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POPSWould the U.S. Government lie to U.S. Citizens? 1967 attack on U.S.S. Liberty by Israel
The attack began on the fourth day of the war. The Liberty was about 17 miles from the coast. Almost without warning, Israeli fighter jets tore into the ship with rockets, cannons and napalm. Shells smashed portholes, ripped gashes in sealed metal doors For those too young to remember, the Liberty was collecting intelligence off the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War in June 1967. after reading this comprehensive and compelling account, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Israel's actions were, at a minimum, criminally negligent -- and harder still to understand why no one in Israel was punished. McCain understood that a "report critical of Israel would trigger diplomatic ramifications and create domestic political trouble for the beleaguered White House, which now wanted to deemphasize the attack." As a consequence, McCain barred his staff from traveling to Israel and allowed only a week to complete the probe, "less time than it took to bury some of the dead."
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POPSOkie GOP Senator who does "Jesus Thing" believes it's OK to Lie Inhofe made the outright lie over and over in his commentary that President Obama had cut the military budget. Inhofe who believes his taxpayer funded trips to meet African leaders on a spiritual level is a "Jesus Thing" must believe Jesus approves of lying. The fact is that President Obama increases the military budget by about $25 billion. Additionally the military purchased every F-22 it planned to buy when the program begin and is now purchasng the less expensive F-35. Obviously Inhofe is a hypocritical turd who is concerned about the pork that won't be going to his home state. Additionally, Inhofe is a traitor for not supporting President Obama in this time of war. Neither did he support President Clinton when America's fighting men and women were in combat in Bosnia. What an f***'ing loser.
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POPSIsrael investigating soldier testimony of war crimes against Palestinians Another veteran described an officer who ordered machine-gunners to fire at an elderly woman In the testimony, the soldiers admitted that excessive force was used because the lives of Palestinian civilians were valued far less than those of the soldiers. When asked about the revelations, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that he believed the stories described were an exception, and insisted the Israeli Defense Forces are the "most moral army in the world" Danny Zamir, the chairman of the preparatory school that hosted the seminar, said that the soldiers' testimony showed that the disregard for Palestinian civilians was not an exception. "The new release testimonies raise a grave suspicion that the rules of engagement in the infantry violated the basic principles of the international laws of war," he said. "If the alleged rules of engagement are true, both the officers who gave the order and the soldiers who obeyed them might have committed war crimes."
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POPSMcCain "Death of Iraqis due to war? In the Hundreds of Thousands" Either McCain has no clue what he's talking about. Which is a very distinct possibility if anyone's been following his gaffes on what's actually taking place in the Mid-East ...... or ...... much of what the lunatic rightwing holds onto, as ridiculously low numbers of Iraqi deaths due to Bush's reckless war based on lies, is propaganda
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POPSOklahoma Republican admits, "Iraq Probably a Mistake" More: Coburn at one point in the campaign reportedly said the war in Iraq was "absolutely not" a mistake. Vice President Dick Cheney, a vocal defender of the war, came to Tulsa to cam paign and raise money for Coburn. During that visit, Cheney criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for flip-flopping on the war by voting in the Senate to go to war but voting against adequate funding for the troops. Still, his comments at the town hall meeting may be the first time he has ever suggested the war was a mistake. Coburn's comment came less than a week after he returned from his second trip to Iraq since entering the Senate.
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POPSGOP Senator Chafee: New Book is tough on Pro-War Democrats, Bush, and Republicans More: The most startling revelation: Chafee must be the only senator in U.S. political history who says his defeat was the result of voters acting logically. “The system works best when power remains in the hands of the voters,” writes Chafee. “I was a casualty of the system working in 2006, and while defeat is never easy, I give the voters credit: They made the connection between electing even popular Republicans at the cost of leaving the Senate in the hands of a leadership they had learned to mistrust.” “I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president,” writes Chafee. “They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”
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POPSRomney's: 5 Strapping Sons - None in Iraq! Hypocrisy More: Of more interest to his combat readiness, David was arrested in April of 2007 for trying to board a plane in Little Rock with a loaded Glock pistol in his carry on bag. So we know that the boy can shoot. Why isn't he on the front lines of the war his father so ardently supports in the name of Christ? (By the way, the reaction of Dad Huckabee to David's gun arrest is notable. "It's one of those stupid things," Mike Huckabee said. "He knows better." Ah, yes, nothing like a forgiving preacher. Do you feel safer now knowing that a gun toting animal abuser's father might be president? Clear the squirrels from the White House lawn now.) Huckabee says the war in Iraq is part of a "World War III' against Islamic fascism
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POPSBritain Drops Label "War on Terror" And to think that those of us who suggested that describing this ideological battle as a war only aided fanatics were labeled as unpatriotic traitors. What a deference 6 years makes.
