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This video linked here contains 13 sniper shots upon coalition forces.   Specifically at:   :24 1:21 1:50 2:45 3:23 3:47 4:26 5:03 5:28 6:44 7:20 7:45 8:05 There are several other instances where it appears that there may have been a sniper shot, but it's not so clear as the 13 listed above.   Some will say that we can't tell what this video is really saying because we can't translate from Arabic, etc.  The terrorist symbol in the upper left, coupled with the superimposed image of former President Bush over flag draped coffins leaves little to translate.  This...

Five years after his painful loss to George W. Bush, ending a presidential campaign in which he was accused of being an Iraq war defeatist who was too willing to talk to America's adversaries, Sen. John F. Kerry has finally found his place in the foreign policy spotlight. Not only has President Obama advanced many of the Massachusetts Democrat's ideas but Vice President Biden's election vacated for Kerry the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the legislative branch's leading foreign policy pulpit.

A group of UC Berkeley law students will launch a torture accountability initiative next week dedicated to holding the authors of the infamous torture memos accountable, reinstating respect for the prohibition against torture and ending executive abuse of power and impunity. Called the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (B.A.A.T.), at their kick-off Oct. 13 the group will host a panel of lawyers and legal academics to discuss the memos crafted by the Bush administration’s legal counsels at the Department of Justice, including Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo. Yoo, who spent the previous semester at Chapman University, returned to the UC...

The Armed Forces recruiting center located at 14th and L Streets, NW, Washington, D.C., will be targeted by the SDS tomorrow afternoon as part of their 'Funk the War' protest aimed at undermining support for America in the war on terror.The demonstration will mark the eighth anniversary of the opening Afghan front in the global war on terror. SDS protesters have targeted the 14th and L recruiting center many times before, usually with rocks and paint bombs. At one protest they stormed and ransacked the front part of the center.This is what happened on March 19 last year:DC Recruiting Center...

Purported non Muslim Barack Hussein Obama made a presidential appointment of Muslim Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan for a top job at the federal Department of Homeland Security. In his new job, Arif Alikhan will be Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security. Alikhan has been Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles--in charge of public safety for the city. Why Muslim Alikhan at the Department of Homeland Security you might ask? DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said Alikhan’s “broad and impressive array of experience in national security, emergency preparedness, and counterterrorism will make him...

William “Bill” Ayers is a terrorist. Just ask him. In his memoir Fugitive Days, he admits planting bombs in federal buildings such as the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol (“Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” he writes). He was one of the founders of the radical terrorist group the Weather Underground. Escaping justice because of prosecutorial misconduct, he transformed himself into a respected academic, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. There is perhaps no better symbol of the 1960s moral relativist than he. It is not every day that a self-described terrorist and...

When George W. Bush was President, ABC and Charles Gibson, like most media members, couldn't get enough of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, the host of "World News Tonight" is no longer interested in Sheehan, even telling WLS radio in Chicago, "Enough already." I guess she served her purpose as reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Thurday: In an appearance August 18 on WLS radio in Chicago, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson was asked about anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's plans to travel to Martha's Vineyard next week, where she will protest...

Back in 2008, New York Times correspondent David S. Rohde, along with Afghan reporter Taki Luden, were abducted in Pakistan by the Taliban. Because they felt it might adversely affect hostage rescue efforts, the Times requested a news black-out. The Associated Press and other news agencies respected the request and only broke the story recently, after Rohde and Luden had scaled a wall and made their escape. It would be nothing other than a story with a happy ending, except that the Times has time and again ignored the government’s requests that it not report the specific ways in which...

June 14, 2009Obama's Other Controversial ChurchBy Andrew Walden "This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather...

FEC dismisses complaint on MoveOn's "Betray Us" ad @ 2:38 pm by Aaron Blake The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled Thursday that The New York Times did not provide MoveOn.org with a special rate for its 2007 full-page ad critical of Gen. David Petraeus. The ad, which ran in 2007 and called Petraeus "General Betray Us," caused a lot of controversy when it first ran, and Democrats were forced to separate themselves from the liberal group. Conservative commentators also alleged that MoveOn was given a special rate for the ad - evidence of the New York Times's supposed liberal bias...

Recently a 'Community activist' (AKA Pain in the A**) in the city of Boston named Sadiki Cambone, brought a set of pictures purporting to be of our service men raping Iraqi women to the Boston City Council. Much like John Kerry this Sadiki Cambone throws aroundhis service in the militaryto prove his alleged patriotism, all the while undermining our troops at every opportunity. The Boston Glob(e) published these pictures as being genuine without bothering to verify them.As it turns out the pictures actually come from a fetish porn site of men in camouflage having sex with porn actress. On todays...

