If we're so much the same like I always hear
Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some of us live in a cloud of fear
Some live behind iron gates
Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some are blessed and some are cursed
Some live behind iron gates
While others only see only the worst
Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
The golden one or scarred from birth
Some things can never be changed
Such a lot of pain on this earth
It's somehow so badly arranged
Some things can never be changed
Some reasons will never come clear
It's somehow so badly arranged
If we're so much the same like I always hear
Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Such a lot of pain
Such a lot of pain
Such a lot of pain on the earth
5/8/08
Punditman's Musical Interlude: Rush: The Larger Bowl
Media Disinformation: Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents
| New York Times vs McClatchy by Greg Mitchell | |
Global Research, May 6, 2008 | |
Editor and Publisher - 2008-05-05 | |
Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.
Gordon asserts that “Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.
“The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.
“But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.”
But McClatchy has a quite different take.
Leila Fadel, the bureau chief, and Shashank Bengali report: “The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.
“As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months.
"The government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, told reporters Sunday that a committee was formed to find ‘tangible information’ about foreign intervention, specifically Iran's role in Iraq rather than ‘information based on speculation.’
"’We don't want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran. What happened before is enough. We paid a lot,’ Dabbagh said, referring to the eight years war between the two nations in which an estimated 1 million people died.”
Also today from Agence France-Press: “Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad.
“Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no 'hard evidence' of involvement by the neighbouring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country. Asked about reports that weapons captured from Shiite fighters bore 2008 markings suggesting Iranian involvement, Dabbagh said: ‘We don't have that kind of evidence... If there is hard evidence we will defend the country.’"
Here is a list of Gordon’s sources in his Times article:
-- “An American official”
-- “But the Americans say”
-- “American officials”
-- “American officials”
-- “The Americans “
--“American officials”
--“An American official”
-- ditto, and so on
Greg Mitchell's new book explores Gordon's and McClatchy's past reporting on Iraq and Iraq. It is titled, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."
© Copyright Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher, 2008
5/7/08
Why Isn't It the End of Hillary? Because she's the War Party's favorite
| |
| by Justin Raimondo www.antiwar.com |
With Barack Obama sweeping North Carolina – in part due to massive turnout by students and African-Americans – and Indiana (as of 5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time) very possibly a close call, the numbers should be telling us Hillary Clinton is finished – at least as far as the elected delegates are concerned. The mathematics and the clock would normally doom her campaign, but being the candidate of the Establishment, she's not being counted out. Far from it. The one chance she has, and it's not all that unlikely, is if she manages to convince the "super-delegates" – elected officials and other grand poobahs of the Democratic Party –that Obama is unelectable. If you thought the campaign was dirty at this point, then just wait until you get a gander at what's to come. The smear campaign – a technique the Clintons were always masters of – is going to be something to see. What is clear, by now, is that the War Party is openly rooting for Hillary: see the Weekly Standard for the neocons' paean to Hillary the war goddess. Before the Obama surge nearly wiped her out, she was sounding like Obama in his denunciations of the "war that should never have been fought," i.e., Iraq, yet she shifted gears rather abruptly and began presenting herself as a lunch-bucket know-nothing pro-war demagogue who could pass for Joe Lieberman in drag. punditman says...If it was an anti-war candidate challenging Obama, (who, like Hilary, is not exactly a George McGovern or a Ron Paul), the person would have been forced out by Democratic Party apparatchiks long ago. |
Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of mounting an imperialist conspiracy against Russia that could push the world into a new Cold War.
With Dmitry Medvedev due to be inaugurated today as Russian president, the Soviet Union's last leader said that the White House's claims of peaceful intentions towards its former superpower rival could no longer be trusted.
Delivering one of his most scathing attacks on the US, Mr Gorbachev told The Daily Telegraph that a US military build-up was under way to contain a resurgent Russia.
From Nato's expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington's proposals for a bigger defence budget and a missile shield in central Europe, the US was deliberately quashing hopes for permanent peace with Russia, Mr Gorbachev said.
punditman says...Gorby makes some good points. And if the Bush administration can't even see eye-to-eye with a guy that even Reagan liked, what does that tell us about their mindsets? And how would the US react if, in this post-cold war era, Russia decided to encircle the US with military bases and a missile shield by cajoling friendly allies?
