June 2009 archive

Jun 02 2009

Dick Cheney’s World: Killing Iraqi’s and American Soldier’s saved lives

I don’t know what is worse, having politicians who spout this crap, or, having a part of our populace stupid enough to believe it.

The Big Dick speaks:

CHENEY: The problem we were faced with in the aftermath of 9/11 was the possibility of another 9/11-style attack, only with much deadlier technology, a 9/11 with nukes or biological agents of some kind. That concern drove a lot of our thinking in that period, in those months after 9/11. … I think it was a sound decision to make. I think it was an important part of our overall strategy in the Global War on Terror. I think it saved lives.

There are times that I simply feel like I’m shooting GOP fish in a barrel, but, here we go…

Jun 02 2009

TREASON: Bush covered up Saudi involvement in 9/11

     Which President was really palling around with terrorists?

Via Kos himself, from back in May 17, 2004

RIGGS BANK FINED FOR LAX OVERSIGHT OF SAUDI MONEY, WHICH MIGHT HAVE GONE TO TERRORISTS

According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for “failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs’s failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank.” The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor “tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy,” including “suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier’s checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan.” According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, “may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists.” According to the Washington Post, federal regulators “called Riggs actions a “‘willful, systemic’ violation of anti-money-laundering law.” Riggs officials have “acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

     

Jun 02 2009

Another New Low ….and Lie….for Cheney

Simulposted at Daily Kos

The Dick Cheney Stay out of Jail by Sowing Fear Tour continues….and lowers the Limbo Bar again.

Richard Clarke was Clinton’s ‘Terror Czar.’ He was kept on by Bush and from day one raised the alarm on the Intel that had been coming in and was escalating. Eventually culminating of course in the attacks on 9/11. He and many others warned Bush and Cheney as loudly and continuously as possible.

But now in his quest to confuse the gullible Press Corps and continue his PR Campaign of Fear and Terror, Cheney actually and incredibly BLAMES the guy who tried to warn him….for not warning him.

Clarke had just told the truth about ‘attacked’ Cheney and Bushco’s Bedwetter Defense of their actions in response to 9/11. Actions such as torture and invading Iraq. The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse By Richard A. Clarke.

Cheney, knowing that the best defense is torture and invasion to go on the offensive, managed to jump the shark and slither under the bar of truth at the same time.

Via Think Progress…


Cheney Blames Richard Clarke For 9/11: ‘He Missed It’

Speaking at the National Press Club today, Cheney struck back at Clarke. When asked about Clarke’s argument, Cheney – once again – invoked the “burning ashes” of 9/11 and the victims who leaped to their deaths from the World Trade Center. Then, quite succinctly, Cheney pinned the entire blame for 9/11 on Clarke:

 

CHENEY: You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it. The fact is that we did what we felt we had to do, and if I had to do it all over again, I would do exactly the same thing.

Jun 01 2009

Weekly Torture Action Letter -Release All The Documents

Welcome to the 12th in the Dog’s letter writing campaign series. This basic idea of this series is to write to decision and opinion makers every week to push for accountability on for the Bush era State Sponsored Torture program. The Dog writes the letters and provides the links for each week, you provide the action by either cutting and pasting the letter or by using its topic to write your own letter. This is a low level type of action but it is by being relentless and consistent that we keep the pressure on those who can either start investigations or take actions which will make the need for action clearer.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net”  

Jun 01 2009

Genetic Conflicts of Interest in Female Reproductive Rights.

There are several related serious issues concerning female reproductive rights that are seldom discussed, which to my mind form inherent and sound biological reasons for reproductive rights to favor female choice.  These biological facts point to conflicts of interest for males that under any rational system would disqualify males from interfering decisively in female choice.

(This diary has been exhumed from this graveyard, where it was originally interred in 2006.  )

 

Jun 01 2009

Four at Four

  1. The LA Times reports Iraqi casualties fall to record low in May. “The death toll for the month, 165, is about half that of April. Meanwhile, 24 American military personnel were killed, an eight-month high… According to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, 165 Iraqis died in violence in May, 134 of them civilians and 31 of them members of the Iraqi security forces.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, Geithner in China, and bumblebee extinction.

Jun 01 2009

The Global War Comes Home

After 9/11, America geared up to seriously fight terrorism.