After a tense internal debate, the Obama administration this afternoon will make public a number of detailed memos describing the harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency against al Qaeda suspects in secret overseas prisons. The interrogation methods were among the Bush administration's most closely guarded secrets, and today's release will be the most comprehensive public accounting to date of the interrogation program that some senior Obama administration officials have said used illegal torture....

Vandals destroy memorial to LCpl Justin Ellsworth for 2nd time (before and after photos)Vandals Destroy Fallen Heroes’ Monument, Son of National Pro-Troop Advocate: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Wednesday, April 8, 2009, Contact: Meghan Tisinger, Meghan@FamiliesUnitedMission.com, (202) 510-5304 Mt. Pleasant, MI – April 8, 2009 – Last week, a monument honoring the life and death of Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth was vandalized on Island Park near the Michigan Vietnam Memorial. Lance Corporal Ellsworth died on November 13, 2004 which serving in Iraq. His father, John Ellsworth, is the President of Military Families United, an advocacy organization that has recently been vocal in...

Charitable contributions at Southern California mosques are down by as much as 30% to 50% over the last few years. Blame the climate of fear. That’s what Rafe Husain, a board member for the Islamic Center of Corona Norco, is doing. “People feel tense and uncomfortable,” Husain is quoted as saying in a recent Los Angeles Times article. Just another story about the woeful recession we currently find ourselves in? Mosque-goers are feeling jittery about their dwindling 401k accounts and have decided to fork over less money to the needy? Not quite. What’s got some L.A.-area Muslims in a cold...

WASHINGTON – News organizations will be allowed to photograph the homecomings of America's war dead under a new Pentagon policy, defense and congressional officials said Thursday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to allow photos of flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base, Del., if the families of the fallen troops agree, the officials told The Associated Press. Gates planned to announce his decision later Thursday, they said. The current ban was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. At least two Democratic senators have called on President Barack Obama to let news photographers attend ceremonies at...

WASHINGTON: The United States is lining up billions of dollars in new economic and military aid to Pakistan despite reports that Islamabad is using American tax-payer money for deals with the Taliban and accounts of US arms ending up in the hands of the extremists. Amid an ongoing review of the so-called Af-Pak policy initiated by the Obama administration, Washington, under pressure from influential Senator John Kerry among other lawmakers and lobbyists, is said to be considering a one-time $ 5 billion aid to Pakistan over and above the $ 1.5 billion annual package for ten years currently under review...

Russia moved swiftly today to extend a hand to President Obama over American plans for big cuts in nuclear weapons. Sergei Ivanov, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that Russia was ready to sign a new strategic missile treaty with the United States after The Times disclosed that Mr Obama is to seek an 80 per cent reduction in stockpiles. "We welcome the statements from the new Obama Administration that they are ready to enter into talks and complete within a year, in this very confined timeframe, the signing of a new Russian-US treaty on the limitation of strategic attack weapons,"...

ERUSALEM – President Obama plans to offer Russia a deal whereby each country would reduce its nuclear weapons stockpile by 80 percent, the Times of London reported today. The proposal is consistent with Obama's previous calls on the campaign trail for the elimination of all the world's nuclear weapons, arguing the Cold War is over. Obama's statements came even while Russia reportedly worked to revive its Cold War-era naval activities and weapons supply channels to former allies in a clear challenge to the U.S.

The Obama administration asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010 by $55 billion, more than 10 percent of last year's $512 billion defense budget. The announcement came late Friday, following a meeting at the White House between President Obama and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Gen. Jim Jones, chairman of the National Security Council, according to a Fox News report. The White House website

Ed asked this morning if any “preparations” have been made for that meeting of the minds Obama’s planning with Chavez. Given this bombshell, a better question might be just how long The One’s been “preparing.” [E]ven before winning the November 4 election, Obama unofficially used what experts call “track two” discussions to approach America’s two foes in the region. Nuclear non-proliferation experts had several “very, very high-level” contacts in the last few months with Iranian leaders, said Jeffrey Boutwell, executive director for the US branch of the Pugwash group, an international organization of scientists which won the Nobel Peace Prize...

NEW YORK - The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on Thursday that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States. The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience. Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public...

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia wants the Pentagon to freeze up to $300 million in contracts with companies the military is hiring to place pro-U.S. news stories and entertainment programs in the Iraqi media . Webb wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday to ask that the deals be suspended until they can be reviewed by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the next presidential administration. A freshman Democrat, Webb sits on the Armed Services panel. With the United States in "a grave economic crisis" and Iraq's government carrying a $79 billion budget surplus drawn from oil exports, "it...

