Top News 11/20/04

iWaq
Civil war possible after Iraq elections: US' top soldier
US army chief General Richard Myers said in an interview that civil war could erupt in Iraq after forthcoming elections

U.S. Fights Baghdad Militants; GI Killed 
Insurgents battled American troops in the streets of Baghdad on Saturday, killing a U.S. soldier in an ambush and gunning down four government employees in signals that the guerrillas remain a potent force despite the fall of their stronghold of Fallujah. Nine Iraqis also died in fighting west of the capital.

Rebels Attack Baghdad Police, Troops

Reuters - Sat Nov 20, 5:19 PM ET

Guerrillas stormed a Baghdad police station and ambushed an American patrol, killing a soldier and wounding nine in daylight attacks in the capital on Saturday, defying efforts to crush a Sunni Muslim revolt

Bodies of 9 Iraqi Soldiers Found in Mosul
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers, all shot execution-style and seven of them decapitated, were discovered in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

New intelligence suggests that Zarqawi is intent on aligning with Osama bin Laden
WASHINGTON -- In the run-up to last year's invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration frequently cited alleged but largely circumstantial links between Osama bin Laden's terror network and a Jordanian militant living in Iraq as a key justification for war. Now U.S. officials believe bin Laden's group and the terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have been trying to communicate with each other recently as al-Zarqawi has emerged as a major leader in Iraq's anti-American insurgency. A senior U.S. military commander stressed Friday that he wasn't sure al-Qaida's top leaders and al-Zarqawi had succeeded in contacting each other and that he did not believe bin Laden or other al-Qaida figures were directing the insurgency



Spite X Spy: CIA under fundie siege

Spy Agency Reform Appears Dead

Reuters - 25 minutes ago

A plan to overhaul U.S. spy agencies died on Saturday in the face of opposition from key Republicans just hours after congressional negotiators thought they had clinched a deal backed by the White House on the post-Sept. 11 reforms.

Clarke was telling the truth, Frist was lying
Joe Conason has a piece worth reading...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/11/19/frist/index.html
It basically outlines how documents released of Richard Clarke's testimony behind closed doors back up what he said in public... and shows that Bill Frist was lying.
Bill Frist and the rest of his brethren are the exact opposite of Clarke.The kind of people who eat up Colin Powell's UN presentation - which was clearly BUNK - and then come out full force against someone who told a story that made sense. Whatever you think of Bill Clinton, it is obvious at this point that he - and Bush 41 and even Reagan - did far more to combat terrorists then the incompetent administration that was elected in 2000 - and now again. (Daily Chewch)

Terrorism
Ultra-Radical Muslims Draw Scrutiny

AP - Sat Nov 20, 3:19 PM ET

An ultra-radical Islamic ideology mixing zealot-like devotion and holy war creed is drawing more scrutiny in anti-terrorist probes from the Middle East to Europe — with increasing indications that its base on the fringes of Islamic extremism could be widening.

Spanish Court Jails 10 al-Qaida Suspects

AP - Sat Nov 20, 1:11 PM ET

Ten suspects charged with membership in an al-Qaida cell that allegedly helped prepare the Sept. 11 attacks have been jailed to prevent them fleeing Spain ahead of their trial, court officials said Saturday

New W order
Top Bush Fundraisers Move On to Inaugural

Los Angeles Times - Sat Nov 20, 7:55 AM ET

L.A. financier Bradford Freeman is among those who will seek the bash's unlimited donations

Bill Gives Lawmakers Access to Tax Returns

AP - 25 minutes ago

Congress passed legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said it was all a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

Congress OKs $388 Billion Spending Bill

AP - 16 minutes ago

Republicans whisked a $388 billion spending bill through Congress on Saturday, a mammoth measure that underscores the dominance of deficit politics by curbing dollars for everything from education to environmental cleanups

Salvo for the fate of Women's Rights was launched yesterday
when Congress added a clause into a much-needed spending bill that would permit health car providers from denying services to patients, particularly those who are anti-Choice.

