What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?

-Kurt Vonnegut

From US News & World Report:

Iranians Had Showdown With U.S. Forces

According to a U.S. Army report out of Iraq obtained by U.S. News, American troops, acting as advisers for Iraqi border guards, were recently surrounded and attacked by a larger unit of Iranian soldiers, well within the border of Iraq.

The report highlights the details: A platoon of Iranian soldiers on the Iraqi side of the border fired rocket-propelled grenades and used small arms against a joint patrol of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers east of Balad Ruz. Four Iraqi Army soldiers, one interpreter, and one Iraqi border policeman remain unaccounted for after the September incident in eastern Diyala, 75 miles east of Baghdad.

What is interesting is that the news story says the incident occurred "well within the border of Iraq", yet looking at the Army report this is not at all clear. The report says it happened "near the Iran/Iraq border." To the question "Was it on the Iraq or Iranian side of the border?" the report says only that "The exact location is part of the ongoing investigation into this incident."

Government Privatizing National Security

Due to its increasing practice of contracting out to private firms and agencies, the U.S. government is quickly losing its expertise and competence in vital national security and defense programs, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The number of private federal contractors has now risen to 7.5 million, which is four times greater than the federal workforce itself, the report indicates. Such a trend is leading the government to what Wysocki calls the "outsourcing [of] its brain."

Mysterious hexagon spotted above Saturn

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

Read the whole article. The Bush administration is probably the greatest threat to American democracy in our history.

Calling All Wingnuts takes on the global warming deniers, specifically Myron Ebell of the Competetive Enterprise Institute.

“Mr. Ebell, I’m sorry, but I feel like I walked in on you in bed with my wife and you just spent the last two hours asking me if I was going to believe me or my lying eyes.” The crowd (and remember, this was a Federalist Society event) chortled.

“I mean, heat waves killed hundreds or thousands in Europe and Chicago. Coral reefs are dying off. Bark beetles are devastating forests they’ve never been found in before because the temperatures were to cold to sustain them. I don’t have to go through it all, you’ve heard it all before… data point after data point after data point says global warming is a problem.”

“Further, Exxon-Mobil recently admitted to spending $16 million dollars to cloud the science - to propagandize against global warming. And your firm, the supposedly non-partisan Competitive Enterprise Institute was one of the greatest recipients.”

Gen. Barry McCaffrey:

"No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO [nongovernmental organization], nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi, without heavily armed protection."

LONDON: British government officials backed the methodology used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.

"If Bush attacked Iran tomorrow, the great majority of Americans would think he was nuts,'' Patrick Clawson, deputy director for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said last week at a conference in Washington on America's options with Iran.

Wingnuttia

Republican support is contracting to a base of about 25 per cent of the population whose views are getting more extreme, not merely because moderate conservatives are peeling off to become Independents, but also because of the party’s success in constructing a parallel universe of news sources, thinktanks, blogs, pseudo-scientists and so on, which has led to the core becoming more tightly committed to an extremist ideology.

April 6 Sneak Attack By US Forces On Iran Planned - Russian Military Sources Warn

WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.

The Secret White House Communication System

GWB43 is the name of an internet server owned by the Republican National Committee.

The White House has its own internal email system, ending in the .gov suffix, as mandated by the Presidential Records Act. The law requires that public business be conducted on a public server.

Yet documents made public in the course of the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal reveal that key Administration figures used such email addresses ending with "gwb43.com."

This story by Joseph Cannon deserves the widest possible circulation. Patrick Fitzgerald needs to see it.

This is from World Net Daily! The conservative are turning on Gonzales.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's minor boy inmates.

Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.

Sex with young boys! I knew the Gonzales case was lacking something.

Most of the names in Howard Hunt's confession to his son (yesterdays post) are long time suspects. David Atlee Phillips was the subject of the very first post of this blog. Cord Meyer's role is news. Meyer was a senior CIA official. His ex-wife Mary was a free spirit who knew Timothy Leary and had an affair with John Kennedy.

