http://www.wikileaks.org/

PS: the below may sound like an advertisement. It is not I am in no way affiliated with Wikimedia. Im just a bit pissed at the first Leaked photo they have on the cover page.

You want information on Gitmo, they got it.
You want information on fraternity secret rituals they got it.
You want information on casualties of war, they have all the information you could ever need to add the ammo you need for your dissent.

Documents ranging from Scientology, mormon books, to you guessed it Gitmo.

I am not responsible for what you may see at this site, this site is NSFW because it will cause a scandal. If you are a dissenter and you work at a conservative workplace, my advise to you is to keep all this stuff to yourself.

"Impeaching Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors." - GovTrack

He charges Cheney with tampering with the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

The ultimate charge is: Violation of his Oath of Office.

So hes going after every one, and this is the resolution.

There are two resolutions floating in congress now, all introduced in the first and second stages of talk. They are supposed to be heard in a committee.

Resolution to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq

This is basically a delcaration of war, set to be passed soon in congress It Authorizes the naval blockade of Iran, over its steps to nuclear proliferation.

I'm interested in making a play list with songs having lyrics of a political or anti-war nature. If you know of any, on VS, please leave a link in the comments.

Thanks, Eric

http://www.videosift.com/playlists/eric3579/Political-Anti-War-Songs

From The Washington Post
Army Spc. Monica Brown was awarded the Silver Star for treating wounded soldiers under fire after their convoy was attacked in Afghanistan, and is only the second woman to receive the award since World War II. Despite her heroics, she was pulled from combat missions because of gender.
"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing…."
In addition to the article, here’s a CBS interview with Brown and Katie Couric.

If you are like me then you too have a innate distaste or penchant for maliciousness towards this smarmy little chain of peptides.

Come join in the fountain of vitriol that is gathering around to roast the putrid primordial soup we call Doc_M.

*For those of you who don't know he is getting his PhD in biology... way to go tax dollars.

Never has the *viral tag been more appropriate.

http://parody.videosift.com/talk/Let-the-roast-of-Doc_M-commence#comment-388562

So...I've been searching the internets for a while now for whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction found. Neocons (and their websites) seem to have claims that they were found and I'm assuming other "liberal media" (for lack of better terms) could also be biased the opposite way.

Does anybody have a link to OFFICIAL documentation that should be required stating whether or not our tax dollars were frivolously wasted or if there was some prophylaxes we've obtained through this wild goose chase.

Happy Spring, bitchez!

It seems to have faded, if not disappeared.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/washington/13cnd-cong.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=800c8e3eb7a7eec4&ex=1360645200&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1203034513-9LOPNJ0uMQLpwk0jT6Wjew

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/13/mccain-waterboarding-fail/

I'm angry. The only reason that McCain would vote like this is to appease the Republican base. I thought that he was principled on this issue, but it seems that it was all an illusion.

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could not comment on the study because he had not seen it.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

___

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

Fund For Independence in Journalism: http://www.tfij.org/

Okay, so I have a slight problem I can't seem to figure out on my own and I thought I'd offer it up to the far more knowlegable code-monkeys that frequent this site.

So, as you can see if you go to the War On Terror Channel page, I've got it set up so a list of links from a del.icio.us account shows up. I'd like to keep this for compiling links of resources, but I'd also like a way for the latest news headlines to appear because I don't have the time everyday to go around hunting for them and then posting them to del.icio.us.

I was trying to figure out a way to get the BBC Middle East news roll to show up via RSS feed but I am stumped. The BBC RSS helps section seems to imply that I can use their feed on my website, but I can't figure out how to do this.

Will somebody look at this and see what we can do?

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi commanders said on Saturday there had been a remarkable improvement in the country's security over the past year, but the top American general also warned that the gains could be reversed.

"Success will emerge slowly and fitfully with reverses as well as advances. Inevitably there will be tough fighting, more tough days and more tough weeks, but fewer of them, inshallah (God willing)," General David Petraeus said in a year-end briefing to journalists.

In a message to his troops, he wrote: "A year ago, Iraq was racked by horrific violence and on the brink of civil war.

"Now, levels of violence and civilian and military casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in Iraqi communities. To be sure, the progress is reversible and there is much more to be done."

Petraeus said the number of attacks in Iraq had fallen by 60 percent since June and the number of civilian deaths had fallen by 75 percent since a year ago. The number of U.S. military deaths was also sharply lower.

But figures supplied at Petraeus's briefing also showed a slight rise in suicide car and vest bombs since October. At least 33 people were killed by two suicide bombs on Christmas Day, and 10 people died in a Baghdad car bomb on Friday.

December is on track to be the least deadly month for U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

At his own end-year briefing, Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf issued another series of optimistic statistics:

Seventy-five percent of Al Qaeda networks and 70 percent of its activities have been eliminated, he said. Assassination attempts were down by 79 percent since June.

