Analysis: now war looms in Gaza

TIMESONLINE
Hard as it is to imagine, but Israel may again be preparing to go to war.

Less than a year after the disastrous invasion of Lebanon, Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, is under growing pressure to send troops into the Gaza Strip to prevent Hamas militants firing rockets at the Israeli township of Sderot.

The moves, which will be discussed at Sunday's Cabinet meeting in Israel, come as Israeli warplanes have attacked suspected Hamas positions in Gaza and Israeli armoured units have taken up positions just inside the narrow coast strip. In a separate, but related battle, rival Palestinian factions loyal to Fatah and Hamas have continued their week-long street battle in Gaza, which has claimed dozens of lives.

Behind the latest violence, and the threat of a serious escalation, lies the volatile political situation in Israel and Palestine.

Mr Olmert is still reeling from last year's war in Lebanon and the findings of the Winograd commission of inquiry which blamed him for many of the failures. He is clinging on to power by a narrow majority and with rock-bottom public support. Members of his own coalition government, notably Tsipi Livni, his ambitious Foreign Minister, have openly called for him to step down.

The rightwing opposition under the leadership of Benyamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader, is exploiting the government's weakness. He is calling for a robust response to the Hamas attacks and proposing sealing off Gaza, cutting off its water and electricity supplies and sending ground troops four or five kilometers into the strip to blunt the range Hamas' infamous Kassam rockets.

The dangers of a military incursion are obvious to everyone. An attack into Gaza would result in many Palestinian civilian casualties. Israeli ground forces would also meet stiff resistance. Once in, it could become difficult for the Israelis to leave.

Also, there is the political impact to consider. It is widely assumed that Hamas is attacking Israeli precisely to provoke a military response. The group has always thrived on conflict. The tougher Israel responds, the more support it will receive and the less backing for Fatah, the mainstream movement loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President.

His position is also greatly weakened by the current violence and the fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government agreed earlier this year in Mecca is in danger of collapse.

In the worst case scenario, often the norm in the Middle East, Gaza will descend further into violence, the Palestinian government will collapse to be followed shortly afterwards by Mr Olmert's own demise.

Ordinarily the West would intervene to stop the situation unravelling. But Britain and France are now being run by two new and inexperienced leaders. President Bush is weak and distracted by his own problems in Iraq. All the diplomatic options look tired and unconvincing.

The prospects for the region could not be bleaker.

Judge Orders Police Department Files on Preconvention Surveillance Opened

NY TIMES
A federal magistrate judge yesterday released about 600 pages of secret documents relating to police preparations for the 2004 Republican National Convention, held in New York.

On May 4, the magistrate judge, James C. Francis IV, granted a request by the New York Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times to make the documents public, but also granted a 10-day stay to give the city time to file an appeal.

But in a letter to the judge dated Tuesday, a lawyer for the city, Peter G. Farrell, wrote that the city would not appeal, “in light of the documents’ prior disclosure and corresponding press coverage.”

The city had originally opposed the release of the documents because, it insisted, news organizations and legal groups would “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” and thus taint the potential pool of jurors who might later be asked to decide cases brought in connection with some of the nearly 2,000 arrests during the convention.

The Times reported in March that the Police Department had conducted wide-ranging surveillance of political groups and activists who were planning to attend the convention. While a small number appeared to be bent on creating trouble, the authorities said that most of those who came apparently had no plans to break the law. The surveillance was necessary, police officials have said, to head off possible terrorism or violent protests.

The documents that were unsealed yesterday during a conference in Federal District Court in Manhattan consisted of summary reports filed by detectives involved in police surveillance operations leading to the convention.

A second batch of documents contains raw intelligence reports produced by detectives upon which the summary reports were based. A sampling of those unfiltered reports reviewed by The Times shows that they include more detailed information about the groups and individuals that were watched and in some cases disclose how the undercover officers conducted the surveillance.

Judge Francis said that he would rule next week on motions from the city objecting to the release of that material to the plaintiffs.

The summary reports released yesterday and other raw intelligence reports that have not yet been made public show that before the convention, detectives traveled to at least 15 places, including cities in Canada and Europe, where they often posed as activists or sympathizers while participating in political meetings held by church groups, antiwar organizations and environmentalists, among others. The police have said that they needed to find out about what they called dangerous groups that they said were intent on disrupting the convention and breaking the law.

“I think a close examination of the documents will show that the New York City Police Department did an outstanding job of protecting this city during the Republican National Convention,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday. “People wanted to come here to shut down the city, to replicate what happened in Seattle and Montreal and Genoa, and we simply did not let that happen.”

Civil rights lawyers have said that the records show that the police monitored many law-abiding citizens who were engaged in legally protected activities.

“This is an important first step toward exposing the N.Y.P.D.’s surveillance of political groups planning demonstrations at the convention,” said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“There are many more documents that remain secret, however, and this controversy will continue until the city releases all the documents.”

The judge also suggested that “the city might consider whether or not they want to proceed” with its request for a special inquiry into the sources for a New York Times article about the surveillance program.

City lawyers initially accused the civil liberties union lawyers of leaking the information, then dropped that charge and conceded that they did not know who had provided the information.

In his letter to the judge, Mr. Farrell wrote that the city will continue to seek “relief due to the disclosure of the intelligence documents in violation of the protective order,” under which the records were once sealed.

Toddler fined for dropping two potato chips

UK DAILY
A woman was handed an £80 litter fine after her toddler grandchild dropped some crisps on the pavement.

Barbara Jubb had picked up the packet of Quavers when it fell from the hand of 20-month- old Emily.

But she failed to pick up two stray crisps that spilled from the bag.

Within seconds two council litter wardens swooped and issued her with an £80 fine.

"This is diabolical," said Mrs Jubb, 57. "£80 is a lot of money, especially if it's just because a baby dropped two Quavers.

"I saw these two women coming toward me with clipboards. One of them produced a card and said, 'We are from the council and I'm going to fine you for littering'.

"I said, 'What litter - it's just two Quavers, it was my granddaughter, she dropped them'."

"People were standing around listening-they were just laughing, they couldn't believe it was happening."

The incident happened when Mrs Jubb was waiting for a bus with her daughter Selena, Emily's mother.

They were on their way back to their home in Crawley, West Sussex, after a hospital visit in which Selena was diagnosed with a heart condition.

Mrs Jubb added: "It was only when I got on the bus that I read the notice and realised they had fined me £80."

Selena, 29, said: 'At first we didn't realise we had been fined. These two wardens had come up to us and given us a notice.

"When I read it on the bus I realised my mum had been given an £80 fine. Luckily Emily didn't have a clue what was going on. I think they are targeting vulnerable people."

A spokesman for Crawley Council said: "People leaving their rubbish behind - or dropping litter anywhere other than a bin - is totally unacceptable.

"It annoys responsible residents who help us to keep the town clean and tidy and the council will not tolerate unsociable behaviour."

The council did however allow Mrs Jubb's appeal against the fine, saying the penalty would be waived because of the 'exceptional circumstances'.

9/11 Toxic Dust: Official Who Knowingly Lied Refuses To Testify

Whitman in the frame to take the fall for Guiliani, Rice and The White House

The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who knowingly lied and signed off on falsified scientific research on the toxicity of the air in the aftermath of 9/11, has refused a request by Rep. Jerrold Nadler that she testify before a congressional hearing on the federal government's response to be tabled later this month.