The day after Kennedy's assasination, according to Timothy Leary in his book Flashbacks, Mary phoned him and said: "They couldn't control him any more. He was changing too fast. He was learning too much... They'll cover everything up. I gotta come see you. I'm scared. I'm afraid." Mary Pinchot Meyer was murdered on October 12, 1964, apparently a professional hit.

Author C. David Heymann in his book The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club wrote:

Asked to comment on the case, by the current author (C. David Heymann), Cord Meyer held court at the beginning of February 2001 - six weeks before his death - in the barren dining room of a Washington nursing home. Propped up in a chair, his glass eye bulging, he struggled to hold his head aloft. Although he was no longer able to read, the nurses supplied him with a daily copy of The Washington Post, which he carried with him wherever he went. "My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed , " he whispered. "It was a bad time." And what could he say about Mary Meyer? Who had committed such a heinous crime? "The same sons of bitches," he hissed, "that killed John F. Kennedy."

Rolling Stone: The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt

St. John still has the memo -- "It has all this stuff in it," he says, "the chain of command, names, people, places, dates. He wrote it out to me directly, in his own handwriting, starting with the initials 'LBJ' " -- and he's decided it's time his father's last secrets finally see some light, for better or for worse.

E. Howard scribbled the initials "LBJ," standing for Kennedy's ambitious vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Under "LBJ," connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that's never been solved. Next his father connected to Meyer's name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer's name was the name David Morales, yet another CIA man and a well-known, particularly vicious black-op specialist. And then his father connected to Morales' name, with a line, the framed words "French Gunman Grassy Knoll."

Later that week, E. Howard also gave Saint two sheets of paper that contained a fuller narrative. It starts out with LBJ again, connecting him to Cord Meyer, then goes on: "Cord Meyer discusses a plot with [David Atlee] Phillips who brings in Wm. Harvey and Antonio Veciana. He meets with Oswald in Mexico City. . . . Then Veciana meets w/ Frank Sturgis in Miami and enlists David Morales in anticipation of killing JFK there. But LBJ changes itinerary to Dallas, citing personal reasons."

David Atlee Phillips, the CIA's Cuban operations chief in Miami at the time of JFK's death, knew E. Howard from the Guatemala-coup days. Veciana is a member of the Cuban exile community. Sturgis, like Saint's father, is supposed to have been one of the three tramps photographed in Dealey Plaza. Sturgis was also one of the Watergate plotters, and he is a man whom E. Howard, under oath, has repeatedly sworn to have not met until Watergate, so to Saint the mention of his name was big news.

In the next few paragraphs, E. Howard goes on to describe the extent of his own involvement. It revolves around a meeting he claims he attended, in 1963, with Morales and Sturgis. It takes place in a Miami hotel room. Here's what happens:

Morales leaves the room, at which point Sturgis makes reference to a "Big Event" and asks E. Howard, "Are you with us?"

E. Howard asks Sturgis what he's talking about.

Sturgis says, "Killing JFK."

E. Howard, "incredulous," says to Sturgis, "You seem to have everything you need. Why do you need me?" In the handwritten narrative, Sturgis' response is unclear, though what E. Howard says to Sturgis next isn't: He says he won't "get involved in anything involving Bill Harvey, who is an alcoholic psycho."

After that, the meeting ends. E. Howard goes back to his "normal" life and "like the rest of the country . . . is stunned by JFK's death and realizes how lucky he is not to have had a direct role."

Even if it is true that Howard Hunt declined to take part in the conspiracy, and I am doubtful, he still knew that it was going to take place, and he knew who did it.

They are going to attack the credibility of his son, which will not be difficult to do as he has a past history of drug abuse, but this seems very plausible to me.

