The US, UN & Iraq III

Re the source of the forgeries...Sharon's office sounds just about right.

And....surprise! Another hero story's happy details ain't necessarily so

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2003/08/07/flight_93/index.html

I always had doubts that the passengers who began trying to overpower the hijackers ever made it to the pilot's cabin. It doesn't make them less heroic -- they would have been considered more heroic if they had save the pilot and taken over the controls of the plane but this seems almost am impossibility. The pilot and co-pilot were likely killed almost immediately.

United Airlines Flight 93 is another in a series of Bush Regime lies. All details to this mishap was kept secret, now we know why.

I so fully agree with LW, just as with Jessica Lynch, these people are true heros and nothing can take that away from them. But, the Bushites are pure scum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I always assumed that this was what happened, but I am forced to wonder how this is such a big difference to anyone (except the anti-American left, of course). Passengers took action and thwarted the plans of the hijackers. I think it's clear that the passengers didn't crash the plane into the ground, so it was safe to assume that the terrorists did so when they knew their original plans were not going to succeed. I never thought that anyone "wrestled" for the controls, nor do I think it matters whether they did or did not. I'm baffled by Blatham's seeming glee at this non-news.

Remark removed because I will not lower myself to the base level of a scrat!

What is the base level of a scrat? I'm afraid, BillW, you have to explain yourself.

In view of so much that is now being made public, what is it the Bush mob is trying to hide? The more they refuse to air what may be perfectly explainable passages, the more ominous they make these matters appear. And then, after some things come into open air, it is obvious that what was being hidden had very little to do with national security, but everything to do with tight Rove control. After all, if Bush goes, the nation profits but Rove loses.

Isn't it peculiar? Those very things that Bush, Rumsfeld, et al claim to be identifying marks of rogue nations already exist here? The utter secrecy, what is actually contained in the Patriot Acts, the clampdown on reporters in Iraq, the lack of open air around any Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Libby, Pearle, Wolfowitz doings? Unless you count hot air in Crawford, Texas as open air.

And with all the pros and cons on the economy - from all the pundits - we are left with some unpleasant basics. The vast and growing number of unemployed; the vast and growing number of un-health-insured; the emptiness of talks about job creation - the things that put food in the mouths of people and a little money in their pockets. Most people I know can go on and on with this and that about economics, but it's usually done in the abstract. And making the stock market the leading indicator is not only fraught with danger, it's foolish. Many times the ups and downs are done by just a few people, selling off or buying, taking profits - continuing the same state of affairs that brought us unpunished Enron, for one. It's time we got an administration back that not only understands a necessary economy for the American world, but how to implement one and keep it going. The one we've got is depleting it. Promises of maybe, or an increase in a very few portfolios, just aint gonna do the trick.

Scrats are those tiny dark brown pellets rats leave behind. You want to sweep them up pretty quick because they tend to be a significant source of infection. Thanks to the Dalai Lama (my cat), we don't have the problem here. It looks like the White House may be riddled with them, though...

lower

The latest word on those trailers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/09/international/worldspecial/09WEAP.html

From the NYT:

It was hydrogen.......

Iraq is baq. There is more work for us to do.

scrat

I'm sorry, I didn't actually mean to sound gleeful on that last post. That particular incident is quite without anything one might feel glee regarding. What I too awkwardly and too quickly wished to suggest is that this administration (particularly, though as Didion's Political Fictions points out, not exclusively) is concerned with 'presentation' and not truth. And they have become expert at utilizing the modern media as symbiotic associates. This so clearly short circuits democracy because the electorate is then making decisions based not on truthful appraisals or accounts, but rather, on what those in charge wish the electorate to believe.

Every instance of opacity or of mis-weighting or of spin or of false statements ought to be jumped on mercilessly. And, we ought to target the media perhaps even more harshly than the administration.

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
-Giordano Bruno

The baitor masquerades as the baitee eh?

lem·ming (lĕm'ĭng)
n.
Any of various small, thickset rodents, especially of the genus Lemmus, inhabiting northern regions and known for periodic mass migrations that sometimes end in drowning

In freakin credible



Published on Friday, August 8, 2003 by The Bradenton Herald (Florida)
Katherine Harris Booed at Bradenton Town Hall Meeting
by Donna Wright


BRADENTON - U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris had planned a quick town meeting Thursday night at Bradenton Kiwanis Hall.

But when hundreds of people showed up with detailed questions, her tight schedule didn't allow detailed answers, and a frustrated crowd turned angry, booing the congresswoman several times.

After introductions at 5:30 p.m., Harris spoke for nearly half of the allotted hour. It was after 6 p.m. when she asked for questions.


US Rep Katherine Harris
Cover of the Fall 2002 issue of IAM Journal - the newsletter of the International Association of Machinists.
Harris told attendees she wanted all questions asked first before she answered.

The lines at the microphones were long.

The boos were loud.

"We want our answers now," a man in the back of the room shouted.

She said, "Doing it this way will allow more people to speak."

Harris' logic didn't sit well with the standing-room-only crowd.

The crowd's mood already was testy before the meeting began. Security guards and Harris' staff confiscated any written material people tried to bring into the hall.

The confiscated literature included analysis of the Medicare prescription bills passed in the House and Senate in June as well as a chart showing Harris' voting record since she began her term in January.

The fliers were distributed during an earlier news conference staged in the parking lot by senior citizens to protest House and Senate bills designed to provide prescription drug coverage through Medicare.

The protesters were asking Harris to support reform and not support either bill, which they said provided too little coverage to too few through a plan that would ultimately privatize and weaken Medicare.

Joining the news conference were representatives from the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the Association of Community for Reform Now.

