed before” Georgia sent forces into its breakaway South Ossetia enclave last week to wrest control from Moscow-backed separatists.
Earlier a diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, reported “good progress” after the expert-level meeting at France's UN mission and said the participants were consulting with their capitals on the next step.
The diplomat said the US side wanted tougher language condemning what Washington saw as Moscow's “disproportionate” response to the Georgian offensive.
But the Europeans were much more interested in crafting a text that would enjoy broad support, particularly from Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the council, he added.
“This is going to take some time, except if you want a Russian veto, which is not the solution,” the diplomat said.
Meanwhile, as Russian forces punched deeper into Georgian territory to crush any resistance to their withering assault, Mr Kouchner discussed his peace plan with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili before heading to Moscow.
The two visited the Georgian city of Gori, close to South Ossetia, and were forced to take cover when an unidentified helicopter flew overhead.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was also to visit Moscow and Tbilisi tomorrow, according to Mr Saakashvili.
Despite the flurry of international diplomacy to head off a wider conflict, Russia maintained an uncompromising stance, with its ambassador to NATO saying Moscow could not deal with Mr Saakashvili, a man it now views as a war criminal.
“Saakashvili is no longer a man that we can deal with,” Dmitry Rogozin said in Brussels.
“He must be punished for breaching international law. He is responsible for many war crimes (against South Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers).”
And Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov dismissed the peace initiative, saying it did not amount to a ceasefire.
A “ceasefire agreement is signed by two sides when they meet,” he told CNN, adding first “we need a written agreement between Georgia on one side, South Ossetia and Abkhazia .. that they will never use force in the future.”
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GEORGIAN Soldiers
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Russia set to reject French peace plan
INTERNATIONAL efforts to mediate an end to the conflict between Georgia and Russia were set to intensify today, but Moscow signalled it opposes a peace plan calling for an immediate truce.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, was due in Moscow to hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on a plan to end the conflict.
But Russia's ambassador to the UN yesterday rejected the proposed Western draft resolution in the Security Council based on a three-point French peace plan.
"I cannot see us accepting this French draft,'' Vitaly Churkin told reporters, referring to a French-drafted text agreed by Western ambassadors.
The plan, which Tbilisi has accepted, calls for an immediate truce, respect for Georgia's territorial integrity and a return to the status quo that prevailed before Georgian troops punched into South Ossetia last week to wrest control from Moscow-backed separatists.
Churkin objected to the fact that the draft resolution did not refer to "Georgian aggression and to the atrocities we have seen''.
Moscow has accused Georgian forces of killing 2,000 civilians as well as Russian peacekeepers in what it described as war crimes.
Churkin however expressed hope that an acceptable draft would eventually be worked out and listed two Russian conditions: Georgian forces must pull out of South Ossetia and "the Georgians (must) agree to sign agreements on the non-use of force with the Ossetians and with the Abkhazians.''
Earlier yesterday Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov dismissed the EU efforts.
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Wild Thing's comment........
Putin's a two-bit thug.
"...We no longer know the limits of the invading Russian army—Russia seems intent on overthrowing the democratically elected government of Georgia and occupying the country," said Alexander Lomaia, the Secretary of the National Security Council. "As a consequence, the National Security Council has just decided to bring the Georgian army to Tbilisi in order to defend the capital and prevent the fall of Georgia.." --- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
LINK for quote
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:55 AM | Comments (10)
Putins Push
Putin Makes His Move
Washington Post ...for complete article
The man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" has reestablished a virtual czarist rule in Russia and is trying to restore the country to its once-dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from oil and gas; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply to Europe; with a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world's third-largest military budget, Vladimir Putin believes that now is the time to make his move.....
His war against Georgia is part of this grand strategy. Putin cares no more about a few thousand South Ossetians than he does about Kosovo's Serbs. Claims of pan-Slavic sympathy are pretexts designed to fan Russian great-power nationalism at home and to expand Russia's power abroad.
Unfortunately, such tactics always seem to work. While Russian bombers attack Georgian ports and bases, Europeans and Americans, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blame the West for pushing Russia too hard on too many issues.
It is true that many Russians were humiliated by the way the Cold War ended, and Putin has persuaded many to blame Boris Yeltsin and Russian democrats for this surrender to the West. The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the "shameful Versailles diktat" imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back. ...
Now, as then... they are being manipulated to justify autocracy at home and to convince Western powers that accommodation -- or to use the once-respectable term, appeasement -- is the best policy.
But the reality is that on most of these issues it is Russia, not the West or little Georgia, that is doing the pushing.
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Wild Thing's comment.............
"Europeans and Americans, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blame the West for pushing Russia too hard on too many issues."
This is BS! The Russians are to blame for their own actions and no one else. I am tired of our country being blamed for things we did not start.
Russia is not just standing by doing nothing, they are ACTIVELY trying to thwart us, causing the deaths of our troops, and HELPING Iran get the bomb.
And with Putin, they have drifted massively backwards to becoming almost what they were before.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (8)
August 11, 2008
Bush, Cheney, McCain and Obama Comments On Russia-Georgia War
President Bush and VP Cheney
BEIJING
President Bush has sharply criticized Moscow's harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia's response is disproportionate.
Bush, in an interview with NBC, said:
"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia."
Earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney said that:
"Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."
John McCain and Barack Hussein Obama
McCain, an outspoken critic of Moscow, said it was clear that the situation in Georgia was dire.
"Today, news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences for Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave. Tensions and hostilities between Georgians and Ossetians are in no way justification for Russian troops crossing an internationally recognized border," he said.
Obama:
His first comment UNTIL he heard what McCain's reaction was..............
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.”
Here is how Obama reacted when he heard that Russian troops were attacking targets in Georgia:
Then AFTER Obama checked out McCain's take Obama made another comment to try and sound more like a man I suppose.
“I condemn Russia’s aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire… Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.”
Wild Thing's comment..........
Just a thought, maybe Cheney can invite Putin to a quail hunt. heh heh Hint hint to Cheney.
And as for Obama....LMAO good grief! The empty-suited marxist, ignorant as always, gave Russia the benefit of doubt, as fellow travelers always do. Until one of his empty suit handlers told him something else to say.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:50 AM | Comments (15)
August 10, 2008
Georgian and Russian War News
Report: Russian Navy blockades Georgia
MOSCOW (AP)
A news agency says the Russian navy has deployed ships to blockade Georgia's Black Sea coast.
The Interfax news agency says the Moskva missile cruiser and other Russian Black Sea Fleet ships have been deployed to Georgia's coast to prevent any weapons supplies.
A Russian navy spokesman refused to comment on the report Sunday.
Unclear Whether Georgian Olympic Team Will Stay in Beijing
The Georgian Olympic team will not participate in the 29th Summer Olympics and is leaving Beijing. Georgian media report that the athletes made that decision after a meeting with Sandra Roelofs, wife of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Beijing. The official reason for the decision is that the athletes want to be with their families during this difficult time for their country.
Saakashvili had stated previously that the Georgian athletes plan to stage a protest against Russian actions in South Ossetia, even though, under the rules of the International Olympic Committee, they could be disqualified for doing so. Georgian and Russian athletes were scheduled to face each other for the first time on August 13, during the women’s beach volleyball match.
No UN deal over Georgia
Reuters and video at link
U.N. Security Council fails to reach an agreement aimed at halting the bloodshed in Georgia.
The head of Europe's main security group says the region is on the brink of a full-scale war.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Russia is not going to stop with just South Ossetia... they want all of Georgia.
Georgian troops have been combating Islamic terrorism in Iraq, while previously Putin attempted to block any and all meaningful military action against Saddam, plus Moscow continues 'assisting' Iran's nuclear weapons quest against the West, and arming all of our and Israel's worst enemies.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (16)
August 09, 2008
U.S. Tells Russia To Pull Forces Out Of Georgia
Richard Holbruck discusses this on CNN
**** Just a correction I have to make. They announced last night that Bush and Putin DID talk before the Opening events at the Olympics. So perhaps this man did not know that before this video interview was done. --Wild Thing
U.S. tells Russia to pull forces out of Georgia
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
The United States told Russia on Friday to withdraw its forces from U.S. ally Georgia and stop its air attacks on the tiny Caucasus state following fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
Rice issued her statement as Georgia, a former Soviet state that now wants to join NATO, said it would declare martial law and battled to get control of the rebel enclave, which was fortified by Russian forces.
