won't shake hands with women

WAR STUFF
* " U.S. forces say they have intercepted a letter intended for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... the military said the letter admonishes the sheikh for "abandoning his followers since Falluja," where U.S. forces drove out militants in a furious assault in November last year... An undated document was also found listing information on targets and sketch maps for kidnappings and bombings." LINK
ha ha ha haha

* "Reports have surfaced that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi intervened to ensure that a report on the killing of an Italian intelligence agent in Baghdad by US troops would not damage relations with Washington... " LINK

* "DANIEL ELLSBERG: I don't think we'll ever be out of Iraq. We will not avoid the war in Iran. We will not change our relations to dictatorial tyrannist governments as in the Sudan without the kinds of opposition that we saw in the Vietnam War against the Vietnam War, consciencious, truthful, nonviolent civil disobedience. And that is more than symbolic. People actually showing that they're willing to do everything they can, nonviolently and truthfully, to bring these processes to the attention of the fellow voters, but also to stop them, to obstruct them." LINK

* "Guiding those debates is Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al Jaafari, a soft-spoken Shiite physician and Islamic scholar who won't shake hands with women. Three of his five most important Cabinet posts belong to a Shiite coalition anchored by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Iran-backed, dominant Shiite political party. Some of their lawmakers seemed to gloat Friday - and hint of friction to come - when they burst into religious chants at the nationally televised session where a Cabinet was finally approved after three months of negotiation." LINK

* "In a maddening twist, however, the DoD heavily censored the images by blacking out ("redacting") the faces, uniform insignia and name tags of the soldiers carrying the coffins in color-guard ceremonies. They say it's only a matter of privacy protection. Yet the Pentagon provides photos of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. Can you imagine the DoD asking combat troops in Ramadi for privacy waivers?" LINK

* "It's an interesting coincidence that Karpinski and England are both women and are being shouldered with so much of the blame in the media. It's also probably well noted in the region that the one person in the US forces who is receiving the harshest possible sentence (death by lethal injection) for crimes committed in the region, is a Muslim." LINK

* "Even terrorists can have bad days. Iraq's chief evildoer, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is reportedly tearing his hair out because his men are complaining about the long hours, low pay and crappy benefits that come with waging an insurgency. At least, that's what American military officials claim, after they intercepted a letter allegedly intended for al-Zarqawi's eyes only. " LINK

* "Washington's continued reluctance to take military action against separatist Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq is another constant thorn. Turkish anger has deepened amid escalating violence between Turkish forces and the rebels, who say they have killed 50 Turkish soldiers in the last 10 days and claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks last week in Istanbul and the Aegean tourist resort of Kusadasi, which killed a policeman." LINK