We declared Global War on it. We beefed up airport security and started taking our shoes off to fight terrorism. We got some fancy color coded graphics, so we could know how alert we should be. We gave Kansas and South Dakota a bunch of money to spend to protect themselves against an Al Qaeda attack. We tried to sell our port security to an Arab country. We militarized our police forces and cut money from firefighters. We bought flags and magnetic stickers for our SUVS. We sent our National Guard over to some places we invaded. We spied on Mosques. We didn’t release precious military forces inside the US to help with a huge hurricane just in case. We had a Commission to see what happened and make recommendations on how we should prepare for terrorism, carefully making sure that no one who incompetently allowed the attacks to happen was blamed or held accountable, so that we didn’t lose their vital insight and incompetence for the coming fight….and then ignored the recommendations of the commission.

We invaded a country that had nothing to do with terrorism against us. And then hung the bad guy, just like in the Old West!

We tortured people.

We stripped ourselves of the Rights they hated us for.

We refocused the entire effort of the FBI to fighting terrorism.

We established the absolutely biggest, greatest data mining and domestic spying surveillance program in the history of the world!

And right after 9/11, we even rounded up a whole bunch of Arab looking people and held them while doing background checks and occasionally, perhaps, beating the crap out of “the worst” of them.

Sure it was illegal, but you know….terrorist might invade the US at any moment. Sacrifices had to be made by ….others. Though of course it was illegal, by the old rules, pre 9/11, when everything changed, we started using our refocused FBI to spy on Mosques. We even used the census to target Arabs We tapped phones, froze some bank accounts just in case. And argued over racial profiling…..cause we KNEW that all terrorists looked a certain way. .

Brown.

It got so bad a Junior Senator from Illinois felt he had to speak out.



“If there is an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney, it threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, it is that fundamental belief that makes this country work.”

 – Senator Barack Obama

Fortunately, God had provided us with a Crusader as President….and briefed him constantly, according to the President.

But now, we have that weak Junior Senator, who might even be an Arab himself (No Birth Certificate, funny and suspicious name, Brown, etc) in charge.

Just as a whole new bunch of people are inciting, fomenting, and even carrying out violent acts of terrorism on American soil.

Will he “keep us safe?” Will he “do whatever is necessary” to protect us from a new wave of terrorists? Is he willing to “go to the dark side” like Cheney did and “get his hands dirty?”

Sure, there have only been a few sporadic attacks that can be directly attributed to this new batch of terrorists and their radical ideology.

SO FAR!!!

Can we really afford to wait? Can we afford complacency in the face of terrorism? Can we wait for our now formidable State Anti-terrorism Juggernaut that we have paid for and sacrificed our Rights for and rearranged our lives for and take our shoes off for to work??? I have not seen any reports of folks who fit the profile of these terrorists being rounded up, have you? Are we spying on their Mosques? Have we frozen the bank accounts of their charities? What are we waiting for?

Do we really want to wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud?

This is a war dammit, a Global War….and we are on that Globe! We must do all we can to fight this new wave of terrorism, to stop it in its tracks. No matter who we have to spy on, round up, beat and torture. We simply cannot, in light of this new wave of attacks, afford to be Soft On Terror.

I say we invade Kansas.

Or maybe, taking a page out of George Bush’s Anti-terror Playbook…..Rhode Island.

Jun 01 2009

The Further Adventures of Cyber Command




Photobucket

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.

Uh-oh.

Jun 01 2009

‘Playing For Change’ Peace!

And Peace Through Music

How Producer Mark Johnson put it all together.

Morning Edition, May 4, 2009 – Until a video of “Stand by Me” had gone viral on YouTube, Roger Ridley had sung and played guitar anonymously on the streets of Santa Monica, Calif., for years. The video begins with Ridley and then mixes in 40 other musicians from around the world. It’s part of a 10-song collection called Playing for Change: Songs Around the World.

Producer Mark Johnson got the idea a few years ago when he heard Ridley’s voice on a street in Santa Monica.

“I approached him after the performance and said, ‘Hey, if I come back in an hour with some recording equipment and cameras, I’d love to record you, film you, add musicians around the world to it,’ ” Johnson says. “And he looked at me really funny, sort of thought I was crazy. But he said, ‘OK, if you come back, we’ll do it.’ “………………Rest Here with Video Links to a Couple of the Songs

Brings up the NPR Player to Listen to Discussion

Jun 01 2009

What Is The Story With Your Handle?

Lets start with the meat of this essay, there is no meat. If you came by looking for issues or action or insight (not that you get a lot of the last from the Dog anyway) you are SOL, that’s right you are a Slovenian On Leave. However if you are looking for a place to be a little silly, to let your hair down and get to know a little something about your fellow community members, well you are in the right place!  