The Bush administration's firing of the eight US Attorneys may or may not be illegal but they are sure as hell hiding something. It is apparently routine to replace all the US Attorneys when a new administration takes over, and replace them with people of your own political persuasion, but it looks like these eight were not partisan enough. There has got to be a point at which politicizing the Justice Department, and interfering with the activities of US Attorneys, would be illegal but it remains to be seen if the Bush administration passed that point. But they are hiding something.

This story might provide a clue:

Several former voting rights lawyers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of antagonizing the administration, said the division's political appointees reversed the recommendations of career lawyers in key cases and transferred or drove out most of the unit's veteran attorneys.

LA Times story: Two of E. Howard Hunt's sons say he knew of rogue CIA agents' plan to kill President Kennedy in 1963.

"He told me in no uncertain terms about a plot originating in Miami, to take place in Miami," said St. John. He said his father identified key players and speculated that then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for moving the venue to Dallas, where the Texan could control the security scene.

But the memoir's published passages about the assassination have an equivocal tone. Hunt provides only a hypothetical scenario of how events in Dallas might have unfolded, with Johnson atop a pyramid of rogue CIA plotters.

The brothers insist their father related to them a detailed plot to assassinate Kennedy. Hunt told them he was approached by the conspirators to join them but declined, they say.

St. John, who sports a mustache and longish graying coif combed back from a receding hairline, has a more personal reason to believe in his father's disclosures. He said he was instructed by Hunt in 1974 to back up an alibi for his whereabouts on the day Kennedy died, 11 years earlier."

I did a lot of lying for my father in those days," St. John said.

Charles Harrelson dead

Charles Voyde Harrelson - the killer-for-hire who prompted the biggest FBI investigation ever to probe El Paso by assassinating a federal judge - died last week at a federal prison in Colorado, the San Antonio Express-News reported this morning.

Harrelson, 69, who was the father of actor Woody Harrelson, apparently died of a heart attack in his sleep on March 14 in a maximum security facility, according to the Express-News story.

When he was arrested Harrelson confessed to the murder of Judge John Woods and President John Kennedy but later retracted the second claim. According to this site:

A reporter for the Dallas morning news by the name of Chuck Cook interviewed Harrelson on the judge Wood case and subsequently asked him about his claims of murdering the President, Cook said that Harrelson ‘got this sly little grin on his face, Harrelson is very intelligent and has a way of not answering when it suits him’(6). At a later interview Cook brought the subject up again and at that point Harrelson became very serious, Cook quoted Harrelson as saying "Listen, if and when I get out of here (prison) and feel free to talk, I will have something that will be the biggest story you ever had" and added "November 22, 1963. You remember that!".

Was the Osama bin Laden confession mistranslated?

On 20 December 2001, German TV channel “Das Erste” broadcast its analysis of the White House’s translation of the OBL video that George Bush has called a “confession of guilt”. On the show “Monitor”, two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House’s translation not only to be inaccurate, but “manipulative”.

Patrick Buchanan calls Nancy Pelosi AIPAC's Girl

If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.

For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.

From www.crooksandliars.com

UFO Shot Down in Iran

A bright object was sighted in the sky of Arak, Iran’s Central Province, Friday night, and was shot down by the Iranian anti-aircraft missiles, BAZTAB reported.

The Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) was completely destroyed by the country’s new air defense system, the report said. BAZTAB has learned that the bright object might have been a pilotless drone.

Few months ago, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed reports that its drones were conducting reconnaissance flights over the Iranian sky.

Some sources, however, claimed that the operation could have been part of an exercise to test the combat alertness and power of Iran’s air defense system. BAZTAB – March 17, 2007

FBI File links Robert Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe's Death

BOBBY KENNEDY'S affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of - and perhaps even a participant in - a plan "to induce" her suicide.

The detailed three-page report implicates the Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, Monroe's psychiatrist, staff and her publicist in the plot.