The New York Sun today reported:
Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator at the time, has declined an invitation to appear before a House subcommittee that Mr. Nadler chairs, an aide to the congressman said yesterday. Mr. Nadler, whose district includes ground zero, is expected to ask Ms. Whitman again before considering whether to seek to compel her testimony with a subpoena, the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

Yesterday we reported on the fact that Hillary Clinton had announced, along with New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, that she will chair the probe looking into the federal government's response and environmental clean-up efforts in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Clinton/ Nadler press release stated that one intention of the probe was to take a close look at the EPA's inadequate program to test and clean residential areas in Manhattan.

Part of the press release stated:
In a recent decision, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman's falsely reassuring and misleading statements of safety after the September 11, 2001 attacks were "without question conscience-shocking." The court also found the facts "support an allegation of a violation of the substantive due process right to be free from official government policies that increase the risk of bodily harm" by Whitman's misstatements regarding the air quality of the affected area. An EPA Inspector General review reached similar conclusions.

An AP report last month on these legal findings was posted last month and can be read here .

We have postulated that the left arm of the Washington power elite will be unlikely to fully expose the reality of the monumental criminal culpability of the Bush Administration on this particular issue , but will instead seek to once again close off the issue. Indeed it seems that Whitman is in the frame to take the fall and once cover the behinds of the ever increasingly unaccountable Neocon crime syndicate in the White House.

In August 2003 it was revealed that the Government ordered the EPA to give the public misleading information , telling New Yorkers on September 12 it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available and Asbestos levels were known to be three times higher than national standards.

Further documents were obtained by CBS news last September, revealing that Lower Manhattan was reopened a few weeks following the attack even though the air was not safe.

The two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes.

"Not only did they know it was unsafe, they didn't heed the words of more experienced people that worked for the city and E.P.A.," said Joel Kupferman, with the group Environmental Justice Project.

An EPA whistleblower, Dr. Cate Jenkins then wrote a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and other members of the New York congressional delegation blasting the EPA for hiding dangerous toxins from Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Letter claimed that EPA-funded research on the toxicity of breathable alkaline dust at the site “falsified pH results” to make the substance appear benign, when it was, in reality, corrosive enough to cause first responders and other workers in lower Manhattan to later lose pulmonary functions and, in some cases, to die.

In an even more shocking development it was revealed that Whitman apparently had financial interests in reassuring the public that all was well and that lower Manhattan could safely be reoccupied.

In a New York Post piece which has since been memory holed, but that was reported on here , these facts became clearly evident:

Meanwhile, Whitman's newly released financial-disclosure forms show that she said seven months before 9/11 that she would not get involved in any issue related to the finances of the Port Authority - which owns the WTC site - because she or her family owned PA bonds. Its finances could be impacted by lawsuits growing of the cleanup.

"I understand the following interests that belong to me, my spouse or my children present a conflict of interest," Whitman wrote at the time. She then listed various investments, including the bistate agency.
But Whitman was involved at Ground Zero despite that refusal, although she or her family also owned shares of Citigroup, whose insurance-company subsidiary, The Travelers, paid out hundred of millions of dollars in claims to downtown residents displaced by the attacks.

Not surprising then that Whitman does not want to testify. She is totally compromised and clearly in very deep trouble. Congressman Nadler himself blasted Whitman when this was revealed stating:
"She conspired [with the White House] to convince people to go into an unsafe environment . . . For that, she ought to be prosecuted," Nadler said. "People are dead because of her."

However, it must be remembered that Whitman and the EPA are accountable to the White House and act under the direct authority of the Bush Administration.

It was the 2003 EPA Inspector General's investigation that revealed that it was the White House that had pressured EPA into changing its press releases to add more "reassuring" language.

The further memos revealed that Whitman conspired with the White House to falsely reassure New Yorkers that the air was safe.

The New York Post also reported on the fact that the internal documents show it was Condoleezza Rice's office that gave final approval to the infamous Environmental Protection Agency press releases days after 9/11 claiming the air around Ground Zero was "safe to breathe,".

Now Secretary of State, Rice was then head of the National Security Council - "the final decision maker" on EPA statements about lower Manhattan air quality, the documents say.

And it cannot be forgotten that Rudolph Guiliani , who was mayor at the time, also said repeatedly that the air was safe.

Furthermore it has been the Bush Administration that has PURPOSEFULLY blocked millions in health compensation programs for ground zero workers and continuously attempted to stonewall the issue because to do otherwise would be an admission of responsibility for exposure to harmful substances after the government had already given the all clear. It has been the Bush administration that has allowed 9/11 heroes to die while at the same time disgracefully using the event as a cart blanche excuse for their own criminal actions at home and abroad.

It seems Whitman knew immediately that she was being fingered as the ultimate scapegoat. When the new information broke last September, she was quick to blame the city for not forcing Ground Zero workers to wear respirators.

In a "60 Minutes" interview, Whitman maintained that the nation's leading environmental agency did not have authority to enforce rules at the site, though the agency did warn the city about dangers in the air at Ground Zero.

"We didn't have the authority to do that enforcement, but we communicated to the people who did," Whitman stressed.

A 2004 report by the Sierra Club however detailed gross malfeasance by EPA, FEMA, and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and then suggested a cover-up of the public health hazards of Ground Zero ensued.

The report found that the EPA and FEMA, in concert with New York City's own health department, told families that they could clean up the contaminated dust themselves with wet rags. In fact, they actually discouraged area residents from wearing safety masks.

Some preliminary scientific studies have indicated that as many as 400,000 people were exposed to toxic ground zero dust. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of people have fallen ill, and several have died from lung ailments blamed on inhaled Trade Center ash.

Any probe into this issue that cannot establish these basic conclusions and pinpoint those at fault AT ALL LEVELS WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT will be highly suspicious. It is blatantly clear that not only Whitman and her EPA counterparts were complicit in a conspiracy and cover up the environmental hazards at ground zero, but also that high ranking officials with the Bush administration are also complicit.

It is also apparent from reports that Whitman had significant financial interests in the ground zero site, which should also be investigated in addition to the financial interests other officials complicit in this diabolical case also had before and after 9/11.

The Nadler's hearing is scheduled for May 22, Clinton's is set for June 20.

WP: Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

WP: Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

WP: Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis
Multiple shooters possible, study says
By John Solomon
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:17 a.m. ET May 17, 2007

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination 44 years ago.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be re-analyzed," the researchers said.

Tobin was the FBI lab's chief metallurgy expert for more than two decades. He analyzed metal evidence in major cases that included the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island.

After retiring, he attracted national attention by questioning the FBI science used in prosecutions for decades to match bullets to crime suspects through their lead content. The questions he and others raised prompted a National Academy of Sciences review that in 2003 concluded that the FBI's bullet lead analysis was flawed. The FBI agreed and generally ended the use of that type of analysis.

Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence used by the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy in Dallas.

The committee's finding was based in part on the research of now-deceased University of California at Irvine chemist Vincent P. Guinn. He used bullet lead analysis to conclude that the five bullet fragments recovered from the Kennedy assassination scene came from just two bullets, which were traced to the same batch of bullets Oswald owned.

To do their research, Tobin, Spiegelman and James said they bought the same brand and lot of bullets used by Oswald and analyzed their lead using the new standards. The bullets from that batch are still on the market as collectors' items.