Georgia said Russian fighter jets bombed container tankers and a shipbuilding plant in the port of Poti, prompting Washington's sharpest rebuke of Russia since the crisis began.
"We deplore the Russian military action in Georgia, which is a violation of Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters at a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York.
The State Department summoned the Charge d'Affaires at Russia's Embassy in Washington, Aleksander Darchiyev, to see Rice's deputy John Negroponte, who pressed Moscow to stop its military activities in Georgia.
"The deputy secretary said that we deplore today's Russian attacks by strategic bombers and missiles, which are threatening civilian lives," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood of Negroponte's meeting with the Russian diplomat.
"These attacks mark a dangerous and disproportionate escalation of tension," he added.
Both Rice and the White House urged an immediate cease-fire in South Ossetia, and U.S. officials said they would send an envoy to the region to help mediate.
As fighting raged in and around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia and Georgia were at war.
Rice said the United States was working with its European partners to launch international mediation, and "we urgently seek Russia's support of these efforts."
American military planners reviewed contingency plans for the possible evacuation of up to 3,000 U.S. citizens from Georgia, including about 130 defense personnel there to train Georgian military forces for duty in Iraq.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Russians will ignore America's wishes is my guess.
“Early Saturday, Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.
Utiashvili said there apparently were significant casualties and damage in the attacks, but that further details would not be known until the morning.”
Also, another site reported that 1200 US special ops forces were present at the Vaizani base for training exercises with Georgias forces...they arrived on TUESDAY. I hope they are ok, the base having come under Russian air attack. ALso, earlier sources mentioned as many as 1000 US Marines were previously in the country.
Georgia is the third biggest contributor of forces in Iraq, with 2500 there. They have been recalled to Georgia because of the emergency. They have been such a good allie to us.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (18)
August 08, 2008
Gitmo Jury Gives Bin Laden Driver 5 1/2 Years
Military jury gives bin Laden driver just 5 1/2 years
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba
A U.S. military jury sentenced Osama bin Laden's driver Thursday to just 5 1/2 years in prison, a surprise rebuke to Pentagon prosecutors who portrayed him as a member of the al-Qaida leader's inner circle worthy of a life sentence.
Salim Hamdan, with credit for time served, will be eligible for release in less than five months, though U.S. authorities still insist they could hold him indefinitely without charge at Guantanamo.
The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, called Hamdan a "small player," and the jury apparently agreed, rejecting the recommendation of 30 years by prosecutors who said even a life sentence would be fitting in order to send an example to would-be terrorists.
"I hope the day comes that you return to your wife and daughters and your country, and you're able to be a provider, a father and a husband in the best sense of all those terms," Allred told Hamdan at the close of the hearing.
The prisoner, dressed in a charcoal sports coat and white robe, responded: "God willing."
It was an anticlimactic finish to a case that had taken on a special prominence as the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.
The Pentagon pushed forward with Hamdan's prosecution despite repeated legal challenges that went to the Supreme Court in a 2006 case that struck down the previous rules for the tribunals, prompting Congress and President Bush to craft new ones.
The split verdict on the charges and the relatively lenient sentence appeared to strip away the urgency of the government's plans to prosecute dozens of Guantanamo prisoners under special rules widely criticized as unfair.
The jury's sentence now goes for mandatory review to a Pentagon official who can shorten it but not extend it. It remains unclear what will happen to Hamdan once his sentence is served, since the U.S. military has said it won't release anyone who still represents a threat.
The decision was a "slap in the face" to the Bush administration and its detention policies, said David Remes, a Washington lawyer who represents 15 Yemeni prisoners at Guantanamo.
"They chose to make this a test case. But they never imagined that it would result in such a stunning rebuff," he said.
The chief defense counsel for the Guantanamo tribunals, Army Col. Steve David, said the government failed in its strategy to link Hamdan to the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The government attempted to inflame the emotions of the panel," he said. "It didn't work."
"Asking for 30 years to life, not only was ill-advised and wholly inappropriate, but was also soundly rejected by the panel," David said.
Allred said Hamdan, who is from Yemen, would likely be eligible for release through the same administrative review process as other Guantanamo prisoners.
Defense lawyers said Hamdan will have finished his sentence in four months and 22 days.
"It was all for show if Mr. Hamdan does not go home in December," said civilian defense attorney Charles Swift, who hugged Hamdan after the jurors left the courtroom.
Hamdan thanked the jurors for the sentence and repeated his apology for having served bin Laden.
"I would like to apologize one more time to all the members and I would like to thank you for what you have done for me," he told the five-man, one-woman jury, all military officers picked by the Pentagon for the first U.S. war crimes trial in a half-century.
While being convicted of supporting terrorism, Hamdan was acquitted of providing missiles to al-Qaida and knowing his work would be used for terrorism. He also was cleared of being part of al-Qaida's conspiracy to attack the United States — the most serious charges he faced.
Hamdan admitted he drove bin Laden around Afghanistan at the time of the 2001 attacks, but said he took the job without knowing the al-Qaida leader was a terrorist.
It came as "a big shock," he said, when he learned bin Laden was responsible for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, where Hamdan is from.
Still, he kept the job, Hamdan said — he needed the money, and couldn't go home.
"It's true there are work opportunities in Yemen, but not at the level I needed after I got married and not to the level of ambitions that I had in my future," said Hamdan, who has a fourth-grade education.
Reading a prepared statement in Arabic, he said he had a "relationship of respect" with bin Laden, as would any other driver in the al-Qaida motor pool. Hamdan has said he drove mainly low-profile pickup trucks with tinted windows because his boss shunned the Toyota Land Cruisers favored by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.
At the time of his capture at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, Hamdan had two shoulder-launched missiles, but he said the car was borrowed and the rockets were not his. The jury found him innocent of carrying the missiles as part of a conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers.
Hamdan expressed regret over the "innocent people" who died in the attacks in the United States, according to a Pentagon transcript. His apology couldn't be heard by reporters because the sound was turned off during part of the proceedings to protect classified information.
The guilty verdict will be appealed automatically to a special military court in Washington. Hamdan also can appeal to U.S. civilian courts, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. Defense lawyers say Hamdan's rights were denied by an unfair process, hastily patched together after the high court ruled that previous tribunal systems violated U.S. and international law.
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Wild Thing's comment...........
So I see the Gitmo close-out sale is on.
This sends a very bad message! This guy is full of it. He said it came as a shock when he realized what bin Laden was and yet he continued to be his driver even though as he states he could have gotten work elsewhere.
Whatever happened to President Bush’s famous “If you support a terrorist, you are a terrorist.” Did these lawyers not hear that speech?
In the mean time, our Border guards,Ramos and Compean, each got over ten years...unbelievable!
This raghead was so trusted by the enemy that he drove their top guy around.
This demonstrates why you can’t treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue, as Clinton did, as Obama and the Democrats want to do.
It also demonstrates why we can’t afford to let Obama nominate the next SCOTUS judges. Don’t forget, it’s our SCOTUS was the one who gave the terrorists all kinds of rights, they should not be entitled to have.
It is not an exaggeration to say that if the Dems take control of the US — and if Obama wins, they will control the White House, Congress, AND shortly the Judicial Branch also — their policies will cost innocent lives, our innocent lives.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (8)
August 07, 2008
Left Plans "Nuremberg-Style" Tribunals for Bush Administration Officials
The Left and Plans for "Nuremberg-Style" Tribunals for Bush Administration Officials
One thing that hasn't received much attention in conservative and Republicans circles is the ongoing conversation on the left about the possibility of Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for members of the Bush administration should a Democratic president take office. I'm not exaggerating or introducing the Nazi analogy myself; they actually use the phrase "Nuremberg-style" when they discuss "war-crimes tribunals." And they are quite serious (although the more moderate of them prefer a "truth commission.")
