Pro-white Backlash Seen in Jena 6 Case--Howard Witt

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MYCHAL BELL WAS RELEASED FROM JAIL YESTERDAY, BUT CHECK THIS STORY OUT -- FROM THE SEATTLE TIMES VIA CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

"HOUSTON — No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

"First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

"Then the leader of a white-supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

"The Jena 6 case has drawn scrutiny from civil-rights leaders and hundreds of African-American Internet bloggers concerned about allegations that blacks have been treated more harshly than whites in the criminal-justice system of the town of 3,000, which is 85 percent white.

"David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

"'There is a major white-supremacist backlash building," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group in Montgomery, Ala.

"On Thursday a crowd of at least 20,000 peaceful demonstrators from around the country marched through the central Louisiana town to support the six black high-school students who were initially charged by the local prosecutor with attempted murder for attacking Barker last December. The charges were later reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.

"The racial unrest began when three white students hung nooses from a tree at the high school after black students asked permission to sit under it, triggering a series of fights. The whites involved were charged with misdemeanors or not at all while the blacks drew various felony charges.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

Life Behind the Wire--Chris Doyle

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PORTION BELOW; WHOLE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article119

"Imagine if, after an IRA bombing, a British prime minister declared Catholic areas in Northern Ireland to be hostile territory, and threatened to reduce or cut off goods, water, fuel and electricity supplies.

"It sounds implausible but the one and a half million residents of the Gaza Strip, an area the size of the Isle of Wight, may soon face this scenario. The Palestinians of Gaza, already imprisoned, their land, air and sea borders totally closed, are now considered by Israel eligible to have their water, electricity and power cut off. Israeli officials insist that humanitarian considerations will be taken into account, though the Israeli record is not one to reassure Palestinians. These were not a concern when Israel bombed Gaza’s only power plant last summer.

"This Israeli decision comes after more Qassam rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel at local communities such as Sderot and a military barracks, where 69 Israeli soldiers were wounded. Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, but are its responses legitimate, commensurate to the threat or even effective?

"This is an expansion of an existing sanctions regime. One of the Israeli Prime Minister’s advisers, Dov Weissglass, chillingly described the Israeli policy a year ago: "It’s like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die."

"It was no joke. Since Weissglass’s comments after the Hamas election victory in 2006, Gazans have indeed learnt how to diet. The World Food Programme lists it as a global hunger hotspot. Out of its 1.5 million residents, 1.1 million have to survive on food handouts. The Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, describes Gazans as being imprisoned in "an enclosed space like battery hens".

"The "moderate" Israeli vice-premier, Haim Ramon has pushed for this, describing it as cutting off the "infrastructural oxygen". Imagine a Palestinian mother having to tell her children that there is no electricity because you are not allowed any infrastructural oxygen.

AND THIS FROM ANOTHER ARTICLE:

"The Israeli army arrested hundreds of under-age detainees since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada which erupted late September 2000.

"They, along with the vast majority of the detainees, were tortured during interrogation and were confined to solitary for extended periods as a sort of psychological pressure.

WHOLE ARTICLE HERE: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=36733&s2=28

Social Security--The Big Lies

Tweet MEDIA BLOWHARD Tim Russert once again hyped a rightwing Social Security
scare figure during the NH Democratic presidential debate and the
candidates, predictably, were unable to straighten him out.

Russert uses the threat that the number of citizens on Social Security
is going to double, often without saying when. According to the Census
it will be sometime between 2030 and 2035.

But here is what Russert and others don't talk about: From a budget
point of view, what matters is not just senior citizens but the
dependent population, including children.

While it's true that the total dependent population will increase from
around 32% to 40% by 2030, consider this: during the Kennedy years it
was 45% and there was none of this panic around.

Here are the figures:

1960
Children: 36%
Seniors: 9%
Total dependent population: 45%

2005
Children: 18%
Seniors: 14%
Total dependant population: 32%

2030
Children: 17%
Seniors: 23%
Total dependent population: 40%

Now here are several other things to keep in mind:

1. The projection aren't that hot.

The official project of when the Social Security trust fund will run out
of money has increased 12 years in the 11 years since 1996. At this
rate, we'll never run out of money.