They found that the scientific and statistical assumptions Guinn used -- and the government accepted at the time -- to conclude that the fragments came from just two bullets fired from Oswald's gun were wrong.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers said.

"If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely, as the additional bullet would not be attributable to the main suspect, Mr. Oswald."
© 2007 The Washington Post Company

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18709539/

Call the RNC and demand they stop censoring Ron Paul.

Call the Chairman of the RNC in Michigan who wants to ban Ron Paul from further debates. Tell them your pissed and want to hear from somebody.
517-487-5413

Or call the RNC at
202-863-8500

Israel launches retaliatory airstrikes, killing two

cnn

• Airstrikes come as fighting among Israel, Fatah, Hamas continues
• The fighting has killed at least 40 Palestinians since Sunday
• Israel: "We want to show the terrorists we know where they are"
• Three rockets land in Sderot, Israel, one hitting a school

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Israel retaliated Thursday against two days of Hamas rocket attacks by launching airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza, killing two people and leaving more than 30 wounded, Palestinian security sources and an Israeli security source told CNN.

The first Israeli strike, on Hamas' executive force compound, killed one person and wounded 30, Palestinian medical sources said. A later Israeli airstrike targeted and hit a car in Gaza City, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said.

Palestinian security sources said one member of Hamas' Izzedine al Qassam brigades was killed in that attack and another was wounded.

The strike on Hamas' military wing headquarters came as violence ratcheted up between the warring Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah and between Palestinians and Israeli forces, claiming the lives of more than 40 Palestinians since Sunday.

The Israeli security source said Israeli forces have "more strategic targets" they can hit.

"We want to show the terrorists we know where they are," the source said.

Israeli airstrikes Wednesday on Hamas headquarters in the town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, and other targets around Gaza killed at least six Palestinians, Palestinian officials reported.

Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said Thursday that Palestinians were "very angry" that the "Israelis (were) trying to take advantage of internal fighting."

"Israel has decided to escalate this and this could lead to disaster... we have no peace partner," he added.

Three Qassam rockets fell in the Israeli town of Sderot on Thursday morning -- one of which fell on a school and left one person lightly wounded, Israeli officials said.

Since Monday, as many as 80 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel, an IDF spokeswoman said. More than two dozen rockets rained down Wednesday, injuring at least 17 people, Israeli authorities said.

A statement from the Israeli government said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni "decided to allow the IDF and the security establishment to carry out a series of actions in order to hit those who launch Qassam missiles and their commanders, to disrupt launch capabilities and to strike at terrorist infrastructures."

"The prime minister made it clear that Israel cannot continue to show restraint when its citizens are being attacked; therefore, a harsh and severe response was decided upon," the statement said.

The IDF told CNN there was normal military activity near the border with Gaza, and a limited Israeli force inside Gaza near the northern section of the border.

Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in September of 2005, ending their 38-year occupation of the region.

A Hamas official from the Izzedine Al Qassam brigades said it's the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves against Israeli crimes in any way they see fit.

But even as they defend themselves, Palestinians loyal to Fatah and those loyal to Hamas are fighting each other.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the fourth day of heavy fighting between the two parties.

Palestinian security sources in Gaza said gunmen fired on guards protecting Prime Minister Ismael Haniya's residence. Haniya, of the ruling Islamic party Hamas, was home at the time of the shooting, the sources said, but there was no report of injuries.

The latest cease-fire between the two groups took effect at 8 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) Wednesday, but sporadic gunfire could be heard into the night as Hamas fighters clashed with gunmen from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction. It was the fourth attempt at implementing a truce in as many days.

Abbas canceled a planned trip to Gaza on Thursday because of the violence, his office said.

Elsewhere, Palestinian security sources confirmed one person was killed when clashes broke out during a funeral Thursday in Rafah.

In a sign of the heightening chaos, fighting in central Gaza City on Wednesday forced dozens of journalists to take cover in the studios of the television news network Ramattan, a 15-story building that came under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

Fatah-affiliated security personnel on the building's roof were taking fire from Hamas-affiliated gunmen below, the journalists reported. Video from the building showed the journalists inside huddled together closely, wearing bulletproof vests and helmets as explosions could be heard outside.

The Palestinian government is struggling to quell the latest round of fighting, which has highlighted the weaknesses of the Hamas-Fatah unity government formed earlier this year. Abbas spoke to Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, on Wednesday and both pledged to do everything within their power to end the fighting between their rival movements, Barghouti said.

Hamas came to power in parliamentary elections in January 2006 after more than a decade of Fatah rule over the Palestinian Authority. But the United States and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and the European Union joined them in cutting off aid over the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist explicitly.

Yet Another Fox News Smear Job On Ron Paul, Alex Jones & 9/11 Truth

prisonplanet
Malkin, Gibson attack "9/11 conspiracy nut" Alex Jones, say Paul should be kicked out of debates for appearing on his show, suggest Middle Easterners enjoy being bombed and to claim otherwise is a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory

Fox "News" anchor John Gibson was joined by diehard Neo-Con Michele "put every Muslim in a concentration camp" Malkin last night to attack Ron Paul, Alex Jones and suggest that people in the Middle East enjoy being bombed and to state otherwise is a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory.

First of all, Gibson lies outright by claiming Ron Paul said the U.S. had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, something the Texas Congressman has never stated. He then brings on Malkin, who remains the poster child for a dwindling gaggle of Internet Neo-Con blowhards.

Malkin knows which side her bread is buttered on and is perfectly aware of the fact that Prison Planet alone dwarfs the popularity of her own measly Neo-Con "Hot Air" blog. She seems to have a dangerous obsession with attacking us and most of the time we ignore her but this one was too hilarious to pass up.

Malkin defines 9/11 truth as a "virus" and repeats the term over and over to ensure Fox's geriatric 80-plus viewers don't forget it. Malkin resorts to the usual fodder of smearing 9/11 truth as a leftist fringe movement, despite the fact that we are routinely shunned and attacked by the liberal media, both mainstream and alternative.

Gibson and Malkin then recoil at the temerity of the suggestion that bombing third world countries breeds hatred and characterize it as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory!

Of course, those poor people in the Middle East love being bombed and to suggest otherwise is unpatriotic!

Malkin cites Popular Mechanics, the Hearst Publishing yellow journalism rag that is edited by a tabloid TV critic as her bastion of credibility for standing up to 9/11 truthers, despite the fact that the magazine's 9/11 hit piece has been debunked over and over and is the target of Professor David Ray Griffin's new book , Debunking 9/11 Debunking.

"I try not to spend too much time in these cesspools," whines Malkin before attacking Ron Paul for appearing on radio with "9/11 conspiracy nut Alex Jones," and suggesting that the Texas Congressman should be kicked out of the debates for doing so.

All this of course stems from Ron Paul's confrontation with Rudy Giuliani, the supposed "9/11 hero" who had the real heroes - the firefighters - arrested when they objected to Giuliani's order that their colleague's remains be scooped up by and dumped in a landfill.

In reality, the supposed "slap-down" Giuliani handed out to Ron Paul during the debate has returned in the form of the truth to whack him back in the face tenfold.

Just for argument's sake, let's accept the premise that 9/11 was orchestrated from a cave and that Osama bin Laden somehow managed to neutralize the standard air defenses of the United States for the first time in history.

