FREEDOM FIGHTERS (those who are trying to liberate their lands from foreign occupation like the Palestinians and the Iraqis.)
TERRORISTS (those who are trying to destabilize legitimate governments like AlQueda)

For the most comprehensive and least edited news of Iraq from both US and Middle News go to Professor Juan Cole's web page at http://www.juancole.com .  Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. 

June 17, 2004

RELIGION - From the beginning to the end of this week's annual gathering of Southern Baptists in Indianapolis, the two themes filled the air ? a celebration of their conservative movement within their denomination and a lament over social trends they decry as increasingly secular, hostile to Christianity and friendly to homosexuality.  As they concluded their annual meeting yesterday, Southern Baptists celebrated the 25th anniversary of the start of a political movement that shifted the nation's largest denomination to the right, along with its agencies and its seminaries in Louisville and elsewhere.  But speaker after speaker thundered against gay marriage, abortion, "secularism" and other social trends they view as signs of national decay. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040617a.htm * The reality is that secular society is democratic and inclusive and Christianity is autocratic and exclusive.  In addition, the Christian bureaucracy, like all religious bureaucracies is more concerned with preserving the bureaucracy than with spreading the word of Jesus.  The teachings of Jesus was undeniably one of anti-bureaucratic religion. For an ongoing example of the evils of religious bureaucracies go to http://www.presbyterians-r-us.com

IRAQ - Guerrillas blew up one of Iraq's main oil-export pipelines yesterday for the second time in two days, forcing a shutdown of the country's economic lifeline. A spate of pipeline attacks has underscored the vulnerability of Iraq's economy to the guerrillas as they try to scuttle U.S. efforts to install an Iraqi government friendly to America.  In the middle of the night, saboteurs blew open a pipeline just outside the southern oil port of Basra, forcing a shutdown of the line that is likely to last for several days, officials in Iraq told reporters. The attacks this week have cut off exports via Iraq's two Persian Gulf oil terminals, while Iraq's other export route - a pipeline from northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan - has been closed for several weeks.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040617b.htm * There can be no doubt that Bush's crusade in the Middle East is a diaster.  Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.  This is what happens when foreign policy is based on guns instead of diplomacy and when lies are told by the President of the United States for the sole purpose of manipulating the people.  The Zionist fundamentalist Christian influence in the White House and Washington in general is a detriment to democracy and an impediment to peace.  It is my hope that when we elect a President in 2008, he or she will be a younger man or woman who is not a product of the American wars of the 20th Century and is a believer in God and in a secular society without the influence of religious fanatics who spread lies and deceit and manifest wars allegedly in the name of God.

May 30, 2004

ENVIRONMENT - New research shows that much less sunlight is reaching the earth than 50 years ago. "Global dimming", as it has inevitably become called, has been suspected for nearly 20 years, since a Swiss geography researcher, routinely checking sunshine levels across Europe in 1985, found that they had dropped, even on the brightest days. Studies all around the world found similar results, showing drops in sunlight ranging from 2 to 37 per cent since the 1950s.  The research, published in Science, is the first to prove that the dimming is a global phenomenon. Scientists at the New Jersey and California Institutes of Technology remembered how Leonardo da Vinci had worked out that the dark side of the moon was illuminated by sunlight reflected from the Earth. By measuring this "Earthshine" they worked out that the world is about 10 per cent darker than half a century ago. Scientists are divided over whether global dimming is a natural phenomenon or caused by pollution, such as soot particles emitted from car exhausts, and global warming, which evaporates more water from the Earth, causing more clouds. Professor Philip R Goode, who led the study, told The Independent on Sunday that the way the dimming has varied suggests that it may be a natural phenomenon.  Whatever the cause, there could be massive effects on farming and on attempts to capture solar energy as the earth "dims down".

May 19, 2004

May 18, 2004

HUMAN RIGHTS - With America's reputation at its lowest ebb in years, the US State Department published its annual promotion of human rights report, conceding the prisoner abuse scandal was a huge "cloud" over its mission, the British Telegraph newspaper reported Tuesday.  The report summarizes actions in 101 countries to promote freedom and to end abuses, including torture, the very crime American soldiers are accused of in Iraq, the paper said.  The paper quoted Lorne Craner, US assistant secretary of state responsible for promoting human rights and democracy, as saying that the awful images of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison hampered America's ability to promote human rights.  "This was a cloud obscuring what we tried to do on democracy issues. And we want to punch through the cloud and say we are not going to give up on democracy and human rights promotion," Craner was quoted as saying.  "We got things wrong and we are going to fix it," Craner told the paper.  The paper also said that in an implicit rebuke for the neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, who promoted the idea of transplanting democracy to the Middle East, Craner made it clear that America's mission had to be less ambitious.  "We can't implant democracy everywhere," Craner said. * The arrogance of George Bush took America into an unprovoked invasion of Iraq based on the lie that there were weapons of mass destruction and an Osama Saddam link.  Only later did it become a war to promote democracy in the Middle East.  Military invasions can never be the source of peace and democracy when the invasion is unprovoked.  Such a concept is totally stupid and only the neo-Nazis in the Bush administration would try to feed such a ridiculous concept to the American people.  What is worse is that they were initially successful.

May 17, 2004

IRAQ - Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that what he had called "the most dramatic" element of his Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the United Nations was "inaccurate and discredited."  The presentation, considered a key in convincing allies and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, claimed the existence of mobile biological-weapons laboratories.  "When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me," Powell said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press."  "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed, and I regret it," he said.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040517c.htm * And with that, Mr. Powell says he is sorry to the families of almost 1,000 dead American soldiers and close to 5,000 wounded and maimed in Iraq.  Mr. Powell is regretful.  Not sorry.  Just regrets it.  He is saying that the CIA is stupid or liars or both.  He just read what was given him.  George Bush is really a great guy.  And life is great at the White House.  I wish that he would have said that he is just stupid and that when he was the Chief of Staff we were not in danger of his inability to sort through data for the truth.  I wish that he would resign but since he is one of the few moderate voices in the Bush administration, he would be replaced by another neo-Nazi which would be detrimental for us all.  I guess we will have to accept his regrets.  Many of those dead soldiers can have that put on their grave stones.  "Colin Powell is regretful that I am dead".  And when the children of those dead soldiers go to school, they can tell their friends that Colin Powell is regretful that their daddies and mommies are dead.

AIDS - The U.S. government has opened a new front in the battle over getting cheap AIDS drugs to the poorest countries that need them, saying it will consider approving and providing cheap, multiple-dose generics.  U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said on Sunday the Food and Drug Administration would give fast-track approval to new ready-made, single dose cocktails -- even to copycats made in India.  U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randal Tobias said any drugs approved under the program could then be used in programs across Africa and the Caribbean, under which the United States is targeting $15 billion in aid to the countries hardest-hit by the epidemic.  Many groups, including some members of Congress, have been pressuring the U.S. government to use the cheap, multiple dose combinations. Medecins Sans Frontiers, known also as Doctors Without Borders, has been distributing them in 20 countries and say they are both cheaper and easier to take.  But the U.S. government has resisted, saying the copycats may not be safe. AIDS groups have accused the government of catering to big pharmaceutical companies that make the brand-name drugs under lucrative patents. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040517b.htm  * It is a good thing that the Bush administration is finally doing something to provide cheap AIDS drugs to the world. However, the truth is that Bush is a liar and we can expect that the will renege on his commitment.  In the meantime, AIDS is spreading around the world and people are dying.   In the meantime, killing Iraqis is more important than saving AIDS victims.  If you are trying to do something about the world's population, one method of death is as good as another.  I guess this will help Bush get his foreign relations budget in line.  No people.  No budget.  