How Bobby betrayed Marilyn

While studying these unclassified files for a film, I came across one explosive document, to my knowledge never previously noted in media accounts, that gives life to decades of conspiracy theory. This extraordinary document is dated as having been received by the FBI on October 19, 1964, is designated "Enclosure 61-9454-28", and is titled "Robert F. Kennedy". This is 16 days before the 1964 presidential election and 11 months after the assassination of President Kennedy. It was circulated to five top FBI officers, including Hoover's right-hand man, Clyde Tolson.

It was forwarded by a "former Special Agent" working in the governor of California's office.The agent, whose name is deleted, advises that he does not know the source and cannot evaluate the authenticity of the information. The report outlines a conspiracy involving Robert Kennedy, the actor Peter Lawford and others to induce Monroe to "suicide".

Note that this is clearly unauthenticated information. The FBI files also contain information about an alleged lesbian affair and a sex tape depicting Marilyn involved in "unnatural acts with an unknown male."

Read the FBI Files The document described in the story begins on page 18.

The Sibel Edmonds Case Again

Sibel Edmonds' case is about the intersection of illegal arms trafficking, heroin trafficking, money laundering, terrorist activities and the corruption of many "highly-recognizable, highly-known names" in and around the US government. Sibel says that the people involved will go straight to prison if we can get hearings into her case. Richard Perle, in prison. Douglas Feith, in prison. Dennis Hastert, in prison. Marc Grossman, in prison.

According to Sibel, the best place to begin trying to understand the case is a recent article by Phil Giraldi in the American Conservative. Sibel says"Giraldi has it 100% right; this I consider the most accurate summary of my case."

This is a story that has almost entirely been ignored by the mainstream media. The media has the ocassional piece on the opium farmers in Afghanistan, and Taliban involvement in the heroin trade. They run stories about the impact of drugs on people in this country. But in between Afghanistan and the United States there is a black tunnel.

The heroin trade could not exist and prosper without high-level corruption in Pakistan, in Turkey, and in the United States. We need Congressional hearings into the case of Sibel Edmonds. We need to push for a special prosecutor to examine the connections between the illegal arms trade, the drug trade, illegal money laundering, and corruption in Washington.

Sibel Edmonds has said that all these areas lead to the same network of people. It has been reported that Al Qaeda is involved in the drug trade. Are these people doing business with the enemy--and, if so, how far back does it go? This is only speculation but does this lead back to 911?

Valerie Plame Testifies Before Congress

I'm grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight. I served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

I worked on behalf of the national security of our country, on behalf of the people of the United States until my name and true affiliation were exposed in the national media on July 14, 2003, after a leak by administration officials.

Today, I can tell this committee even more. In the run-up to the war with Iraq I worked in the counter proliferation division of the CIA -- still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified.

I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policymakers on Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction programs.

While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.

Valerie: thank you for your service to this country. Dick and Karl: I hope that you are thankful that you are not going to prison.

Update: One of the main wingnut talking points (also known as "lies") on the Plame affair is that she was not covert, and therefore there was no "underlying crime". I know that a few wingnuts read this blog and so I would refer them to the following article:

CIA Director Hayden: ‘Wilson Was Covert’

During House hearings today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) announced that CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden recently told Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) that there was no doubt Victoria Plame Wilson was covert. Cummings — relaying what Waxman had told him — said that Gen. Hayden expressed clearly and directly, “Ms. Wilson was covert.”

Cummings also asked Wilson to respond to the specific claim, made by Victoria Toensing and others, that Plame had lost her covert status because she “had not been stationed abroad within five years.” Cummings asked, “During the past five years, Ms. Plame, from today, did you conduct secret missions overseas?” She answered, “Yes I did, congressman.”

I think this settles it.

One of the scarcer JFK assassination books, Mystique of Conspiracy, first published in 1978, is now available in a new edition. This is the only assassination book with a forward by one of the suspects: CIA officer David Atlee Phillips.