2. The Social Security trustees make three long-term estimates. The one
that politicians and the media invariably use is one that assumes
economic growth so low that you certainly wouldn't want your Social
Security invested in the stock market because it wouldn't be going
anywhere.

3. The trust fund is an artificial accounting creation. If it runs out,
then Social Security can be funded from other sources including the
incredibly bloated military budget. To understand this game, imagine the
defense budget came out of a trust fund. Would we stop defending
ourselves when this fund was drained thanks to typical defense cost
overruns?

Not reported in the MSM: What Ahmadinejad Did on Monday Afternoon

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President Ahmadinejad meets Jewish rabbis in New York

FOR MORE ON THEIR VISIT, go here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1910146

Found on WhatReallyHappened.com

Angry Arab: Email on Israeli Soldiers & Psychology of Occupation

Tweet I received this email: "I've gone through the trouble of translating / abbreviating an article by Dalia Karpel titled HAMEDOVEVET [=the one who people someone to talk]. The article appeared on the Hebrew Weekend Supplement, on 21 September, 2007. The article is based on academic research which Nofer Ishai-Karen and Psychology Prof. Joel Elitzur, of the Hebrew University published in ALPAYIM Magazine Vol. 31. The article was not translated to English and thus did NOT appear in Haaretz English Language edition. I will appreciate it if you could publish it, as well as EMAIL it to JOURNALISTS and others who may be interested! A NEW ISRAELI STUDY CONFIRMS OUR WORST FEARS. On the academic research which Psychologist Nofer Ishai-Karen and Psychology Prof. Joel Elizur, of the Hebrew University published last Friday, only in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz. We thought you should know! "We - Israeli Soldiers - were put there to punish the Palestinians", says Ilan Vilenda, an Israeli soldier who served in Rafah during the first Intifada. Ilan is the only soldier of 21 who agreed to have his name published, after he was interviewed by psychologist Nofer Ishai-Karen. The soldiers spoke freely to Nofer, who served with them in the same ASHBAL platoon 20 years ago; They disclosing their innermost emotions about the horrendous crimes, in which they took part: Murder, breaking bones of Palestinian children, actions of humiliation, destruction of property, robbery and theft. Soldier "A" testimony: "We decided to turn an old shower in our base to a make-shift detention cell. A Palestinian was brought there, handcuffed and mouth banded so he couldn't talk, or move. We "forgot him there for three days"... Soldier "B" testimony: "I was on my first patrol. Others simply shot like mad. I started to shoot as they did. They 'set my on'. I took my weapon and shot. Nobody was there to tell me otherwise" -- Psychologist Ishai-Karen was shocked to find that the soldiers enjoyed the 'intoxication of power', and had pleasure from using violence. She said: "Most of my interviewees enjoyed their own instigated violence during their Occupation service''. Soldier "C" testimony: "The truth is that I love this mess - I enjoy it. It is like being on drugs. If I didn't enter Rafah, to put down some rebellion -at least once a week- I'd go berserk. Soldier "D" testimony: What is great is that you don't have to follow any law or rule. You feel that YOU ARE THE LAW; you decide. Once you go into the Occupied Territories YOU ARE GOD"." (thanks Asa)

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

Which Side Are They On? Guess.

Tweet Louis Proyect's blog has the above picture and a column on Columbia
University's penchant for honoring the wrong people, here: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/columbia-university-and-evil-dictators/

What Would William Appleman Williams Say Now?--Thomas McCormick

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Article supposing what the influential social critic William Appleman Williams would say about current U.S. policy. The author sums it up in several points. Two of them are below. The whole article can be found here: http://hnn.us/articles/42971.html

"Fourth, Williams would have stressed the centrality of oil in current foreign policy. He would not do so in a single-cause way; contrary to his critics, Williams was never a narrow economic determinist. But he still would have seen the oil issue as crucial—partly because of the economic value of the oil itself, but more largely because of the geopolitical clout over others made possible by control of oil. The struggle for oil is, of course, one that is a century old. But that struggle has, for several reasons, reached a new and critical phase.