IRAQ - A suicide car bomber killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council Monday, increasing fears that instability will make a new Iraqi government unable to function when U.S. occupiers hand it power in six weeks.  The killing of Izzedin Salim dealt another major blow to the U.S.-led coalition, battling a Shi'ite Muslim insurgency and a growing scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.  Salim, a Shi'ite who edited several newspapers, was in the last car of a council convoy waiting to enter the "Green Zone" coalition headquarters when the bomb exploded at a checkpoint in central Baghdad, killing six people.  Governing Council members were clearly among the targets of increased terrorism in Iraq, said Mahmoud Othman, who sits on the U.S.-backed council.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040517a.htm  *  The message seems to be that anything imposed by America is to be killed.  Iraq is determined to rule itself, even if it means civil war.  In the end, Americans are going to have to clean up Bush's Iraq mess for decades to come.  There is no righteous way out of Iraq.  Nothing was learned from Vietnam because little George did not go to Vietnam.  The news from Iraq has been bad every since we defeated these people.  The only good thing that can come out of Iraq is the removal of Bush from office.  If we can remove Bush from office, peace may actually have a chance.  Get rid of Ariel Sharon and his neo-Nazi Zionists and tension in the Middle East will definitely reduce.

May 14, 2004

IRAQ - MORE MONEY MORE MONEY MORE MONEY - Top Pentagon and Bush budget officials faced a skeptical Senate committee yesterday as they tried to convince committee members to support an ambiguous $25 billion reserve fund to finance the Iraq war.  "It's unusual," conceded acting Pentagon comptroller Lawrence Lanzillotta in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.  "It's the first of a kind and we want to make certain that it is in conformity with the traditional practices to the extent we can so that we can maintain our oversight," said committee Chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). "This is a very significant sum of taxpayers' money over which Congress must exercise its appropriate oversight."  Congress' main check on the White House's wide-ranging authority is its power to approve federal spending, and it jealously guards this right. The $25 billion reserve fund represents a departure from that constitutional arrangement. It would give the Pentagon the right to spend the money in any way it wants for Iraq and Afghanistan, with almost no input from Congress.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040514d.htm * The last thing we need to do is to give the Pentagon and its neo fascists a blank check.  To do that would almost guarantee an invasion of Syria and some kind of incursion into Cuba.  It is time for the idiocy to stop.  It is time to impeach the President for his lies and crimes against humanity.

May 12, 2004

IRAQ - BUSH AND DUE PROCESS - Michael Berg claimed yesterday that his son, Nick, was held by US authorities without access to a telephone or lawyer because of suspicions that he was an insurgent or terrorist. By the time he was finally released in early April, according to Mr Berg, the security situation had so deteriorated that it was difficult for him to make his way home.  "That's really what cost my son his life, the fact that the United States government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of his due process or civil rights," Mr Berg said.  The family's accusation comes as the Bush administration struggles to fend off allegations that it has denied the civil rights of thousands of mostly Arab detainees it is holding in military prisons around the world on suspicion of terrorism.  Mr Berg was apprehended by Iraqi officials near the northern city of Mosul on March 24, according to his father, who claims that he was then interrogated by FBI agents.  Mr Berg was released on April 6, a day after his parents filed a lawsuit in federal court naming defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a defendant, and claiming that their son was being unlawfully held. They last heard from him on April 9. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040512d.htm * The neo fascist in the Bush administration have gone a long way toward eroding the civil rights that is the foundation of American democracy.  All over the world and in America, no one is safe from the Bush Gestapo.  

CUBA - "The main impact is it puts the Cuban people on notice that the Cuban government may change its policies in response to increased sanctions from the United States," said Phil Peters, who has written about the Cuban economy for the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank. "It's no secret the Cuban government feels besieged. Part of their message has been to keep people on their toes against aggression."  Last week, President Bush announced new measures to limit the flow of dollars to Cuba by reducing the number of trips Cuban Americans can take to the island, slashing the amount of money they can spend here and prohibiting cash transfers to Communist Party members.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040512c.htm * George has destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq and now is stirring up trouble in Cuba and talking like he is going to invade Syria.  Pretty soon he will be attacking New York City.  Anyone who says that George Bush is not a dangerous war mongering  idiot is just not reading the news.  And by the way, where is that pesky Osama bin Laden?

SYRIA - US President George W. Bush signed an order on Tuesday imposing sanctions on Syria to punish Damascus for allegedly supporting terrorism and failing to block infiltration of guerillas into Iraq, agencies reports said. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040512b.htm * As if George has not stirred up enough trouble in the world, now he is going after Syria.  Who can doubt that if he is reelected the entire Middle East will manifest Armageddon?  

May 11, 2004

IRAQ - TORTURE - Amnesty International accused British soldiers in Iraq on Tuesday of killing civilians who posed no apparent threat, widening an Anglo-American scandal over the behavior of occupation troops.  The human rights group said in a report that Britain was undermining the rule of law in Iraq by failing to investigate properly the killings of up to 37 civilians over the past year, including an eight-year-old girl.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040511a.htm * The prisoner abuse issue is one that shows the hypocrisy of Bush and Blair.  In the name of democracy and Christianity, Iraqis are tortured and humiliated.  Iraq was not a threat to the US.  There were no weapons of mass destruction.  So why was there a need for this torture and humiliation.  It has to do with a lack of respect and an intolerance for certain categories of human beings.  It has to do with a belief that non Americans have no rights to Christian love or democratic principles.  It has to do with an arrogance that comes with a belief that might makes right and God loves the victor and hates the vanquished.  Fundamentalist Christians and Zionist are some of the most intolerant human beings on the planet and unfortunately they have a significant presence in the Bush administration.

May 10, 2004

Letters to the Editor Tariq A. Al-Maeena.

Prime-time George chose two regional networks to explain to the Arab world that he was unaware of the doings of his troops; of the butchery, the abuse, and the horrific torture at the hands of his men.

He appeared on Al-Hurra, a US-funded network that hardly anybody in the region cares to tune in to. Seen as a mouthpiece of an administration beset with lies and deceit, nobody bothers with this organ, which drains the US government of approximately $60 million annually, money perhaps better spent toward the development of schools or playgrounds in the inner cities in the US.

And on the Al-Arabiya network, he came off as unconvincing as the peddler trying to palm off the Brooklyn Bridge. He claims he didnt know that crimes were being carried out by his troops. Now when a commander in chief utters those words, alarm bells should ring. He didnt know?

This has become a familiar pattern with George. When faced with a distasteful situation, either a memory lapse occurs, or else he doesnt know. He didnt know that the FBI had advance knowledge of a terrorist  threat directed toward the US. Why they allowed it to happen remains unclear. He didnt know that the CIA was convinced there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but he still went ahead with the singular purpose as he stated then of finding them.

He didnt know of swirling allegations that his vice president, Dick Cheney, was profiteering from the incursion into Iraq, of fat rebuilding contracts being handed over to select companies with strong business ties to Mr. Cheney. He didnt know that his Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was reportedly an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein back in the late 1980s. Mr. Rumsfeld apparently encouraged the strong-arm tactics of the ruthless dictator.

He doesnt know that school buses carrying children were bombed by his troops in Afghanistan. He doesnt know that civilian casualties in Afghanistan as a result of his orders far outnumber the victims of Sept. 11. He didnt know of the generously used cluster bombs that were dropped in heavily populated areas in the cities and towns in Afghanistan.