Both the vaunted 9/11 Commission Report and the CIA admit that U.S. foreign policy has endangered the U.S.

"The 9-11 Commission report detailed how bin Laden had, in 1996, issued "his self-styled fatwa calling on Muslims to drive American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia" and identified that declaration and another in 1998 as part of "a long series" of statements objecting to U.S. military interventions in his native Saudi Arabia in particular and the Middle East in general. Statements from bin Laden and those associated with him prior to 9-11 consistently expressed anger with the U.S. military presence on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people and U.S. support of Israel," reports the Nation.

In addition, Michael Scheuer, the former Central Intelligence Agency specialist on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, told CNN that "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live. And there's a huge burden of guilt to be laid at Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, both parties for simply lying to the American people."

But we'd be naive to think that Fox "News", Gibson and Malkin would let the facts get in the way of a good childish name-calling smear job.

Ron Paul was asked by CNN if he was going back down or apologize for stating the fact that people in the Middle East don't enjoy being bombed. Righteously, the Texas Congressman invited Giuliani to read the 9/11 Commission Report and apologize himself.

It is now clearly evident that Tuesday night's debate and its aftermath was elaborately rigged and directed towards discrediting Ron Paul and neutralizing the wave of popular support he has received that has absolutely terrified the establishment. But it's backfired because more people than ever now know who Ron Paul is and what he stands for.

Once again, we thank Fox News for the continued attention they are bringing to the 9/11 truth movement - because for any of their viewers that still possess their own set of teeth, they will be encouraged to Google terms like "WTC 7" and "Alex Jones" and find out the truth.

We invite Gibson, O'Reilly, Malkin and their ilk to continue their desperate ad hominem attacks because anyone with two brain cells left to rub together can immediately deduce how liars and con-artists behave - and how their impetuous smear tactics are manifested.

Bad news for US economy: IMF

afp
Paris - Weakness in the US property market will continue to weigh on US growth, which is slowing down, International Monetary Fund deputy managing director John Lipsky said here on Wednesday.

The strains in the property sector would be felt for the next few quarters, he told a press conference outside a ministerial meeting of countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But he implied that the IMF stood by its forecast that the US economy would grow by 2.2% this year, after 3.3% growth last year.

Ethiopia warned not to pull troops from Somalia

bbc
The US and the African Union have warned Ethiopia not to withdraw its troops from Somalia before peacekeepers are deployed to replace them.

AU commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare says it would be a "catastrophe" if Ethiopia pulled out too soon.

US Africa envoy Jendayi Frazer said it would probably be several months before the full peacekeeping force arrived.

Ethiopia's prime minister says he wants to withdraw all his troops, after they helped oust Islamists.

Up to a third of the population fled recent fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, and badly need aid.

Less than 40% of the estimated 300,00 displaced Somalis are receiving any help, according to UN humanitarian relief chief John Holmes.

After a visit to Mogadishu, he said Somalia now represents a worse displacement crisis than Sudan's Darfur region.

'Onerous'

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he wanted to end the "onerous" financial burden of having Ethiopian troops, estimated to be several thousand in number, in Somalia.

"Things have improved significantly in Mogadishu, making it possible for peacekeeping troops to do their job," he said.

"I very much hope and expect that those African countries that have promised to send troops will do so."

Mr Konare told the AFP news agency that Ethiopia must wait for the AU forces.

"If Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia today, it would be a catastrophe," he said.

He said Ethiopia had done the job of the AU but its continued presence could "block political dialogue" in Somalia.

But Ms Frazer said that an Ethiopian withdrawal before the AU troops arrived would lead to a security vacuum.

"It would be a mistake for Ethiopia to withdraw. That said, we certainly want them to withdraw from Somalia as soon as possible," she told the BBC's Newshour programme.

Ethiopia has twice fought border wars with Somalia and is widely distrusted there.

So far, Uganda has sent 1,700 peacekeepers but the AU says another 6,300 troops are needed.

Nigeria, Burundi and Ghana have all promised to contribute to the AU force.

Mr Meles said the "organised resistance" of the Islamists had now been "broken".

The Ethiopia-backed government says it is in control of Mogadishu after what is seen as the worst fighting in 16 years in the city.

But gunmen attacked a World Health Organization office in the city on Monday night, injuring a guard, WHO officials say.

Cholera

Aid workers have accused authorities of hindering the passage of food aid at checkpoints set up across Mogadishu.

"We estimate that we are only reach 35 to 40% of those in need," Mr Holmes said.

"Many are already suffering from a cholera outbreak."

Mr Holmes said international law had been violated by the fighting factions in the city, saying that some citizens had disappeared without explanation.

"Clearly, human rights abuses have taken place, but the government categorically denied reports and accusations of their involvement," he said.

He said the government had promised to co-operate with a planned UN investigation into the reports.

Mr Holmes, the most senior UN official to visit the city in more than a decade, had to cut short his trip on Saturday, after bombs exploded in Mogadishu, killing three people.

Somalia has been without an effective national government for 16 years, controlled by rival militias and awash with guns.

Gaza erupts in fresh violence

reuters
At least 21 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday as President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and Islamist Hamas battled for control of Gaza and Israel launched a round of air strikes against Hamas.

Palestinian officials said the widening hostilities could bring down a two-month-old unity government formed between Hamas and secular Fatah.

Some Palestinians see this leading to all-out civil war and the end of the Palestinian Authority.

Terrified Gaza residents hid indoors as masked gunmen fought running battles street-to-street, killing 16 people.

In one panicked call to a radio station, a woman urged Palestinian leaders to act, pleading: "Do not leave us to die here".

Israel's biggest air strike flattened a building used by Hamas's Executive Force in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, but the army said the attack was not connected to internal clashes that have killed at least 40 people since Friday.

A later air strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed another Hamas militant and wounded two other Palestinians, local residents said.
Rocket attacks

While Gaza battles raged, militants have fired rockets at southern Israel, causing injuries but no deaths, in an apparent attempt to draw Israel into the fighting.

Israel said the air strikes, the deadliest since a November truce in Gaza was declared, targeted a Rafah command centre used by Hamas to plan attacks and a rocket crew that had just fired into the Jewish state.

The Executive Force, which has taken a lead in fighting with Fatah, denied the Rafah building was used to plan rocket attacks and said the air strikes proved Israel was taking sides.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel may step up military strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to a surge of Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes.

"Until now, we have demonstrated restraint, but this situation is not a tolerable situation," Ms Livni told reporters after security consultations with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

Israel faces a delicate balancing act. It is under heavy domestic pressure to stop the rockets and also wants Fatah to deal a blow to Hamas; it agreed to let 450 Fatah troops into Gaza from Egypt on Tuesday.

But overt Israeli assistance for Fatah could backfire if Hamas is able to paint Mr Abbas as an ally of the Jewish state, which many Palestinians see as their real enemy.

"We will not intervene in the war itself but if Mr Abbas will request specific help, we will supply (it)," Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres told reporters in Estonia.

Hamas and Fatah declared a cease-fire at 1700 GMT, but fierce gunfire and explosions could still be heard across the narrow coastal strip.

Earlier, Hamas gunmen stormed the home of Mr Abbas's top security chief, Rashid Abu Shbak, fired mortars at Mr Abbas's compound and set fire to a building where the head of a pro-Fatah security service lives.