At the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin, Texas last month — that is the successor to YearlyKos — Dahlia Lithwick, of the Washington-Post-owned website Slate, did an interview with the Talking Points Memo site in which she described a panel discussion she had just taken part in on what is known as the "first 100 days of accountability." Among Lithwick's observations:
"We're already falling into this trap of either positing Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunals, or nothing, immunizing everyone from John Yoo up and down…but everybody says there's a lot of gray area in between that, and that accountability doesn't necessarily mean Nuremberg, it doesn't necessarily mean nothing, it means possibly a truth commission, possibly appointing a special prosecutor to look at it…..."
Lithwick recommended a massive retrospective investigation of the Bush administration, going through every piece of paper, before moving forward:
"Certainly long before we make a decision to do what Stuart Taylor suggested this week, which was immunize everybody in advance, or alternatively make a decision to trot them out before a war crimes tribunal before the whole world, we should really find out what happened…..."
But Lithwick recognized that there are those who argue such an action might be divisive:
"We talked a lot about this notion that it's bad for America, that it will rip America apart if we have hearings or we have criminal trials or if we have war crimes tribunals. And I think it's really worse for America if we don't…..."
I think the thing to emphasize here is that this is a serious conversation going on among people who might have influential voices or play influential roles in an Obama administration. Many of them want to put John Yoo — a special favorite of theirs — on trial, whether before a Nuremberg-style tribunal, a criminal court, or a truth commission with as-yet unspecified powers. And, of course, they wouldn't stop with Yoo; if they had their way, they would likely have a long list of former Bush administration officials to put in the dock. They are serious.
Wild Thing's comment..........
This is very scary! They really dont know when to quit do they?
"But Lithwick recognized that there are those who argue such an action might be divisive: "
Oh really? Gosh do well how obvious is that statement.
Are we sure that Stalan hasn’t been reincarnated as Pelosi? The terrorist-loving left was hoping for a "civil war" in Iraq. If they keep this crap up, they'll get one here. If they think that they can get away with it, they will do it in a heartbeat. My heart feels afraid BUT my head tells me they will have a tuff time of pulling this off even with the support of what I am posting below all of this in the additional information.
I believe with all my heart that if this country ever comes to something like this, those unlike you and I on here, you know those filled with apathy willl stand up and fight back along side those of us that have been awake all this time. Some people are leaders and others are followers and those with apathy are the followers and just need a fire lit under them. Let's pray though none of this will come about.
There is an excellent book: War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy the Military and Lose the War on Terror
Bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson (Ret.) He lays bare the Left's extensive campaign against all things military and how it severely compromises the ability to fight the war on terror.
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And here is more information if anyone might want to check it out:
From another article posted last month: This is freightening to say the least. Communisim has got such a strong hold in our awesome, wonderful, oh so special and beautiful America.
"The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday [July 2008] it insisted was not about removing President Bush from office. But critics of Bush's policies couldn't pass up the chance to charge the president with a long list of impeachable 'high crimes and misdemeanors.'"
Speaking of 'high crimes and misdemeanors', here are some facts put together some time ago regarding the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr...
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr of Michigan, is an endorser of the Revolutionary Communist Party call to "Drive Out the Bush Regime". So, if anyone needs to be 'investigated', it's that SOB. But since the republicans are mostly spineless cowards, I doubt it will ever happen.
Click on the WCW link just below and see: "Endorsers of the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Include". Conyers' endorsement appears right after Ward Churchill's. Al Sharpton's, Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson Jr's endorsements are also on the list:
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2
And on Oct 5, 2006, the demonRat chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr, GAVE A SPEECH to the World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime organization. Here's full-page coverage of it from the WCW website:
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3114&Itemid=243
Fact: World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime is a Maoist-revolutionary movement/organization initiated and controlled by the Revolutionary Communist Party. (scroll down the list that appears (after clicking link) to find the World Can't Wait organization --rwor.org is the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party):
http://rwor.org/a/rwlink/links.htm
From David Horowitz's FrontpageMag.com /DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: World Can't Wait (WCW)
*Revolutionary communist movement that stages protests against the Bush administration
*Organizes college and high-school students
*Founded in June 2005 by Charles Clark Kissinger, a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7213
From the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party (revcom.us or rwor.org) :
"Create Public Opinion, Seize Power: We are preparing minds and organizing forces for the time when there is a major crack in the system, whenever it comes and wherever it comes from: an opening that makes it possible to bring the future Revolutionary Army of the Proletariat (R.A.P.) into the field and wage a revolutionary armed struggle that actually has a chance of winning. And we have said that building our party itself is the most important part of organizing forces for revolution. This is true now, and it is true looking forward to the creation of that future R.A.P. and the waging of that armed struggle.":
http://revcom.us/a/v20/1000-1009/1000/barw.htm
Also from the Revolutionary Communist Party website: "Tearing Up the U.S. Paper Tiger in Korea: How 300,000 Chinese Troops Snuck into Korea and Kicked the Ass of the U.S. Armed Forces" RW #1059, June 18, 2000:
http://rwor.org/a/v22/1052-059/1059/korea.htm
Here's the Revolutionary Communist Party (see link below) boasting of a FULL PAGE 'World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime' ad of theirs which appeared in the New York Slimes.(either "rwor.org" or "revcom.us" takes you to the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party). The NY Times has since allowed several additional full-page RCP/WCW ads.
Article title: "Who Hated the Bush Step Down Ad in the New York Times? ...And what that Tells Us About Why We Must and How We Can Drive Out the Bush Regime"(actual title)
http://www.rwor.org/a/028/who-hated-bush-ad.htm
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (6)
July 29, 2008
To Our Media .....Winning Isn't News
Winning Isn't News
Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.
London's Sunday Times called it:
"the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks — a big change for the better from a year ago.
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad — an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.
But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress.
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Thank you to our troops!!!!!! Let’s celebrate the heroes. I wish OUR media would write things like this and not only that but speak about our troops like this too.
....Thank you Mark for sending this.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:47 AM | Comments (8)
Guantanamo Trial Views Graphic 9/11 Video
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba
(Reuters)
Prosecutors in the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver unveiled a graphic video on Monday of the September 11 attacks and other al Qaeda operations that is likely to play a repeated role in pending war crimes cases.
The video is entitled "The Al Qaeda Plan," an echo of "The Nazi Plan" made by Oscar-winning director George Stevens as evidence in the Nuremberg war crimes trials of German leaders after World War II.
"Oh my God" was heard repeatedly as crowds watched the twin towers of the World Trade center collapse on September 11, 2001, in a vivid highlight of the movie shown over defense objections at the terrorism conspiracy trial of Salim Hamdan.
The six-member panel that will decide Hamdan's fate also saw footage of charred bodies stripped of flesh in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the body of a U.S. soldier dragged through the streets in Somalia in 2003.
Control tower conversations with one of the doomed September 11 planes were also included.
"The Al Qaeda Plan" was made for $25,000 by terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann for the Office of Military Commissions, which is conducting the trials of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo. Its 90 minutes of video clips depict the history of al Qaeda from its formation in 1988 through the September 11 attacks.
The commission's lead prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, said the tape would be used in other trials but no decision had been made whether to use it in the trial of accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Hamdan's attorneys objected that the footage would prejudice the jury. "They're trying to terrorize the members," defense attorney Charles Swift told the court.
But prosecutors said the video helped illustrate the goals of al Qaeda training and ideology. "It is a very important part of the prosecution's case," said prosecutor Clayton Trivett.
Commission Judge Keith Allred approved the video, after first saying it would serve more to prejudice the case than to prove a point. "The planes crashing into the towers and the people screaming doesn't prove anything," he said.
A pivotal point of contention is the significance of Hamdan's role in al Qaeda. The Yemeni native was caught in November 2001 with two surface-to-air missiles in his car.
Defense attorneys say he was a lowly driver, but the prosecution has sought to portray him as a trusted bodyguard who helped bin Laden evade capture and stay alive.
The two sides have also skirmished over an expert's testimony on the laws of war. With Hamdan being tried as a war criminal under a 2006 U.S. law, the prosecution is seeking to show the United States was in a continuing armed conflict with al Qaeda well before the September 11 attacks.