Looming pandemic which could kill 10s of millions causing sleepless nights

Canadian Press - Sat Nov 20, 8:21 AM ET

TORONTO (CP) - The global community of influenza experts is a small circle. These days, it's an exhausted, alarmed one as well

Mercury, used since ancient times, proves a slippery threat in 21st century

Canadian Press - Sat Nov 20,11:49 AM ET

OTTAWA (CP) - The story of mercury in the environment can be read in the chemistry of whales' teeth.

Scientists Warn of Toxins in Fish

AP - Sat Nov 20, 2:27 PM ET

Each day at 4 p.m., the trawlers come back, alive with giant bass, mackerel and squirming eels, at the end of a food chain that links family dinner tables to poisons in the sea. Besides mercury which can damage the brains of fetuses and young children and can affect healthy adults, there are PCBs, dioxins and flame retardants with unknown long-term effects.

Rebellious Republicans Derail 9/11 Reform
AP - 51 minutes ago
In a defeat for President Bush, rebellious House Republicans on Saturday derailed legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence agencies along lines recommended by the Sept. 11 commission.

House Condemns Criticism of Boy Scouts

AP - Sat Nov 20,11:31 AM ET

The House on Saturday commended the Boy Scouts and condemned legal efforts to limit government ties to the group because of its requirement that members believe in God

He's no good for us here, he has no fingernails left
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D.  Kromberg "smirked and stated that" about Ahmed Abu Ali, a student from Falls Church, has been held without charge by Saudis since June 2003. Kromberg was an Associate Independent Counsel on the Morgan Guananty Trust fiasco the GOPpies tried against Clinton . So we already know he has a strong stomach; now strong enough to smirk at acts of torture and make jokes about them.

Returning soldiers selling Iraq contraband on e-bay ?
The Army is reportedly investigating allegations that members of a Springfield National Guard unit shipped contraband back to the United States from Iraq and attempted to sell some of the items on eBay, a popular online auction site. Investigators from the Army's Criminal Investigative Command have grilled members of the Illinois National Guard's 233rd Military Police Company, which served in Iraq from April 2003 to April 2004. Among the items allegedly brought back from Baghdad were engine parts from a dragster owned by one of Saddam Hussein's sons, military Taser parts and U.S. military automatic weapons, according to Army and outside sources. The Criminal Investigative Command in Washington and a spokeswoman for the National Guard in Springfield have confirmed the ongoing investigation.

Experts Fear Price Pressures Could Worsen

AP - 2 hours, 53 minutes ago

After years of relative calm on the inflation front, Americans are being battered by $2-a-gallon gasoline, rising food prices and higher medical bills. And there are fears that price pressures could worsen in 2005

Smokey Bear joins the GOP:
Forests are a cash crop for the U.S. Forest Service, which operates under a system of financial rewards that encourages the agency to cut timber and fight fires even if doing so makes no ecological sense. One day two summers ago, Chad Hanson drove through the Sierra backcountry northeast of Chico, navigating the mountain's twisting washboard roads in his green 1990 Toyota 4Runner with the ease of a man who has driven these roads many times before. When he arrived at a place in Lassen National Forest where in 2000 the 56,000-acre Storrie wildfire had burned, he found exactly what he expected to find"

Video Prompts L.A. Airport Police Probe

AP - Sat Nov 20, 5:51 PM ET

City officials are calling for an investigation of Los Angeles International Airport police after hidden cameras captured several officers abandoning their posts and ignoring emergency radio calls

Man spends week on roof of adult bookstore to protest protesters
SALINA, Kan. - Other than a few "older" women who made obscene gestures as they drove by, a week on the roof of an adult bookstore was mostly a positive experience, Ray Morris said Friday as he prepared to come down from his perch the next morning. The 38-year-old consultant for a Salina cosmetic company spent a week of vacation living on top of the north Salina business to protest local efforts to have the town's two adult book stores investigated for obscenity. "I can't stress enough that I am not promoting porn," Morris said. "I'm promoting the idea of choice. Everyone has a right to choose whether they want to enter these stores."