"Few new major fields have been discovered since the early 1970s, and predictions are that oil production will peak in the next five to ten years and decline sharply thereafter. More to the point, oil companies believe those dire predictions and have commenced a renewed search for new reserves. But Big Oil, however, has not been a prime mover pressuring the American State to aggressively act in its behalf. The giant multinationals, by and large, are fairly content with their relationship to the Saudis and to OPEC and anxious that war not upset the stability of their arrangements. The push really comes from the independent oil companies like Occidental, Unocal, Murphy and Kerr-McGee and from the Texas-based oil service companies tied to them, like Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Bechtel. As their U.S. holdings decline, they have looked elsewhere and sought to influence U.S. foreign policy in ways not seen since the Eisenhower days and the oil depletion allowance. And they have found ready ears in this administration and its aggressive policies in Iraq, Iran and Central Asia.

I ALSO FOUND POINT NO. 2 VERY INTERESTING:

"Second, Williams would contend that in the conflict between those two versions of exceptionalism, the pro-active, aggressive variant has almost always won out. Over time, as he famously put it in the title of one of his books, empire became a “way of life” for American society. For starters, it provided the economic surplus necessary to maintain a high standard of living, even if that surplus was more unevenly distributed than in any other industrial society. Moreover, it provided a kind of psychic substitute for the lack of real community in a society whose only common identity was consumption. Empire offered the public the double thrill of physically dominating others while purporting to uplift and civilize them. And war, that frequent companion of empire, gave American society a chance to express and vent its own internal angst and anger against external, distant enemies. Bread and circuses!

Found on Marxmail list.

Iraq Reconstruction: Blast Walls

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Found on Antiwar.com

Zoltan Grossman: An Endless Occupation?

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Zoltan Grossman is a professor at Evergreen State College near Olympia. He was a driving force for the citizens hearing on the Iraq war held in Tacoma around the Watada case. Portion of his article from Counterpunch is below; whole article is here: http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman09192007.html

"Most Iraqis have wanted U.S. troops to leave (and do not view neighboring countries as a threat), whereas many South Koreans at least initially backed a U.S. military presence as "protection" from North Korean attack. If South Korea is Bush's model for Iraq, then North Korea is clearly his model for Iran. Yet the Iraqi leaders he claims want "enduring" U.S. bases are predominantly Shi'as who actually want good relations with Iran. Bush intends to oust-constitutionally or otherwise--the elected Shi'a government that he once called a miracle of democracy, and now sees as too close to Iran. As the only remaining large countries in the region that do not yet host U.S. military bases, Iran and Syria are the last obstacles to a contiguous American sphere of influence (stretching from Poland to Pakistan) situated between the emerging economic competitors of the EU and China. The "Korea Model" would make it easier to target Iran as a perpetual enemy state.

"But rather than following a "Korea Model" in Iraq, the U.S. actually appears to be following a "Palestine Model." Just as the Israeli state uses multiple military posts, checkpoints, and imprisonment to intimidate and control an independence-minded population, U.S. forces are carrying out the same tactics in Iraq--with an identical rationale of fighting Islamic "terrorists." In the name of separating hostile populations, the U.S. occupiers have gone to the point of constructing an Israeli-style separation wall between Sunni and Shi'a neighborhoods in Baghdad. Much as armed settler militias carry out the Israeli military's dirty work on the West Bank, the American forces in Iraq hire private security contractors such as Blackwater, which are now being exposed as mercenary goons who endanger democracy in Iraq and at home.

"Because Bush cannot admit to either Arab states or the American public that the decades-long Israeli occupation is the closest parallel with his long-term plans for Iraq, he has to tout the ridiculous "Korea Model." His calculation is that Congress will accept the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraqi cities, not through a withdrawal out of country, but through a "redeployment" into the heavily fortified imperial garrisons. These bases include Green Zone, Baghdad Airport, Balad (central), Al Asad (west), Tallil (south), Bashur (north), and about ten other major installations covering the Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish regions. In fact, an "enduring" occupation run from these large bases has been the central plan since Day One of the Iraq War.

Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By?

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Paul Craig Roberts on Counterpunch. Especially, read the tale at the end of the portion below; whole story here: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09192007.html Linda

"Usually when police violate constitutional rights and commit acts of police brutality they do it when they believe no one is watching, not in front of a large audience. Clearly, the police have become more audacious in their abuse of rights and citizens. What explains the new fearlessness of police to violate rights and brutalize citizens without cause?

"The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected. President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights. Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress. Just as Kerry allowed Meyer’s rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence.

"How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered? [TOO LONG, I'M AFRAID--LINDA]

"The Bush Republicans with complicit Democrats have essentially brought government accountability to an end in the US. The US government has 80,000 people, including ordinary American citizens, on its “no-fly list.” No one knows why they are on the list, and no one on the list can find out how to get off it. An unaccountable act by the Bush administration put them there.

"Airport Security harasses and abuses people who do not fit any known definition of terrorist. Nalini Ghuman, a British-born citizen and music professor at Mills College in California was met on her return from a trip to England by armed guards at the airplane door and escorted away. A Gestapo goon squad tore up her US visa, defaced her British passport, body searched her, and told her she could leave immediately for England or be sent to a detention center.

"Professor Ghuman, an Oxford University graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, says she feels like the character in Kafka’s book, The Trial. “I don’t know why it’s happened, what I’m accused of. There’s no opportunity to defend myself. One is just completely powerless.” Over one year later there is still no answer.

Pentagon's Casualty Report--Surge Still Killing

Tweet From a Pentagon Report cited on Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment.

Onward Christian Soldiers (ONLY!)--Atheist Soldiers Not Welcome

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"The Army generals who appeared in the video appeared to be speaking on
behalf of the military, but they did not obtain prior permission to
appear in the video. They defended their actions, according to the
inspector general's report, saying the "Christian Embassy had become a 'quasi-Federal entity,' since the DOD had endorsed the organization to General Officers for over 25 years."

Portion of article below; whole thing here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807R.shtml

"A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court
Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a
US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit
charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by
allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical
Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.

The complaint, filed in US District Court in Kansas City, by the
nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of
Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist currently on active duty in Speicher,
Iraq, alleges that Hall's First Amendment rights were violated
beginning last Thanksgiving when, because of his atheist beliefs, he
declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating
the holiday.

"Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join
hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military
personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff
why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he
is an atheist," says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to
Truthout. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and
plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in
God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he
would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless,
plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."

Moreover, the complaint alleges that on August 7, when Hall received
permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers
who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Paul
Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against
the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to block Hall's
reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a
violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the Constitution.
Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

"During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted the
attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff Hall's
and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their interests,"
the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas,
has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to
his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a violation of
Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

Look What I Soar--This Give Anyone Else a Funny Feeling?

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Stocks soar after half-point rate cut

from Seattle PI here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1320AP_Wall_Street.html?source=mypi

U.S. home foreclosures soar in August

from Seattle PI here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310AP_Foreclosure_Rates.html?source=mypi

Chris Hedges on Bill Clinton's Book about Nice Rich Folks

Tweet Democrat traitors always seem more so because of the promulgation of the myth of them being the "working man's party." Linda Portion below--whole article here: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070917_giving_and_taking/

"Bill Clinton has written a new book. It is called “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.” He will give a portion of the proceeds to charity. Giving, the former president informs us, gives us fulfilment in life and is “the fabric of our shared humanity.”

"His book is the political equivalent of “Marley & Me” It is filled with a lot of vapid, feel-good stories about ordinary and wealthy Americans setting out to make the world a better place. It smacks of the philanthropy-as-publicity that characterized the largesse of the robber barons—the Mellons and the Rockefellers—and has become a pastime for our own oligarchic elite. Clinton’s call for charity is the equivalent of well-scrubbed prep school students spending a day in a soup kitchen, doling out food to the people whose jobs were outsourced by their mommies and daddies. It does little to alleviate suffering. But it is a balm to the conscience of the oligarchic class that profits handsomely from the impoverishment of the working class, globalization and our anti-democratic corporate state. The rich love to dine out on their own goodness.