Hmmm...look what happened last time Russia responded to American encirclement à la Cuba missile crisis (we're lucky we aren't a radically-reduced population of radioactive mutants, foraging to survive on a glowing landscape.)
5/6/08
An Open Letter to Michael Moore: Why Didn't You Say It?
www.counterpunch.org
Dear Michael,
I was slightly stunned at the irony of this paragraph in your endorsement of Barack Obama:
"Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, 'Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for "spiritual counseling?" THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!'"
I am at a loss to understand why you wanted Obama to say that, and yet YOU didn't take the opportunity to mention it yourself on Larry King Live when he gave you a perfect opening. In fact, I shouted at my TV set, "Say it, Michael, say it now!"
punditman says...Good point! And gee willikers...I learn something new about the corruption and dishonesty of Hilary Clinton everyday!
5/5/08
Secrecy is a nasty virus that can lay low the body politic
by Lloyd Axworthy | |
Canada's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Speaks Out
There is a disturbing virus settling into Ottawa. Let's call it the Spreading Northern Security Plague, a variation of a virulent strain of illegal counterterrorism practices imported from the Bush White House. Its symptoms were first detected in the Maher Arar case, where a Canadian was sent off to be tortured in a Syrian jail. Only years later was an inquiry established, presided over by a courageous judge who blew the whistle on such nefarious practices by our security forces.
But by then, the disease had become embedded in the body politic of successive governments with all the signs of a well-established syndrome in which security trumps human rights, international covenants can be disregarded, commissions of inquiry can be secretive and dismissive of rule and procedure, and vital information on crucial issues such as the transfer of Afghan detainees is deliberately withheld.
And now, we learn of Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Sudanese Canadian who was imprisoned in Khartoum, allegedly at the request of CSIS, and who has been stranded in the country for nearly five years. That the Canadian government, knowing full well the egregious human-rights record of the Sudanese regime, would leave one of its citizens marooned in the Sudan, is inexplicable.
punditman says...
As soon as the State has the right to apprehend you without charges or a fair trial, as soon as they can act in the name of "national security" without oversight or transparency, as soon as they can send you on a "rendition" flight, well, you have lost your freedom, buddy boy. And here's an elementary civics lesson: a violation to one is a violation to all. Too bad they don't teach this in Canadian schools, because we now see the result: where there should be outrage and solidarity, there is mostly silence.
Good for Mr. Axworthy for speaking up.
Iraqi official says Iran arms evidence not conclusive
SAMEER N. YACOUB
AP News
A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no conclusive evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."
Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.
Keep Reading...
punditman says...What? You mean the Bush administration is relying on half-truths, speculation and fabrication in order to justify attacking Iran, even as the Iraqis push for goods relations with Iran? Imagine my shock!
5/3/08
Ex-Iraq commander accuses Bush Administration of 'gross incompetence'
In a new memoir set to be published May 6, the former commander of US forces in Iraq provides new intimate details of the goings-on at high levels of the Bush Administration in the first year of the Iraq war.
His sharp tongued conclusion: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."An excerpt from Sanchez's book, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story, published in TIME, buries the quotation on the third page of the article.
5/2/08
The Iranian Chessboard: Five Ways to Think About Iran Under the Gun
TomDispatch.com
More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how George W. Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq.
The campaign's greatest hits are widely known: "The ayatollahs" are building a Shi'ite nuclear bomb; Iranian weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq; Iranian gunboats are provoking U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf - Iran, in short, is the new al-Qaeda, a terror state aimed at the heart of the United States. It's idle to expect the American mainstream media to offer any tools that might put this orchestrated blitzkrieg in context.
Here are just a few recent instances of the ongoing campaign: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists that Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" when it comes to Iran. In tandem with U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, Mullen denounces Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq, although he claims to harbor "no expectations" of an attack on Iran "in the immediate future" and even admits he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved."
But keep in mind one thing the Great Saddam Take-out of 2003 proved: that a "smoking gun" is, in the end, irrelevant. And this week, the U.S. is ominously floating a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf.
But what of Iran itself under the blizzard of charges and threats? What to make of it? What does the world look like from Tehran? Here are five ways to think about Iran under the gun and to better decode the Iranian chessboard.