"Turkish airforce jets on Thursday struck in northern Iraq, bombing bases believed to be operated by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Cihan news agency reports. The PKK which is banned in Turkey had earlier appealed to the population in the villages in Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Turkish border, to leave the area, predicting military attacks by Turkey and Iran. The separatist group also said it had proposed some sort of truce to Ankara.
Turkish military officials stated that the F-16 jets which took off during the night had inflicted serious casualties on the PKK, the agency reported, adding that ground operations are continuing along the Iraqi border.
[]
Speaking in Baghdad, spokesman for the U.S. and its allies in Iraq Maj. Gen. William Caldwell stated that there had been shelling in northern Iraq. "I'm not sure exactly where the shelling came from. So I'd be hesitant to say exactly who was responsible for it," the US general said."
* nyt:
" An Iranian opposition group said here on Thursday that Iran had built at least 15 advanced uranium enrichment machines that could speed production of nuclear fuel and asserted that the country would have hundreds more by next year.
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The group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has been correct before. In August 2002, its announcement that Tehran was pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program led in part to the current standoff over the Iranian nuclear development program. But many of the group’s subsequent disclosures have been either less significant or wrong."
* hentoff:
"Furthermore, indicating the boundless duplicity of this administration, the amendment to the War Crimes Act—bypassing the abuses forbidden by that law, the Geneva Conventions, and now the Supreme Court of the United States—excuses any of these crimes that have been committed since September 11, 2001! Anyone who has ordered or perpetrated "humiliating and degrading" treatment since then gets off scot-free."
3 comments:
first off, Hentoff totally rocks; been reading him since i was a little kid.
about Turkey/Iraq and this: ' "I'm not sure exactly where the shelling came from. So I'd be hesitant to say exactly who was responsible for it," the US general said."
oh, i have a pret-ty good idea as to whom exactly is responsible. all of whom, originally, that is.
hentoff does indeed rock.
re 'oops - someone dropped bombs but we'd better not jump to conclusions' = 'we havent found a way to blame syria or iran yet' (or it was one of our friends)
"Furthermore, indicating the boundless duplicity of this administration, the amendment to the War Crimes Act—bypassing the abuses forbidden by that law, the Geneva Conventions, and now the Supreme Court of the United States—excuses any of these crimes that have been committed since September 11, 2001! Anyone who has ordered or perpetrated 'humiliating and degrading' treatment since then gets off scot-free." (Emphasis mine.)
We must, of course, keep the pressure on our various congresscritters to resist this effort, but also remember that just because Congress may pass some crap to retroactively absolve these creeps does not mean such crap will pass the Constitutional test.
They keep forgetting that. Everytime I hear somebody say that if the prez doesn't like a law he can go to Congress and change it I just want to scream.
The law must STILL be consistent with the Constitution.
Dammit.
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