"The misery sweeping across the American landscape may have begun with Ronald Reagan, but it was accelerated and codified by Bill Clinton. He sold out the poor and the working class. And Clinton did it deliberately to feed the pathological hunger he and his wife have for political power. It was the Clintons who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough. The Clintons argued that the party had to ditch labor unions, no longer a source of votes or power, as a political ally. Workers would vote Democratic anyway. They had no choice. It was better, the Clintons argued, to take corporate money and use government to service the needs of the corporations. By the 1990s, the Democratic Party, under Clinton’s leadership, had virtual fund-raising parity with the Republicans. In political terms, it was a success. In moral terms, it was a betrayal.

The Newest NGO: The Rumsfeld Foundation for Public Service

Tweet "Word that Rumsfeld is developing a fellowship program surfaced in news reports several months ago. But in the interview -- his first detailed discussion of the foundation -- Rumsfeld described a broader mission, saying the foundation will also help finance loans to "micro-enterprises" in developing countries and try to generate support for Central Asian republics. Additionally, it will fund lectures on various topics."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601564_pf.html

Found on WhateverItIsI'mAgainstIt

Gates Rejects Greenspan Claim War is About Oil

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"I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil," added [Alan] Greenspan, who for decades had been one of the most respected US voices on fiscal policies.

Whatever turf battle the above statement represents, it is interesting--of course, Greenie could have said this a long time ago! Has anyone seen this in U.S. media? Linda

Portion of article below; whole thing here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4204720a12.html

"With Democratic lawmakers apparently short of the votes needed to force President George W Bush to change course, Gates defended the war, now in its fifth year, and said it's being driven by the need to stabilize the Gulf and put down hostile forces.

"Gates's defense came a day after thousands of anti-war protesters marched in Washington.

"A spokeswoman for one of the groups who organised the march said more than 200 protesters were taken into custody, including at least 10 Iraq war veterans, when they attempted to cross a police barrier near the US Capitol.

"Greenspan, in his new book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," echoed long-held complaints of many critics that a key motivating force in the war is to maintain US access to the rich oil supplies in Iraq.

"'Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbours a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy," Greenspan wrote.

"'I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil," added Greenspan, who for decades had been one of the most respected US voices on fiscal policies.

Iraq: Corporate Pigs Enhance Their Feasting--Felicity Arbuthnot, UN Observer

Tweet Portion of article below; whole found on Uruknet.info here:
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=36276&s2=15

2007-09-14 | "We live under a system by which the many are exploited by the few - and war is the ultimate sanction of that exploitation." Harold Laski, 1945.

At the end of August, in Dubai and the beginning of September, in London, conferences were held in order to privatise and carve up contracts for every essential service and infrastructure in Iraq. There was not a mega-corporate pig anywhere on earth, seemingly, who did not have its trotters in the trough. As Iraqis flee in an exodus of biblical proportions and die in a genocidal one, US/UK government backed corporate priority is a smash and grab raid of every asset and facility in the "land between two rivers."

Meetings were organised by the Iraq Development Programme, under the auspices of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce ("Arab" clearly secondary, as since Arabic is written from right to left, Britain comes first and the Arabic version, last) ninety five percent of "tendered" ("assumed" seems more apt) contracts are US giants. The UK was thrown minimal bones, with Egypt, Netherlands and Spain getting one each, according the IDP website ( http://www.iraqdevelopmentprogramme.org ) The "best-in-breed" technology is to the brought to Iraq, as it is milked dry.

Trough facilitators include: the misnamed United States Aid and International Development (USAID) U.S. Embassy Iraq, Department of Defence Army Corps of Engineers, (U.S.) Defence Procurement and Acquisition Police, U.S. Government Iraq Infrastructure and Reconstruction Programme (NB: http://www.bechtel.com/iraq ) the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, U.S. Government Iraq Reconstruction Projects - and on and on. To mix metaphors, potential cash cows don't come bigger than this.

