Free Iraq

The beauty of the Iraqi confederacy

Washington Post, Saturday, January 14, 2006

"As I was telling the FCC, if you refuse somebody a license, at least they don't come and shoot at you," Siyamend Z. Othman, Iraq's top telecommunications regulator, said in an interview in Washington this week. "It comes with the job."…

…”Provincial governments also have resisted central control. In one case, a small mobile-phone operator refused to acknowledge his agency's authority and, with local officials' support, now operates as a monopoly in parts of Northern Iraq, he said.

Othman said his approach has been to pursue gentle suasion, rather than outright confrontation, with telecom companies -- something he described as a necessity given the lack of state control in Iraq.

"In Iraq, we have serious enforcement problems. The state is weak," he said.

In one case -- reminiscent of the U.S. telephone industry in the early 20th century -- Iraqi mobile networks refused to connect to each other. As a result, people could call each other only if they had service from the same company.

Othman brought the companies in and persuaded them to connect, at least in theory, though calls do not always go through in practice.

"Let's say we made them an offer they couldn't refuse," he said, without elaborating.”…

…” Othman said that one of his biggest challenges is maintaining the independence of his agency against political interference, particularly when it comes time to award the mobile-phone licenses this year.

"It's a big issue, and there is going to be interference -- I am under no illusions -- from the political establishment," he said. Asked if the politicians had ties to companies bidding for the licenses, he replied: "It's not for me to say. But why else would they interfere? You make your own deduction."

Othman said the interim Iraqi government that took over after the June 2004 handover of sovereignty adopted a "belligerent" stance toward his agency, refusing to hand over vital radio-spectrum data.”…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/13/AR2006011301747.html
 

Weep, or? . . .
Abid Ullah Jan, U.S. Bombs Pakistan: The soul of a nation is fatally wounded: Aircraft from Afghanistan have once more attacked Pakistan killing 18 Pakistanis in remote villages. Even non-US sources, such as Al-Jazeera has adopted the tone of embedded journalists, telling the world that the US attack on Pakistan killed 18 people in “a village stronghold of pro-Taliban Islamists.”

The only difference between the US occupation of Iraq, for instance, and Pakistan is that the collaborating military in Iraq is under training. In Pakistan, the US has found a well-trained and well-established army to serve its objectives for free. However, even this is not the end of the story. [Musharraf] has to surrender more because despite his regime’s wholehearted sacrifice of all the principles of justice and the norms of independent states, American analysts, such as Leon T. Hadar of the Cato Institute, consider Pakistan “with its dictatorship and failed economy” a “reluctant partner” and a “potential long term adversary.”

Pakistan’s occupation by its own military will continue in one form or another until it breathes its last, for the simple reason that the nation itself is half-dead. A substantial part of a nation dies the day its people start dying for others against their will. The soul of a nation is fatally wounded the day its armed forces start leading it in a battle against its raison d’être. Eliminate a nation’s purpose, and you extinguish its spark of life. The country that acquiesces in evil can hardly hope to enjoy the benefits of goodness. No one draws freedom or life from a land of oppression and death.
 

Vanunu Said Sharon Is Dead - A Week Ago: Sometimes...make that usually...the most accurate news comes closest on the heels of major events. In the case of Sharon's health breakdown, there were several news reports he had died...one of which came from no less a person than Mordechai Vanunu.

With Sharon's succession clouded, to cover up and delay the announcement of his death would not be politically out of the question.

We present the following material as we received it:

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=002728

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/13202
 

Saddam judge threatens to quit over govt pressure


Iraq Election Results May Come Next Week


After Handover, Hussein Palaces Looted


Bishops Urge U.S. to Transition Out of Iraq
 

'Zawahiri' strike sparks protest


(December 8, 2005)
Bin Laden: Alive or dead -- and how would we know?: Then there are the recent remarks by CIA Director Porter Goss to ABC's "Good Morning America." He was asked why his agency couldn't find bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.

"They don't want us to find them and they're going to great lengths to make sure we don't find them. And I assure you we're applying a lot of efforts to find out where they are. And I don't want to get into the depth and the details, but we know a good deal more about bin Laden and Zarqawi and Zawahiri than we are able to say publicly," Goss said.