Jun 01 2009

Docudharma Times Monday June 1

Why Is It That

Business Reporters

Report Layoff’s Of

Ten’s Of Thousands

With Such Glee  




Monday’s Headlines:

Thousands rally in support of gay marriage ban

Campaigners warn of threat to one of Spain’s last pristine beaches

Can the Russian doll survive the recession?

How ‘the busy one’ ekes out a living from the devastation of Gaza

Robert Fisk: The mysterious case of the Israeli spy ring, Hizbollah and the Lebanese ballot

India accused of complicity in deaths of Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers

North Korea puts long-range missile on launch pad, reports say

Robert Mugabe’s thugs chanted: ‘We will eat your children’

Refugees fight to stay in one of South Africa’s last, battered camps

Panama Canal expansion is chugging along

NYT: The fall of an American giant

GM, once the symbol of U.S. innovation, is filing for bankruptcy

By Micheline Maynard

DETROIT – It is a company that helped lift hundreds of thousands of American workers into the middle class. It transformed Detroit into the Silicon Valley of its day, a symbol of America’s talent for innovation. It built celebrated cars, like Cadillacs, that became synonymous with luxury.

And now it is filing for bankruptcy, something that would have been unfathomable even a few years ago, much less decades ago, when it was a dominant force in the American economy.

Rarely has a company fallen so far and so fast as General Motors . And while its bankruptcy appeared increasingly likely in recent weeks, the arrival of the moment is still a staggering blow, particularly for anyone with ties to the company.

Dying for democracy: Tiananmen Square, remembered

Twenty years ago, a peaceful student protest in China’s capital sparked a massacre that was broadcast across the globe. But did it really change anything? Eyewitness Mary Dejevsky looks back

Monday, 1 June 2009

The Western world had been on “death watch” for weeks, preparing for the demise of Ayatollah Khomeini, inspiration of Iran’s Islamic revolution. But history has a way of frustrating even the best laid plans. And when Iran’s supreme leader eventually breathed his last, the news was utterly, and brutally, eclipsed: the Chinese army had mounted an all-out assault on the ceremonial heart of Beijing, ruthlessly evicting student protesters from Tiananmen Square, and reimposing communist rule in a ferocious exercise of force.

It was the night of 3 June, 1989. It was only an hour after night descended that the first tanks rolled down Chang’an avenue, the first bullets began to fly and the first bloodied casualties were delivered on wooden carts to the city’s hospitals.

USA

Gitmo case highlights challenge facing Obama

War crimes court begins amid uncertainty over facility’s future

Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – A session of the Guantanamo war crimes court that began Sunday will likely show the difficulties President Barack Obama faces in changing the system and closing the prison by January.

The case in question, of a Canadian charged with killing an American soldier, is stalled by infighting among lawyers.

Other defendants have even more complex legal issues, and officials say the U.S. may have to choose between delaying Guantanamo’s closure or quickly finding somewhere else to hold the trials.

“I don’t think they’ll get a single trial done by January,” said Michael Berrigan, the deputy chief defense counsel for the Guantanamo tribunals. “I don’t think there’s any way.”

Jun 01 2009

Why didn’t we torture Saudi Princes who funded 9/11?

     In Federal Insurance Co. v. Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, a suit filed by several insurance companies who sought to recover over $300 billion for losses incurred by the 9/11 attacks, the following men are named as defendants.

   Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, president of SHC, who was warned in 2000 of his organization’s ties to al Qaeda;

   Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the designated successor to King Abdullah, who received warnings as early as 1994 that some Muslim charitable groups were fronts for al Qaeda;

   Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who as Saudi Minister of the Interior monitors and controls the charities operating in Saudi Arabia;

   Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who was the director of the Kingdom’s Department of General Intelligence (“DGI”) until August 2001; and

   Prince Mohamed al Faisal al Saud, who unlike the other princes named is not a government official but a bank manager alleged to have knowingly provided material sponsorship to international terrorism.

cbs2chicago.com

 

    When the crown prince and successor to the throne of Saudi Arabia is warned back in 1994 that charities his family supports are funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then those groups attack America, you would think that somebody in the executive branch would find that interesting.

    But not Bush/Cheney. They spent every minute between the Inauguration and 9/10/2001 trying to find a way to attack Iraq. Defending America from terrorism was not very interesting until after the attack had already occurred.

    This is not the only evidence that the royal family and absolute rulers of Saudi Arabia directly aided Al Qaeda before and up to the attacks against America on September 11th. This evidence is well documented, and yet it went ignored.

    Why was this evidence ignored? I will not speculate on that point, rather, here is more evidence. You may decide for yourself.

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