Fatah said at least nine of its members were killed in Wednesday's fighting.

- Reuters

Wolfowitz Negotiating Terms Of Resignation

(CBS) WASHINGTON Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks.

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks.

His departure would include an acknowledgment from the bank that he doesn't bear sole responsibility for the controversy surrounding a generous pay package for his girlfriend, the official said.

The negotiations were taking place as the bank's board resumed deliberations over Wolfowitz's fate Wednesday afternoon.

The official said Wolfowitz wanted the bank to accept some responsibility for conflicts of interest cited against him by a special bank panel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate state of the negotiations.

It was not clear whether the bank's 24-member board would accept Wolfowitz's terms.

Pressure on Wolfowitz to resign has grown since a special bank panel report, released Monday, found that he broke conflict-of-interest rules in his handling of the 2005 pay package of bank employee Shaha Riza.

Wolfowitz has maintained that he acted in good faith.

The White House, which picked Wolfowitz for the post, indicated for the first time on Tuesday that it was willing to consider new leadership for the bank.

By tradition, the World Bank has been run by an American, with the approval of the bank's board. The bank's sister agency, the International Monetary Fund, is headed by a European.

On Tuesday the White House weighed in on the situation and backed Wolfowitz by offering a different reason for the controversy around him: His role in the war in iraq.

The president was determined to stand behind Wolfowitz unless facts made it absolutely clear that his behavior was egregious, a senior administration official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and thus spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

"We have faith in Paul Wolfowitz," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. He insisted that the charges against Wolfowitz are not "a firing offense."

The special panel bank panel said that Wolfowitz's involvement in the details of Riza's salary "went beyond the informal advice" given by the ethics committee and that he "engaged in a de facto conflict of interest."

Under Wolfowitz's contract as well as the code of conduct for board officials, he was required to avoid any conflict of interest, the report said.

Riza worked for the bank before Wolfowitz took over as president in June 2005. She was moved to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest, but stayed on the bank's payroll. Her salary went from close to $133,000 to $180,000. With subsequent raises, it eventually rose to $193,590.

Wolfowitz had served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon and played a lead role in mapping out the U.S.-led war in Iraq before taking over the bank nearly two years ago.

European members are pushing for Wolfowitz to resign. The United States is the bank's largest shareholder. Bush tapped Wolfowitz for the job, a move that was approved by the bank's board even though Europeans didn't like him because of his role in the Iraq war.

In recent weeks one of Wolfowitz's top advisers decided to leave due to the ongoing investigation.

"Given the current environment surrounding the leadership of the World Bank Group, it is very difficult to be effective in helping to advance the mission of the institution. Therefore, I have decided to leave for other opportunities," Kevin Kellems told The Associated Press on Monday.

Wolfowitz had tapped Kellems, who came from the White House and worked with him previously at the Defense Department, to become his adviser at the poverty-fighting institution. Kellems' arrival in June 2005 eventually touched off criticism among staff that Wolfowitz was sealing himself off with a small cadre of trusted advisers.

Unborn babies targeted in crackdown on criminality

Blair launches policy imported from US to intervene during pregnancy to head off antisocial behaviour
GUARDIAN

Unborn babies judged to be at most risk of social exclusion and turning to criminality are to be targeted in a controversial new scheme to be promoted by Downing Street today.

In an effort to intervene as early as possible in troubled families, first-time mothers identified just 16 weeks after conception will be given intensive weekly support from midwives and health visitors until the unborn child reaches two years old.

Unveiling the findings of a Downing Street review, Tony Blair will make clear the government is prepared to single out babies still in the womb to break cycles of deprivation and behaviour.

He will also acknowledge that the state must do more to help a minority of families and will stress that the support they need cannot come through the promotion of marriage.

In an attempt to draw a clear division between Labour and the Conservatives Mr Blair will say that making marriage the primary focus of family policy will be ineffective and could lead to discrimination against children whose parents have split up or died.

The Nurse Family Partnership programme is the most striking attempt yet to pre-empt problems.

Downing Street will outline today how a £7m pilot scheme has already begun to recruit the first of 1,000 families in 10 areas in England.

Supporters of the policy say the risk of stigmatising unborn infants as potential future victims or troublemakers is outweighed by the advantages of helping poor families build on the aspirations they have for their children.

Under the programme, which has been copied from the United States, young, first-time mothers will be assigned a personal health visitor at between 16 and 20 weeks into their pregnancy. They will continue to have weekly or fortnightly visits until the child is two - far more than the few postnatal visits generally on offer.

The support includes help with giving up smoking or drug use in pregnancy, followed by a focus on bonding with the new baby, understanding behaviour such as crying, and encouraging a mother to develop her skills and resources to be a good parent. The programme is voluntary and the intention is to capitalise on the so-called "magic moment" when parents are receptive to support for themselves and their baby.

In the US, three large trials have seen consistently positive results, including higher IQ levels and language development in children, lower levels of abuse, neglect and child injuries in families, and improvements in the antenatal health and job prospects of mothers.

Proponents of the scheme, pioneered by the American paediatrician Professor David Olds, also point to the long-term cost savings, estimated at almost $25,000 (£12,500) by the time a child is 30.

The decision to target unborn babies is, in effect, an acknowledgement by Mr Blair that the government's focus on tackling social exclusion has left a hardcore - 2-3% - of the most excluded families behind.

The prime minister's introduction to today's family review says the state must help such children out of fairness, and because "some of these families actually cause wider social harms. The community in which they live suffers the consequences".

Kate Billingham, director of the project and deputy chief nursing officer, rejected suggestions the scheme could stigmatise deprived children. "I myself think labelling and stigmatising are used as ways of not giving people the help they want and their children can benefit from."

At a Downing Street breakfast to launch the policy this morning, Mr Blair will meet expectant mothers recruited to the scheme, as well as Professor Olds, its founder. Prof Olds told the Guardian the key to the scheme was its ability to "tap into" the instincts of parents. "We are wired as human beings to protect our children," he said.

It was possible that the UK's "superior health care system and social services" compared with the US could result in the relative benefits of the scheme here being smaller than the significant impact seen in American trials, he warned.

While the scheme is generally backed by children and parenting campaigners in the UK, concerns have been raised that the new focus on intensive help for excluded families could drain resources away from already overstretched health visiting services.

A spokeswoman for the Family and Parenting Institute said: "We very much welcome the health-led parenting projects, but they are only for a tiny proportion of the population and we think that a strong universal offer is critical for the majority of families who also need support and parenting help from health visitors.

"The problem is that the number of health visitors is falling - and there are massive variations in numbers throughout the country."

Iranian leader threatens retaliation

AP
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - The Iranian president said Monday
Iran will retaliate if the U.S. strikes the country — a tough response to recent comments by the Vice President
Dick Cheney that Washington would prevent the Islamic republic from dominating the Middle East.

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said Iran had agreed for the benefit of the Iraqi people to meet with the U.S. in Baghdad to discuss security in
Iraq.

"They (the U.S.) cannot strike Iran," he said at a press conference during a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates. "The Iranian people can protect themselves and retaliate."

The Iranian president's comments followed those on Friday by Cheney, who said from the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf that the U.S. and its allies would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

Despite the tense words, the U.S. and Iran announced Sunday that they have agreed to meet in Baghdad to discuss security and stability in Iraq.