(Note: Speaking of 'Dark Humor' this article has a handy box for requesting email alerts on (1)OBL, (2)A-Q, (3)Acts of terror)
 

USA threats Norway with "serious political consequences" after Israeli goods boycott support
 

Dahr Jamail & Arkan Hamed, Fear Overshadows Eid Festival: "There is a big difference between here and Amman. ...We are free to go wherever we want there but here we should stay in our homes. Everybody here is afraid we will be lost, even during Eid. What kind of freedom have the Americans brought us? The freedom to steal, kill and humiliate everybody. And deny their rights to live as humans?"
 

Bush could seize absolute control of U.S. government: "President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances.

"The authority to declare what is or is not a national emergency rests entirely with Bush who does not have to either consult or seek the approval of Congress for permission to assume absolute control over the government of the United States."
 

Asia Times, Precision killing in Iraq: [I]f the US fulfills its expectation of surpassing 150 air attacks per month, and if the average air strike produces the (gruesomely) modest total of 10 fatalities, air power alone could kill well over 20,000 Iraqi civilians in 2006.
 

Red lines in the Iranian sand: As the West accuses Iran of nursing nuclear ambitions, it has itself no intention of reducing nuclear arms. The US has embarked on a plan to expand its nuclear capability both upward, through "Star Wars", and downward, through bunker-buster bombs. Similarly, Britain has announced a $40 billion replacement project for the Trident missile.
 

Iran Sanctions Could Mean $100 Barrel Of Oil
 

U.S. seeking Arab peacekeepers in Iraq: [Goodwill Ambassador] "Cheney will visit Egypt on Sunday for a few hours during which he will meet President Mubarak only, Egyptian officials said without elaboration."

(So, we'll bring home some American troops before the 2006 elections and delegate the "peacekeeping" function for the mess we made. Thereafter, - thanks to the techno-wonder of airpower - the 'surgical' killing of Iraqis will fly below the radar.)
 

A Conference for Historians and Activists University of Texas, Austin; February 17-19, 2006


PETITION & Statement of Historians Against the War
 

Light Humor from BUSH SONGBOOK:
Bush's Recent Speech In Mongolia

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia, November 21, 2005 (AP) - "In the wake of congressional unrest over his war policies, President Bush thanked Mongolia on Monday for standing with him in Iraq."

Papers at home are talking trash
So I came here to give you cash
You folks still back me in Iraq
And I really love your yaks
(Ya' don't talk back!)

Just help me finish up my mission
And we'll have those Chinese wishin'
They helped us out in Iraq
And I really love your yaks
(Ya' don't talk back!)

Even though you drink that rancid milk
And Genghis Khan is of your ilk
You smoke lots of our tobac
And I really love your yaks
(Ya' don't talk back!)

You never give me dirty looks
I know I'm hip; I know what cooks
Talk to those hoodlum nations out back
And I really love your yaks
(Ya' don't talk back!)

You know Dick Cheney's one of you
I know our lies will get us through
We'll bring our kinda peace to Iraq
And I really love your yaks
(Ya' don't talk back!)

Yakety yaks, yakety yaks
Yakety yaks, yakety yaks
Yakety yaks, yakety yaks
Yakety yaks, yakety yaks

--lyrics by The Coasters with changes by Politex
 

French Intelligence supplied detailed WMD reports to the unintelligent intelligence

LA Times, January 12, 2006, By Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer

…”Similarly, although the French government bitterly opposed the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, French intelligence supplied detailed reports to the CIA from a member of Hussein's Cabinet who was a French spy.”

"He said there were no weapons of mass destruction," said a former CIA official. "So we didn't believe him."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-germany12jan12,0,7281760.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
 

Ron Jacobs, And Who's Better Off? Fifteen Years of War: "In 1991, the defense budget stood at around 300 million dollars. The 2005 Defense Budget hovered near a half-trillion dollars (with around $75 billion of that earmarked for weapons procurement). That figure doesn't even include so-called emergency appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor does it include monies spent by the Department of Homeland Security. The top ten US war contractors have seen the monetary value of their contracts increase an average of more than fifty percent just in the past five years. Put that percentage rate alongside the profits of the oil companies. These past fifteen years have been good for somebody. Real good."