Fewer corpses were being dumped in the streets: "We found more than 15 to 20 bodies in February every day. But now the number of dead bodies is 3 or 5 (per day)," Khalaf said.

Story Continued on Reuters.com

Juan Cole is an American professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. Since 2002 he has been publishing his webblog, Informed Comment.

10. Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll, Iraq and the economy were virtually tied among voters nationally, with nearly a quarter of voters in each case saying it was their number one issue. The economy had become more important to them than in previous months (in November only 14% said it was their most pressing concern), but Iraq still rivals it as an issue!

9. Myth: There have been steps toward religious and political reconciliation in Iraq in 2007. Fact: The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has for the moment lost the support of the Sunni Arabs in parliament. The Sunnis in his cabinet have resigned. Even some Shiite parties have abandoned the government. Sunni Arabs, who are aware that under his government Sunnis have largely been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, see al-Maliki as a sectarian politician uninterested in the welfare of Sunnis.

8. Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Fact: The civil war in Baghdad escalated during the US troop escalation. Between January, 2007, and July, 2007, Baghdad went from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite. UN polling among Iraqi refugees in Syria suggests that 78% are from Baghdad and that nearly a million refugees relocated to Syria from Iraq in 2007 alone. This data suggests that over 700,000 residents of Baghdad have fled this city of 6 million during the US 'surge,' or more than 10 percent of the capital's population. Among the primary effects of the 'surge' has been to turn Baghdad into an overwhelmingly Shiite city and to displace hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the capital.

7. Myth: Iran was supplying explosively formed projectiles (a deadly form of roadside bomb) to Salafi Jihadi (radical Sunni) guerrilla groups in Iraq. Fact: Iran has not been proved to have sent weapons to any Iraqi guerrillas at all. It certainly would not send weapons to those who have a raging hostility toward Shiites. (Iran may have supplied war materiel to its client, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (ISCI), which was then sold off from warehouses because of graft, going on the arms market and being bought by guerrillas and militiamen.

6. Myth: The US overthrow of the Baath regime and military occupation of Iraq has helped liberate Iraqi women. Fact: Iraqi women have suffered significant reversals of status, ability to circulate freely, and economic situation under the Bush administration.

5. Myth: Some progress has been made by the Iraqi government in meeting the "benchmarks" worked out with the Bush administration. Fact: in the words of Democratic Senator Carl Levin, "Those legislative benchmarks include approving a hydrocarbon law, approving a debaathification law, completing the work of a constitutional review committee, and holding provincial elections. Those commitments, made 1 1/2 years ago, which were to have been completed by January of 2007, have not yet been kept by the Iraqi political leaders despite the breathing space the surge has provided."

4. Myth: The Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils," who are on the US payroll, are reconciling with the Shiite government of PM Nuri al-Maliki even as they take on al-Qaeda remnants. Fact: In interviews with the Western press, Awakening Council tribesmen often speak of attacking the Shiites after they have polished off al-Qaeda. A major pollster working in Iraq observed,

' Most of the recent survey results he has seen about political reconciliation, Warshaw said, are "more about [Iraqis] reconciling with the United States within their own particular territory, like in Anbar. . . . But it doesn't say anything about how Sunni groups feel about Shiite groups in Baghdad." Warshaw added: "In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that come from any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say 'We recognize that we need to share power with the others, that we can't truly dominate.' " ' '

The polling shows that "the Iraqi government has still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of national reconciliation."

3. Myth: The Iraqi north is relatively quiet and a site of economic growth. Fact: The subterranean battle among Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs for control of the oil-rich Kirkuk province makes the Iraqi north a political mine field. Kurdistan now also hosts the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas that sneak over the border and kill Turkish troops. The north is so unstable that the Iraqi north is now undergoing regular bombing raids from Turkey.

2. Myth: Iraq has been "calm" in fall of 2007 and the Iraqi public, despite some grumbling, is not eager for the US to depart. Fact: in the past 6 weeks, there have been an average of 600 attacks a month, or 20 a day, which has held steady since the beginning of November. About 600 civilians are being killed in direct political violence per month, but that number excludes deaths of soldiers and police. Across the board, Iraqis believe that their conflicts are mainly caused by the US military presence and they are eager for it to end.

1. Myth: The reduction in violence in Iraq is mostly because of the escalation in the number of US troops, or "surge."

Fact: Although violence has been reduced in Iraq, much of the reduction did not take place because of US troop activity. Guerrilla attacks in al-Anbar Province were reduced from 400 a week to 100 a week between July, 2006 and July, 2007. But there was no significant US troop escalation in al-Anbar. Likewise, attacks on British troops in Basra have declined precipitously since they were moved out to the airport away from population centers. But this change had nothing to do with US troops.

