Obama takes on McCain/Bush

THE FOX IS WRONG! Obama

Phil Donahue vs. Carlson and Hannity

Bush vetoes bill banning CIA waterboarding

US President George Bush says he has vetoed legislation that would stop the CIA using interrogation methods such as simulated drowning or “water-boarding”. He said he rejected the intelligence bill, passed by Senate and Congress, as it took “away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror”. The president said the CIA needed “specialised interrogation procedures” that the military did not. Water-boarding is condemned as torture by rights groups and many governments. It is an interrogation method that puts the detainee in fear of drowning.

When Terrorists Become ‘Warriors’

By Tom Malinowski
Sunday, March 18, 2007; Page B07

As an Irish American politician, the late, great Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan felt he had a duty to speak out against the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. He considered IRA members to be nothing more than murderers. From time to time, some of his constituents who sympathized with the IRA would complain. “There is a war in Northern Ireland,” they pleaded. “The IRA are not terrorists; they are soldiers.”

For as long as there has been terrorism, terrorists have justified their actions by calling themselves warriors. A glance at the names such groups give themselves reveals how central warfare is to their self-image: the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Conversely, throughout history, most governments fighting terrorist groups have tried to delegitimize them as criminals and bandits.

Call Cruelty What It Is

By Tom Malinowski
Monday, September 18, 2006; Page A17

President Bush is urging Congress to let the CIA keep using “alternative” interrogation procedures — which include, according to published accounts, forcing prisoners to stand for 40 hours, depriving them of sleep and use of the “cold cell,” in which the prisoner is left naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees and doused with cold water.

Bush insists that these techniques are not torture — after all, they don’t involve pulling out fingernails or applying electric shocks. He even says that he “would hope” the standards he’s proposing are adopted by other countries. But before he again invites America’s enemies to use such “alternative” methods on captured Americans, he might benefit from knowing a bit of their historical origins and from hearing accounts of those who have experienced them. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for the president’s reading list.

Voice of an Iraqi Activist

This woman speaks the truth

How can you disagree with this?

BBC: US Congress passes Iraq funding

BBC News. The US House of Representatives has voted for a $555bn (£277bn) federal budget, with an extra $70bn for the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Faced with a veto threat from President George W Bush, Democrats dropped efforts to tie the funds to a timetable for a US troop withdrawal from Iraq. The US Senate had already approved the Iraq funds on Tuesday. The votes end a long-running battle in which Democrats tried unsuccessfully to change President Bush’s war policy.

The approval comes as a quarterly report by the Pentagon for Congress said US forces had made “significant progress” in Iraq over the past three months, with the country becoming safer.

But the report cautioned that despite the progress on the security front, the handover to Iraqis was lagging, with Iraqi forces still dependent on US troops for logistics and training.

Another Portion of Bill O’Reilly BS

March 2003: Fox’s Bill O’Reilly interviews Janeane Garofalo.

And this is what he says: “If you are wrong, alright? And the United States, and they will, this is going to happen, goes in, liberates Iraq, people in the streets,  American Flags, people hugging our soldiers, alright? We find all kinds of bad, bad stuff, alright, in Iraq, you will APOLOGIZE to George W. Bush?” No comment.

Compatibility of Zionism and Peace in the Middle East

The United States was the first country to recognize Israel and has been supporting it since the very first day of its independence in 1948 [1]. The US backed the United Nations mandate for a Jewish homeland in Palestine [2] and has sold weapons to Israel during wars with its Arab neighbors. But the US support of Israel has never helped bring peace in the Middle East.

The creation of the Jewish State has started the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israelis, or the Jews who migrated to the new State of Israel, were not very welcome in the Muslim World. The fact that the land has been taken from the Palestinians [3] sparked the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. After numerous wars, including the first Arab-Israeli War and the Six-Day War, the Israeli land has grown; Israel has “annexed” the lands occupied after wars, refusing to return them [4] and stating that “the war will give us the land. The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are only concepts for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning.” [5] The Zionists completely refuse to exchange the occupied land for peace. It is also believed that many Arabs, especially the Palestinians, who believe the Jews took their land, have sworn to drive Israel into the sea. If that case is true, however, exchanging “land for peace” does not seem to be a good option.

The Arab-Israeli conflict continues even today, after almost 60 years. The US support of Israel continues, while the UN, whose resolutions solve nothing, seems to be useless. The most recent war in 2006 has again shown the power of Israel’s military y. Although more Lebanese civilians have suffered [6], the war was officially fought between Israel and Hezbollah, or the Shia Islamic political and parliamentary organization, officially labeled as a “terrorist organization” in six countries, including the United Kingdom, United States and Israel [7]. By the end of the 2006 Lebanon War, after the UN resolution called for cease-fire, Israel has attacked a group that was transporting weapons from Syria[8], breaking the UN peace resolution. George Galloway, a Scottish politician, at that time said:

“America has given Israel missiles that can target not only every city in Lebanon, but every city in the Arab and Muslim World, including Iran. Why should America be allowed to give long-range missiles to Israel, including hundreds of nuclear missiles…?” [9]

Israel receives more aid from the US than any other country in the world. According to BBC News, “Israel receives billions of dollars from the US no matter what it does.” [10] Thus, it perhaps has the most advanced military in the Middle East. Israel also has its own Weapons of Mass Destruction. [11]

89% of Respondents Want George Bush Impeached

According to a MSNBC poll, 89% of those who polled want president Bush to be impeached. (578397 responses in total)