In the first edition the author, Brian Bugge, puts forward three criteria for evaluating conspiracy hypothesis:

1) that the data put forth supporting the conspiracy be presented accurately and undistorted;

2) that the interpretation given those facts must be sound and not in conflict with other uncontested facts;

3) that the hypothesis must be applied throughout the entire progression of events surrounding the Kennedy assassination, and the documented actions of Lee Harvey Oswald.

In the first edition he concluded that none of the conspiracy theories met these conditions. In 2007 he has reconsidered. "Some highly plausible theories have indeed surfaced since then." Moreover, he suggests that his change in views came about because of conversations he had with the man he calls his "mentor"--the late David Atlee Phillips.

"And what did David Atlee Phillips really tell me about the Kennedy assassination and the CIA's role in it (not to mention the attempt on Wallace's life and the murder of Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier in a car bomb in Washington D.C. in 1976--which some private researchers have accused David Phillips of being directly involved in)?

So what did Phillips tell him? He doesn't say, although he offers to help guide the reader in the right direction, for another $25! I will pass and would urge the author to tell the American people what he knows about the assassination of an American President, if anything.

An Interview with Sibel Edmonds

The other important case (that I reported on), had to do with certain public officials, corruption cases, that the FBI had obtained - and again, this was the operation that was taking place between 1997 and 2002 - and I’m talking about solid evidence. And these officials are high-profile public officials.

Swanson: People as high as say Congressman Denny Hastert?

Edmonds: Well, that information has been public, with the Vanity Fair article, and he was only one of the people, at least from the elected officials side - one of several. And they had at least 2 or 3 people in the Pentagon (ed: Feith and Perle), and they had at least one person in the State Department (ed: Marc Grossman) - and they had this documented information, evidence, on these people actually not serving the interests of the United States

An Interview with Sibel Edmonds

The other important case (that I reported on), had to do with certain public officials, corruption cases, that the FBI had obtained - and again, this was the operation that was taking place between 1997 and 2002 - and I’m talking about solid evidence. And these officials are high-profile public officials.

Swanson: People as high as say Congressman Denny Hastert?

Edmonds: Well, that information has been public, with the Vanity Fair article, and he was only one of the people, at least from the elected officials side - one of several. And they had at least 2 or 3 people in the Pentagon (ed: Feith and Perle), and they had at least one person in the State Department (ed: Marc Grossman) - and they had this documented information, evidence, on these people actually not serving the interests of the United States

Cheney: Congress undermining U.S. troops

"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleeding,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

But meanwhile:

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

The Bush administration supports the troops the way KFC supports chickens.

The trailer for "Kill the Messenger", the documentary about Sibel Edmonds.

The prisoner at Guantanomo was beaten so savagely that he suffered brain damage and still experiences frequent seizures. Fortunately for him he was a US soldier in a training exercise or he might not have survived at all.

"You always train at 70 percent. Never 100 percent," says Michael Riley, who was Baker's platoon sergeant. "Seventy percent means you want to practice and be proficient, but not get anybody hurt."

The so-called Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, Rove said, "has a logic of force and nature and reality that will cause people to examine it, adjust it, test it, resist it -- but ultimately embrace it."

Shouldn't Karl Rove just be thankful that he is not going to prison and just shut the hell up?

Paul Krugman of the New York Times says that the real story is not the eight US Attorneys who were fired but the the US Attorneys who stayed and may have succumbed to political pressure. Bigger scandal involves US attorneys still in office

In a column on "the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that "it is becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration's attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power."

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

Wingnuts React to the Death of Captain America

The Conservative Voice:

My first thought was “How appropriate!” In a nation that has been hijacked by liberalism and is being slowly destroyed by democrat-ick socialism, it is probably importantly symbolic that with the destruction of the Christian Bible and the traditional holidays recognizing the blessings of God; with the elimination of a Constitution that requires strict interpretation and constructionist action to actually work the way the Founders intended; with the spreading of the liberal religions of Darwinism and Global Warming-ism and with the spreading of immorality through the acceptance of atheism and the homosexual agenda, that Captain America be struck down from a hidden threat on the steps of a court house.