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POPSFormer CIA: Evidence Abounds for Impeachment of Bush & Cheney The recent report detailing Iran's stopping its nuclear weapons program four years ago, is an example of how the administration knows it can no longer hide such "incontrovertible evidence" from the American people in the fallout from the misinformation they received on the Iraq War, McGovern said. He added that he had almost given up believing their were people still working at the top with a conscious and enough people at the top willing to let analysts do their job and accept independent analysis. McGovern also addressed the reasoning he believes is behind the threat of war with Iran. He believes Israel thinks they have a pledge from the White House to deal with Iran before Bush leaves office and relayed the story of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked by the Israelis in 1967 and covered up by the U.S. Thirty-four U.S soldiers were killed and about 170 were seriously injured. "On June 8, 1967 Israel realized it could literally get away with murder," McGovern said.
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POPSMyths about Multilingual Societies Myth: If everyone agreed to speak only one language, we wouldn't have so much war and interethnic conflict. Reality: Of course people need a common language to understand one another. But that doesn't require eliminating minority languages; it only requires bilingualism. Switzerland has four official languages and has never had a war. Finland has three (Finnish, Swedish, and Lapp). Hawai'i has had two co-official state languages since 1978 -- English and Hawaiian -- and no civil strife has resulted. On the other hand, much of the conflict in the world has erupted in places where there is only one language. For example, in the U.S.'s own Civil War, both sides spoke English. Khmer-speaking Cambodians under Pol Pot killed millions of other Khmer-speaking Cambodians. Thus language is not the "glue" that binds us together. What really binds us as a nation is a common belief in freedom, including the freedom to speak any language we please.
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POPSGOP Illegal Immigrant Hypocrite/Chickenhawk, Tom Tancredo (also Pres. Candidate barf) More: During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo "doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor," one of the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. "It's just not right." Only days before the Post's story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States. What kind of people actually vote for subhumans like Tancredo?
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POPSWhat can the budget for the Iraq War buy? Doesn't clip as well as I hoped so visit the website: Remarkable, that it is admitted these days (by generals, former administration appointees, and neocon architects of the war) that the war in Iraq is about controlling oil resources, and look what you could do with the money that we've spent on that fiasco. With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion. Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.
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POPSBaghdad Children "armed" to teeth More: Trade Minister Abed Falah al-Sudani considered banning the toys because they look so realistic. However, given the seeming impossibility of the task, he shelved the idea 10-year-old Haider, has another reason to play with his toy gun "I love it. I like holding it and going outside to kill evildoers. I like to go outside at night like my uncle (a member of the Mahdi Army)," said the boy wearing a ragged T-shirt. In Sadr City, in the vast ghetto where Sadr is considered a hero and his militia calls the shots, children in their war games reflect the bitter sectarian divides -- one side gets to be Shiite militiamen, the other Sunni insurgents. In other neighbourhoods, it's police versus "terrorists", or army versus Al-Qaeda, according to local news Another vendor, Hassan, 27, runs a stall in Bab al-Sharji in the centre of Baghdad. He confirmed that guns are the all-time favourites with children, male or female. "Children prefer guns to trains, balls or radios," he
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POPSLaos: U.S. war remains still killing 30 years after Vietnam War More: The State Department has requested $1.4 million to fund efforts to clear unexploded ordnance in Laos in 2008, less than half the amount Washington provided this year. A U.S. diplomat in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, said he was told to expect only $900,000 next year U.S. B-52 bombers and other warplanes flew more than half a million missions over Laos and dropped between 2 million and 3 million tons of ordnance Nong lost his 18-year-old wife, Mee, in 1986 when the couple gathered with other villagers around a fire one night to chat about the day's big news, an attack by a wild pig. As they usually did for important gatherings, the women built a fire to warm a pot of rice wine. Problem was, one of the legs in the tripod was an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade, which blew up. As Nong, 50, recalled the day, several neighbors took seats on logs and stones in his dirt yard to show missing fingers, scarred legs and arms, and talk of the curse all around them.