"Both parties have confirmed the talks will take place in Baghdad in the presence of the Iraqi government," Ahmadinejad said Monday. "We decided we were ready and prepared to do this to support the Iraqi people."

The Iranian president, in a subdued mood after the previous night's raucous anti-American rally in a Dubai soccer stadium, repeated his calls for the United States to leave the Gulf region. Washington holds military bases in all Gulf countries except Saudi Arabia.

In stark contrast to Cheney's low-key visit, Ahmadinejad was greeted with fanfare by the top leaders of the Emirates, who apparently had no objection to Sunday's rally.

Ahmadinejad said relations with the Emirates had taken a "quantum leap," with the two countries agreeing to create a joint committee headed by their foreign ministers to boost cooperation in tourism, trade, energy and development.

"There's a willingness on both sides to upgrade relations," he said. "Relations between Iran and the UAE can be a model for all the countries of the region."

Ahmadinejad appeared to be pushing his agenda at a time when the U.S. administration's popularity in the region is at a low point. He said Iran is ready to band together in a Gulf-wide security alliance with Washington's traditional regional allies.

He also called for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Egypt that were broken in 1979, saying it would strengthen regional security and stability.

The U.S. presence in the Gulf, Ahmadinejad said, runs counter to the best interests of the Muslim-majority countries on both sides of the oil-rich sea. Similar pleas for a regional security alliance have come during recent visits by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and national security adviser Ali Larijani.

Ahmadinejad said the Americans had overextended their welcome in the region and were advocating tough actions that reached beyond what their Arab allies wished.

"What are these others doing in our region?" he replied when asking to comment on Cheney's remarks aboard the USS John C. Stennis on Friday. "Are they more keen with regard to the nuclear issue than everyone else in the region?"

The U.S. has accused Iran of covertly developing nuclear weapons, but Iran has denied the charge, saying its nuclear program is peaceful. Tehran has also objected to U.S. claims that Iran is supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with deadly roadside bombs that kill American troops.

Ahmadinejad said the U.S.-allied Emirates backs Iran's position that the U.S. military should leave the Gulf.

"This region won't allow other powers from thousands of miles away to threaten the region and create enmity," he said. "Our talks with our brothers in the United Arab Emirates reiterated this truth again and again."

Emirati officials had no immediate comment. They have previously expressed strong concerns about growing U.S.-Iranian tensions and elevated U.S. rhetoric against Iran, but have shown no indication they intend to ask the U.S. military to leave.

A pair of newspaper editorials in the Dubai pro-government Gulf News expressed concern about Cheney's speech and supported closer relations with Iran. On Sunday, the paper lambasted Cheney for lumping the Gulf Arab countries into his anti-Iran rhetoric, saying he had needlessly stoked tensions with Iran.

"Such careless talk by the vice president is not only unwelcome but is likely to have created an all-inclusiveness that is not welcome to the Arab states," the paper said.

On Monday, the paper said Ahmadinejad's landmark visit had opened "a new page in relations" and backed the decision to form a bilateral commission. No Gulf leader has publicly backed Iran's call for a security alliance or for the removal of U.S. troops from the region.

Fox News Rigs Entire Debate To Savagely Attack Ron Paul

Texas Congressman targeted by Giuliani, Hannity & Colmes as pre-screened audience applause torture and warmongering, Fox limits post-election polls to three hours and no Internet voting yet Paul still successful
prisonplanet.com

In a sickening display of cronyism and as a consequence of the sheer terror elicited amongst the establishment after his previous success, Fox News rigged last night's entire presidential debate in a crass effort to smear Ron Paul - yet the Texas Congressman still beat Rudy Giuliani in Fox's own poll.

If you thought the MSNBC debate was somewhat unfair towards Ron Paul, then this was an absolute debacle.

The audience for the debate was clearly pre-screened and pre-selected to include only mainly geriatric 75 year old plus Fox News viewers who are scared of their own shadow. How else can the bizarre applause for warmongering and torture, which polls show are both clearly opposed by the majority of American people, be explained?

Guantanamo Bay is uniformly abhorred, even to the point where George W. Bush himself said he wanted to close it down, and yet Romney is clapped for saying he would like to double it!

Are these audience members robots or did Fox News dub the audio to include the applause?

Giuliani clearly endorses torture and the mindless drones in attendance rapaciously lap it up! Fox News manufactured a fictitious scenario to rig the debate - the notion that terrorists are about to detonate a nuclear bomb and that only torture can lead to its discovery.

Host Bit Hume failed to mention the fact that obtaining confessions from torture is notoriously unreliable because the victim simply tells the interrogator what he wants to hear, and not necessarily the truth. In fact, using torture in place of more traditional investigative techniques would only create false leads, waste more time and put the country in more danger.

Under the Constitution of the United States, which any of these potential Presidents will have to swear an oath to uphold, evidence obtained from torture is not admissible in court. In effect, Giuliani, Romney and Tancredo (who has now completely discredited himself) have promised to violate the Constitution before they even get into office.

After the show, Hannity and Colmes double-teamed Paul in an attempt to discredit him in the eyes of both liberals and conservatives, with Colmes going after him on abortion and Hannity chomping at the bit to smear the Texas Congressman as weak on terrorism.

This followed a showdown between Giuliani and Paul in which the Texas Congressman pointed out the fact that U.S. foreign policy has bred hatred of America throughout the world, a self-evident truth that is even embraced by the CIA itself, and was scorned by Giuliani in response.

Despite the fact that Paul was given the more difficult questions and less time to answer them and was then savagely attacked after he debate, he still came out on top when the early polling began, eventually finishing a close second to Romney and easily ahead of Giuliani.

Fox News were obviously desperate to prevent Ron Paul winning the poll because they restricted it to text message only, no Internet voting, and closed it down declaring Romney the winner after just three hours.

Fox News anchor Carl Cameron immediately tried to spin Paul's success in the poll when it became apparent he was winning with 30% of the vote shortly after 11PM. Cameron roared that Paul had been "slapped down" by Giuliani in the debate and that his success was merely because his office was unfairly flood voting - ignoring the fact that McCain had openly told his supporters to spam the polls on his own website.

An MSNBC poll again shows Ron Paul trouncing the other candidates, beating his nearest contenders hands down in every category.

ABC News' poll has Ron Paul at 18,500+ votes, with his nearest rivals Romney and Giuliani barely making it into the 200's. This is an emphatic win for the Texas Congressman.

Despite the fact that this whole event was a giant orchestrated smear job on behalf of Fox News to eliminate Ron Paul from the race, his message of liberty and real conservatism still resonates with the American people and no amount of vitriol on behalf of Neo-Con Rupert Murdoch and his underlings is going to change that fact.

Ron Paul gains support in second GOP debate

homeland stupidity

For those who doubted that Rep. Ron Paul was a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, the debate Tuesday night in South Carolina put all doubts to rest. Paul stirred up a firestorm of controversy for suggesting that the Department of Homeland Security made national security even more inefficient after September 11 than before, and especially for his assertion that U.S. foreign policy over the past several decades contributed to the rise of Islamic terrorism.

But viewers at home responded, putting Ron Paul in second place in FOX’s own tamper-proof viewer poll.

As opposed to the largely conservative FOX viewers, MSNBC’s interactive post-debate poll, with more moderate viewers, puts Ron Paul squarely at the top of the heap among that network’s viewers.