Hamdan's attorneys have sought to demonstrate that the battle with al Qaeda did not reach the state of armed conflict until the September 11 attacks, which could make it harder for the prosecution to prove Hamdan's actions count as a war crime.
Separately on Monday, the Pentagon announced it had filed charges against another detainee at Guantanamo and released three from the detention center.
The Pentagon said Abdul Ghani was accused of attempted murder, material support for terrorism and conspiracy over accusations he fired rockets and planted bombs aimed at U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and tried to kill an Afghani soldier in 2002.
The Pentagon said it had released three detainees -- one to Afghanistan, one to the United Arab Emirates and one to Qatar. It said more than 65 Guantanamo detainees are eligible for transfer or release subject to talks on where they will go.
Wild Thing's comment........
7 years later we are still dealing with the scum responsible for 9/11 only strengthens my resolve to kill them. Kill them all. Set the precedent now!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:40 AM | Comments (6)
July 11, 2008
White House Says Ruling Could Free Detainees To Walk Main Street USA
White House says ruling could free detainees in US
WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.
The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"I'm sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods," White House press secretary Dana Perino said about al-Qaida's former third in command.
President Bush strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision that the foreigners held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo have the right to seek release in civilian courts. The 5-4 ruling was the third time the justices had repudiated Bush on his approach to holding the suspects outside the protections of U.S. law.
The legal ramifications of the Supreme Court decision remain fuzzy, but it's unlikely that a federal appeals court would order a detainee released into the United States even if a judge finds that the government was holding the detainee improperly. A court might tell the Bush administration to let a prisoner go, but it presumably would be up to the executive branch to figure out where.
Glenn Sulmasy, a national security fellow at Harvard University, said if the matter remains in the hands of civilian courts, there is an element of truth to the White House warning that detainees could be released in the United States.
He said the legislative and executive branches should find a third legal way -- not through military commissions or the civilian courts -- to deal with the detainees, perhaps a national security or other type of special court. "What is needed is a hybrid court," he said.
"But there is considered judgment, from many federal government lawyers -- all the way up to the attorney general of the United States_ that it is a very real possibility that a dangerous detainee could be released into the United States as a result of this Supreme Court decision."
Judges at Washington's federal courthouse are moving quickly to process about 200 cases involving Guantanamo Bay detainees. Those cases would force the Justice Department to say why the detainees are being held and defend the decision to label them enemy combatants. Defense attorneys are convinced that, in many cases, the evidence will not hold up.
"The judge might say to the United States, 'You don't have enough evidence to hold this person,'" Perino said. "And then what do we do? ... Is he allowed to leave? And if so, is he picked up by immigration? Even if that's the case, they're only allowed to be held for six months."
Wild Thing's comment........
This is so crazy and very scary too. It may not happen but from what we have seen in the past about our courts and judges and lawyers the odds are it very well could. They let horrible bad guys out of jail all the time.
"What is needed is a hybrid court,"
And what the heck is this??? OMG
....Thank you Lynn for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (11)
9/11 Plotter Tells GITMO Judge He Would Be Proud to Attack U.S.
Waleed bin Attash
Police on April 29, 2003, arrested alleged al-Qaida operational commander Waleed bin Attash, suspected of helping plan the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and five other alleged al-Qaida operatives in a raid in Karachi. U.S. officials also suspect Attash, a Yemeni also known as Tawfiq Attash or Khallad, coordinated the activities of two hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. law enforcement officials said a plot to crash an explosives-laden small aircraft into the U.S. consulate in Karachi was uncovered with the arrests. Pakistan's Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat, declined to comment directly on the plot, but said the arrest helped avert a major terrorist attack
.
Accused 9/11 Plotter Tells Guantanamo Judge He Would Be Proud to Attack U.S.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba
A man facing trial at Guantanamo for allegedly running a training camp for Sept. 11 hijackers said Thursday he would be "proud" to have participated in an attack on the U.S.
"Any attack I undertook against America, or even participated or helped in, I am proud about it, and I am happy," Waleed bin Attash told a military judge.
The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, cut Attash off before he could say anything further that could incriminate him at his upcoming trial on charges that include murder.
Bin Attash is one of five Guantanamo prisoners charged with war crimes for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11 attacks. They could get the death penalty if convicted.
Bin Attash, who is from Yemen, spoke during a pretrial hearing to determine whether he had willingly chosen to represent himself.
Military defense lawyers had said the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, may have intimidated the others into refusing Pentagon-appointed lawyers. Bin Attash said he had not been pressured into representing himself.
At a separate hearing later, Mohammed denied pressuring any of his co-defendants. "I don't think anyone can threaten me or I can threaten them," he told the judge. "We are not gangs in the USA jails. ... Everyone respects his own view."
Mohammed said Thursday that the U.S. military is making it difficult for him to serve as his own lawyer.
Mohammed, who has rejected his Pentagon-appointed attorneys, says the military has not given him paper in his cell and failed to deliver a legal motion he wrote to the judge on this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
"We are not in normal situation. We are in hell," the Pakistani, who had a wide gray beard, told the judge in broken English.
A hearing for a third defendant, Ramzi Binalshibh, was postponed because he refused to leave his cell
Wild Thing's comment........
I am looking forward to when these terrorists are put to death. Their mouthing off, their threats never stop.
.... Thank you Darth for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:45 AM | Comments (12)
July 10, 2008
Yellowcake–Saddam’s Cake Mix Hauled in Secret From Iraq To Canada
Secret U.S. Mission Hauls Uranium From Iraq To Canada
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada. The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine
U.S. Delivers Iraqi Uranium to Canadian Firm
The U.S. military has finished delivering 550 tons of yellowcake uranium — left over from the late Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons-making era — from Iraq to a uranium trading company in Canada, Pentagon officials confirmed to FOX News on Monday.
Cameco, which sells the natural uranium, also called "yellowcake," to electricity-producing utilities around the world, bought the uranium for an undisclosed price several weeks ago.
To assist in the sale, the U.S. military transported the uranium over the weekend to "ensure its safe transit," senior Pentagon officials said.
"The Department of Defense was responsible for the safe and secure transfer of materials from Iraq to the country of purchase," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "The cargo was transported by convoy from Tuwaitha nuclear research facility in Baghdad to a secure location in the Green Zone" and then loaded onto a C-17 and flown to an intermediate location via 37 sorties, he said.
Once at that intermediate location, which Whitman declined to reveal, the cargo was shipped to a third country where it was loaded onto a U.S.-flagged cargo ship. It was transported from there to Canada.
Tuwaitha is the facility that was bombed by Israel in 1981 and again by the U.S. during the 1991 Gulf War. It was a centerpiece of Hussein's nuclear weapons effort, and was looted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
According to senior Pentagon officials, the U.S. spent an estimated $70 million to ship the yellowcake. Iraq has promised to reimburse the U.S. for the money spent flying the nuclear component.
Yellowcake, depending on market conditions, can be worth anywhere from $60 to $85 per pound.
Officials told The New York Times that while the material could not be used in its current form for a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb, the unstable environment in Iraq, along with the health dangers that can be caused from it sitting around in concentrated forms, encouraged officials to make sure it was put in secure hands.
The Times noted that the yellowcake removed from Iraq is not the same yellowcake that President Bush claimed in his 2003 State of the Union address that Hussein tried to buy from Niger.
Wild Thing's comment.........
This will hurt the argument that Bush lied and this was a war for oil. heh heh
How come they never say they were wrong????
This is fantastic news for the Bush Administration, but it's now up to the them to wave this in front of the face of anyone who spouts this lie about no WMDs in Iraq. We shall see.
"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "
When the Democrats were in power Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, biological, chemical and may be even nuclear.
Democrats Hypocrisy Over The Iraq War
WMD Quotes from Democrats
Democrats on Iraq + WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction)“…At one time the Democrats and Republicans agreed on one thing: that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and would use them. …”
.
....Thank you Jack for sending this article to me. Jack's blog is Conservative Insurgent
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (9)
July 08, 2008
Photojournalist A Maggot...Zoriah Miller....Banned By Marines In Iraq
Photojournalist Banned by Marines in Iraq
Zoriah Miller was an embedded blogger. He's a photojournalist who has posted a photo of Marine KIA.
