Top Al-Qaida leaders had fled before U.S.-led offensive began

You see the thing is, al-Qaeda is so stupid they have to read about an imminent attack in the newspapers or they have no idea its coming. When is the US military going to quit underestimating al-Qaeda fighters?

The American general commanding troops battling to clear fighters serving with Al-Qaida from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Al-Qaida leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week, just as the Al-Qaida leadership fled Al-Fallujah ahead of the American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told reporters that leaders of Al-Qaida in Iraq had been alerted to the Baquba offensive by widespread public discussion of the American plan to clear the city before the attack began. He portrayed the Al-Qaida leaders' escape as cowardice, saying that "when the fight comes, they leave," abandoning "mid-level" Al-Qaida leaders and fighters to face the might of American troops - just, he said, as they did in Al-Fallujah.

Some American officers in Baquba have blamed the Al-Qaida leaders' flight on public remarks about the offensive in the days before it began by top American commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, the overall commander in Iraq. But Odierno cast the issue in broader terms, saying Al-Qaida leaders were bound to know an attack was coming in light of President Bush's decision to pour nearly 30,000 additional troops into the fight in a bid to secure Baghdad and areas around the capital that have been insurgent strongholds. That included Baquba, which lies 40 miles north.

"Frankly, I think they knew an operation was coming in Baquba," Odierno said in a teleconference with Pentagon reporters from the American military headquarters in Baghdad. "They watched the news. They understood we had a surge. They understood Baquba was designated as a problem area. So they knew we were going to come, sooner or later."

Still, he implied American commanders may have played a part by flagging the offensive in advance. "I think they were tipped off by us talking about the surge, the fact that we have a problem in Diyala province," he said.

Jesus H Christ in a TV commercial, but reports have been coming out of Iraq for years about how the Iraqi police and military have been infiltrated by Al-Qaeda. The country's crawling with spies.

(read more)

To arm or not to arm?

Recent headlines:

Reuters - U.S. should stop arming Sunni militias: PM Maliki

Al Jazeera - Maliki supports arming Sunni tribes

The Al Jazeera headline is only two hours old whereas the Reuters headline is a few days old. The logical explanation is the puppet has been manipulated by the puppet masters.

One hundred eighty degree changes in position aren't just "adjustments" in one's stand.

Angry Mexicans protest over rising price of edible corn

I've posted about this shit before. Biofuels are gonna be a disaster.

This is just the latest.

In their hands the protesters clutched cobs of corn, the staple crop that makes tortillas and for many of Mexico's poor the main source of calorific sustenance in an otherwise nutritionally sparse diet.

Over the past three months the price of corn flour had risen by 400 per cent. Despite being the world's fourth largest corn producer and a major importer of supposedly cheap American corn, millions of Mexicans found the one source of cheap nutrition available to them was suddenly out of reach.

Poor Mexicans, who normally expect to set aside a third of their wages for corn flour, had always been particularly vulnerable to price fluctuations in the corn market, but a four-fold increase was both unheard of and potentially catastrophic.

The reason for such a substantial increase in the price lay north of the border. In order to wean itself off its addiction to oil, the US was turning to biofuels made from industrial corn like never before. Farmers in Mexico and America had been replacing edible corn crops with industrial corn that could then be processed into biofuels, leading to a decrease in the amount corn available on the open market.

Something has to give. You can't grow millions of acres of biofuel crops without clearing millions of acres of natural vegetation or of crops now being grown for other purposes. Think deforestation, decreased palm oil production and starvation.

And George Monbiot has an excellent article about how biofuels will actually be worse for the climate. "Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel."

As he states:

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.

Great fucking trade-off isn't it?

(read more)

Shorter Rep Mark Kirk (xenophobe - Ill)

"We just gotta stop them brown folk from breeding like rabbits."

Yes he's a Republican. And he's completely ignoring reality. Notice the bold faced emphasis below.

A U.S. congressman is pushing a not-so-quick fix in the debate over illegal immigrants from Mexico: free contraceptives.

"A slower rate of growth of Mexico's population would improve the economy of Mexico. It would also reduce the environmental pressure on Mexico's ecosystem. But a slower rate of growth would also reduce the long-term illegal immigration pressure on America's borders," reasoned Rep. Mark Kirk, who also supports stronger border security in the short-term.