The Ace of Spaids:

He won't be missed. Comic book guys I know say that Marvel has seized on the character as a conveniently star-spangled propagandist for the left, putting faintly absurd anachronistic slogans from the 60's New Left in the mouth of a WWII-era patriot.

So really they killed him five years ago. Now they'll just give the desecrated corpse his proper burial.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Flopping Aces:

The assassination of Captain America at the hands of a sniper isn't what I take issue with. What I find offensive is this: Guess which side they put Captain America on? The symbol of America who has been fighting the bad guys since around 1941 (the first issue has him punching Adolf Hitler in the jaw, before America was even at war), appears to be a liberal Democrat (or possibly a libertarian, which is nothing more than a disgruntled conservative who bellyaches about the size of government and civil liberties). That really makes me want to puke.

Charming bunch aren't they?

What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks?

The former CIA counterterrorism officer told me: "There was no question but that [the order to close down the investigation] came from the White House. It was immediately assumed at CIA headquarters that this basically was going to be a cover-up so that the Israelis would not be implicated in any way in 9/11.

Feds Seek To Gag D.C. Madam

MARCH 7--Federal prosecutors want to gag an indicted former Washington, D.C. madam who has recently threatened to go public with details about her former customers....government lawyers claim that some discovery documents contain "personal information" about Palfrey's former johns and prostitutes that is "sensitive."

Report: Top Pakistan nuclear scientists in Taliban Custody

New Delhi, March 07: Two top nuclear scientists of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) are currently in Taliban custody. The two were working at PAEC’s facility in North West Frontier Province. Zee News investigations reveal that the two scientists were kidnapped about six months ago. To avoid international embarrassment Pakistan Government has kept this information under wraps.

According to information available with Zee News, nuclear scientists have been kidnapped by Taliban at the behest of Al-Qaeda. Further investigations reveal that Al-Qaeda may be using the expertise of the scientists to produce nuclear bombs. The two scientists are reportedly being held somewhere in Waziristan, near Afghanistan border.

It struck me then that we, the American soldiers, were the terrorists. We were terrorizing Iraqis. Intimidating them. Beating them. Destroying their homes. Probably raping them. The ones we didn't kill had all the reasons in the world to become terrorists themselves. Given what we were doing to them, who could blame them for wanting to kill us, and all Americans? A sick realization lodged like a cancer in my gut. It grew and festered, and troubled me more with every passing day. We, the Americans, had become the terrorists in Iraq.

Cheney Converts to Islam

Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, was sworn in as the nation’s first Muslim member of Congress in early January, but he is not the highest-ranking Muslim official in the United States. That honor belongs to Vice President Dick Cheney, who during one of his many trips to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s on behalf of Halliburton secretly converted to Wahabbi Islam, a rigorous fundamentalist version of the faith. In 1997, according to sources in Riyadh, Cheney visited the dusty provincial town of Bakh-Asward, a Wahabbi stronghold, where he realized he had found exactly what he was looking for, a religion that was grim, rancorous, authoritarian, and violent, and yet, on the other hand, insane.

The Libby Conviction

I think Cosmic Iguana puts it best "LIBBY GUILTY, CHENEY STILL AT LARGE."

I feel sorry for Scooter Libby and his family. The fall guy likely goes to prison and the real culprits get away. I am sorry that Fitzgerald did not indict anyone for the "underlying offense." Perhaps if it were not for the perjury and obstruction of justice he would have been able to. I am sorry that Karl Rove, after some five appearances before the grand jury, was able to slip away.