Paddling Against the Current

Los Angeles Times - Sat Nov 20, 7:55 AM ET

Some say spanking is central to child-rearing in the South. But a Memphis high school coach finds that times may be changing.

"The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry"
I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.)Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called a "knock-down-drag-out," where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming was considered fair. The ancestors of today's red-state voters used to stand around cheering and betting on these fights. When the forces of red and blue encountered one another head-on for the first time in Kansas Territory in 1856, the red forces from Missouri, who had been coveting Indian land across the Missouri River since 1820, entered Kansas and stole the territorial election. The red news media of the day made a practice of inflammatory lying—declaring that the blue folks had shot and killed red folks whom everyone knew were walking around. The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862—Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children. The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

Other News
Bush Seeks Unity on North Korea, Iran

AP - 37 minutes ago

Facing nuclear challenges on two fronts, President Bush warned Saturday that Iran's suspected weapons program is "a very serious matter," and he stood united with leaders of Asia and Russia in demanding North Korea's return to stalled disarmament talks

NASA Launches Black Hole Hunter

AP - Sat Nov 20, 6:27 PM ET

The fastest-swiveling space science observatory ever built rocketed into orbit Saturday to scan the universe for violent celestial explosions that astronomers believe represent the birth screams of black holes

Integration Debate Heats up in Germany
Germans to Muslims: Change or get out!    Leading German politicians have said Muslims will have to integrate themselves better if they wish to remain in the country. This coincides with conservatives’ calls to emphasize patriotism and Christian values. Speaking at his party’s convention in Munich, Bavarian Premier and Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Edmund Stoiber demanded a clear commitment from immigrants to the basic values of German society.  “Yes to openness and tolerance, no to Islamist head scarves,” Stoiber told delegates, who unanimously voted against a Turkish EU membership and for cutting social welfare benefits for foreigners who are unwilling to integrate.

Bush Pulls Top Security Agent From Fracas

AP - 1 hour, 29 minutes ago

President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night

Dolphins Valuable to U.S. in Arabian Gulf

AP - Fri Nov 19, 3:50 PM ET

The dolphins deployed as underwater sentinels to the Arabian Gulf region by the U.S. Navy last year have been valuable in protecting coalition ships and piers against terrorist attacks, a Navy spokesmen said Friday.

Getting the Bible back to its roots ?
A major new English translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible -- alternately called the Five Books of Moses, the Torah or Pentateuch -- the first in almost 200 years, has some critics manning the barricades while others are applauding his efforts to return the work to its original Hebrew meanings and majestic repetitions. A professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Alter says since he has never found a biblical translation that he liked or could recommend to his comparative literature students, he decided to do his own, starting with the story of Genesis and ending with the death of Moses."


APEC Protesters Arrested in Chile
A Chilean protester wears a mask that reads, 'Bush equals Death' in protest against U.S. President George W. Bush, during a march through downtown Santiago, November 19, 2004. Leaders of the 21 member countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathered here for their annual meeting as activists took to the streets to show their opposition

Blasts from the past
Who Lost the WMD?
As the weapons hunt intensifies, so does the finger pointing. A preview of the coming battle
Jul. 7, 2003
Meeting last month at a sweltering U.S. base outside Doha, Qatar, with his top Iraq commanders, President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked. What Was Cheney's Role? Is Powell Trying To Have It Both Ways? Will Tenet Be Left Holding the Bag?

Clinton Rips Starr, Media on Prosecution

AP - Fri Nov 19, 9:05 PM ET

In a prime-time television outburst, Bill Clinton ripped old nemesis Kenneth Starr and what the former president portrayed as a gullible media eager to report every "sleazy thing" leaked from a prosecutor

Tongue twister: Read This sign aloud