The Hypocrisy of John McCain: "We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world -a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don't deserve our sympathy. But this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies."

(Quote/Unquote)
 

Wayne Madsen Report, January 14, 2006 -- Serious questions remain concerning Col. Westhusing's "suicide" in Iraq. Army's chief ethics expert was murdered, according to Carlyle Group insider: According an informed source within The Carlyle Group business consortium, Col. Ted Westhusing, the Army's top military ethicist and professor at West Point, did not commit suicide in a Baghdad trailer in June 2005 as was widely reported in the mainstream media five months later. At the time of his death, Westhusing was investigating contract violations and human rights abuses by US Investigations Services (USIS), formerly a federal agency, the Office of Federal Investigations (OFI), which operated under the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

In 1996, OFI, which conducted background investigations for civil service personnel, was privatized. The 700 government employees of OFI became employee-owners as part of USIS. In January 2003, the New York investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe, described by a Carlyle insider as a virtual shadow operation for The Carlyle Group, bought USIS for $545 million. With 5000 current and former employees of USIS sharing $500 million, the deal made them wealthy with the stroke of a pen. However, upper management within USIS became much wealthier than the rank-and-file. Insiders report that the twelve top managers at USIS became multimillionaires as a result of their cashing in of their Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Many of these instant millionaires already had a close relationship with The Carlyle Group.
[ . . . ]

WMR can report that based on information obtained from Carlyle insiders, Col. Westhusing's death was not caused by suicide. The fact that Westhusing was investigating one of the most politically and financially powerful firms in the world resulted in higher-ups wanting him out of the way. According to the Los Angeles Times, all of the witnesses who claimed Westhusing shot himself were USIS employees. In addition, a USIS manager interfered with the crime scene, including handling Westhusing's service revolver. The USIS manager was not tested for gunpowder residue on his hands.

Westhusing's investigation threatened to unearth a network of fraudsters looting the US Treasury that included the Bush family and some of their closest financial partners. After Westhusing's murder, USIS management sent a vaguely-worded memo to employees about how to respond to derogatory information in the media or rumors about USIS. Management's attention, described as "psychotic" in nature, was on USIS's upcoming IPO (initial public offering), according to a well-placed source.
 

(A translation from the original German)
Mossad works with German passports: "According to these data Israeli agents camouflage themselves with delicate employments in Middle East crisis areas also with German passports and German legends. At present use the Mossad German travel documents for instance with employments in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It concerns among other things a preparation of possible air raids on Iranian goals, how they are not no more excluded from the Israeli guidance in the atomic controversy with Teheran officially."
 

Extract -
Patrick J. Buchanan, The American Conservative, Might the Arabs Have a Point?: "A Zogby survey of 3,900 Arabs in Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates has uncovered massive distrust of U.S. motives in the Middle East.

Unkindest cut of all, Arabs would prefer that President Chirac and France lead the world rather than us, and, rather than have us as the world’s lone superpower, they would prefer the Chinese.

Asked to name the two nations that present the greatest threat to regional peace, 70 percent named Israel, 63 percent the United States, and 11 percent Britain. Only 6 percent named our bête noire Iran.

Asked to name the foreign leader they disliked most, Sharon swept top honors with 45 percent. Bush took the silver with 30 percent. No one else was close. Tony Blair came in a weak third. Only 3 percent of the Arabs detest him most.

America’s standing in the Arab world could hardly be worse. And the questions the survey raises are these: Do we care? And, if we do, do not the Arabs have a point? Has not U.S. behavior in the Middle East lent credence to the view that our principal interests are Israel and oil, and, under Bush II, that we launched an invasion to dominate the region?

Though per capita income in Israel is probably 20 times that of the Palestinians, Israel gets the lion’s share of economic aid. And though they have flipped off half a dozen presidents to plant half a million settlers in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, have we ever imposed a single sanction on Israel? Has Bush ever raised his voice to Ariel Sharon?"
 