This vile horrible person blogs at Zoriah.net.
Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing. Zoriah Miller posted those pictures on his blog, was dismissed from his embed assignment, and is now screaming censorship.
Ventura County Star ....for complete article
BAGHDAD — It's a disturbing picture.
The dead Marine is lying on his back, his face damaged beyond recognition because of the blast.
But for photojournalist and blogger Zoriah Miller, 32, it was important to capture the daily toll of war in Iraq.
"I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show," said Zoriah, who prefers to go by his first name. "My only discomfort is the idea that the family could accidentally stumble on it."
The Marine commanders who saw the photograph were not happy, saying it violated a "trust" between the military and journalists.
Claims of security risks
Zoriah was immediately "disembedded" from a Marine unit and barred from working with the military in Anbar.
In Gen. John F. Kelly's letter officially kicking him out of province, the Marines said Zoriah "provided the enemy with specific information on the effectiveness of the attack and the response of U.S. and Iraqi forces to the attack."
Zoriah denies he did anything wrong.
"All I can say is he's no longer welcome here in Anbar," said Lt. Brian Block at Camp Fallujah, where the Marine command in Anbar is headquartered.
Later, Lt. Cmdr. Chris Hughes, who is in charge of the Camp Fallujah command, said in a prepared statement that "there is no right to embed" with military units. Under the embedding program, the military allows journalists to be assigned to a military unit to chronicle the war. Journalists rely on soldiers for transportation, food and protection.
Zoriah violated the ground rules he agreed to when he was embedded, Hughes said in the statement. He added that Zoriah broke his "trust in the relationship" with soldiers.
'Picture of what war is like'
While waiting to be transported out of the area, Zoriah was guarded for a time by armed Marines out of fear someone upset by the graphic photo might try to harm him.
"You're a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble," said Zoriah, a Denver native who has been in Iraq for much of the past year.
The Marines don't see it that way. In his letter, Kelly went on to say that Zoriah could no longer be trusted, and that he "presented a threat to all" in the Multi-National Force in Western Iraq.
Zoriah has been flown out of the Marine base and returned to Baghdad. He plans on returning to the U.S. and appealing the Marines' decision.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
This creep should have never been allowed anywhere near a US Military facility. He calls himself a humanitarian photojournalist. Just the word humanitarian photojournalist sends of bells and whistles in my brain. That should have done the same thing when he applied to be embedded with our miltiary.
humanitarian = lefite to the max!
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:47 AM | Comments (4)
July 04, 2008
"Generation Kill" HBO Mini Series
"Generation Kill " launches on Sunday, July 13th at 9 P.M. ET/PT—only on HBO
It is a seven part mini series.
"Generation Kill" follows the highly trained Marines of Recon Battalion through the first 40 days of the Iraq war. Mini series taken from the book and written for the series by executive produced by "The Wire" creators David Simon and Ed Burns.
Website for " Generation Kill".
Based on Evan Wright's acclaimed 2004 non-fiction book of the same name, Generation Kill is a seven-part miniseries that focuses on the first 40 days of the Iraq war, a.k.a. "Operation Iraqi Freedom," through the eyes and actions of a group of elite U.S. First Recon Marines.
While offering vivid and unvarnished portraits of the actual Marines who rode alongside Wright (an embedded journalist working for Rolling Stone magazine) for two months starting in March 2003, Generation Kill provides a gritty, uncompromising account of the collective forces that guided these highly-trained Marines across a barren landscape, and against an unknowable enemy, in a military initiative designed to liberate the Iraqi populace from Saddam Hussein.
Bringing a candid, highly realiztic look at the details of modern warfare and the men who wage it, the miniseries depicts the War in Iraq with an immediacy, humor and humanity never before depicted on film.
In between scenes of intense combat, from Marines in under-protected Humvees blasting through hostile cities, the soldiers' raw and frequently hilarious dialog is infused with an abundance of cultural references – from gossipy rumors of J-Lo's death, to disparaging retorts to schoolchildrens' letters of support, to on-the-road choral renditions of pop anthems like "Tainted Love" and "Loving You" (complete with falsettos).
People are already talking about this highly anticipated miniseries.
Based on the book of the same name by Evan Wright, a Marine chronicles his experiences during the first wave of the American-led assault on Baghdad in 2003. Written by David Simon and Ed Burns ("The Wire"). Cast includes: Lee Tergesen, Kellan Lutz, and Alexander Skarsgård and James Ransone.
A review of the mini series:
By Michael Samstag for Knoxville Films
"I was very fortunate to be treated to an advance screening of the first two episode's of "Generation Kill" last week at the Nashville Screenwriters Conference. The seven part mini-series is based on the book "Generation Kill" written by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright chronicling his experience as an embedded reporter with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the first 40-days of the US led invasion of Iraq.Right away, "Generation Kill" is different than any other show attempting to convey what it's like to be at war. The series has more of a documentary feel--relying on the sounds of battle to heighten the tension rather than the use of traditional musical scores. The dialogue was gritty, sometimes vulgar, funny, and there were whole scenes that felt like they were recorded directly in the heat of battle. The production was enhanced further by the military technical consulting services of Sgt. Erik Kocher and Cpl. Jeffrey Carisalez who ensured that at no point did you feel you were watching actors playing Marines.
Yeah, the series is a sort of narrative-documentary hybrid--imagine The War Tapes meets the best parts of We Were Soldiers Once--but is it entertaining or simply another condemning look at the War in Iraq?
Well, it's not that easy to summarize but I can tell you that I was expecting to get caught up in the technical aspects of the show and not get swept away by the story. It was a hell of a ride! I felt like I was riding along with the Marines. Pictures I remember from photogs in Iraq came to life before my eyes. The horrors I worked hard to drink away were alive again with an unapologizing, unflinching reality I would not have thought possible outside the documentary genre.
As for whether it's a condemning portrayal of war, that's not for me to say. What it is is an honest portrayal of what it must have been like being embedded with the Marines. It took a very frank look at the problems the marines faces with the Rules of Engagement and problems within their own ranks with command and control. This is not Hollywood's version of war, though it's just as riveting as the action movies Hollywood can produce. Bravo to Evan Wright, the cast and crew of "Generation Kill" and smart people at HBO who brought this series to the public."
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (6)
June 24, 2008
Latest From USA Hating Lawyers and Judges: U.S. Court Says GITMO Detainees Not Enemy Combatants
US court says Guantanamo detainees not enemy combatants
A U.S. federal appeals court has struck down the U.S. military's classification of a Guantanamo Bay detainee as an enemy combatant.
This is the first time the U.S. court system has overruled the Bush administration's designation of a detainee since the Guantanamo facility began operations in early 2002.
The court ruled in favor of a Chinese Muslim, Huzaifa Parhat, who has spent the last six years in detention and is one of more than 100 detainees to challenge their enemy combatant status in the U.S. judicial system. The court directed the U.S. military to release Parhat, transfer him out of Guantanamo, or hold a new proceeding to once again determine his status.
The court announced its decision without providing any details, saying the ruling contains classified information. The Department of Defense did not immediately comment on the matter.
Human rights groups say the appeals court ruling is a landmark decision for Guantanamo detainees, yet one with little practical benefit for Parhat.
Stacy Sullivan is a counter-terrorism advisor for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"He Parhat will probably not be released," she said. "He is a Chinese Uighur, and there are a number of Chinese Uighurs being held at Guantanamo who are already declared no longer enemy combatants. But they cannot leave Guantanamo because they have nowhere to go. They cannot be sent back to China because they have a well-founded fear of torture in China, and the United States to its credit will not send them back there. So the Uighurs are pretty much stuck in Guantanamo."
In 2006, the United States released five Uighurs from Guantanamo and resettled them in Albania. China, which regards the Uighurs as terrorists and separatists, demanded Albania to return them to China. Albania did not comply.
U.S. authorities believe some Uighurs have links to al-Qaeda. But they admit the Uighurs held at Guantanamo never fought against the United States, nor did they take part in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Human Rights Watch's Stacy Sullivan says the plight of the Guantanamo Uighurs points to a real dilemma facing the United States if at some point it decides to close Guantanamo, an action favored by both presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.