Apparently, he also doesnt know of the abuses much closer to home, in a place called Guantanamo, where men are being held without counsel in defiance of every known international law, under the pretext of being enemy combatants, and subject to the same abuses which are dominating headlines in the worlds press today.

STEM CELL RESEARCH - Former US First Lady Nancy Reagan has urged the Bush administration to support embryonic stem cell research.  Mrs Reagan said too much time had been wasted already discussing the issue.  She is said to believe the research could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's disease, which has afflicted her husband, Ronald Reagan.  The Bush administration has blocked public funding of this type of research because of his party's ethical reservations about embryo research.  At a fundraising dinner for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Hollywood, Mrs Reagan said her husband was now in "a distant place where I can no longer reach him".  "I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this... We have lost so much time already. I just really can't bear to lose any more."  She said she believed stem cell research "may provide our scientists with many answers that for so long have been beyond our grasp".  It is thought to be the first time that Mrs Reagan has made a public speech on the issue, although her views have long been known.  Mrs Reagan is the latest high-profile figure to criticise the Bush administration for its decision to limit funding for stem cell research.  Former Superman actor Christopher Reeve, left severely disabled following a riding accident, and actor Michael J. Fox, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, have both criticised the Bush administration for blocking research which they believe could improve their conditions.  Currently federal funds are not available for this type of work.  Mr Bush has told scientists he will not release US taxpayers' money for the production or investigation of new lines because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Correspondents say that with the Bush administration and anti-abortion groups strongly opposed to stem cell research, Mrs Reagan's comments add a powerful conservative Republican voice to the debate. * This is just another example of how the neo fascist (Fundamentalist Christians) are controlling George Bush.  All Bush is concerned about is his coalition of the self righteous that he has created by appealing to people's most conservative fears regarding change.  George Bush lost the popular vote in the last election; remember.  People are suffering and there is a potential cure in stem cell research. Yet in the name of  Jesus, George Bush has determined that scientific research must be limited.  In the name of Jesus, George discounts the lives of all Muslims.  George Bush is a very dangerous man.

IRAQ - Days after a military prison guard in Iraq placed a compact disk containing photographs of prisoner abuse on the bunk of an Army investigator, the military's top officer knew that the Pentagon, and the country, were facing a major crisis. The call to Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came via telephone from his four-star commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid. It was Jan. 14 or 15 ? Myers can't recall the exact date. But he recalls the message: "There are reports of abuse" by U.S. guards at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, Abizaid said.  Over the secure line, Abizaid described the allegation of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners reported on Jan. 13 by Army Spc. Joseph Darby, a reservist from Maryland. He told Myers about the disk, "Here's what basically the pictures might show."  Abizaid added, "This is a big deal."  This was the Pentagon's first explicit, high-level warning, but by no means its first hint that something had gone drastically wrong at the largest U.S.-run prison in Iraq. The now voluminous public record shows that the Pentagon received repeated reports of prisoner abuse but put a higher priority on extracting information about terrorist or insurgent attacks.http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040510a.htm * There can be no denying that Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and the other Christian Fundamentalist and Zionist that make up the core of Bush's top advisors are very much like Hilter's top men.  These people have a tendency to ruthless and inhumane acts in the name of God and in the name of nationalism.  There were no weapons of mass destruction.  There was no O'sama/Saddam link. All that was lies.  There was no threat to the United States.  But even after that was found out, the torture continued both in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.  Considering the bent of George Bush to violate human rights, (Remember his refusal to sign the global human rights declaration several years ago.  Only the US and Israel refused to sign.  Now you know why.  He intended to abuse human beings.) we have to have serious questions about the entire Homeland Security bureaucracy.  Remember Bush's pat on the back of Sharon for his assassinations?  George Bush and his henchmen are a very dangerous gang.  

May 9, 2004

IRAQ - On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq?troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani?Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.  Whether he wins or loses in November, George W. Bush's legacy is now clear: the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the globe. I'm sure he takes full responsibility.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040509b.htm  *  Those people who are running the White House at the moment are little more than neo-fascist.  They speak words like Democracy but their acts are an affront to democracy. They tout their Christian values yet treat the rest of the world in a most unChristian way.  On thing that can be said for George Bush, he is not afraid of making an ass of himself in front of the entire world.

IRAQ - As gruesome pictures of Americans taunting naked Iraqi prisoners hit the Internet and TV screens around the world this past week, grim-faced aides in the White House held onto a sliver of hope. Perhaps the king of Jordan, one of the country's few strong Arab allies, would help.  King Abdullah II had abruptly canceled an earlier visit to the White House last month after President Bush embraced the possibility of permanent Israeli settlements in the West Bank and suggested the Palestinians give up their claims to some lands in Israel proper.  The visit had been re-scheduled for Thursday, and perhaps the king could be persuaded to help cool the anger among Arabs and Muslims that had been ignited by the prisoner-abuse scandal.  Abdullah did his part. Standing in the Rose Garden Thursday afternoon, he expressed confidence that the United States would quickly investigate the prison abuses and prosecute those involved.  But the king exacted a price: President Bush dialed back last month's statements on Israel and the Palestinians, returning to the boilerplate U.S. stance that all outstanding issues would have to be resolved by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040509a.htm *  As the days go by, there is less and less doubt about the fact that George Bush is an idiot.  He is totally overwhelmed by his job.  He is a Neanderthal backing the Zionist as if the Muslims in the world did not exists.  And then when he backs Sharon's unilateral withdrawal, he discovers that Sharon can't deliver.  The thing that bothers me the most is that the Bush Administration is still arrogant.  Donald Rumsfeld is undoubtedly a loose canon living in some kind of fanasty that the is the world's premeir war lord and that he can send American soldiers where ever he wants.  Well, again, the freedom fighters are showing America that big guns and big tanks are vulnerable to dedicated men and women operating in small cells.  Even with the increased troop levels, 140,000 American soldiers cannot control 25 million Iraqis. But as bad as things are, I pray every day that Dubya is not assassinated and DICK Cheney inherits the presidency. 

May 6, 2004

The Bush administration is seeking an additional 25 billion dollars for the Pentagon budget for next year because of the growing cost of US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides said Wednesday.  White House budget officials will discuss the proposal with top Republicans at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, CNN reported, quoting aides to Republican congressmen.  As US military encountered increasing insurgency in Iraq and was forced to keep higher-than-expected number of forces there, Pentagon officials have said the cost of the Iraqi military operation would grow.  The Bush administration has funded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with supplemental appropriations that are not includedin its budget requests for Pentagon.  Congress has passed two bills appropriating more than 160 billion dollars since the war started in March last year. The White House has said the administration does not expected to seek additional money before January.  Lawmakers said the US military will need at least 50 billion dollars to keep troops in Iraq for the next year, and the Bush administration is trying to avoid disclosing the price tag because of election-year politics.