Kurt Nimmo, Condi Rice: Christian-Zionist Pit Bull: As a recent example of the fact the United States government acts foremost in the interest of Israel and the Zionists, consider Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s threats against the tiny and politically insignificant government of Norway. Earlier this week, Rice “threatened Norway with ’serious political consequences’ after Finance Minister and Socialist Left Party leader Kristin Halvorsen admitted to supporting a boycott of Israeli goods,” reports the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. ...

As a Christian Zionist, Condi Rice has a natural affinity for all things Zionist. “I first visited Israel in 2000. I already then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the State of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it,” Rice effused* during a Yediot Aharonot interview (see my The Hardness of Condoleezza Rice, Huckstress of Israeli Myths).

Condi is simply doing the bidding of the Straussian neocon “crazies” and of course it helps that she is a rapture-dizzy Christian Zionist who often partakes in prayer with her boss. It also helps that “the National Security Council’s top Middle East aide [Elliott Abrams] consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios,” as Rick Perlstein reported for the Village Voice in early 2004. Of course, the hardcore Zionists in the Bush administration likely consider these evangelicals daffy as a three dollar bill, but that does not prevent them from taking advantage of their mystical militancy.
----------------

* "Effusing" in Israel = essential to 2008 Presidential bid. Check here. And now Laura B. has endorsed her. Guess Condi must be a shoe in.
 

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 14 January 2006
 

Did “W” mislead us about Iraq’s WMD? Was he even receptive to intelligence debunking the myth of Iraq’s WMD?

A potential smoking gun buried in the bowels of the Los Angles Times goes unnoticed.

French Intelligence supplied detailed WMD reports to the unintelligent intelligence. Their source: a minister in Saddam’s regime. Please see below.

Abu Hasan

LA Times, January 12, 2006, By Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer

…”Similarly, although the French government bitterly opposed the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, French intelligence supplied detailed reports to the CIA from a member of Hussein's Cabinet who was a French spy.”

"He said there were no weapons of mass destruction," said a former CIA official. "So we didn't believe him."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-germany12jan12,0,7281760.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
 

Emir of Kuwait, Dies at 79
The Associated Press, Sunday, January 15, 2006; 6:50 A

MKUWAIT CITY – “Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait who survived an assassination attempt in the 1980s and a decade later escaped Iraqi troops invading his oil-rich Persian Gulf state, died Sunday, state television announced. The sheik, who had been ailing since suffering a brain hemorrhage five years ago, was 79.”…

…”The Al Sabah family has ruled Kuwait, which has the world's 10th largest oil reserves, for more than 250 years.”…

…”After a Shiite Muslim extremist tried to assassinate Sheik Jaber in a suicide car bombing in May 1985, the emir abruptly changed his habits. He stopped driving his own car to bustling bazaars and cut down on public appearances. He did not like traveling abroad, though he went for medical treatment”…

…”During Saddam's rule, the Iraqi dictator delivered harsh attacks on Sheik Jaber in an attempt to discredit the ruling family of Kuwait, which Iraq had claimed since the territory's independence from Britain in 1961. He called the emir a "womanizer" who married 40 times.

Saddam described the emirate as a lazy nation languishing in comfort attended by foreign servants. Except when foreign workers fled during the invasion crisis, foreigners in modern Kuwait have outnumbered native. Today, there are about 960,000 Kuwaitis and 1.64 million foreign residents.

Sheik Jaber fled Kuwait when Saddam's armored columns invaded on Aug. 2, 1990, with orders to capture or kill him. He drove to Saudi Arabia, accompanied by most of his estimated 70 children and dozens of senior members of the royal family.”…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/15/AR2006011500133.html
 

David Model, The Prosecution Rests Its Case: Verdict - Guilty: There is a growing awareness among the chattering classes in the United States that President W. Bush may be guilty of war crimes. ...

President Bush began violating international law the moment the U.S. started bombing Iraq. According to international law, there are only two criteria for a legal war: self-defense as defined in the United Nations Charter, Chapter VII, Article 51 and authorization of the Security Council. ...

The Bush Administration cannot justify the war under the spurious defence of a preemptive strike because no such term exists in international law. ...

Preceding the attack on Fallujah, American warplanes conducted nightly air strikes on residential buildings, restaurants and mosques. Before the actual assault began, U.S. warplanes reduced the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the center of Fallujah to rubble. ...

