05/10/05

Can you remember how little you knew about a war with Iraq in July 2002? Most of us who opposed the war concluded some time ago this was the way it went down. There was plenty of evidence, though nothing this direct and cold. Think of the difference it would have made if we had known all this three years ago. Now? The memo was a huge story in Britain, but is almost unreported here. The memo does get us some forwarder. At least it finally settles this ridiculous debate about how Dear Leader Bush just wanted to bring democracy all along and we did it all for George Washington...

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21976/

from AlterNet, by Molly Ivins


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2511


Informant: NHNE

Don't ask America's top brass exactly how the Iraq war is going. They don't know. The various U.S. services have never managed to agree on a unified system for gauging successes and failures in the counterinsurgency campaign. Instead, everyone uses a different yardstick. Recently the National Intelligence Council, the information clearinghouse for America's spy services, produced a study of the problem. NEWSWEEK has learned that the document, which remains classified, urges that the present babel of war assessments be replaced with a coherent system, one that would help U.S. forces react faster and more effectively to shifting insurgent tactics and other challenges. The paper's overall tone is "not uplifting," according to a source familiar with its contents. In blunt terms, things are looking grim. How grim? It's anybody's guess.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3200

Über die Propaganda der Bush-Regierung, die (ausbleibenden) Massenproteste gegen den Irak-Feldzug und die Parallele zum Widerstand gegen den Vietnam-Krieg in den sechziger Jahren. Interview von Harald Neuber mit Noam Chomsky in der Wochenendbeilage der jungen Welt vom 30. April 2005.

http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/04-30/029.php


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 25, Eintrag 6

by ROBERT DREYFUSS
Rolling Stone
(Posted May 05, 2005)

The news from Iraq is bad and getting worse with each passing day. Iraqi insurgents are stepping up the pace of their attacks, unleashing eleven deadly bombings on April 29th alone. Many of the 150,000 Iraqi police and soldiers hastily trained by U.S. troops have deserted or joined the insurgents. The cost of the war now tops $192 billion, rising by $1 billion a week, and the corpses are piling up: Nearly 1,600 American soldiers and up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, as well as 177 allied troops and 229 private contractors. Other nations are abandoning the international coalition assembled to support the U.S., and the new Iraqi government, which announced its new cabinet to great fanfare on April 27th, remains sharply split along ethnic and religious lines. [...] Read more at: http://tinyurl.com/bxb5d

Grist magazine has a good column about winning environmental arguments. (Remember to the GOP environmentalists are "special interest groups.") Read the article, "Just the Facts, Ma'am," on the Grist web site: http://tinyurl.com/9w4qy

ZaZona has a searchable database of companies that hire H-1Bs . There is also a petition to abolish the H-1B program. If you are interested in this, the web site is at http://www.zazona.com/ .


© Virginia Metze

The war will only end when support for the war ends at home. We have a new weapon in that struggle; the truth. Let's use it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8801.htm

Labour MPs have engaged in a fierce war of words over Prime Minister Tony Blair's future in Downing Street.

http://snipurl.com/esj1


From Information Clearing House

British memo

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8796.htm