2004 - the golden years

VOTE
* conyers asks the fbi/doj to look into the whitesticker phenom in
ohio. rawstory deserves a medal.
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/105/conyers_fbi_letter_128.php

* apparently allawi is hoping for 66% turnout. either he'll look
really stupid, or they'll be telling lies.

* " One campaign leaflet, for the United Iraqi Alliance, gave the
names of 37 of its candidates but withheld 188 others. "Our
apologies," the flyer read, "for not mentioning the names of all
the candidates. But the security situation is bad, and we have to
keep them alive.""
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0504,schanberg,60421,6.html

* how do you ask the last man to die for an election?


WAR
* "On the heels of Bush’s speech, neocon Robert Kagan used
his column in the Washington Post to set Bush’s inaugural
speech in stone as US foreign policy. Kagan wrote: "The goal of
American foreign policy is now to spread democracy, for its own
sake, for reasons that transcend specific threats. In short, Bush
has unmoored his foreign policy from the war on terrorism.""
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article7840.htm

* heres pnac founder kagan on bushs speech. read and weep, then be
scared. then weep again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27822-2005Jan21.html

* apparently the Greenzone has been unofficially renamed the
'internationalzone' judging by the teeve coverage - ive been
looking for them to change the number - i previously joked that
it'd be the limezone et al.

* the ozgovts ABC is reporting on the attack in the greenzone
overnight - '2 people died' - not '2 ams died'

* "The next time you read something in National Review, or any of
the other party-lining pro-war pro-Republican outlets of opinion in
which Armstrong and Gallagher appeared, including The Weekly
Standard and editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, ask
yourself if it doesn't sound like a Pentagon press release –
and try to calculate, in dollars and cents, how much it contributes
to the war effort. Because there is a strong possibility that your
tax dollars are paying for it... Out of the few dozen bona fide
neocons on earth, a good dozen or so are newspaper columnists:
which ones are on the payroll, either Iraq's or the Pentagon's?"
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4628

* "Feith is clearly resigning ahead of the possible breaking of
major scandals concerning his tenure at the Department of Defense,
which is among the more disgraceful cases of the misleading of the
American people in American history."
http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/feith-resigns-under-pressure-of.html

* "Mr. Chertoff's previously undisclosed involvement in evaluating
how far interrogators could go took place in 2002-3 when he headed
the Justice Department's criminal division. The advice came in the
form of responses to agency inquiries asking whether C.I.A.
employees risked being charged with crimes if particular
interrogation techniques were used on specific detainees." its
funny language really - they wanna see if people risk getting
charged - not if crimes were being committed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/politics/29home.html

* "one method that Chertoff opposed appeared to violate a ban in
the law against using a "threat of imminent death."" - altho
somehow, waterboarding is fine - which gives the sensation that one
is about to drown... im not sure how that is consistent.

* " The United States is preparing a future invasion of Venezuela
to control the petroleum of the South American country as it did in
Iraq, said Venezuela's acting ambassador to Paraguay, Elmer Nino."
toast.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/28/content_2518406.htm

* "Gore Vidal: Iran next, then who?... And we were not in danger
from weapons of mass destruction. The danger is an Administration
that has fallen in love with war because of the special powers war
gives the Administration to rid itself of the Bill of Rights and
lock up dissenters." (uk press of course - news.google doesnt pick
up the story for some reason)
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=603697

* upi "The U.S. Air Force is playing a dangerous game of cat and
mouse with Iran's ayatollahs, flying American combat aircraft into
Iranian airspace in an attempt to lure Tehran into turning on air
defense radars, thus allowing U.S. pilots to grid the system for
use in future targeting data, administration officials said...
"They are not necessarily an act of war in themselves, unless they
are perceived as being so by the country that is being overflown."
" go read. it gets worse.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article7889.htm

* dbrooks: " In candid, sprawling conversations, officials are much quicker to talk about Latin America, and the different challenges presented by the (bad) situation in Venezuela " can he be shot for being stupid? or treason? or for payola? venezuela is only bad becuase they have democracy and oil. "There's so much soft-power talk in the Bush administration these days it would make Kofi Annan queasy." ummmm??????????? "Events in Iraq tomorrow and in Iran later on may make these days look like a sabbatical. But new beginnings are fun." evil cometh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/opinion/29brooks.html

* "There are 54 million people in Iraq. Over half of them are under the age of 15. Of the over 100,000 civilians dead in this war, then, over half of them are children. We are killing children. The children are our enemy. And we are defeating them." http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0128-35.htm

* gregdyke: "Did Dr Kelly kill himself?"
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=605290



* must watch speech by 'Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of
Congress from Texas.' "What if the policies of foreign
intervention, entangling alliances, policing the world, nation
building, and spreading our values through force are deeply flawed?"
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article7903.htm



OTHER

* bobparry: "After leaving office, George H.W. Bush gave paid speeches on behalf of RevMoon’s front groups. Though the exact amount of Moon’s payments to Bush has never been revealed, one former Unification Church official told me the Moon organization had budgeted $10 million for the ex-president." http://consortiumnews.com/2005/012805.html

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war makes me mad, sad, bad. tsunamis makes me sad.
wotisitgood4.blogspot.com