In reality, fertility rates have plunged in Mexico since 1980, when an average couple would have five or more children. Now, the country's fertility rate has dropped to 2.5 children, compared to 2.1 for the United States, according to United Nations data. [emphasis mine]

The picture is of Mexicans in some sort of demonstration or art performance. Couldn't pass it up.

NOTE: ‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. (via Sadly! No)

(read more)

SPIIDERWEB™ site rating

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* dead (8x)
* bomb (7x)
* fucking (4x)
* fuck (3x)
* torture (2x)
* bitch (1x)

At least "dead", "bomb" and "torture" are included. These things are often overlooked in favor of prurient interests. And I never use the term "bitch" except in the most kind way.

Gotta work on that. I deserve at least an "R".

I guess the rating source missed my use of asshole, Jesus H Christ, shit, sex, and pornography. Or maybe I have to show pornography.

No problem.

H/T The Crone Speaks

Expanded Afghan prison to take in some detainees from Guantanamo when it closes

Pul-e-Charki prison, Kabul, Afghanistan
Homey looking place isn't it?

Wow! Its déja vu all over again. And it happened fast.

Just a few minutes ago I left a comment at Multi Medium as follows:

I’ve never understood the need to keep Gitmo open. Closing it would be a great PR gimmick and all the “enemy combatants” could just as easily be tortured at one of the many (hundreds?) of secret prisons Bushco has around the world.

Or just send them home to be tortured and killed.

Hey, its a win-win situation.

Prescient? Hmmm.

(read more)

U.S. special ops forces on American soil.

How do these things get under the radar? Or is it just me?

“The U.S. military command in charge of protecting the homeland asked the Pentagon earlier this year for a contingent of special operations officers to help with domestic anti-terrorism missions.”

Military sources told The Examiner that U.S. Northern Command, established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado in 2002, requested its own special operations command similar to ones assigned to overseas war-fighting commands, such as U.S. Central Command.

The request was approved six months ago by the then-commander of NorthCom, Adm. Timothy Keating, who has since moved to U.S. Pacific Command.

Keating’s decision, which “raised some eyebrows because of the sensitivity of deploying commandos domestically,” is now being reviewed by the new NorthCom commander, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart.

(via Think Progress)

H/T (The Lantern)

I think I'll go to KFC®

For some reason steak doesn't sound too good.

Cat blogging

Now that's my kind of cat blogging. Muahahaha!

(via Jonco)

Whistleblower: Halliburton Cooking The Books

If this proves true (its the only source I've found) we could have another Enron on our hands. Very interesting, huh?

Investors have shrugged off almost all the bad news at Halliburton Co. the past few years -- accusations of overbilling the U.S. Army and bribing foreign officials, along with scrutiny over business dealings in Iran and non-compete bids on government work.

Instead of tanking, the company's stock has soared.

The same investors might take notice, though, if Halliburton's financial statements were in doubt, and a former company accounting executive says they are.

Anthony Menendez, who was Halliburton's director of technical accounting research and training, has accused the world's second-largest oilfield-services company of using so- called bill-and-hold accounting and other undisclosed practices to ``distort the timing of billions of dollars in revenue.'' In short, Menendez says this allowed Halliburton to book product sales improperly, before they occurred.

The allegations are part of a 54-page complaint Menendez filed against Halliburton with a Labor Department administrative- law judge in Covington, Louisiana, who released the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Menendez, who resigned last year and is seeking unspecified damages, says Halliburton retaliated against him in violation of the Sarbanes- Oxley Act's whistleblower provisions after he reported his concerns to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the company's audit committee.

Halliburton has denied the allegations. A company spokeswoman, Cathy Mann, says Halliburton's audit committee ``directed an independent investigation'' and ``concluded that the allegations were without merit.'' She declined to comment on bill-and-hold issues, and Halliburton's court filings in the case don't provide any details about its accounting practices.

(read more)

H/T Black Listed News

Iran moves closer to making a nuclear bomb

Though, technically, that headline's correct, its terribly misleading. At least the second paragraph clears things up a bit.

The point is to first instill fear and then slip in a smidgen of reality which most people won't even notice.