And his assertions are not without merit.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office reported (PDF) that DHS “lacks a comprehensive integration strategy with overall goals, a timeline, appropriate responsibility and accountability determinations, and a dedicated team to support its efforts.” DHS still doesn’t have a plan to “deal with its many management challenges . . . could have serious consequences for our homeland security.”

Paul said during the debate that we had all the dots to put together the 9/11 plot and stop the attackers, but the bureaucracy was too inefficient to connect the dots. So in response, the government created even more inefficient bureaucracy.

Indeed, sharing of intelligence even between federal agencies, let alone with state and local agencies, still hasn’t improved that much since 9/11. Another GAO audit (PDF) last week found that the Homeland Security Information Network, meant to share intelligence with state and local officials, is doing a poor job and is largely redundant, since states and localities have already set up information-sharing networks, which DHS has failed to plug into. We’re little closer to being able to connect the dots, and all we have is a new “giant bureaucracy” eating up billions of taxpayer dollars to show for it.

That’s right, instead of real security, we’ve gotten real incompetence.

Citing the Central Intelligence Agency’s “blowback” principle, Paul explained that U.S. intervention in Middle Eastern affairs over the past several decades contributed to anti-American sentiment and helped create enemies, some of whom are today’s terrorists. This didn’t go over too well with Rudy Giuliani, who seems to know little about U.S. foreign policy for someone who supposedly led his city through the worst international terrorist attack in U.S. history.

“They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. … We’ve been in the Middle East,” Paul said in explaining his opposition to going to war in Iraq. “Right now, we’re building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting.

“They are delighted that we’re over there because Usama bin Laden has said, ‘I’m glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.’ They have already now since that time they’ve killed 3,400 of our men and I don’t think it was necessary,” he continued.

“That’s really an extraordinary statement,” Giuliani said, interrupting FOX News panelist Wendell Goler. “That’s really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11. I would ask the congressman withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that.” — FOX News

It goes back far before Desert Storm, as Paul pointed out, citing Reagan sending the Marines into Lebanon in 1983, saying “I will never turn tail and run,” and then pulling them back out after realizing just how “irrational” they are over there.

The only people who really reacted negatively to this were the handpicked debate audience, who applauded Giuliani for his ridiculous outburst and poor understanding of just what it is we’re up against.

While I rarely write about it, I follow the war in Iraq and other U.S. counterterrorism activities very closely. Ronald Reagan was right when he called them “irrational,” and so is Ron Paul. Indulge me for a moment while I quote from possibly the greatest military strategist of all time:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. — Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Sound familiar? The reason we’re suffering so badly in Iraq is that we’ve failed to know and truly understand our enemy. We failed in 1967, we failed in 1983, we failed in 2001, and we have failed today. The party line is that the Islamic jihadists hate us and our freedom and want to establish a global Islamic caliphate, dominating the world under Sharia law. Some people in this country claim that every Muslim wants this. (This is kind of like saying that the Church of Scientology represents all of Christendom.) The reality is quite a bit more complex than that.

Speaking of which, it’s probably more accurate to think of Al Qaeda and their associated jihadists as a religious cult. This is, after all, exactly how they act. We already know how to deal with religious cults, and it doesn’t involve long, protracted wars in the desert halfway around the world.

One last thing Ron Paul has been at pains to point out is that it’s left-leaning Democrats who have gotten us into the vast majority of conflicts in the last century, and conservative Republicans who have gotten us out of the vast majority of them. We must certainly be ready to defend ourselves from those who would attack us and have attacked us. If I’m around when somebody starts shooting people in a shopping mall, he’s getting two to the chest and one to the head. But we should not be picking fights, especially with people we don’t understand. We should instead open commerce and trade and let other countries sort out their own problems. That’s been the American way since the beginning, and it’s about time conservatives started being conservative again.

I’m apparently not the only person who thinks so; Ron Paul gained 25% of the vote in FOX’s more secure viewer poll of largely conservative viewers, coming in just behind Mitt Romney at 29% and far ahead of Guiliani at 19%. Supposed first tier candidate John McCain has fallen to the back of the pack with the rest of the second-tier candidates. It’s going to be much more difficult for the mainstream media to keep up their blissful, deliberate ignorance now.

Ron Paul wins MSNBC Debate Poll..... Again

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18659382/

If you have not already voted for Ron Paul on MSNBC, go do that now.

Ron Paul takes second in GOP Debate(FOX Poll), beating both McCain, and Giuliani

Results of the Debate on fox news
You Decide GOP Primary Poll Results

— 29% Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

— 25% Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas

— 19% Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

— 8% Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

— 5% Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. Hunter

— 4% Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

— 3% Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

— 1% Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.

— 0% Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore

— 0% Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson

The poll was conducted between 9 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, May 15, 2007, and 12:30 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 16, 2007. The poll reflects the opinions of those who choose to participate and may not reflect a scientific sampling of the population.




Ron Paul is America's greatest hope.

Honk for peace' case tests limits on free speech

sf chronicle
When one of Deborah Mayer's elementary school students asked her on the eve of the Iraq war whether she would ever take part in a peace march, the veteran teacher recalls answering, "I honk for peace."

Soon afterward, Mayer lost her job and her home in Indiana. She was out of work for nearly three years. And when she complained to federal courts that her free-speech rights had been violated, the courts replied, essentially, that as a public school teacher she didn't have any.

As a federal appeals court in Chicago put it in January, a teacher's speech is "the commodity she sells to an employer in exchange for her salary." The Bloomington, Ind., school district had just as much right to fire Mayer, the court said, as it would have if she were a creationist who refused to teach evolution.

The ruling was legally significant. Eight months earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided in a case involving the Los Angeles district attorney's office that government employees were not protected by the First Amendment when they faced discipline for speaking at work about controversies related to their jobs. The Chicago appeals court was the first to apply the same rationale to the classroom, an issue that the Supreme Court expressly left unresolved.

But legal analysts said the Mayer ruling was probably less important as a precedent than as a stark reminder that the law provides little protection for schoolteachers who express their beliefs.

As far as the courts are concerned, "public education is inherently a situation where the government is the speaker, and ... its employees are the mouthpieces of the government," said Vikram Amar, a professor at UC's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Whatever academic freedom exists for college teachers is "much, much less" in public schools, he said.

A recent case from a Los Angeles charter school offers more evidence of the limits teachers face in choosing curricula or seeking redress of grievances. The school's administrators forbade seventh-graders from reading aloud at a February assembly the award-winning poem "A Wreath for Emmett Till," about a black teenager beaten to death by white men in 1955.

In an online guide to teaching the poem in grades seven and up, publisher Houghton Mifflin recommends telling students that it will be disturbing; administrators said they feared it would be too much for the kindergartners in the audience and then explained that Till's alleged whistle at a white woman was inappropriate. When social studies teacher Marisol Alba and a colleague signed letters of protest written by students at the largely African American school, both teachers were fired.

The Mayer ruling was disappointing but not surprising, said Michael Simpson, assistant general counsel of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union. For the last decade, he said, federal courts "have not been receptive to arguments that teachers, both K-12 and higher education, have free-speech rights in the classroom."

That's unacceptable, said Mayer, 57, who now teaches seventh-graders in Haines City, Fla. She said she's scraped up enough money, by selling her car, to appeal her case to the Supreme Court, though she doubts the justices will review it.