"There are about 50 detainees there who have said they do not want to go home because they fear being tortured: Uzbeks, Libyans, Uighurs, a few other nationalities," she said. "What is to be done with them? It is simple enough to transfer those for whom we have evidence of terrorism and try them in our federal court system. But the 50 detainees who cannot go home, it is unclear what is going to happen to them, and that is going to make closing Guantanamo really difficult."
The federal appeals court ruling follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this month affirming the right of Guantanamo suspects to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
Wild Thing's comment........
When lawyers are the front-line on the war on terror, you can fear for our safety. Undermining of our intelligence and rewarding the terrorist.
I wish we could lock up ALL our lawyers and Judges. What good are they anyway. They are constantly serving the enemy, the criminal and NOT the victim. They put bad guys back out onto the streets all the time and could care less about doing the right thing.
Somebody sworn to kill Americans and non believers isn’t an enemy combatant????
As far as this court saying that guy is not an enemy combatant, we’re on the slippery slope. Sheesh!
The Supreme Court ruling was that these people at Gitmo have the rights of habeas corpus as any U.S. citizen would. The next step was this lower court saying that this one guy is not an enemy combatant. I fear that the slippery slope is that we won’t legally be able to classify anyone as an enemy combatant, because it won’t be allowed by courts.
This war against Islam is not like other wars, there will be no treaty, no terms of surrender, no conquering enemy territory. Instead, there is only vigilance until the enemy’s capacity to project power is quelled.
Who needs enemies? We will destroy ourselves from within. Our ‘law’ will ensure it.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (10)
June 20, 2008
House Approves $162 Billion War-spending Bill
House approves $162 billion war-spending bill
The House approved the largest war-spending bill to date Thursday, bending to President Bush's call for $162 billion in war funding with no strings attached and giving his successor enough money to wage the wars until July 2009.
In exchange, Democrats won Bush's blessing for several of their domestic priorities, including a 13-week extension of jobless benefits for workers who have exhausted theirs, and a new GI bill benefit allowing veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to attend a state college tuition-free.
The deal, negotiated between the White House and allies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, takes the issue of the war off Congress' plate for the rest of this election year. Lawmakers also intended to give the next president some time to set a new Iraq policy before having to return to Congress for more money.
But anti-war activists called it a betrayal by Democrats, who had pledged to end the war. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, dubbed it "the biggest blank check ever." Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, said the vote was a "profound disappointment to the millions of Americans who put Democrats into power hoping we could force a change in Iraq."
The House vote is likely to end almost two years of clashes between Democrats and the White House over the Iraq war, which Bush and Republicans have largely won.
House Democrats this spring once against approved a nonbinding measure calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by June 2009. But the Senate, unable to get the 60 votes needed to pass it, stripped it from the spending bill. The war bill ping-ponged between the House and Senate for weeks until Pelosi and other top Democrats decided to cut a deal.
"I don't consider it a failure," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "We never sent them a bill that did not have deadlines, conditions and the rest." She blamed Republicans in the Senate. "They are complicit with the president to make sure he never has to get a bill on his desk with a timeline, because the American people want a timeline," she said.
The House passed the legislation by splitting it in two pieces to accommodate anti-war Democrats who refused to vote for any more war funding.
The first piece, on the war funding, passed 268-155, with support from 188 Republicans and 80 Democrats.
The second part, which included the domestic spending increases, was approved with strong backing from both parties, 416-12.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders say it's likely to be passed.
The deal required major concessions from both sides. Democrats were able to get the 13-week extension of jobless benefits, but had to drop their push for an additional 13 weeks of benefits for workers in high-unemployment states. Republicans also insisted that individuals must have worked for at least 20 weeks to qualify for the benefits.
The extended benefits will apply to all those who exhaust their aid between November 2006 and March 2009, an estimated 3.8 million workers nationwide.
The new education benefit for veterans, proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who served in the Marines, would offer any veteran who served active duty for at least three years since Sept. 11, 2001, a full college education - tuition, room, board and a monthly stipend covering the cost of the most expensive in-state public university. It would more than double the value of the current GI Bill education benefit from $40,000 to $90,000.
Bush had threatened to veto the proposal, saying it was too generous and could entice too many soldiers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan to leave the military. But the White House backed down after Democrats dropped a plan to pay for the benefit by raising taxes on individuals who earn at least $500,000 a year and couples who earn $1 million.
But the White House ended up adding at least $10 billion to the $52 billion price tag for the new benefit over 10 years by insisting that veterans be allowed to transfer the college education benefit to a family member.
The fiscally conservative House Blue Dog Democrats, who pushed for the tax hike to pay for the veterans' benefit, expressed frustration that the war spending and the new GI bill benefit will be added to the growing national debt.
"We are making a serious mistake by not paying for these things," said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., a Blue Dog member. "It is one our children and grandchildren will pay for."
But House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who helped broker the deal, insisted that the spending for the war and for veterans' benefits was worth it. "The cost of this bill, frankly, is high, but it's a price of freedom. And I don't think you put a price on freedom and security in our country," he said.
Democrats succeeded in keeping language in the bill postponing six Medicaid rules proposed by the Bush administration, which critics say would have led to cuts in services to seniors, families and the disabled.
The bill also would bar the United States from spending more money on the reconstruction of Iraq unless the Iraqi government matches it dollar for dollar. And it would ban the use of military construction funds to build permanent bases in Iraq.
Anti-war groups delivered "certificates of shame" and cardboard cutout "bloody hands" to Pelosi and other House leaders before the vote.
"We really feel that they have betrayed the American people who voted for them to get us out of this war," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, based in San Francisco.
Pelosi gave a fiery anti-war speech Thursday night, but also expressed her disappointment that the bill will continue to fund Bush's Iraq policy.
"Let us think and hope that this is the last time there will ever be another dollar spent without constraints, without conditions, without direction," she said.
To see how members voted on the war spending bill:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll431.xml
Wild Thing's comment.......
LOL Someone emailed me that the moonbats are beside themselves over at Democrat Underground.
They are they want Pelosi removed if Obama wins.
Calling Pelosi a traitor. (Nancy Is a Traitor, That's Criminal. Congress is Complicit. They're Criminal, Too)
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 PM | Comments (4)
Marine To Sue Murtha Over Haditha ~ Good!
Haditha Marine prepares to sue Murtha over smear
wnd
Congressman had accused soldiers of killing 'in cold blood'
With most of the eight Marines charged in the Haditha, Iraq, incident now exonerated, the highest-ranking officer among the accused is considering a lawsuit against Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who fueled the case by declaring the men cold-blooded killers.
In an interview with nationally syndicated radio talk host Michael Savage, the lead attorney for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani said he and his client will look into suing Murtha and the Time magazine reporter, Tim McGuirk, who first published the accusations by Iraqi insurgents.
But the attorney, Brian Rooney, said nothing will happen immediately because he wants Chessani, described as a devout Christian and the father of six homeschooled children, completely "out of the woods" legally before any action is taken. The government, through Lt. Col. S.M. Sullivan, today filed a notice that it would appeal the case to the next judicial level.
Please continue HERE for complete story , thank you.
Wild Thing's comment........
Give that traitorous Mullah Murtha hell. I hope all 8 of the Marines join in on this. There is still one more Marine to face charges.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (10)
June 14, 2008
Taliban Free 1,200 in Attack on Afghan Prison
Taliban Free 1,200 in Attack on Afghan Prison
Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan
Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
In a brazen attack, Taliban fighters assaulted the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday night, blowing up the mud walls, killing 15 guards and freeing around 1,200 inmates.
Among the escapees were about 350 Taliban members, including commanders, would-be suicide bombers and assassins, said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council and a brother of President Hamid Karzai.
“It is very dangerous for security. They are the most experienced killers and they all managed to escape,” he said by telephone from Kandahar.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the attack was carried out by 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers, and that they had freed about 400 Taliban members, The Associated Press reported.
The breakout from Sarposa Prison will present enormous security challenges for Afghan and NATO forces surrounding Kandahar, President Karzai’s home city but also the spiritual capital of the Taliban. Traditionally, Kandahar is home to the rulers of Afghanistan, and control of it is seen as critical to the government’s hold on the entire country.