Iran has moved significantly closer towards acquiring the ability to make a bomb as the regime claims to have stockpiled 100kg of enriched uranium.

So far, this uranium has only been enriched to the level needed for generating electricity in civilian nuclear power stations.

But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, it would reach weapons-grade level and become the essential material for building a bomb.

Iran would need 50kg of weapons-grade uranium in order to make one nuclear weapon of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

By storing twice this quantity of low-enriched uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is widening its options.

However, the shortest time-frame I've seen says Iran can't go weapons-grade in less than 18 months.

Iran may be able to produce its first nuclear bomb by 2009, the U.S.-based news channel ABC News reported on Monday.

The report said that Tehran had more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the past three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

The development meant Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009, it quoted sources “familiar with the dramatic upgrade” as saying.

The unexpected expansion is taking place at Iran's uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, the report said.

Iran had previously informed the United Nations nuclear watchdog that it had 320 centrifuges running in Natanz.

(read more)

Chery aims to pick off Western car markets

And they ain't bad looking. Of course quality has to be a major consideration.

In case you're confused, we're talking Chery automobiles out of China.

Despite disagreements over finances and design that delayed rolling into the US market this year, China's Chery Automobile hasn't parked its plans to challenge Toyota or Hyundai. Access to state funds and a byway into the eastern European market have Chery and other Chinese car makers revving up for another run at Detroit and Japan [emphasis mine].

Uh, isn't Hyundai Korean?

(read more)

Mathaba Needs YOU!

I'm a little late with this, but there are so many openings some might still be available.

So if you don't have enough to do...

(read more)

Cheney balks at rules on classified data

Not gonna comment except to say this is the equivalent of reporting a cat chased a mouse. Pure nature of the beast.

For the past four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has made the controversial claim that his office is not fully part of the Bush administration in order to exempt it from a presidential order regulating how federal agencies handle classified national-security information, officials said Thursday.

Cheney contends that his office is not fully part of the executive branch of government because, under the Constitution, the vice president also serves as president of the Senate.

Cheney has held to that position despite the continued objections of the U.S. National Archives, which says his office's failure to demonstrate that it has proper security safeguards in place could jeopardize the government's top secrets.

(read more)

U.S.-LED AIR RAID KILLS 12 CIVILIANS, 20 TALIBAN IN AFGHAN SOUTH

Oh that's well worth it. Only 60% "collateral damage". Jesus.

I'm sorry, but killing three civilians for every 5 Taliban seems excessive.

And as I've said many times, I was never in the military and realize shit happens, but one dead civilian is too many IMHO.

(read more)

UPDATE: It appears the 12 dead have become 25 dead in a matter of minutes. Three of them were babies.

Suspected Taliban militants attacked police posts in southern Afghanistan, sparking clashes and NATO airstrikes that left 25 civilians and 20 militants dead, a senior police officer said today.

(update)

UPDATE: To be fair, the alertnet.org story did say 12 members of "a" family were killed. Apparently the other 13 were neighbors. Sorry if I led you astray.

In what alternative universe do these people live?

The Headline:

Iraq Deaths Don't Mean Failure, Pace Says

The recent rise in U.S. troop deaths in Iraq is the "wrong metric" to use in assessing the effectiveness of the new security strategy for Baghdad, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday in a news conference with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

To my mind, dead human beings is exactly the right fucking metric. I guess if one of the bodies doesn't belong to Pace, he can overlook them.

What's the right metric? Munitions exploded? Buildings destroyed? Iraqi children killed? Families torn apart? I'll bet you have an answer.

Then, to add insult to injury he adds:

"If you had zero violence and people were not feeling good about their future, where are you?" said Pace, emphasizing that the sentiment of the Iraqi people is a much better measurement than the number of attacks.

Pace you asshole, at least they have a future. Dead Iraqis are pretty much hopeless worm food.


(read more)

*&^%$^&!!!!!!!!

Not my headline. Not my style. I use the fucking words.

Gotta have fodder for the ol' SURGE™.

The day I'm supposed to get out of the Army has been pushed back 13 months and 16 days.

(from Fun With Hand Grenades)

Great quote

I'll just link to Teagan Goddard.

Is this why the US education system is failing the children?