All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; A14

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the results. At the very least, analysts optimistically concluded, the findings indicate that Iraqis hold some "shared beliefs" that may eventually allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war.

Conducting the focus groups, in 19 separate sessions organized by outside contractors in five cities, is among the ways in which Multi-National Force-Iraq assesses conditions in the country beyond counting insurgent attacks, casualties and weapons caches. The command, led by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, devotes more time and resources than any other government or independent entity to measuring various matters, including electricity, satisfaction with trash collection and what Iraqis think it will take for them to get along.

The results are analyzed and presented to Petraeus as part of the daily Battle Update Assessment or BUA (pronounced boo-ah). Some of the news has been unarguably good, including the sharply reduced number of roadside bombings and attacks on civilians. But bad news is often presented with a bright side, such as the focus-group results and a November poll, which found that 25 percent of Baghdad residents were satisfied with their local government and that 15 percent said they had enough fuel for heating and cooking.

The good news? Those numbers were higher than the figures of the previous month (18 percent and 9 percent, respectively).

And Iraqi complaints about matters other than security are seen as progress. Early this year, Maj. Fred Garcia, an MNF-I analyst, said that "a very large percentage of people would answer questions about security by saying 'I don't know.' Now, we get more griping because people feel freer."

Iraqi political reconciliation, quality-of-life issues and the economy are largely the responsibility of the State Department. But the military, to the occasional consternation of U.S. diplomats who feel vastly outnumbered, has its own "mirror agencies" in many areas. Officers in charge of civil-military operations, said senior Petraeus adviser Army Col. William E. Rapp, "can tell you how many markets are open in Baghdad, how many shops, how many banks are open. . . . We have a lot more people" on the ground.

On Iraqi politics, "we have four to six slides almost every morning on 'Where does the Iraqi government stand on de-Baathification legislation?' All these things are embassy things," Rapp said. But Petraeus is interested in "his 'feel' for a situation, and he gets that from a bunch of different data points," he added.

Even though members of the military "understand the limitations" of polling data, Rapp said, "subjective measures" are an important part of the mix. In July, the military signed a contract with Gallup for four public opinion polls a month in Iraq: three nationwide and one in Baghdad. Lincoln Group, which has conducted surveys for the military since shortly after the invasion, received a year-long contract in January to conduct focus groups.

Outside of the military, some of the most widespread polling in Iraq has been done by D3 Systems, a Virginia-based company that maintains offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. Its most recent publicly released surveys, conducted in September for several news media organizations, showed the same widespread Iraqi belief voiced by the military's focus groups: that a U.S. departure will make things better. A State Department poll in September 2006 reported a similar finding.

Matthew Warshaw, a senior research manager at D3, said that despite security improvements, polling in Iraq remains difficult. "While violence has gone down, one of the ways it has been achieved is by effectively separating people. That means mobility is limited, with roadblocks by the U.S. and Iraqi military or local militias," Warshaw said in an interview.

Most of the recent survey results he has seen about political reconciliation, Warshaw said, are "more about [Iraqis] reconciling with the United States within their own particular territory, like in Anbar. . . . But it doesn't say anything about how Sunni groups feel about Shiite groups in Baghdad."

Warshaw added: "In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that come from any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say 'We recognize that we need to share power with the others, that we can't truly dominate.' "

According to a summary report of the focus-group findings obtained by The Washington Post, Iraqis have a number of "shared beliefs" about the current situation that cut across sectarian lines. Participants, in separate groups of men and women, were interviewed in Ramadi, Najaf, Irbil, Abu Ghraib and in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. The report does not mention how the participants were selected.

Dated December 2007, the report notes that "the Iraqi government has still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of national reconciliation." Asked to describe "the current situation in Iraq to a foreign visitor," some groups focused on positive aspects of the recent security improvements. But "most would describe the negative elements of life in Iraq beginning with the 'U.S. occupation' in March 2003," the report says.

Some participants also blamed Iranian meddling for Iraq's problems. While the United States was said to want to control Iraq's oil, Iran was seen as seeking to extend its political and religious agendas.

Few mentioned Saddam Hussein as a cause of their problems, which the report described as an important finding implying that "the current strife in Iraq seems to have totally eclipsed any agonies or grievances many Iraqis would have incurred from the past regime, which lasted for nearly four decades -- as opposed to the current conflict, which has lasted for five years."

Overall, the report said that "these findings may be expected to conclude that national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible. In reality, this survey provides very strong evidence that the opposite is true." A sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups . . . and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."