After blasting Fallujah with tanks, U.S. marines traveled from house to house throwing hand grenades into each room before determining whether any persons were there. ...

According to Michael Schwartz, “When the first medical teams arrived in January they collected more than 700 unburied and rotting bodies (reputedly including those of 550 women and children) in only one-third of the city; and these obviously didn’t include the dead already buried during the battle or hidden under the debris.”

Torture has become standard treatment for prisoners who have been either captured by American troops or by others and handed over to American troops under dubious circumstances including the refusal to grant them the rights guaranteed to them in American law and international law. ...

Furthermore, American forces have used white phosphorous and depleted uranium weapons both of which have been banned by the Convention On Conventional Weapons. Depleted uranium weapons are particularly cruel given the extremely long half-life of the isotopes which will be responsible for severe health defects in Iraq for hundreds of thousands of years.

If the House Judiciary Committee ever formulates articles of impeachment, to focus on the less substantive issues such as lying to Congress or lying about WMD etc., will further weaken the United Nations and the international regime of laws which criminalize wars of aggression and civilize war to the furthest extent possible. By only charging Bush with lying implies that the war would have been legitimate if WMD had been found.

Even mere presence of WMD in Iraq does not qualify as an actual or imminent threat. One of the most basic issues in a claim of self-defense is whether Iraq had the delivery capability for its WMD to reach American soil. The inspection teams, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, and the International Atomic Energy Agency found no evidence of WMD and no delivery capability. According to Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC “Iraq on the whole has cooperated…access has been provided to all sites.”
 

(Guilty . . . in Pakistan, too)
Kurt Nimmo, Dinner Guest Ayman al-Zawahri Escapes Death: "For the sake of argument, let’s say a Canadian terrorist, set loose on the world by the Canadian Foreign Intelligence Service (I don’t know if the CFIS creates terrorists, but in this instance let’s say they do), escaped over the Canada-United States border and took refuge in International Falls, Minnesota. Canada and CFIS discover this terrorist—who they want to kill for political and propaganda purposes—is hiding out in a house, which they later describe as a 'compound,' and send a CFIS drone bristling with missiles streaking over the border and bomb the house situated in a quiet neighborhood in International Falls, killing eighteen people, including women and children. Imagine the reaction. Millions of Americans, rightfully outraged by this murderous attack, would demand the United States immediately attack Canada, maybe nuke Ottawa, and string up every last member of the country’s parliament in retribution.

"In essence, this is what happened in the Bajaur area in northwest Pakistan on Friday. ..."
 

VIDEO, Excuse me, but I just MUST post this!!! (Warning: GRAPHIC!!! - Not for viewers with sensitive stomach)
 

US may review Palestinian aid if Hamas gains power
('Democracy': by invitation only)
 

(HIGHLY recommend full article)
Paul Rockwell, Embedded journalism at its worst: The Ron Harris smear campaign against Marine Sgt. Jimmy Massey: According to the tall, good-looking Iraqi-war veteran [Sgt. Massey], the U.S. invasion of Iraq was not only swift, it was brutal. “We were like a bunch of cowboys who rode into town shooting up the place. I saw charred bodies in vehicles that were clearly not military vehicles. I saw people dead on the side of the road in civilian clothes.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Massey said in a recent interview, “the real war did not begin until Iraqis saw us murdering innocent civilians. I mean, they were witnessing their loved ones being murdered by U.S. Marines.” Massey points out that the occupation actually created enemies who did not exist prior to the invasion. That’s the key insight in the Massey story. The indiscriminate destruction, the uncorrected pattern of checkpoint killings, and the callousness of high command generated rage, hatred, and eventually drove Iraqis to resist.

On April 10, 2003, three days before Harris announced the end of war, journalist James Conachy described the fall of Baghdad:

“The vast majority of Iraqis . . . are not cheering or applauding. Thousands are either gravely wounded or dead, and tens of thousands who lost loved ones are benumbed with grief . . . Casualties among Iraqi civilians have been horrific. Large numbers of civilians were killed and wounded by the U.S. and British forces as they crushed resistance in Baghdad, Basra, and other Iraqi cities and towns. The U.S. military, in particular, has indiscriminately bombed civilian areas and targeted civilian vehicles.”