Must read IMHO

Hey, do it. Its short and to the point.

The guy writes good.

Read it and weep

The site.

Need I mention greed?

GREED

When I was about 4 or 5 years old. Ooops, scratch that. I have no memory of ever being 5 years old so it must have been 6.

Anyway, I recognized greed. What I didn't recognize at such a tender age is how much greed controlled everything.

Oil, power, control, slavery, position...

The list goes on.

Greed is the most damaging thing you can imagine.

I've often thought the 10 comandments could be boiled down into only one. The golden rule -- Do unto others...

I now realize it should be two:

Do unto others and

Don't be so fucking greedy.

Just a couple thoughts...

Trust your news sources...really

From Jil in Pattaya.

I'm not a news reporter. When it comes to putting Pattaya news on my blog, I just read what other people have taken the time to find out, and then give a quick summary here, and some comment about why I think it is noteworthy. Therefore, when something is reported incorrectly by the actual reporters, it goes unfiltered and uncorrected directly onto my blog. I don't like it when it happens, but everybody makes mistakes and before now I've let them slide.

However, recently the several news outfits who research and report the news here in Pattaya have had a stretch of really poor reporting. Yesterday, I linked to a news article about how Polo AGoGo's Russian dancers were arrested for dancing in their bikinis. The problem is that it was Galaxy AGoGo that has the Russian dancers, not Polo: One of the principal facts regarding the story was completely incorrect. How could a reporter sent to research and report on a story get something as fundamental as "where the story took place" wrong?

Ya can't trust anyone. We do, but we're stupid.

Learn from this, folks.

Good and bad news

The good news is you can catch Christopher from Back to Iraq regularly.

The bad news is he'll be writing for the WaPo. :(

Oh well, at least the WaPo will have a talented writer now.

Christopher has been an excellent reporter about what is going on in the Mid-East. He's there and living it. I link to his stories often because they're good and authentic.

World War III

I was gonna blog about some site which mentioned "another World War III".

My point was to say the "III" is a way of identifying world wars. So if we haven't had one WW III, we can't have another.

But I couldn't find the site to attribute and went to Google®. OMFG!!!1!!

There are - Results 1 - 10 of about 48,346 for another world war III.

This ain't anything small. The world is worrying about George W (wimp) Bush pushing for another world war.

Too funny

I'm still getting hits because of a search for "Niel Young".

Its been several months since I posted about Niel's album.

The internets tubes are forever.....................

Last post

Was that a little over the top?

Who cares?

I wonder

When will the neo-fucking-cons realize what havoc they've wrought in the Mid-East?

For the sake of god, they've brought such turmoil and suffering there. And they want more of the same in Iran. How many dead people will satisfy them? How much do they owe to the military suppliers? How do they sleep?

I can't sleep sometimes knowing what I do.

Fuck all of them.

There's nothing like control

Fuck!

A truck bomb struck a Shiite mosque Tuesday in central Baghdad, killing 75 people and wounding more than 200, even as about 10,000 U.S. soldiers northeast of the capital used heavily armored Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles to battle their way into an al-Qaida sanctuary.

Only 75 dead. We should be so happy.

(read more)

Must read IMHO

Does this catch your eye?

It's hard to imagine the nearly anonymous, presidential unhopeful Chris Dodd having raised more than twice the amount in campaign contributions from any given industry over a better-known and first-tier candidate, but this he has done.

From PM Carpenter.

I won't post

If you want to know what CENTCOM has to say it's your choice.

This is such a Pollyanna site, I can't post anything from them.

You can run, but you can't hide

Ya gotta know this shit. Deleting emails doesn't mean what it seems.

But under normal circumstances, nothing you delete on a computer vanishes immediately. The computer clears its own record of where it put the file, but the file itself won't disappear until enough other data gets written to that same spot. Given the vast size of most new computers' hard drives, that can take years.

Run Rove, but we'll find your ugly emails. Or we will unless Bush fucks us...again.

via Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.

PLEASE!

A message to all of the sites I read regularly. PLEASE don't post so much shit. I don't have time to read it all and still check out the news feeds. Help me here.

High-handed hocus-pocus

Must read IMHO.

Hey, just do it. Trust me on this.

OK, OK you naggers. Here's a snippet.