The NYT's have finally admitted what pretty much everyone has already figured out for themselves. The surge has worked. But all that we have gained, all we have achieved could be undone by a precipitous withdrawal: Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope,...

Mr. Hamdan, We're Ready For Your Closeup Aug. 17, 2008(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.Of course George Clooney’s production company has just purchased the rights to a book written about Salim Hamdan, the most famous mechanic and driver in the history of the world. The sensitive star knows a good story when he sees one, and Hamdan’s story (the final chapters of which have yet to be written) over the past six years surely ranks as one of the best of the decade. Hamdan drove Osama bin Laden for a while (imaging having that...

Gaza smuggling tunnels are for milk, say Palestinians Gaza smuggling tunnels are for milk, say Palestinians Palestinian officials from the Gaza Strip have distributed a set of carefully-staged photographs they say are evidence that the smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border are for milk and other essential goods, not weapons. The photographs show masked Palestinian militants lifting jugs of milk and sacks of baby food from the entrance to one of the tunnels on the Gaza side of the border. Israel insists that the tunnels, of which intelligence estimates indicate there are hundreds, are used to import small arms...

George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver. Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success. Last week Yemen-born...

Hollywood A-lister George Clooney is planning to bring the story of Osama bin Laden's driver to the big screen. The actor's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, according to The Observer newspaper. The Challenge by journalist Jonathan Mahler chronicles Hamdan's capture and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay and his subsequent trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Charles Swift. Hamdan, from Yemen, was sentenced last week to 5 1/2 years in jail. It was the first sentence handed down to a Guantanamo Bay detainee by a U.S. military tribunal....

Media: Four years ago this week, we noted how negative coverage of the Iraq War had become. But that was when things weren't going well. This is now, when things are going much better. So coverage must be much more positive, right? (with asterisks indicating page-toppers): • June 11: "Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say"* "NATO Not Expected to Send Force to Iraq" • June 13: "Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go"* "Insurgents and Islam Now Rulers of Fallujah" • June 14: "At Least 20 Killed in Baghdad (Car) Bombings" • June 15: "Iraq's Foreign Contractors in...

An unbylined Associated Press report yesterday, at least as carried at MSNBC, acknowledges improvement, and then explains why it's not going to get much future coverage from the wire service as long as things stay that way: BAGHDAD - Signs are emerging that Iraq has reached a turning point. Violence is down, armed extremists are in disarray, government confidence is rising and sectarian communities are gearing up for a battle at the polls rather than slaughter in the streets. Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States, where the war-weary public is focused on the American presidential...

Have you seen this delicious little quote from Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Paul Jankorski? Why it would seem that Mr. Jankorski is admitting that the Democrats lied about what was going on in Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections? Here's his quote: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we ... the Democrats ... that if we won the Congressional elections we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. "But you know ... the temptation to want to win back the Congress ......

Dennis Miller has Vincent Bugliosi (famous Manson case prosecutor and author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder") on the show today. Bugliosi has got a MAJOR case of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Anyone who calls to counter Bugliosi's "arguments" and "evidence" is either a "Bush lover" or a "right-winger". Oh, man!

U.S. troops serving in Iraq may be getting more letters during mail call, but they won't be care packages — one group is sending them letters and DVDs claiming 9/11 was an “inside job” and that they should rethink why they’re fighting. Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance, which he calls a media watchdog group, says that the U.S. government was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the armed forces should know it. “People want the facts. The Marines are hungry for the truth — what got them there [in Iraq], why are they risking their lives...

Every Thursday since the United States started bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, several men and women have stood on the street in front of San Francisco's Federal Building in a quiet vigil for peace.This week marked the 333rd Thursday that the group - 30 to 40 people - most of them older, some of them young, have gathered at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Larkin Street with their signs.They don't chant or sing. They don't demonstrate or block traffic. They pray, some of them; they stand vigil, with signs: "NO TO WAR YES TO PEACE."They are a familiar...

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has been a fairly undistinguished member of the House of Representatives for nearly a quarter of a century. He is a career member of the Financial Services Committee who has made little or no name for himself since his first electoral victory, and has maintained incumbency through the funneling of pork back to his district. Even his Wikipedia entry says that Kanjorski "usually plays behind-the-scenes roles in the advocacy or defeat of legislation and steers appropriations money toward improving the infrastructure and economic needs of his district." “But [in] the temptation to want to win back...

By see-dubya • May 9, 2008 01:55 AM For what it’s worth, the New York Times reports that the U.S.’s designated new commander in Pakistan, General James Hood, has not been allowed to take up his new job. He had served as commander of Gitmo, and although he actually did away with some of the roughest forms of interrogation there and won some (grudging) praise from human rights groups, his legacy in the Middle East is tainted by Newsweek’s lie: General Hood, who took command of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay in March 2004, shortly before the Abu Ghraib...