For war correspondents in service of the nation-state, there is no subject more taboo than the war crimes of commanders.* “All nationalists,” wrote George Orwell, “have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Jimmy Massey is no longer a functionary.

All military systems seek to silence the witnesses to war. Massey never expected to be welcomed by the American press. After all, it was the press, or at least one embedded sector, that promoted the invasion, only to remain silent about the kinds of horrific experiences in which Massey himself was involved. A soldier who speaks truth to power is not without honor, save in his own country.

One wonders why Jimmy ever came forward at all. He was a successful Marine. He invested 12 years of his life in service to his country. The pay was good. He could have come home a hero in the local press in North Carolina.

When I asked Massey a year ago why he gave up the rewards of silence, he gave a simple answer: Only the truth can heal.* And he later wrote:

“When I am on my death bed and I have to face God with all the sins I committed throughout my life, when I come to the sin of killing innocent people in Iraq, I know I will only be able to meet my Maker if I tell the truth now.”

The story of Sgt. Jimmy Massey is authentic. Jimmy is one of the most soulful human beings to survive the injustice and mendacity of war.

Perhaps it is time for all of us -- including Harris and the other embedded journalists who got it wrong -- to ask forgiveness too.

* Emphasis added.
 

Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Jaber dies


Excerpt -
Message from Iraqi resistance: We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.

We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.

Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies.

Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.

In helping the Iraqi people does not mean dealing for the Americans for a few contracts here and there. You must continue to isolate their strategy.

This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general.

We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more.

We will disrupt, then halt the flow of our stolen oil, thus, rendering their plans useless. And the earlier a movement is born, the earlier their fall will be. And to the American soldiers we say: you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.

Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq.

And to George W. Bush, we say: "You have asked us to 'Bring it on', and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?"
 

Another puzzling question raised by recent attempts to instigate a war against one of Israel’s many supposed foes, is why Iran is considered any greater a threat to Israel, than Israel is to Iran, considering that for years Israel has called for various horrible things to happen to Iran, while Iran has only began to say the things that many people are thinking about Israel.
 

President Ahmadinejad: Western states do not allow IAEA to install cameras on nuclear sites
(Surely he's not calling for the abolition of hypocrisy, double standards, & rank arrogance?)
 

SAN FRANCISCO Anti-war activists take Pelosi to task: Dozens of heckling, sign-toting anti-war protesters tried to take center stage at the congresswomen's town hall forum on national security -- calling for an immediate de-funding of the Iraq war and impeachment proceedings against President George Bush.
(Is that the sound of NSA footsteps in the background?)
 

Corpse Prime Minister: "He was first reported brain dead and then placed on life support, so that, medically speaking, he is only clinically dead: serious but stable. Yet now, we are told, his limbs twitch in response to pain and his blood pressure increases when addressed by his beloved sons. In fact, our larger than life Prime Minister has the best of both worlds.

"His Corpulence continues, from his hospital bed, to dominate the media and command the government even though he ceases to exist in the manner of homo sapiens, lacking human consciousness. He is dead, for all practical purposes; he just doesn't know it.

"Corpse Prime Minister has nothing to lose, so next time there is a war, it will be a fight to the death. He reportedly blood-pressured his aides the following message: 'Any further negotiations will be over my dead body.'"


Hospital: Sharon's Tracheotomy Successful
 

This one is priceless.

You just gotta have a good attitude when your son / daughter / husband / wife comes back in a body bag!

All this negativity is just in your head, you gotta start thinking positively for a change! The sun will shine again, when you do!

"Always look on the bright side of life, do doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo..." (apologies to Monty Python)

(Imad, it's always nice to get some "happy news" from you, every so often)
 

Happy juice and drugs help in laughter too. I seem to remember an article where during the invasion of tal afar some woman was lying in a ditch and she heard US soldiers laughing and telling her baby to not cry. After having killed most of her other kids. Also some reports from falluja where when under fire and almost certain death US soldiers were laughing. Hence the term, they died laughing. Personally I would prefer to die with a woody.. But hey, what ever rocks your boat. Death is certain. Nothing else is.