The carpet baggers had a little bit of help from their quisling friends in their illegitimate and illegal carve up. Dr Adel Abdul Mehdi, Iraq's "Vice President," said: "Iraq's new investment law will facilitate investment for both Iraqi and non-Iraqi businesses by providing a secure investment environment." Referring to Iraq's resources, he said the conference presented opportunities across a wide range of industries: oil, gas, agriculture, infrastructure.

Indeed. Up for grabs are: hospital and security equipment, medicines, road and rail machinery, oil production tools, finance and telecommunication systems. Rebuilding of roads, rail, hospitals, government buildings, schools, water purification plants and electricity, information technology, telecommunications, all to move from state owned to the "free market economy."

If Iraqis are down to near no electricity now, due to the liberators' inability to provide what Saddam Hussein's government did within just months after the 1991 decimation, they won't be able to afford it in the future anyway. "Yes we have plans for fully privatising," Iraq's electricity "Minister" Karem Waheed Hassan, told UPI.

Why The Surge Has Caused the Purge (Iraqis Fleeing for Their Lives & Dignity)

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Surging...in people's houses in Iraq. (NYT)

Can you please walk a mile--just make it 10 steps--in their shoes???

Found on Angry Arab Newservice

Democrats Push Toward Middle--Washington Post

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"But moderate Democrats are feeling emboldened, after nearly nine months of taking their marching orders from the more liberal wing of the party.

So it's just as I thought--the mess we have now is a result of "marching orders" from liberal dems. I'm taking my "marching orders" from Cindy Sheehan, my kind of Congressional candidate.

Portion of article below--whole thing here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202542_pf.html

Found on Antiwar.com

"Democratic House leaders will watch the fate of each of those measures intently. But they also must watch a brewing revolt by their most ardent opponents of the Iraq war, who have vowed to fight any measure they do not believe will bring the war to a quicker end.

"'Doing it step by step is one thing, but when you have such a short time to do it, you only have time for a few steps," said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (N.Y.). "You have to take big ones, not little ones."

"MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group that has spent months pressuring Republicans to turn against the war, is now threatening to turn on Democrats who temper their positions.

"But moderate Democrats are feeling emboldened, after nearly nine months of taking their marching orders from the more liberal wing of the party. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii), who is pushing a more bipartisan approach, said the antiwar wing has badly overplayed its hand. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), an uncompromising antiwar lawmaker, infuriated colleagues when she encouraged antiwar activists to mount primary challenges against Democrats deemed insufficiently bold.

"MoveOn.org provided Republicans a life raft when it ran a full-page newspaper advertisement Monday taunting Petraeus as "General Betray Us." Ever since, Republicans have spent far more time condemning the ad than defending the war.

"Tanner said he is ready for a fight as he pushes a bipartisan bill that would give the White House 60 days to present Congress with a withdrawal plan. Antiwar activists say the bill will succeed only in giving Republican moderates political cover, easing the pressure on them to embrace stronger measures.

"'When these soldiers, sailors and airmen are buried, they're not buried as Republicans or Democrats," Tanner said. "I care a hell of a lot more about them than I do about partisan politics."

Angry Arab: Picture This--Non-Sectarian Iraqis

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Iraqis protesting the sectarian separation barrier in Baghdad. (The sign says: "The Separation Barrier is American Terrorism"). (Reuters).

Found on Angry Arab Newservice

UPDATE: News story on the above. Link to whole story here: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=36188&s2=13

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis marched on Wednesday in protest at the building by US troops of a tall concrete wall separating their northwest Baghdad neighbourhoods, an AFP photographer said.

The protesters complained that the wall would promote sectarianism and demanded its removal.

Residents said that US forces last week began building the two-kilometre (1.25 mile) wall along the border of the mainly Shiite al-Shuala and adjoining Sunni-majority al-Ghazaliyah neighbourhoods without consulting them.

The demonstrators -- tribal leaders, clerics and local residents -- marched from one neighbourhood to the other carrying banners reading "No to the dividing wall" and "The wall is US terrorism."

The protesters demanded in a statement that the government intervene to halt the wall and ensure that the section already completed is demolished.