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein on Wednesday after holding him for more than two years without filing formal charges. Hussein, 36, was handed over to AP colleagues at a checkpoint in Baghdad. He was taken to the site aboard a prisoner bus and left U.S. custody wearing a traditional Iraqi robe. He was smiling and appeared in good health. "I want to thank all the people working in AP. ... I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody," Hussein said after being freed. AP President Tom...

This is a scattered editorial. Rich begins by puffing an Abu Ghraib film supposed to excite the masses. It doesn't sound interesting and, to Rich's credit, he gives up on this score. He then confesses his confusion and unhappiness and blames the American people for disinterest in his and the NYT's preoccupation with Iraq an alleged atrocities. "...This is not merely a showbiz phenomenon but a leading indicator of where our entire culture is right now. It’s not just torture we want to avoid. Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the...

Data from the Defense Intelligence Agency indicates that enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians peaked in October 2006, the month leading up to the U.S. midterm elections. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgents were "very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled" and were trying to "break the will of the American people." Democrats, who cast the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on Iraq, ended up taking control of both the House and the Senate. The DIA data shows that between November 2006 and May 2007, attacks...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

Thousands of people march to protest the war in Iraq in Hollywood on March 15, 2008. Opponents of the Iraq war plan to hold marches, sit-ins and other protests on Wednesday in cities across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion. (AFP/File/Valerie Macon)

BERLIN (AP) - Lynndie England, the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a German news magazine that she was sorry for appearing in photographs of detainees in the notorious Iraqi prison, and believes the scenes of torture and humiliation served as a powerful rallying point for anti-American insurgents. In an interview with the weekly magazine Stern conducted in English and posted on its Web site Tuesday, England was both remorseful and unrepentant—and conceded that the published photos surely incensed insurgents in Iraq. "I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton charged on Monday the Iraq war may cost Americans $1 trillion and add strain to the sagging U.S. economy as she made her case for a prompt U.S. troop pullout from a war "we cannot win."

Maybe we need to change it from Bush Derangement Syndrome to simply American Derangement Syndrome: The hot fashion accessory [at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony] was apparently orange ribbons and bracelets in solidarity with terrorist suspects in Guantanamo: Out on the red carpet, Paul Haggis (the director whose “Crash” won Best Picture in 2006) said he didn’t know what accounts for all these deeply dark, brooding, troubled films. But isn’t it obvious, he asked, flashing an orange ribbon on his lapel. Orange, why orange? “It’s Guantanamo,” his Max Azria-clad wife, Deborah, said, showing off her orange bracelet, which read: “Silence + torture...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Tuesday, February 26, 2008 ArchivesPermanent Link FORMER CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite is 91 years old and ailing. Poor health prevented him from accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award in person on January 19. At such a moment, I would prefer to speak charitably of Cronkite. But the times call for candor. Cronkite's intrigues have cost the lives of countless American soldiers. Even worse, it appears that our Central Intelligence Agency assisted Cronkite in his betrayals. Americans need to know why. Born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, Cronkite grew up in Kansas City and Houston, Texas. He dropped...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques. The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote...

Revelations make it clear that Bush still thinks illegal interrogation tactics are OK -- In the past, the United States had a straightforward standard in defining torture: Would the United States object to a particular interrogation technique if it was used by an enemy against a captured American?For example, the United States used that standard to prosecute Japanese soldiers in World War II for using waterboarding, sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures to torture American soldiers.But that all changed with the Bush administration. In what have become infamous memos worldwide, John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel and Jay Bybee...

AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo Feb 6 05:15 PM US/Eastern By ANDREW O. SELSKY Associated Press Writer GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded—a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The...

Sen. John Kerry is calling on Democrats to help presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama avoid the fate he endured in the 2004 election -- "swiftboating" by political foes. In an e-mail sent out Tuesday to Obama's supporters, Kerry wrote: "I support Barack Obama because he doesn't seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating -- he seeks to end it. "This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election. As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been...

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could...

The Taliban has The Associated Press and Reuters on speed dial. Elias Wahdat, a stringer for Reuters and BBC news services in Khost province, said that every time the Taliban launch an attack or American troops call in an air strike, he gets a text message. The Taliban will give its version of what happened, often claiming that American bombs killed civilians. It may take officials with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan hours to put together a news release for the press. In the meantime, the Taliban version is already circulating. Lt. Col. David A. Accetta, the 82nd Airborne Division...