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POPSThe People vs. The War Profiteers- "Soldier is that guts in your ice?" More (8 pages more, read the article): U.S.-military regulations state that once a trailer has been used to store corpses it can never again be loaded with food or drink intended for human consumption The diseases that may be communicated include aids,hepatitis, tuberculosis, septicemia, meningitis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow. Bud Conyers next caught sight of trailer R-89, about a month later, packed not with human casualties but with bags of ice—ice that was going into drinks served to American troops. You could still see a little bit of matter from the bodies, stuff that looked kind of pearly, and blood from the stomachs. It hadn't even been hosed down Conyers and Logsdon say that R-89 was not the only truck that was loaded with ice after being used as a mortuary. in 2006 alone, according to Forbes, Halliburton C.E.O. David Lesar collected nearly $30 million in compensation. Halliburton's stock price rose fourfold from $10 to $40.
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POPSRevealed: W knew Saddam was Willing to Bargain for Exile W is suppose to be our first MBA President but he can not even conduct a cost benefit analysis. Cost: Whatever minuscule amount compared to what we have spent that Saddam would settle for; and any bogus information his generals had convinced him existed. Benefits: 28,000 soldiers not wounded; 3800 soldiers not killed; 600,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqis not killed; $600 Billion to $1 Trillion dollars not wasted; standing and trust within the world community preserved. Ultimate cost to Bush: not looking tough; not having Iraqi oil under the control of US oil producers.
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POPSCouric, CBS Anchorwoman: "Iraq A Mistake" The problem with Couric? - I’d feel totally comfortable saying any of that at some point, IF REQUIRED, on television. If you aren't going to work to put the brakes on this,......who will? Newsanchors = Teleprompter readers Bring back Walter Cronkite!
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POPSSCOOP: Bush Promises Iraq Invasion Congress should never subjugate themselves to the ambitions of one individual ever again. The Founding Fathers foresaw this and wrote the Constitution with checks and balances giving Congress the responsibility of making declarations of war. Anybody, (1) who knew George Bush, (2) witnessed his pathetic address to the UN that showed it was a cursory walk-through before launching the invasion, knew he was lying all the time. I expect to hear the rightwing lunatic mythology that there was widespread support for this war but in fact the US was for the war only if Bush would secure a UN resolution and obtain a strong coalition mimicking the coalition in Kuwait in 1991. The Founding Fathers didn't want us to be ruled by Kings and Bush and Cheney are no exception. IMPEACH!
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POPSBanned from Iraq: Blackwater Mercenaries More: Blackwater is one of many security firms contracted by the U.S. government during the Iraq war. An estimated 25,000-plus employees of private security firms are working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials. As many as 200 are believed to have been killed on the job, according to U.S. congressional reports. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee estimated in February that nearly $4 billion had been spent on security contracts amid the insurgency that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003 -- costs that have forced the delay, cancellation or scaling back of some reconstruction projects. Sunday's incident highlighted concerns in the U.S. Congress about a subject that one lawmaker, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, has called "one of the biggest gray areas of the entire war effort" -- the legal status of private security firms in Iraq.
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POPSFormer GOP Senator Quits Republican Party No room for moderates in the Republican Party. Good job Karl Rove. More: Chafee himself laid out some of the ways he disagreed with his party, notably as one of only 23 senators and the only Republican to oppose the resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. He went on to criticize the “permanent deficits” caused by Republican tax cuts. Chafee referred yesterday to the broad-based, bipartisan Iraq Study Group that Congress created, a process Chafee approved of. The study group recommended a gradual pullback of American forces, and insistence that the Iraqi government take more responsibility for security. But he said that since the study group made its recommendations, which he agreed with, “no one’s paid any attention to them.”
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POPSIRAQ: 2 of 7 soldiers writing in NYT against the war are Dead. More: The Daily News in Galveston interviewed Mora's mother, who confirmed his death and that he was one of the co-authors of the Times piece. The article today relates: "Olga Capetillo said that by the time Mora submitted the editorial, he had grown increasingly depressed. 'I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home,' she said. 'But yesterday is the darkest day for me.'”