May 3, 2004

ISLAMABAD, May 2: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has asked the nation to fight the evils of terrorism and sectarianism and to work for eliminating negative propaganda against Islam by highlighting its true spirit.  In his message on the eve of Eid Milad un Nabi 1425 Hijra, the president said: "Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, sectarianism, extremism and tyranny. "The great religion with its greatness and prudence considers these acts as ignorance."  He said: "We should promote love, affection and fraternity among ourselves, because it would result into a welfare society that conforms to the teachings of Islam." Felicitating the Muslim Ummah and particularly the nation on Eid Milad un Nabi, the President said the birthday of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) is the time to signify real fondness with him.  We are believers of the Last Prophet to whom Allah Almighty bestowed the title of 'Rehmatul Lil Alamin' which means that his personality is a source of blessings for the entire universe, he added.  He said the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) gave the lesson of love and brotherhood and clearly taught humanity about the sanctity of human life. "The affection with Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) involves one's obligation to follow the message of Islam and conform to the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH).  One should work not only for the propagation of universal love and brotherhood, but also to struggle for the achievement of these great objectives. This should be the crux of the life of a true Muslim and a believer of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)," he said.  He said in this way, the Muslims can attain a respectable place at international level and help reflect the true spirit of Islam. -APP

April 23, 2004

FLAG DRAPED COFFINS - AND THE BUSH BAN censorship established by the White House on photos of the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has been broken. Last Sunday, The Seattle Times newspaper rebelled against the Bush administration ban and published an article titled The somber labor of honoring the fallen, which began by describing the image of a pile of aluminum boxes draped in U.S. flags.  Last Monday, the popular news web site, Drudge Report, had as a front page headline, The media has corpses, over a photo of 18 coffins.  Footage of the inside of a cargo plane carrying coffins can be found on http://www.thememoryhole.org, where it is explained that a number of images are circulating on web sites and e-mail, sidestepping the U.S. military?s position. It also recommends sending on similar images.  Ever since the war on Viet Nam, according to thememoryhole.org, U.S. leaders have been concerned that their military actions would lose support once the body bags began to appear.  A brief article titled, Military coffins, the photos that aren?t supposed to be seen, on the same web site, says that the Bush administration has found a simple solution, prohibiting the public diffusion of such images on all the military bases.  According to The Washington Post, the policy dates from the year 2000, during the administration of Bill Clinton.  In March 2003, shortly before the war on Iraq, the Pentagon banned funeral ceremonies on military bases, as well as the presence of the media during the transfer of bodies from Ramstein, Germany to Dover, Delaware, in the U.S. During the height of the war, the measure was reinforced.  Some of the footage on the Internet dates from March 29, 2004, and was filmed from the Dover military base.  Up until this past Tuesday, the U.S. forces have suffered 100 casualties this month, making it the deadliest since the start of the war; at the same time, George W. Bush?s military decisions were being questioned by security officials.

April 22, 2004

ENVIRONMENT - An annual Earth Day poll by The Gallup Organization this week found that Americans are less worried today about the environment than they have been in the past. The shift "may reflect the tough economic situation facing the country in the past few years," noted Gallup's analyst, Lydia Saad.  Indeed, when asked whether environmental protection or economic growth should be given priority when the two interests conflict, a record low number of Americans have chosen environmental protection in each of the last two years -- 49 percent this year, 47 percent in 2003.  Moreover, in the latest poll, just 8 percent cited the environment as the most important issue facing the country in the next 25 years, down from 14 percent four years ago.  Nonetheless, Americans give the environment a more negative assessment now than in previous years. Fifty-seven percent rate the quality of the nation's environment today as "fair" or "poor," a jump of 5 percent since President Bush took office.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040422b.htm  I think fewer people care about the environment because the US is now an urban society.  People do not live on farms and they therefore cannot understand what is happening in nature.  The air is dirty in the big cities and getting worse but those who live there just consider it a natural event.  So the truth is that people agree the environment is getting worse but doing anything about it is low on their priority list.  Without clean air, there is more sickness and death.  Without clean water, there is more sickness and death.  Without food, we starve.

April 21, 2004

GENETICS - CLONING - PLAYING GOD - Tomohiro Kono and colleagues at Tokyo University of Agriculture said the mice were the first mammals born through parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction common elsewhere in the animal kingdom, in which an unfertilised egg gives rise to a viable embryo.  The achievement, published today in the journal Nature, is a landmark in reproductive biology, which may come to be seen in future as being of comparable significance to the birth in 1996 of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal. And it may prove almost as controversial.  Scientists say the procedure is far too difficult and dangerous for anyone to consider using it for human reproduction. But the Japanese paper will open up a new field of research that could eventually lead to improvements in medicine and animal breeding.  "This is an incredible achievement but the experiments used an extremely complex procedure - more complicated than cloning," said Azim Surani, professor of physiology and reproduction at Cambridge University in the UK. "From around 600 eggs only two [live] mice were born."  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040421c.htm  *  While the world focuses on war, science is quietly unraveling genetic secrets at an astounding pace.  The time is soon coming when the temptation to make a modified human being will be a reality.  Human with gills or very small humans for space travel.  To race and religion and nationality we are about to add a whole new dimension of generic prejudice, the modified human beings.

SAUDI ARABIA - At least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday when a car bomb destroyed a Saudi security service building in the capital, witnesses said.  Saudi officials described it as a "terrorist attack" and Arab television said the body of suicide bomber had been found.  "The front of a building is blown off and smoke is still rising," a Reuters correspondent said from the scene.  Local people said they saw 10 bodies and dozens of wounded being carried into ambulances.  "We believe it is a terrorist attack," a Saudi Interior Ministry source told Reuters. He said a car packed with explosives blew up in al-Murabaa district.  The kingdom, a key U.S. ally and the world's largest oil exporter, is battling a tide of Islamist militancy linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040421b.htm  *  The Christians are looking for an Anti-Christ to rise up in the Middle East.  Right now the two prime candidates are Al-Sadr the Iraqi and bin-Laden the Saudi.  Stay tuned.

ISRAEL - ASSASSINATIONS - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged today that Israel would keep killing Palestinian militants after the assassination of two top Hamas leaders in a month drew world condemnation and vows of revenge.  "We will not let up on them. We got rid of murderer number one and murderer number two and it isn't over, and the list is not short," Sharon said in a speech at the port city of Ashdod.  Angry at Israel's killing of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on Saturday and its assassination of its spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin on March 22, militants fired rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements and an Israeli town.  Israeli soldiers shot dead four Palestinians during confrontations with stone-throwers in what the army called a thrust into the northern Gaza Strip to stop the attacks.  Hamas, an Islamist group behind scores of suicide attacks aimed at destroying Israel, has vowed to carry out "100 retaliations" for its slain leaders. A senior Hamas leader in its Gaza Strip stronghold dismissed Sharon's latest threat.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040421a.htm  The world seems to be ignoring the fact that Sharon intends to kill the Palestinian militants until he has killed every Palestinian.  And all this because the Palestinians want the land that was taken from them in 1948 and 1967.  The UN is too weak to impose justice and the US is bent on the injustice of leaving the Palestinians in a permanent state of limbo where they have to live on the subsistence from the UN.  

April 20, 2004

PRESIDENTIAL POLL - George Bush has stretched his lead over Democratic rival John Kerry to six points, according to a poll that shows the September 11 commission hearings have not harmed the president politically.  Bush leads Kerry, 50% to 44%, among likely US presidential election voters, according to the CNN-Gallup poll. Independent candidate Ralph Nader had 4%.  A separate ABC-Washington Post poll of registered voters gave Bush a 48% to 43% lead over Kerry, with Nader trailing at 6%.  * History may show that Ralph Nader is the reason America had to suffer under George Bushit.  Without Nader in the race in 2000, Gore would have won.  It looks like he may now give Mr. Bushit another four years.