Article from the Washington Post

Controlling The Military Lawyers
Originally Published on December 16th 2007

As part of its campaign to rid the military of those decent enough to oppose torture and the abandonment of the Geneva Conventions, the Bush administration has put an aggressive torture advocate in charge of promotions of military Judge Advocate General corps - the 4,000-member uniformed legal force. Charlie Savage has the details. This institutional pressure cannot be over-estimated. If the next president continues Bush's torture program, it runs the risk of becoming entrenched into American military practice - especially as its opponents in the military can be weeded out systematically. Sooner or later, the virus will imprint its own DNA on the American military itself.

Two good articles looking at how the current US administration is politicizing the uniformed armed forces. Both by Scott Horton of Harpers.Org.

Bush Assails the JAG Corps
Originally Published on December 16th 2007

One of the myths of the Bush Administration goes to its relation with the military. The facts are very stark. This Administration consists largely of men and women who evaded military service and who have little respect for those who serve in uniform. They have a passion for heavy-handed use of the military, for foreign escapades which they pursue with little planning and shoddy design, but they are uninterested in taking the advice of the career military about how to pursue these matters. Their mantra is consistent: We know better. But in fact it should be: We know nothing.

The men and women who serve in uniform generally reflect the nation as a whole in most respects, including in political outlook. However, the fact is that the military has always been a bit more conservative than the country as a whole. Its demographic has also been skewered. For the officer corps, the Southeast has consistently been over represented. And for the enlisted ranks, it has in recent years drawn more heavily from exurban and rural areas. This reflects a number of factors—a culture which romanticizes military service, more limited economic opportunities among them—but these groups are disproportionately Republican. And the military has therefore tended to be more Republican in its outlook than the country as a whole. The officers corps fairly dramatically so.

Polling shows these numbers are changing. That’s largely the result of a sense that the military is disrespected by the Bush Republicans, and that its role is abused. Just looking at the headlines over the last week, a fairly typical one, we see that in a number of stories. For instance, polls show that military families have turned against Bush and now have an on-balance negative view of his performance as president. A group of more than thirty generals and admirals,(PDF 864 kb) including many very prominent names, called on Congress to defy a threatened presidential veto and to pass a bill that would state still more explicitly the existing outlawing of the Bush Administration’s torture techniques. Even the Armed Forces Journal, a right-leaning bulwark of military thinking, issued harsh words against Rudolph Giuliani and Attorney General Mukasey over their irresponsible comments on the subject of waterboarding and abusing detainees.

What is the Bush Administration’s response to this? It wants to politicize the military. It seeks to introduce a system in which officers are reviewed on their politics in connection with promotions. We see the trend to politicization in the way the Bushies respond to criticism from retired military already. Any general or admiral who raises a critical voice towards them is instantly labeled as a “Clinton general”—and if he or she makes a critical attitude plain before departing, something far more vicious is likely to happen. I catalogued some of the cases in which generals were viciously assailed for expressing mild criticism of an Administration policy or decision (article below). The truth is that military promotions have long rested on a careful process of peer review, resisting political intervention for all but the highest echelons of generals. This is a system designed to build professionalism and self-confidence and to break away from the American military legacy of the nineteenth century in which officer appointments were the subject of constant political gamesmanship–with disastrous results.

The Bush Administration has picked its laboratory for the politicization of the military. It is the JAG Corps. No doubt the reason for the choice. JAG leaders stood up against the Administration’s torture policies, going to Capitol Hill to oppose them. More recently, senior JAGs have exposed the frauds that are being committed in Guantánamo and elsewhere through a sick perversion of the military justice system. All of this was engineered by loyal Bushies operating mostly out of the Justice Department—which has emerged as the nerve center of the Bush Administration’s efforts to corrupt many aspects of our society, including the criminal justice system.

Continue reading "Bush Assails the JAG Corps" at Harpers.Org...

Sexual Perversion in Rumsfeld's Pentagon
Originally Published on October 9th 2005

This week Capt. James Yee’s book concerning his experiences in Guantánamo will hit America’s bookstores. This morning’s Sunday Times (London) offers a fascinating set of excerpts from Yee’s work. Money quote:

“It was my turn to be humiliated every time I was taken to have a shower. Naked, I had to run my hands through my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon in it. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside. Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera was displaying my naked image as male and female guards watched.

“It didn’t matter that I was an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite US military academy. It didn’t matter that my religious beliefs prohibited me from being fully naked in front of strangers. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been charged with a crime. It didn’t matter that my wife and daughter had no idea where I was. And it certainly didn’t matter that I was a loyal American citizen and, above all, innocent.”

When all the baseless suspicions against Yee were disproved, the Pentagon turned to its favored technique to punish him. He was accused of improper sexual conduct. In American society today, these words generally relate to conduct that is abusive – unauthorized sexual contact. Not in Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon: there they relate to consensual sexual relations between a man and a woman. The consistent factor is that one of the sexual partners has made it on to the Pentagon’s black list for one reason or another.

Continue reading Sexual Perversion in Rumsfeld's Pentagon at Balkanization.