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POPSThe Iraq War Architects: Where are they now? MITCH DANIELS - Key Quote: Mitch Daniels had said the war would be an “affordable endeavor” and rejected an estimate by the chief White House economic adviser that the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion as “very, very high.”
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POPSBush elevates Terrorists Labeling terrorists as combatants leads to this paradox: while the deliberate killing of civilians is never permitted in war, it is legal to target a military installation or asset. The attack by Al Qaeda on the destroyer Cole in Yemen would be allowed, so too attacks on command and control centers like the Pentagon. For all these reasons, the more appropriate designation for terrorists is not “unlawful combatant” but criminal. The second problem is that it endangers our political traditions and our commitment to liberty, and further damages America’s legitimacy in the eyes of others. 50 years ago, at the height of the cold war, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the “deeply rooted and ancient opposition in this country to the extension of military control over civilians.” We need to recognize that terrorists, while dangerous, are more like modern-day pirates than warriors. They ought to be pursued, tried and convicted in the courts. At the extreme, yes, military force may be requir
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POPSRepublican Leader: War on Terror "Phony" Although no fan of Newt Gingrich he hits the spot on this topic. Tired of Bush=Cheney aiding and abetting the terrorists by keeping us dependent on Mid-East oil and Mid-East chaos that keeps its price high and highly profitable for his buddies.
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POPSGeneration Chickenhawk: College Republicans Really need to check out the video at the Huffingtonpost.com website that this clip comes from. Typical chickenhawks. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. "Medical reasons." "It's not for me." These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them "over there." Like the current Republican leaders who skipped out on Vietnam, the GOP's next generation would rather cheerlead from the sidelines for the war in Iraq while other, less privileged young men and women fight and die.
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POPS"Bush F****d Up the War": said Repub Senator The findings echo similar assessments of the terror threat from British spy chiefs. They inflamed an already febrile atmosphere in Congress, where Mr Bush is haemorrhaging support from Republicans. Mr Voinovich is not the only ally of the President losing faith. Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by the hitherto loyal businessman Richard Mellon Scaife, branded the Bush administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American suicide". Don't know who Richard Mellon Scaife is? He is the billionaire rightwing nutjob who funded the rightwings hitjob on President Clinton. "We're going to get Clinton," Joan Bingham, a New York publisher present at the lunch, remembers him saying. "And you'll be much happier," he said to Bingham and another Democrat at the table Who's happy now?
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POPSPowell spills it about Bush / Iraq Al-Qaeda, Powell asserted, was only 10% of the problem in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, its prime minister, lacked the political will to establish an effective government. After a promising start to the surge at the beginning of the year, 453 unidentified corpses were found on the streets of Baghdad last month, 41% more than the 321 bodies found in January, according to unofficial Iraqi health ministry statistics.
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POPSGI's in Iraq no longer True Believers From the article: Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter's office and joined the army. "You guys want to start a fight in my backyard, I got something for you," he recalls thinking at the time. But in Safstrom's view, the American presence is futile. "If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy," he said. "It would go straight into a civil war. That's how it feels, like we're putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here.
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POPSNew Highs in Iraq: Contractor Death Tolls Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, has introduced legislation to force the government to release detailed records on the use of contractors in Iraq and the names and job descriptions of all those killed and injured, information that is virtually impossible to get right now. The military releases names and biographical information about its wartime casualties, but businesses are not required to provide such information, and the Labor Department refuses to do so, citing privacy laws. "By keeping the knowledge of this force hidden, it changes one's perception and one's evaluation of the war," Ms. Schakowsky said. "There are almost a thousand dead and a large number of injuries. I think it masks the fact that we are privatizing the military in this country.
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POPSIraq Generals to W: You've Failed Us Also from the article - This administration and the previously Republican controlled legislature have been the most caustic agents against America's Armed Forces in memory. Less than a year ago, the Republicans imposed great hardship on the Army and Marine Corps by their failure to pass a necessary funding language. This time, the President of the United States is holding our Soldiers hostage to his ego. More than ever apparent, only the Army and the Marine Corps are at war - alone, without their President's support. --Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA, Ret.
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