ISRAEL - NUCLEAR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu will be barred from leaving Israel for a year for fear he will spill more state secrets once he completes his 18-year jail term on Wednesday.  The ban was due to "a tangible danger...that Vanunu wishes to divulge state secrets, secrets that he has not yet divulged and which have not been previously published," a Defense Ministry statement said.  Vanunu's brothers voiced fears for his safety during the year he will be forced to stay in Israel, where the former nuclear technician is widely despised as a traitor for revealing Israel's nuclear secrets to a British newspaper.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040420c.htm  * I think that it is highly possible that Mr. Vanunu will either be assassinated or he will be brought up on new charges of treason and sent back to jail for something he does after his release.  I doubt that he will find asylum in the US as long as little George is in control.

IRAQ - CHAOS ON THE ROAD - Although most of the world?s attention has been focused on what has been going on in the American-controlled areas, particularly around Baghdad and Fallujah, the situation in southern Iraq has gradually deteriorated, with militia forces becoming better organised and more confident.
Privately, British officers concede that their problems lie in the American handling of the situation in their areas. If the Maysan province, which contains al Amarah, Majar and Basra, were an autonomous entity, they believe they would have little difficulty in containing the trouble. But the national picture is having an adverse effect on everyone.  The upsurge in support for Sadr and the tensions surrounding his future have only added to the problems the coalition faces in the south.  As the Land Rovers reached the bridge, the traffic slowed almost to a standstill at the last checkpoint, but they crossed without incident.  Anyone looking back could not have failed to notice the fresh posters of Sadr pasted to the large green road sign over the arrow pointing north.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040420b.htm * There is little doubt but that Iraq is in chaos.  And there is little doubt but that the country is uniting behind Al-Sadr.  I do not think that the US is going to stay in control of Iraq in the long run.  

ISRAEL - ASSASSINS - Less than a month after several countries in the United Nations Security Council condemned the killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the 15-member body met today to discuss the assassination by Israel of his replacement, Abdelaziz Rantissi, over the weekend.  Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Permanent Observer of Palestine, told an open meeting of the Council ? during which some 40 speakers were scheduled to take the floor ? that Israel continued its reign of terror against Palestinian people, as it had not ended its campaign of death and destruction in the occupied Palestinian territory and continued to carry out the extrajudicial executions of Palestinian leaders and kill, wound and maim defenceless Palestinian civilians in grave breach of international law.  The killing of Dr. Rantissi, as well as two other Palestinian men who had been with him, was the latest in a long series of war crimes committed by the occupying power, Mr. Al-Kidwa said. He added that it was carried out in fulfilment of repeated threats by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli Government and military officials to continue targeting Palestinian leaders for assassination in flagrant violation of international law and in complete and total disregard for the condemnation, pleas and demands by the international community for the cessation of such an illegal and barbaric policy.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040420a.htm  * The US endorses Sharon's assassinations.  So the discussion at the UN is a good thing but the reality is that it is falling on deaf ears.  The Palestinians have no rights and their Israeli masters have no compassion and the world at large could care less.  No oil, no power.  The Jews of Israel took the wrong message from Hitler: They have become more like him as opposed to refusing to become more like him.

April 19, 2004

IRAQ - SPAIN - Radical Islamic cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has welcomed Spain's decision to withdraw its troops from Iraq "in the shortest time possible," as U.S. officials braced for more possible pullouts.  According to a spokesman in the Iraqi city of Najaf, the Shiite cleric praised Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's decision Sunday to pull Spain's 1,400-plus troops from Iraq.  Al-Sadr also is asking that people from all coalition countries put pressure on their governments to follow Spain and recall their forces, spokesman Fuad al-Turfi said.  The cleric's supporters have been fighting coalition troops since the coalition closed their newspaper and arrested one of al-Sadr's deputies in connection with the killing of a rival cleric last year.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040419a.htm *  It looks like the warring policies of Mr. Bushit are coming apart like a cheap watch.  It looks like Al-Sadr has beaten the US and when added to the ten American soldiers that died this weekend, it seems like Al-Sadr is going to be raised right on up there with bin-Laden as someone who can stop the Christian Americans.  Maybe he is going to be the anti-Christ that the fundamentalist Christians have been talking about for the last five decades.  If the U S tries to assassinate him the way Sharon kills high ranking Palestinians, things in the Middle East will explode.  And it is all because of Mr. Bushit.  Go back and read my archives and see what I said about all this eighteen months ago.

IRAQ - The US army Monday reduced the size of the force it has built up outside the Iraqi city of Najaf. The Americans were said to be ready to wait for further negotiations before acting against Shiite leader, Moqtada al Sadr.  Colonel Dana Pittard, commander of the 2,500-strong 3rd Brigade Task Force outside Najaf, said the force would be withdrawn over coming days. It would be replaced by some 2,000 troops from the 1st Armoured Division.  Iraqi Shiite clerics have warned that if US forces move into Najaf to kill or arrest Sadr it could lead to a fresh eruption of unrest. "Because of where negotiations are right now, we can wait," Col. Pittard said, according to Reuters. "We still want Iraqis to solve the problem." * One of the first principles of power is that you never make a threat that you cannot back up.  So went Mr. Bushit.  But unfortunately it is not just Mr. Bushit who suffers a loss of respect and power, it is all Americans

IRAQ - Five U.S. Marines died in an ambush near the Syrian border, the military reported, triggering a battle with hundreds of guerrillas, and five other troops died elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, pushing the number of Americans killed in combat this month to 99.  Insurgent attacks and kidnappers' roadblocks have forced the military to curtail supply convoys and are part of the reason commanders have boosted ground forces by more than 20,000 troops.  Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces are on the border to try to stop foreign fighters from entering Iraq. He said that Damascus was not doing enough to control the border.  "The Syrians need to take this situation very seriously," he told CNN's "Late Edition."I want them to cut off that flow of foreign fighters."  Meanwhile, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said Sunday that Iraqi security forces will not be ready to protect the country against insurgents by the June 30 handover of power.  The unusually blunt comments came as Bremer said the fighting across the country this month exposed the depth of the problems inside the security forces.  The announcement Sunday that Spain would pull out its 1,400 soldiers came just hours after a new Socialist government was sworn in.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040419b.htm * The whole of Iraq is burning.  The freedom fighters have been quick to learn the lessons of guerilla warfare and have accomplished much.  They have required an admission that another 20,000 soldiers (more targets) be added to the forces in Iraq, the Spanish are leaving, and now Bremmer admits what everyone has always known, that the US will not be able to turn over power on June 30th.  Hello Vietnam.  Does any remember how we tried to train the South Vietnamese to fight.  Same thing in Iraq.  And by the way, the Iraqis do not have high tech weapons and bullet proof vests.  Lastly, it sure sounds like in response to all of this, General Myers is contemplating invading Syria.  Not only do we not have enough soldiers for that, we do not have that many soldiers period.  Mr. Bushit is capable of invading Syria as a response to losing the war in Iraq.

April 18, 2004  

April 16, 2004 

To be updated shortly.

April 15, 2004

To be updated shortly

April 14, 2004

April 9, 2004

IRAQ - CHAOS - American policy in Iraq is running deeper and deeper into trouble. Coalition forces are not only going head to head with insurgents in the so-called Sunni Triangle ... but they have also vowed to destroy the 10,000 Shia militia loyal to the fugitive cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Though the insurgents may represent extreme views ... moderate Iraqi opinion will be alienated as the US and its allies try to crush them ...http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040409b.htm *  Nothing is going right in Iraq.  I am reminded of the biblical prophesy "If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind."  So it goes in Iraq.  Each day things get worse. What I find most interesting is the body count.  During Vietnam there was a ten to one ratio of Vietnamese to Americans killed.  This seems to have carried over to Iraq.  There have been about 40 Americans killed this week and about 426 Iraqi murdered.