"This is wrong," said Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida chapter of AARP, as he was asked to hand over fliers.

"We have never been restricted in what we could hand out at other town meetings," Fransetta said. "We have talking points that simply list questions that would help people better understand and articulate their concerns. They have been denied that right."

Pat Benson of Bradenton said she had never been at a town meeting where literature was confiscated at the door.

"This never happened at Dan Miller's meetings," said Benson, referring to Harris' predecessor in Congress.

Connie M. McKee, a Harris staffer, said ethics laws made it illegal for people to distribute political information during a town hall meeting.

"We are not taking anything away," McKee said. "All of the material is still here and they can pick it up when they leave. They just can't take it into the hall. The ethics laws do not allow us to let them take it in. We have to be very, very careful that there are no laws broken with our member (of Congress)."

Larry Winawer, of the Alliance for Retired Americans, didn't buy McKee's reasons.

"What kind of ethic laws prevent people from having information in front of them so they can ask reasonable questions?" Winawer said "I have never heard of such a thing."

Harris distributed her literature to attendees. One flyer detailed how Bush's economic plans are restoring confidence and creating growth through fiscal discipline. Another highlighted the many benefits of Medicare reforms passed in June.

When she asked for questions, Harris faced a barrage of queries covering phosphate mining, funding for Head Start, veterans benefits, budget deficits, the daily cost of the Iraq War, environmental concerns, fiscal policies, health care reform, medical malpractice crisis, and detailed questions on the proposed prescription plans.

When dozens of attendees could not get their questions asked in the first hour, master of ceremonies Sheriff Charlie Wells said at 6:30 that the meeting would be extended 10 minutes.

At about 6:50, Harris said she would take only one more question, and the room erupted into boos.

At 6:55 p.m., Harris began her answers.

At times, people tried to ask follow-up questions, but she wouldn't allow it

"This is my turn now," Harris said repeatedly.

When the town meeting ended at about 7:20, disgruntled people filed out the door, picking up the pamphlets they had been forced to leave behind.

Becky Martin, of the League of Women Voters for Manatee County, was not happy.

"As a constituent, I was disappointed that there was only an hour allotted for this," said Martin, who is chairwoman of the League's Health Care Committee. "Here in Manatee County we deserve more than an hour for a town hall meeting with everything that is going on in the world. We need a town hall meeting on Medicare privatization alone."

Elizabeth Schultz of Bradenton disagreed, complimenting Harris for her tact and diplomacy.

"I thought the town meeting was very well done," Schultz said. "She handled the crowd very well. I though the crowd was very unruly."

Copyright 2003 The Bradenton Herald

Well, if they voted her in, they can vote her out. I think Bradenton received a record amount of rain.

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.


Hoisted on her own petard?

MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hi there ... I know I've been absent on this thread for quite a while, but I have been following along ... with more than a bit of tongue-biting

Anyhow, in context of the article posted by perc, I just wanna say that I am in e-mail and chat contact with a few folks "Over There", (including my son ... who is not real happy to still be there, though he is quite appreciative of airconditioned quarters and and other ammenities of civilization not available during The Advance). From these contacts, I draw a very different, and far less negative, impression of the actuallity of things "In Country" than is provided by The Media. I could be wrong, but it seems to me The Media go out of their way to find support for their implied argument "See ... We Told You So!".

Sure, there are bitches and complaints from The Troops. That's the way Troops are, and always have been. And no, not everything is running smoothly yet, even after 100 days of Post Major Combat Phase. A hundred days, even a hundred weeks, following the cessation of hostilities in WW II, there were major infrastuctural shortcomings in Occupied Europe and Occupied Asia. Progress has been made, is being made, and will continue to be made. Stability is emerging, it is not established, nor is it endangered ... but progress is in progress. It should be borne in mind that no formal instrument of surrender has been executed, no official transfer of power has occurred, and also that the tens of thousands of vicious thugs once employed by The Saddam Regime are now unemployed viscious thugs. Of note too is the fact that a large proportion of those apprehended or otherwise identified as perpetrators of attacks are Third-Nation citizens, not Iraqis, and that resistance to occupation is largely confined to The Sunni Triangle ... the area traditionally of staunchest Ba'athist support and influence.

a
Perception, would you happen to know if any of these people attended the dinner party



For an Iraqi Family, 'No Other Choice'
Father and Brother Are Forced by Villagers to Execute Suspected U.S. Informant

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A01

THULUYA, Iraq -- Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived. His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves.


His father raised his rifle and aimed it at his oldest son.

"Sabah didn't try to escape," said Abdullah Ali, a village resident. "He knew he was facing his fate."

The story of what followed is based on interviews with Kerbul's father, brother and five other villagers who said witnesses told them about the events. One shot tore through Kerbul's leg, another his torso, the villagers said. He fell to the ground still breathing, his blood soaking the parched land near the banks of the Tigris River, they said. His father could go no further, and according to some accounts, he collapsed. His other son then fired three times, the villagers said, at least once at his brother's head.

Kerbul, a tall, husky 28-year-old, died.

"It wasn't an easy thing to kill him," his brother Salah said.

In his simple home of cement and cinder blocks, the father, Salem, nervously thumbed black prayer beads this week as he recalled a warning from village residents earlier this month. He insisted his son was not an informer, but he said his protests meant little to a village seething with anger. He recalled their threat was clear: Either he kill his son, or villagers would resort to tribal justice and kill the rest of his family in retaliation for Kerbul's role in a U.S. military operation in the village in June, in which four people were killed.

"I have the heart of a father, and he's my son," Salem said. "Even the prophet Abraham didn't have to kill his son." He dragged on a cigarette. His eyes glimmered with the faint trace of tears. "There was no other choice," he whispered.




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