The city has been in a precarious situation since Taliban forces massed in the nearby district of Panjwai in 2006. Since then Canadian forces have struggled to secure the area, and the Taliban have repeatedly sought to gain a foothold in the districts surrounding the town.
The prison break is also likely to increase pressure on President Karzai, who is coming under increasing criticism at home and abroad for his faltering leadership and his inability to manage the country. Even as international donors pledged $21 billion in aid for Afghanistan this week, many of them have criticized his failure to tackle the problems of security and corruption.
The attack began at 9:20 p.m., when two truck bombs exploded at the prison gates, breaking down a part of the mud walls, Ahmed Karzai said. It seemed to be well planned, officials said. After the bombings, a group of fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles mounted an attack, said a spokesman for the provincial governor. They then ran through the prison, breaking open the cell doors.
The prison lies on the west side of the city. Residents living about a half mile away in the center of town said the explosions broke windows in their street and that they could hear fighting raging for an hour after that.
Mr. Karzai said that the attackers focused their efforts on the political section of the prison, where the Taliban suspects were being held. There is also a section for ordinary criminals and one for some 80 female prisoners. Mr. Karzai said that the police and prison guards managed to prevent around 200 prisoners from escaping, but other officials contacted in the town said that every last prisoner had escaped.
While there were also ordinary criminals in the jail, families of many of the prisoners have said their relatives were swept up in military operations and wrongly imprisoned.
Villagers living near the prison said they saw prisoners running along the roads, and scattering into nearby villages, generally heading north and east to the districts of Dand and Argandab outside the city, a security official in the city, Abdul Haleem, said. He warned that the Taliban could be sheltering very close to the city.
Canadian troops, part of the NATO force that is based outside Kandahar, were deployed to the prison but arrived after the prisoners had escaped. Afghan Army, police and intelligence personnel were pursuing the prisoners in the surrounding villages, Mr. Karzai said.
The prison was recently the scene of unrest, with some 400 prisoners staging a hunger strike in May to protest their long detention without trial. Some had been held for as long as two years without trial, and some were being refused the right to appeal very harsh sentences, they said. More than 40 of the prisoners stitched their lips together with needle and thread to demonstrate their determination.
Some 300 women who came to protest outside the prison at the time said their relatives inside had been picked up by NATO and American military sweeps and were innocent but nevertheless held without trial for months and even years. Local elders and government officials negotiated an end to the protest and promised better conditions and justice. Yet, the jailbreak is likely to prove popular with many local families.
Taliban prisoners staged another escape from the prison several years ago by digging a tunnel from a cell. Officials at the time said some of the guards had been bribed to look the other way.
Another source of this:
Jail Blast Frees Hundreds Of Taliban
Nearly all of an estimated 1,150 prisoners fled when a Taliban suicide bomber blew open the main gate, officials said.
Eyewitnesses reported that the fighters fired several rockets at various parts of the mud-built prison.
"All the prisoners escaped. There is no one left," said Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai and the president of Kandahar's provincial council.
Militants first exploded a water tanker near the entrance to the gate of the prison, then several suicide bombers entered and blew themselves up, he added.
A shopkeeper who sells vegetables near the prison said he saw escaped prisoners run toward pomegranate and grape groves that lie behind it.
The blast caused an unknown number of casualties, prison director Abdul Qadir said.
"The Taliban used a truck to blow the gate open and all of the guards (at the gate) have been killed and are under rubble," he said.As he spoke, bursts of gunfire could be heard in the background.
Officials with Nato's International Security Assistance Force said they were aware of the attack.
Sky News Asia correspondent Alex Crawford, speaking from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said: "This will be seen as a major propagana coup for the Taliban, who will certainly use it as such.
"It is also a blow to Nato and the fight against the militants, who have been claiming their influence is spreading throughout the country."
Wild Thing's comment.......
All the work our troops did to capture these terrorists. GRRRRRR And now they are all out of prison.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (8)
June 13, 2008
Court Gives Detainees Habeas Rights ~ Lawyers Thrilled
"The Nation will live to regret what the Court had done today," Justice Antonin Scalia writes at the end of his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush, the case in which a bare majority of the Supreme Court, for the first time ever, extended rights under the U.S. constitution to enemy combatants who have never set foot on U.S. soil.
Court gives detainees habeas rights
In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.
The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court refused to interpret the Detainee Treatment Act — as the Bush Administration had suggested — to include enough legal protection to make it an adequate replacement for habeas. Congress, it concluded, unconstitutionally suspended the writ in enacting that Act.
Justice Scalia
Both the Chief Justice and Justice Antonin Scalia issued dissenting opinions, and all four dissenters joined in both dissents. In his dissent, Justice Scalia writes, “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Justice Scalia’s 25-page dissenting opinion concludes, “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”
Chief Justice John Roberts
Chief Justice John Roberts says the rule of law and the American people have lost out–and with this ruling, we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”
So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court’s analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases,followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit— where they could have started had they invoked the DTA procedure. Not Congress, whose attempt to “determine— through democratic means—how best” to balance the security of the American people with the detainees’ liberty interests, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 636 (2006) (BREYER, J., concurring), has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. I respectfully dissent."
UPDATE :
The District Court judges in Washington who will hear the detainees’ habeas challenges mandated by the Supreme Court will meet soon to decide how to proceed, that Court announced shortly after the Supreme Court ruled. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said “I expect we’ll call in the lawyers for both sides to see what suggestions they have for how we can approach our task most effectively and efficiently.”
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Wild Thing's comment.....
Lock and load comes to mind.
It was bad enough when McCain said he would close GITMO the day after he becomes President and how all on the left want to shut it down too. And now this????!!!
“The Nation will live to regret what the Court had done today”
No truer words.
Supreme Court, for the first time ever, extended rights under the U.S. constitution to enemy combatants who have never set foot on U.S. soil.
Unbelievable!
This is just outrageous. Never before in the history of US warfare have we had to go out and Mirandize prisoners of war. That's what we're going to effectively have to do. We're going to have to read prisoners of war their rights just as we would a thief at the local convenience store. These 270 prisoners now have access to the US Constitution as though they are citizens.
This is a victory for the enemy. It is a disgrace. is bad for the country. This is bad for US national security.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (20)
June 12, 2008
Democrats aka CODE Pink vs. Veterans and Those That LOVE America
In this shocking video, code pink calls all United States Marines war criminals. They also claim al qaeda is not a threat to the United States and that World War two was "wrong." And she says nothing wrong with communism.
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Code Pink protesters entice veterans and other patriotic Americans during an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. A veteran, a veteran's wife, and some college students turn the tables on Code Pink and send them away with their traitorous tails between their legs.
Wild Thing's comment........
Don't you just love the Veteran that ran over and took their sign away from them. YEE HAW!
I would give hima huge hug!
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:18 PM | Comments (6)
June 09, 2008
First lady Laura Bush in Afghanistan
First Lady Laura Bush made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday with an appeal to the international community not to abandon the war-torn country in the face of resurgent Taliban violence.
This is Mrs. Bush's third trip to Afghanistan, where the repressive Taliban ruled until U.S. forces invaded following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"The people of Afghanistan don't want to go back and live like that," Mrs. Bush told reporters on her plane as it made the nearly 14-hour flight to the Afghan capital. "They know what it was like. The international community can't drop Afghanistan now, at this very crucial time."
United States first lady Laura Bush, (R) watches a traditional New Zealand arrival dance with Afghanistan's first woman provincial mayor of Bamiran Province Habiba Sarabi (L) after arriving at the Bamiyan Provincial Reconstruction Team Base controlled by the New Zealand military.
U.S. first lady Laura Bush, center, poses for a group photo with New Zealand soliders during a welcoming ceremony at the military compound in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Sunday, June 8, 2008. New Zealand military took over Bamiyan's Provincial Reconstruction Team Base from U.S. Troops in 2003.
U.S. first lady Laura Bush speaks to Afghan women during a visit to Kabul June 8, 2008. Bush appealed to the international community on Sunday not to abandon Afghanistan in the face of resurgent Taliban violence. Rocked by daily battles with Taliban rebels that have killed some 12,000 people in two years, Kabul is to ask international donors in Paris this week to fund a $50-billion five-year development plan it hopes will undercut the insurgency.