April 8, 2004

AFGHANISTAN - Forces of a renegade adviser to President Hamid Karzai overran the capital of a northern province on Thursday, creating a fresh security headache for Afghanistan's Western-backed government.  General Abdul Rashid Dostum's largely ethnic Uzbek militia invaded Faryab from neighboring provinces on Wednesday, prompting the central government to send national troops there on Thursday in an attempt to maintain control.  Dostum's forces have been involved in several rounds of fighting for territory since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. A federalist, he unsuccessfully opposed Karzai's bid for a strong presidency in a constitutional assembly in January.  Anayat charged that Dostum, whose private army is among those targeted for demobilization by Karzai, launched his assault after Kabul rejected his demand to be appointed defense minister or army chief of staff.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408k.htm * Afghanistan is reverting right back to where it was before the Taliban took over.  The Russians could not control Afghanistan.  No one has ever been able to control these people for long periods of time.  AlQaeda is not even gone from the country.  As the warlords regain control, they will give safe harbor to bin-Ladin.  And speaking of bin-Laden, there is not much in the press about why he has not been captured.  Now that we know that he was a problem all the way back to the end of the Clinton administration, four years later he is still a free man.  Is it possible that the U S with all its military might and its satellites really does not know where he is?  

IRAQ - The neoconservative elites who launched America into war with lofty rhetoric about overthrowing Arab tyranny are now witnessing mass resistance against the most brutal tyranny in the region today--their own. The combination of a renewed insurgency in the Sunni center and an explosive popular rebellion in the Shiite center and south presents a damning indictment of America's colonial occupation of Iraq. As children in rags run in the streets to hurl stones at American tanks and as those tanks fire furiously into homes and buildings to crush a growing two-pronged rebellion, one thing above all seems clear: Iraqis demand real liberation, not Bush's farce. And they are willing to challenge the most powerful army in the world to win it. While the recent assertiveness of resistance in the so-called 'Sunni Triangle' is surprising given the relentlessness of the US Army's Operation Iron Hammer offensive, the crucial element of the escalated rebellion is the armed struggle taken up by prominent Shia leader Moqtada Sadr, who commands the allegiance of a significant and growing portion of Iraq's majority Shiite population, particularly the poor. The emergence of an uprising by that section of society most brutalized by Saddam deals a death blow to two main lines of the Bush administration's war propaganda: First, it is no longer possible to smear the resistance as merely a ragtag collection of terrorists, Ba'athists, or outsiders; and second, it is equally impossible to claim the occupation is being carried out in the interests of any Iraqis--unless Halliburton fatcats and Blackwater mercenaries have been handed out citizenship.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408j.htm * The reality is that just like the weapons of mass destruction and the AlQaeda Saddam link that were lies, now there is the lie that things are under control and it is just a matter of time before everything is wonderful in Iraq.  And then there is the lie that the U S will turn over control to the Iraqis on June 30, 2004; when the governing council will have no means to implement and enforce its pronouncements.  The Bush Administration is living in fantasyland and trying to bring the American public into their dream world.  One thing that wasn't true but is true now is the fact that there is now an Iraq AlQaeda link.

IRAQ - "You can be certain that if (U.S. generals) want more troops, we will sign deployment orders so that they'll have the troops they need," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, though he insisted fighting was not spinning out of control.  The United States has about 135,000 troops in Iraq.  In Britian Thursday, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that U.S. forces were fuelling violence in Iraq by "acting like warriors."  A fundamental change of tactics to peacekeeping was needed, said Cook, who quit PM Tony Blair's Cabinet over the war.  There have been 637 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war, 447 in hostile action. Of the total, 498 were killed after May 1, 328 in hostile action.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408i.htm * It was said at the beginning of the Iraq invasion that we did not have enough troops and we did not have a plan.  Both of those predictions are proving to be true.  Mr. Bushit thought he would just colonialize Iraq and everyone would be so happy to be rid of Saddam that they would love the Americans. Not.  And why not?  Because we are killing Iraqis just like Saddam.  We did not bring democracy to Iraq.  Mr. Bushit simply set up his friends of America governing council.  Each day more and more innocent Iraqis are murdered by U S troops.  The truth is the truth.

IRAQ - As violence spreads across Iraq, U.S. forces are pursuing an aggressive but perilous strategy of trying to suppress uprisings and neutralize troublemakers without provoking more unrest, anger and bloodshed. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408h.htm * The most obvious is the most hidden.  The fact is that every single day, Americans are killing Iraqis.  This policy is doing nothing but angering the people who see the Americans as nothing more than the new Saddam.  You don't kill your friends.  And you do not kill in the name of peace.

911 - The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced yesterday that it has identified 69 documents from the Clinton era that the Bush White House withheld from investigators and which include references to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other issues relevant to the panel's work.   The White House turned over 12 of the documents to the commission yesterday, officials said. But 57 others, which were not specifically requested but "nonetheless are relevant to our work," remain in dispute, according to a commission statement. The panel has demanded the documents and any similar ones from the Bush administration.  Yesterday's announcement came just 14 hours before national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to testify publicly in front of the 10-member bipartisan panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The commission has feuded for months with the White House over access to documents and witnesses, and Rice's agreement to testify came after weeks of refusals from White House lawyers.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408g.htm  *  There is no doubt but that the documents will show that Mr. Bushit was not paying attention to AlQaeda because he was totally focused on invading Iraq.  The American public is in no mood to allow Mr. Bushit to withhold evidence from the investigating committee.  Things have changed somewhat since Watergate.  Presidents know now that when these committees make demands, it is useless to put up barriers.  The worst case scenario could be impeachment.

MR. BUSHIT - Gray is the new black, quiche is the new pizza and George Bush is the new Tricky Dick ? or so goes the sophisticated analysis from the left this week.  Judging by the festivity, there is still plenty of Nixon left to kick around. On Monday, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy burbled that "the president has created the biggest credibility gap since Richard Nixon." Every paper from Wilkes-Barre to Grand Rapids ran the story.  Meanwhile, Richard Clarke, having enjoyed his wretched 15 minutes of being known as "Bush's John Dean," was pre-empted by the real John Dean and his new book on how Iraq is "worse than Watergate."  "The American people weren't told the facts," the former Nixon counsel says of the run-up to Iraq. "They were misled about the facts about the connection between weapons of mass destruction and the ties to Iraq and al-Qaida, and this was a deception." Not to mention, he suggests, possibly an impeachable offense.  Unhinged rantings aside, everywhere we turned, in the midst of one of the more emotionally raw periods of the Iraq war, journalists, politicians and pundits were dusting off the N-word, "Nixon," the American political equivalent of German politicians tossing off lines about each other's "Nazi tendencies." The point was to infect Bush with an odor of criminal duplicity.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408f.htm * I think the number one comparison between Mr. Bushit and Tricky Dick is the lying.  The second is the secrecy.  The third is the fascist inner circle of do or die conservatives who think they know what is best for the world.

IRAQ - Al-Sadr, regarded as the man who instigated the latest fighting, issued a warning that Iraq would become "another Vietnam" for the United States.  "I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army. . . . ," he said in the statement issued from his office in Najaf. "Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408e.htm * Well the death count is rising significantly and the Vietnam comparisons sure seem to apply.   Iraq seems to be headed for increased chaos.  And consider that 135,000 American soldiers no matter how well armed cannot control 25 million Iraqis if they unite in their resolve to challenge the American occupation of their country.  It seems that the Iraqis have found their voice in Al-Sadr.