Clearly the man at the center of this whole affair was Dick Cheney. It is my fervent hope that the Congress will investigate not only the Plame affair, but also Cheney's ties to Halliburton, and the lies that led to war. Many on the left are clamoring for the impeachment of George W. Bush, but for many reasons I think that it is Dick Cheney who should be impeached. He is the greater threat.

Coulter Says Edward's Campaign 'Fronting for Terroritsts

NEW YORK Ann Coulter, fresh from implying that John Edwards is a "faggot," now has a statement on her Web site saying Edwards campaign manager David Bonior "is fronting for Arab terrorists."

In other news, it has been reported that Britney Spears wrote "666" on her bald head, declared she was the anti-Christ, and attempted to hang herself, making Ann Coulter only the second craziest woman in America.

Conservative Bloggers Denounce Ann Coulter

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

Assets of Reported CIA Front-Man Frozen in Turkey

A court in Turkey has ruled to freeze the assets of Yasin al-Qadi [1], a one-time acquaintance of Vice President Dick Cheney [2] and reported “chief money launderer” of Osama bin Laden. [3]

Al-Qadi, prior to being publicly identified as a key al-Qaeda financer, owned a prominent U.S. technology firm and reported CIA front known as Ptech. [4]

He also escorted U.S. officials around during their visits to Saudi Arabia. [5]

Similar allegations of obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty have been reported here in the United States, where following the 9/11 attacks FBI agent Robert Wright and other members of his unit claimed that their investigation into Yasin al-Qadi had been repeatedly blocked by higher ups at the FBI. [13]

As Agent Wright told ABC News in 2002, “the supervisor who was there from [FBI] headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me: 'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects.'" [14]

According to Agent Wright, who seized $1.4 million directly linked to al-Qadi in 1998 [15], it is very likely that 9/11 would have been prevented if he had simply been allowed to do his job. [16]

Hat tip to Lukery

Kurt Nimmo directs us to this article in the Asia Times by Syed Saleem Shahzad:

Al-Qaeda will this year significantly step up its global operations after centralizing its leadership and reviving its financial lifelines. Crucially, al-Qaeda has developed missile and rocket technology with the capability of carrying chemical, biological and nuclear warheads, according to an al-Qaeda insider who spoke to Asia Times Online.

This seems to me preposterous and obvious disinformation, but to what purpose? This is the same Syed Saleem Shahzad who reported in 2002 that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had died in a police raid on his apartment.

Dick Cheney is not amused as America is in the "last throes" of the insanity.

"Once we have victory in Baghdad, all the critics will look like fools."

--Vice President Dick Cheney, 2002.

The Amazing Adventure of Lawn Chair Larry

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun.

You won't believe what happened next.

Juan Cole on Iran's Nuclear Program:

We don't even know that Iran has a weapons research program. It hasn't been proved, there isn't any solid evidence, and the Supreme Jurisprudent has given a fatwa against having or using nuclear weapons as illicit in Islamic law. You can't acknowledge that Iran is a dictatorial theocracy and then turn around and say that his fatwa is irrelevant.

The people who assert with such confidence that Iran has a weapons program are the same ones who insisted that North Korea had a uranium enrichment program, which now turns out to be unlikely. And then there was that little mistake about Iraq's "program."

The pussy in the middle is Sean Hannity.

CIA Papers Reveal 1950s Japan Coup Plot

(AP) Declassified documents reveal that Japanese ultranationalists with ties to U.S. military intelligence plotted to overthrow the Japanese government and assassinate the prime minister in 1952.

The scheme _ which was abandoned _ was concocted by militarists and suspected war criminals who had worked for U.S. occupation authorities after World War II, according to CIA records reviewed by The Associated Press. The plotters wanted a right-wing government that would rearm Japan.

Hattori and others had worked under the aegis of Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, the anti-communist G-2 chief. During the occupation, Willoughby was considered the second most powerful American after his boss, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

General Charles Willoughby is featured prominently in Dick Russell's JFK assassination book The Man Who Knew Too Much.