U.S. first lady Laura Bush poses with U.S. military personnel stationed at Bagram AB before her departure for Slovenia after a surprise visit to Afghanistan
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Wild Thing's comment........
Laura Bush is first class all the way. I thought it would be nice to do a post about her trip to Afghanistan.
Posted by Wild Thing at 01:47 AM | Comments (7)
June 02, 2008
Lance Cpl. Crutchfield On Leave From Iraq Killed For His $ 8.00
Marine, back from Iraq, shot dead in his home town
CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- On leave from the violence he had survived in the war in Iraq, a young Marine was so wary of crime on the streets of his own home town that he carried only $8 to avoid becoming a robbery target.
Despite his caution, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, 21, was shot point-blank in the neck during a robbery at a bus stop.
Feeding and breathing tubes kept him alive 41/2 months, until he died of an infection on May 18.
Two men have been charged in the attack, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said Friday the case was under review to decide whether to seek the death penalty.
"It is an awful story," said Alberta Holt, the young Marine's aunt and his legal guardian when he was a teenager determined to flee a troubled Cleveland school for safer surroundings in the suburbs.
Crutchfield was attacked on January 5 while he and his girlfriend were waiting for a bus. He had heeded the warnings of commanders that a Marine on leave might be seen as a prime robbery target with a pocketful of money, so he only carried $8, his military ID card and a bank card.
"They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn't have any money he didn't deserve to live. They put the gun to his neck and shot him," Holt told The Associated Press.
The two men charged in the attack were identified as Ean Farrow, 19, and Thomas Ray III, 20, both of Cleveland. Their attorneys did not respond to The Associated Press' requests for comment.
Crutchfield knew he was returning to Iraq for another tour of duty, but had hesitated to tell his family until he was nearing the end of his 30-day leave.
He apparently had a troubled family. Holt wouldn't discuss it except to say "his mom and dad didn't raise him, just his grandmother and me." He didn't smoke or drink, she said.
He had attended Cleveland's inner-city East High School, but asked that he be allowed to live with his aunt and grandmother and attend suburban Bedford High School for his final two years.
"He saw his school was in turmoil and asked to get out," Holt said.
Bedford High teachers recalled Crutchfield's smile, his pride in his appearance, his determination to join the Marine Corps after graduation in 2005 and his aspiration to become an architect.
"He was friendly and kind and willing to help out in any way that he could," counselor Yvonne Sims said in an e-mail.
Connie LaNasa, who works in the school office, said Crutchfield was a well-behaved student and went about his school work with little notice.
"He lived out what he wanted to do and that is to be a Marine," LaNasa said.
Faculty members remembered Crutchfield as a top student in the computer design program, an office assistant and participant in the prom fashion show.
After his long hospitalization, an infection broke out a week before he died. "He said it felt like he was getting hit by lightning," Holt said.
When Crutchfield's body was laid out Tuesday in the Sacrificial Missionary Baptist Church, his white military dress hat was tugged down close to his eyes to conceal the skull flap that had been kept open to relieve swelling in his brain.
Marines provided an honor guard at his funeral service and carried the casket to his grave at the Western Reserve National Cemetery near Akron.
Wild Thing's comment.......
This is so sad!! What an awful tragedy!! Prayers for his family. LCpl Crutchfield wasn't the one who didn't deserve to live. I hope they fry those two worthless creeps.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (11)
May 30, 2008
Nancy Pelosi Says We Should All Be Thanking....IRAN!
"Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians - they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities - the Iranians."— Nancy Pelosi, during an 80-minute interview with reporters and members of the editorial board of The San Francisco Chronicle, 5/28
80-minute interview can be found HERE.
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Wild Thing's comment........
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has set us all straight. Our soldiers, risking their lives, aren't responsible for the reduction of violence in Iraq and the solidifying of their government. According to Madam Speaker, we should all be thanking… Iran.....OMG she is nuts! Discounting the success of the American military, denying the accomplishments of U.S. and our allies, and giving the credit to our most dangerous enemies!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (13)
May 18, 2008
Matthis Chiroux US soldier refuses to serve in 'illegal Iraq war'
Breitbart ....for complete article
"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.
"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.
Chiroux joined the US army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.
He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.
On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.
"I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq," Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.
"My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation... I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation," he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.
Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.
IVAW member Matthis Chiroux announces his refusal to deploy to Iraq
Here it is Winter Soldier on the Hill and this twit is their latest claim to so called fame.
Wild Thing's comment........
This crap is John Kerry revisited!!!
Six years down the road after promotions and reenlistments, he’s blaming it on the recruiters????
What a hypocritical jerk!!!!!
He volunteered, then he reenlisted and I'm sure got a big reup bonus out of it too. He has been cashing those paychecks for many years and now the cowardly bastard wants to quit because he is afraid to go to Iraq.!!!!!!
Patriotic dissent my arse...The enemy supporting propaganda from the left is working.
"My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation..."
From a bad high school student to an expert on constitutional law in a few short years. Guess that will be his claim to those teaching him the propaganda in to his mush brain.
Once a traitor...always a traitor!!
Patton knew what to do with someone like this:
Patton's Speech to the Troops in England May 31, 1944
"Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the G_ddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men."
....Thank you Mark for sending the link to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (18)
Smackdown Of Keith Olbermann By Mark Levin
Olbermann on Wednesday's "Countdown" "accused the President of 'panoramic and murderous deceit,' and of 'creating' an America that 'includes cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives.'"
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Wild Thing's comment........
This scum Olbermann needs to be removed or forced to resign. Our guys are getting killed and this puke gets paid to say this stuff. I am sick of these anti-American creeps on the media defaming our country.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (6)
Olbermann Calls US Troops "Cold Blooded Killers"!
Laura Ingraham Blasts Olbermann for Calling US Troops "Cold Blooded Killers"!
Wild Thing's comment........
I agree with what the second to the last caller said......Olberman's head on a platter! "
This bashing our troops should never be ignored.
Someone said to me yesterday about what Olbermann said to just ignore it that he is just asking for attention.
Maybe so, but there is a danger in NOT pointing things like this out, because it is like saying it is OK to say such a thing and it is NOT!
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:47 AM | Comments (6)
May 10, 2008
The Threat That Radical Islam Represents To The West
The threat that radical islam represents to the west
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Walid Shoebat is amazing and well worth it to hear him speak. His books are excellent as well. He became a Christian and his life has been in danger ever since.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (8)
May 09, 2008
Dust Off The Waterboarding Equipment!!
UPDATE:
This is an update to the story further down. Thank you Lynn for the heads up about this.
Al Qeada in Iraq leader not captured - U.S. military
BAGHDAD, May 9 (Reuters) - A man seized by Iraqi forces in the northern city of Mosul is not Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, a senior U.S. military official said on Friday.
"He has not been detained," the official told Reuters, without giving further details. Several Iraqi officials had earlier said Masri had been captured in an operation late on Wednesday
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Suspected al Qaeda leader in Iraq arrested
Iraqi security forces have detained a man suspected of being the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq after a captured associate led them to him sleeping in a house in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said on Friday May 9,2008).
The U.S. military in Baghdad said it was checking the reports that Abu Ayyab al-Masri, an Egyptian also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, had been detained.
If confirmed, the arrest would be another blow for Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in Iraq, which has reeled under a wave of U.S. military operations in the past year and been forced to regroup in northern Iraq.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said an associate of Masri detained in an earlier operation took security forces late on Wednesday to where the al Qaeda leader was hiding.
After being detained, Masri confessed to being the al Qaeda in Iraq leader, he said, adding that his identity still had to be confirmed. Other Iraqi security officials said the suspect was in American custody for identification.
Al Qaeda in Iraq was headed by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he was killed in a U.S. air strike in June 2006. His successor, Masri, was Zarqawi's close associate, and has a U.S. bounty of $5 million (2.6 million pounds) on his head.
Duraid Kashmula, the governor of Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, also said the detained man had confessed to being Masri.
"When police entered the house, they found him asleep," Kashmula said, adding the suspect was alone.
"These is