ENVIRONMENT - The rate of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rose 2.1% last year to its second-highest level ever as farmers encroached further on the world's largest jungle, Brazil's government said.  The high rate of destruction alarmed environmentalists, who said too little was being done to combat the problem by the government, which has vowed to reduce the level this year.  "I am worried, the figures are too high," said Rosa Lemos de Sa of conservation group WWF Brazil. "The tendency is for it to stay high unless drastic measures are taken, and I don't see the government doing anything drastic."  Preliminary figures from Brazil's Environment Ministry showed deforestation in the Amazon jumped to 23,750 sq km in 2003 from 23,266 sq km in 2002. The 2002 data was recalculated, it said.  The Amazon, an area of continuous tropical forest that is larger than Western Europe, has been described as the "lungs of the world" because of its vast capacity to produce oxygen.  Environmentalists fear its destruction because it is home to up to 30% of the planet's animal and plant species and is an important source of medicines.  Deforestation has often lurched higher and lower on the fortunes of Latin America's largest economy and the amount of credit available to farmers.  "It's only thanks to the adverse economic climate the deforestation didn't go even higher last year," said Roberto Smeraldi, director of Friends of the Earth in Brazil.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408d.htm * The population of the world is increasing and the use of fossil fuels is causing global warming.  In addition, deforestation is increasing and my continue until Brazil is a desert.  And no one seems to be listening.

ENVIRONMENT - A dramatic and irreversible rise in sea levels could result from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet if global warming continues unchecked.  Scientists say the melting of the massive ice sheet on Greenland - which has been stable for thousands of years - could increase sea levels by as much as 7 metres (23 feet). Such a rise would inundate vast areas of land, including cities at sea level, such as London. Some densely populated regions, such as Bangladesh, may disappear.  For the ice sheet to begin melting, ambient temperatures around Greenland would need to rise more than 3 degrees Celsius, Jonathan Gregory, a climate scientist with the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of Reading, said. The concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases would probably reach levels that would trigger the melting by about the middle of the century.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408c.htm * The world is changing a lot faster than is acknowledged and I do not think it is going to take hundreds of years for global warming to impact on the global environment.  If the trade winds change, then warmer air could result in a faster melting of the ice cap as well as melting of the ice in Antarctica. And the faster the melt, the faster the melt.  In other words, once things spin out of control, the whole world is in trouble.

IRAQ - When Anglo-American troops were hesitating on the outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Najaf during last year's invasion of Iraq, the revered cleric Ayatollah Syed Ali al-Sistani told fellow inhabitants not to resist. Up the road, Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum was one of the few places where the invaders were greeted with flowers.  Yet today, an anti-occupation insurrection is roiling across Iraq's Shiite heartland.  Just as George W. Bush turned worldwide post-9/11 sympathy for America into anger, American troops have turned whatever goodwill they had engendered into outright hostility.  Just as Bush's main reasons for the war turned out to be bogus, the explanations proffered by the American troops for their mounting troubles in Iraq have been delusory.  In maintaining that the occupation was popular and resistance to it limited to "enemies of freedom," America has been blaming, variously, "Baathist bitter-enders," Iranian or Syrian "agent provocateurs," Islamists (homegrown and foreign), anti-Shiite Al Qaeda Sunni terrorists, and "Saddamists in the Sunni triangle."  The fallacy of such propaganda stands exposed today as Iraqi resistance is clearly coalescing into what looks like a burgeoning national war of liberation by both the Shiite majority and Sunni minority.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040408b.htm  * The war in Iraq is looking more and more like a Nazi or Russian occupation.  The war was about oil, not about human rights because Mr. Bushit is not about human rights.  He is about corporate greed and imperialism. The problem is that 25 million armed Muslim Iraqis are not going to sit back and be murdered and controlled by a Christian America.

April 7, 2004

IRAQ - The costs of the war in Iraq have outweighed the benefits of removing Saddam Hussein, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Danish newspaper.  ?It?s positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone, but when one weighs the costs, it?s clearly the negative aspects that dominate,? Blix told daily Jyllands-Posten in an interview.  The Swedish diplomat has criticised the United States and Britain for going to war without UN approval rather than allowing his team to continue its hunt for banned weapons.  In the interview, Blix said the war had contributed to a destabilisation of the Middle East and a move away from democracy in the region, adding that even though Iraqis had been spared life under a dictator, it was at too high a cost.  ?Bush declared war as a part of the US war on terror, but instead of limiting the effects of terror, the war has laid the foundation for even more terror,? Blix said.  Blix was scorned by the United States and Britain for failing to conclude Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction ahead of their invasion. But a year on, no such weapons have been found. 

IRAQ - WMD - Weapons inspector David Kay warned the CIA last July that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but it took months before the US Congress and the American people were told , according to a special report in the May issue of Vanity Fair Magazine.  Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was the main reason cited by President George W. Bush when he launched a war against President Saddam Hussein four months earlier.  Kay said that after he concluded that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq he received a phone call in Baghdad from CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, who told him: "We have to be very careful how we handle this." http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040407e.htm  *  This is just another example of the lies that Bush has told to the public regarding Iraq.  The idea was to control the Middle East oil and the WMD lie was the excuse.  Now each day more and more Americans die as the Iraqis have regrouped and refined their methods of ridding Iraq of non-Iraqis.

AIDS - ANOTHER BUSH LIE - The global effort to combat the three deadliest infectious diseases - AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria - had a rare celebration 14 months ago when President George W. Bush pledged in his 2003 State of the Union speech to donate $15 billion to fight AIDS over three years. Since then, U.S. outlays have been a small fraction of the promised amount.And the United States is refusing to finance AIDS programs that use generic drugs, which cost far less than brand-name drugs.American officials say their concern over development of drug-resistant disease strains is one factor in their opposition to programs that use generic drugs. But critics of the U.S. position say the Bush administration is simply doing the bidding of the big pharmaceutical companies.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040407d.htm * People in Africa are dying from AIDS and AIDS is spreading due to the lack of treatment.  Yet Bush continues to protect American corporations and refuses to forward the $15 billion it committed to fight AIDS.  The Bush plan was for the Americans to spend the $15 billion by purchasing drugs from American drug companies.  The real effect was a show of battling AIDS while at the same time transferring wealth from all Americans to the wealthy owners of the drug companies.  Just like the war in Iraq.  Money is spent in Iraq which really goes to American corporations who supply the military and rebuild Iraq.  So again the same plan is executed, the American public transfers their wealth to the rich corporate owners and executives in America.