"If a teacher can be fired for saying those four little words -- 'I honk for peace' -- who's going to want to teach?" she asked. "They're taking away free speech at school. ... You might just as well get a big television and set it in front of the children and have them watch, (using) the curriculum the school board has."

On the other hand, said Francisco Negrón, lawyer for the National School Boards Association, if teachers were free to express their viewpoints in class, school boards would be less able to do their job of determining the curriculum and complying with government demands for accountability.

"Teachers bring their creativity, their energy, their skill in teaching the curriculum, but ... a teacher in K-12 is really not at liberty to design a curriculum," said Negrón, who filed arguments with the court in Mayer's case supporting the Bloomington school district. "That's the function of the school board."

The incident occurred in January 2003, when Mayer was teaching a class of fourth- through sixth-graders at Clear Creek Elementary School. As Mayer recalled it later, the question about peace marches arose during a discussion of an article in the children's edition of Time magazine, part of the school-approved curriculum, about protests against U.S. preparations for war in Iraq.

When the student asked the question about taking part in demonstrations, Mayer said, she replied that there were peace marches in Bloomington, that she blew her horn whenever she saw a "Honk for Peace" sign, and that people should seek peaceful solutions before going to war.

A student complained to her father, who complained to the principal, who canceled the school's annual "Peace Month" observance and told Mayer never to discuss the war or her political views in class.

Mayer, who had been hired after the semester started and had received a good job evaluation before the incident, was dismissed at the end of the school year. The school said it was for poor performance, but the appeals court assumed that she had been fired for her comments and said the school had acted legally.

"Teachers hire out their own speech and must provide the service for which employers are willing to pay," a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Jan. 24. "The Constitution does not entitle teachers to present personal views to captive audiences against the instructions of elected officials."

Mayer, the court said, was told by her bosses that she could teach about the war "as long as she kept her opinions to herself." Like the Los Angeles district attorney's employee whose demotion led to the Supreme Court's 2006 ruling, the appellate panel said, Mayer had no constitutional right to say anything on the job that conflicted with her employer's policy.

Mayer's lawyer asked for a rehearing, saying the evidence was clear that the school had no such policy when Mayer answered the student's question. The court denied reconsideration in March without comment.

Mayer, who had taught for more than 20 years, couldn't afford to keep her Indiana home after being fired and left the state. She got another teaching job in Florida, but lost it after disclosing her previous dismissal, and didn't get another position until last fall.

As all parties to Mayer's case recognize, her statements would have been constitutionally protected and beyond the government's power to suppress if she had been speaking on a street corner or at a public hearing.

But in the classroom, as in the workplace, courts have upheld limits on speech. In both settings, past rulings have taken into account the institution's need to function efficiently and keep order, and the rights of co-workers and students not to be subjected to unwanted diatribes.

In 1969, the Supreme Court upheld a high school student's right to wear a black armband as a silent protest against the Vietnam War and barred schools from stifling student expression unless it was disruptive or interfered with education. The court retreated from that standard somewhat in a 1988 ruling upholding censorship of student newspapers, and will revisit the issue in a pending case involving an Alaskan student who was suspended for unfurling a banner outside the school grounds that read, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

The Supreme Court has never ruled on teachers' free speech. In lower courts, teachers have won cases by showing they were punished for violating policies that school officials never explained to them beforehand or invented after the fact. A federal appeals court in 2001 ruled in favor of a fifth-grade teacher in Kentucky who was fired for bringing actor Woody Harrelson to her class to discuss the benefits of industrial hemp, an appearance that school officials had approved.

But teachers who were on notice of school policies they transgressed have usually lost their cases. In one Bay Area case, in August 2005, a federal judge in San Jose rejected arguments by Cupertino elementary school teacher Stephen Williams that his principal had violated his freedom of speech by prohibiting him from using outside religious materials in history lessons.

Unless the Supreme Court takes up Mayer's case, its legal effect is limited to federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, the three states in the Seventh Circuit. But Amar, the Hastings law professor, and others said the ruling could be influential elsewhere because there are few appellate decisions on the issue, and because the author, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, is a prominent conservative jurist.

"Very few schools are going to be that harsh in muzzling or silencing their teachers," but the ruling indicates they would be free to do so, Amar said.

Simpson, the National Education Association's lawyer, said the ruling, though within the legal mainstream, was bad for education because teachers are not "hired to read a script." The case might interest the Supreme Court, and the NEA will probably file a brief in support of Mayer's appeal should the justices take the case, he said.

Beverly Tucker, chief counsel of the NEA-affiliated California Teachers Association, said she doubts that federal courts in California would take as conservative a position as the court in Mayer's case. But she expects school districts to cite the ruling in the next case that arises.

"If I were a public school teacher, I would live in fear that some innocuous remark made in the classroom in response to a question from a pupil would lead to me being terminated" under such a ruling, Tucker said.

As for Mayer, she isn't sure what rankles her most -- the impact on her life, the stigma of being branded a rogue teacher, or the court's assertion that a teacher's speech is a commodity purchased by the government.

"My free speech," she said, "is not for sale at any price."

Surveillance state can't monitor itself, says US

the register
It would be impractical for the US to monitor how its border guards use the massive databases it is building on European citizens, US Homeland Security Security secretary Michael Chertoff told the European Parliament yesterday.

Answering questions before an extraordinary meeting of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Chertoff defended the Automated Targeting System - a US database that creates profiles of people who cross America's borders.

MEPs questioned Chertoff on the US collection of Passenger Name Records, which was the precursor to the Automated Targeting System.

Dutch MEP Sophie Int-Veld told Chertoff: "It's never justified to give unlimited and uncontrolled powers to any government." She is the rapporteur for the Parliament on the EU's attempt to restrain the US collection of data about European citizens.

She asked for more evidence of the results the US is getting from its "massive collection of data" in the hunt for terrorists.

Chertoff provided two anecdotal examples and presented another six to the Parliament. But, he said the decisions of border guards to detain or bar people entering the US could not be scrutinised.

"We don't catalogue every single instance in terms of keeping a statistical database of each time these measures make us safer, partly because the information that is obtained is usually one of a number of factors that enter into the decision of a border inspector to talk to people," he told the Parliament.

"We don't always capture with precision when the border inspector has relied upon that. I don't know whether it would be possible to construct a system in practical terms that would do that."

He was asked to consider the oft-repeated criticism of the US "war on terror", that it was being fought at the expense of the fundamental rights of the citizens it claims to protect.

In answer, Chertoff cited the doubts of British Home Secretary John Reid about the efficacy of European legal traditions in the face of terrorism.

"There's one very big difference between prosecuting a crime that has occured in the past and to seek justice," said Chertoff.

He suggested the Anglo-Saxon legal principle that "it is better that a thousand guilty go unpunished lest one innocent man be wrongly punished" might be outmoded.

"The balance becomes somewhat different when we aim to prevent attacks," he said. "You must ask yourself this question - whether you would be satisfied to be constrained by slow-moving processes if the consequence would be to allow an attack go forward that would kill thousands of people or perhaps millions of people, including ones own children."

He told a press conference later that legal traditions enshrined in criminal law and laws governing war might not "adequately reflect" the 21st century threat, "where we have non-state networks capable of waging war as effectively and destructively as nation states could a century ago".