IRAQ - The Shiite revolt in Iraq against the occupation regime of the USA and its allies is an undoubtedly significant event. For the first time in the 12 months since the occupation began, the USA is witnessing an outbreak of popular wrath of such great force. Moreover, the rebels represent the part of Iraqi population whose loyalty Washington saw as assured. Shiites, who had accounts to settle with Saddam Hussein, were supposed to be grateful to the Americans for overthrowing the hateful dictator. It has turned out, however, that the occupation regime is not acceptable to Sunnis and Shiites alike, despite differences between the two religious groups.  The Shiite revolt has exposed the falseness of Washington's claims that the Iraqi people as a whole support the allied troops, while limited resistance is mounted only by a small part of Sunnis incited by Saddam's relatives. But nearly everyone in Iraq has taken the road of resistance - with the exception of the Kurds who keep their sentiments secret.  A year after the seemingly victorious war, the Americans are again bombing Baghdad and conducting intimidation operations in Falluja. This means that the war has not ended and, unlike last year, it is now being waged not against Saddam Hussein but against the Iraqi people, who have seen the true goals of the US presence in their country. The US Iraqi war is a classical example of the imperialist foreign policy of the late 19th and early 20th century. It was then called gunboat diplomacy. Today gunboats have been replaced with tanks, aircraft and missiles, but this has not changed the essence, which is to grasp control of countries with rich mineral resources, dominate them, and create military bases and deploy troops in the occupied territories. Washington thought the Iraqi operation would be simple, easy and painless. This was a major miscalculation. As the Russian saying goes, it looked good on paper but you forgot about the pitfalls.  The "carrot" of democratic paradise promised to the Iraqis did not convince them. The situation in the occupied country is becoming more and more complicated, the Iraqis' resistance is growing (as proved by the latest events) and will become more fierce. I must agree with Senator Edward Kennedy (Dem.), who the other day described Iraq as "George Bush's Vietnam" and accused the president and his administration of deliberately distorting information.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040407c.htm  * There is little doubt that the invasion of Iraq was a grab for oil.  Everything Mr. Bushit said about the Iraq invasion was a lie: weapons of mass destruction, a connection between Osama and Saddam, the people of Iraq would welcome us.  All imperialistic lies.  And now we have over 600 dead and the toll is mounting.  How many Americans must die for oil?  And what is more, terrorism around the world has increased since Mr. Bushit took office.

IS IRAQ THE NEW VIETNAM - OPINIONS - http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040407b.htm * More and more each day, Iraq looks like Vietnam without the jungles.  At the beginning of the war, the military fear was an urban fight.  Well the urban fight has come.  The opinion was that there would be a lot of causalities if the fighting came to house to house room to room battles.  It sure looks like we are there.  It sure looks like the Sunni Shiite civil war is going to be put on hold while they join forces to kill American soldiers.

IRAQ - MORE BODY BAGS - As many as a dozen American Marines were killed on Tuesday when their position was attacked in the Iraqi city of Ramadi near the Sunni hotbed of Falluja, a U.S. defense official said.  In Crawford, Texas, where President Bush (news - web sites) is spending the week, the White House had no immediate reaction to the stunning toll. "We've seen the reports," said a senior administration official, who said any more substantive reaction would come later.  Defense officials said the fight in Ramadi was intense. http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040407a.htm * I think that it is significant that the initial reaction of the White House was not even a word of empathy for the families of the slain. Just more dead bodies.  As long as Mr. Bushit's daughters are safe in some bar, nothing else matters.  This is just more denial like the refusal of Mr. Bushit to allow photographs of the dead soldier's coffins returning to America.  The problem is that Mr. Bushit does not understand the need for closure for the families of the honored dead.  Tell America to make room on the mall for another war memorial.

April 6, 2004

IRAQ - WACO REVISITED - U.S. forces will face a bloody, Waco-style confrontation if they try to arrest a radical Shia cleric who unleashed widespread insurrection in Iraq over the weekend, an American expert in Shia affairs said yesterday.  "What we know is the military sorts of force are the worst way to deal with apocalyptic groups like the Branch Davidians and the Sadrists," said Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, referring to the firebrand Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. "Muqtada al-Sadr's movement is apocalyptic, and apocalyptic movements tend to see things in black and white and tend to see any kind of move toward them as the end of the world," Prof. Cole said.  Mr. al-Sadr is guided by a messianic notion in which he and his followers are enjoined by God "to ascend into exalted heavens," he added.  "I can see the same kind of scenario [as Waco] unfolding in Iraq, but on a much larger scale that may well affect the whole country -- a horrible inferno."   http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040406f.htm * It is incredible that ultraconservatives have such learning disabilities.  They cannot adjust to reality.  Waco was destroyed by Janet Reno.  And then Tim McVeigh killed several hundred people in Oklahoma City in response.  Now we have Bush waging a religious war in Iraq and the whole country is in revolt.  The Shiites that America is supposedly installing in power are in revolt.  America has no friends in Iraq and as each day goes by and more and more Iraqis are murdered, the level of hatred against America increases. 

RWANDA - GENOCIDE - Rwanda is marking the 10th anniversary of the genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias.  The slaughter was triggered by the shooting down of a plane with Rwanda's Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana onboard on 6 April 1994. It ranks alongside the Holocaust of the Jews as one of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century.  Rwanda's leader Paul Kagame has accused France of helping prepare the genocide.  This was not some chaotic African tribal war, as portrayed by Western governments at the time, but a well-executed political plan.  At the time, the West - specifically Britain and the United States - conspired to ignore the clear evidence of genocide and refused to help a small United Nations force on the ground here in Rwanda which was trying to stop the massacres.  The killing continued for 100 days before a Tutsi-dominated rebel army seized control.France was the closest ally of the Hutu regime in 1994. It is well known that French military advisers worked with the Hutu government army right up to the beginning of the genocide.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040406e.htm * I wonder why the Jews did not send a representative to Rwanda to make a statement about genocide on a global scale other than just genocide about the Jews?  Because the Holocaust is not about global genocide but only about the Jews as being the only persecuted people's on the earth.  Did George Bush send a representative? No.  Mr. Bushit is only interested in peace and justice and democracy is in places that have black gold (oil).  No oil.  No rights.  The United States under Mr. Bush has refused along with Adolph Sharon to sign the world declaration on human rights.  All the other nations of the world signed.  It is a sad thing when the world's only super power is run by a imperialistic sociopathic liar.  The United States is in a position to promote peace and prosperity on a global scale.  But what it has done in the last three years is to come close to starting a global Christian Muslim war.

IRAQ - THE SADR FACTOR - The US is examining the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq if the situation there gets out of control, a top Central Command official has said.  The official confirmed that commanders had been asked to present such options, but said the US military did not believe it was needed.  The comments came on the second day of anti-coalition protests by supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040406d.htm * Even the fact that more troops are being considered is an indication that things are getting worse and not better in Iraq.  And the more resources that are sent to Iraq, the fewer resources there are to deal with terrorism which is the more real threat to Americans. Anyone seen Mr. bin-Laden lately?   Iraq is the "mother of all tar babies".  I think that whereever ole Saddam is he is having a laugh at Mr. Bushit.  The only way to change American policy is to change Presidents.  How many body bags will it take before the American public has had enough Bushit?

SPAIN - TERRORISM - SPAIN will suffer terrible new attacks that would make "blood flow like rivers" unless it pulls its forces out of Iraq, according to a letter purportedly written by an al-Qaeda-linked group.  Spanish authorities revealed on Sunday night that the Ansar group had contacted the Spanish newspaper ABC the previous evening demanding Spain announces the withdrawal of troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan by the following day.  If not, the fax said, "there will be more killings" and the country would be turned "into hell".  As the nation began a week of religious processions in the run-up to Easter, this new threat could not be better timed to cause maximum fear and unrest.  Ansar - who claimed responsibility for the 11 March bombings in Madrid - has a history of striking during holiday periods and using suicide bombers in crowds.  http://PoliticalCommentary2004/e040406c.htm *  Well the biggest mistake Spain ever made was standing next to Mr. Bushit and his lap dog Tony Blair.  90% of the people were against the Iraqi invasion and they repeated that message a few days after the bombing by changing leaders.  The terrorists know that they are making worldwide points in Spain and so I expect to see more bombings this Easter week.  There is also the revenge factor for the deaths of the bombers yesterday.  It seems there are more conspirators free to continue to wreak havoc.  All this for a token 1,300 Spanish soldiers in Iraq.   Like they really make a difference on the ground in Iraq.