The president will soon brandish his right of executive privilege to ward off congressional inquisitors who wish to grill, under oath, corrupt former White House officials who conspired with corrupt Justice Department officials to tweak the nation's time-honored system of impartial, nonpartisan jurisprudence -- the latter being, it is rumored, that which has always separated this great nation from the brutal banana republics of men, not laws.

Caught your attention?

Kool-Aid Pickles

Not just Kool-Aid pickles, but a twofer.

Fried ice cream too. Yummies.



I'm definitely going for teh fried ice cream.

Can you say eclectic? Yeah, I thought so.

Duh!!!1!! Times two

Sometimes Bush is intelligent. Not often, but it does happen. This is so obvious even he can see it.

The Bush administration has warned that the current troop buildup in and around Baghdad will result in more U.S. casualties as American troops increasingly come into contact with enemy forces.

Let's just take a look. More targets mean more casualties? Doesn't take a Norman Einstein¹ to predict that.

H/T rangeragainstwar

(read more)

¹

Great quote

Its an oldie, but a goodie. One of my all time favorites.

"Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein."

-- Joe Theismann
Legendary American football player

Not to denigrate Joe (#7). We all have mental farts, right?

White House Opposes Shield Law for Journalists, Bloggers

Duck!!!1!!

The bill's broad definition of who is a journalist includes bloggers...

Kinda makes me feel good inside. Bush is afraid of us. Yeah!

(read more)

Human rights lawyer: 14,000 in US secret jails

Jesus H Christ looking for condoms, but I really hope this is a false report. One is too many, but 14,000?

(read more)

Gates says no evidence Iran moving weapons to Taliban

Why isn't this being SCREAMED in the MSN? Liberal bias? Covering Bush's ass? Helping with the justification to attack Iran?

Just asking.

(read more)

Queen goes online with first email address

I just thought because I had her majestie's email address, everyone did. Silly me.

No, I won't give it to you unless she asks me to do so.

I will say she is particularly fond of smilies.

And her cell phone number? Hahaha. Not a chance.

(read more)

Duh!!!1!!

This is the headline:

US launch secret spy satellites

Correct me if I'm wrong, but just how fucking "secret" are these satellites?

And just to be anal, shouldn't that be "launches"?

Sometimes blogging can be so much fun...

Not now, but sometimes.

Proud to be American?

Seven children dead in US strike on suspected al-Qaeda safehouse.

You shouldn't be.

Did you catch that word "suspected"? Just asking.

Don't dispare. I'm making my final post from neatorama

Just had to post it. Some of you will appreciate and some just love the sensuality.

I don't endorse the death penalty, but...

Perhaps public flogging would do.

From, what else, neatorama. Jesus H Christ looking for condoms, but I'm so lazy.

Small home/apartment?

Consider yourself lucky.

From neatorama.

Ya got bad eyes?

There may be help for you.

From neatorama.

Must read IMHO

Know Iraq policy.

This is a must read above all other must reads.

Perhaps a MUST, must read?

Must read IMHO

File under ostriches.

Jesus H Christ on Valium®, but these are monumental assholes.

From Hullabaloo via Dover Bitch.

Must read IMHO

This is not a "nice" subject, but one we must be aware is happening.

From Echidne of the Snakes.

Ah, the ugly right

From Balloon Juice. on the subject of Nifong's resignation.

Is there anyone who doesn’t think his resignation is anything more than a cynical ploy to save his law license?

Oops. It didn't work.

District Attorney Mike Nifong has been disbarred after being found guilty of a battery of ethics violations for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse investigation, a North Carolina Bar disciplinary committee announced Saturday evening.

Hahaha. Sometimes there is justice.

I'm catching up

So some of my posts will be ooooooold news.

(read more)

Fuck him

Lieberman. 'Nuff said.

Am I coming on too strong? Sorry.

Conservative? Yeah, whatever

The US is not a conservative nation and nothing can change that. The US is what it is because it takes challenges and makes changes. It is "Of the People and for the People."

The facts simply don't support the oft-repeated mantra that we are a "conservative nation."

Of course, that's exempting the idiot in chief.

(read more)

A challenge

Are you up to it? Can you go one month without buying anything new? Betcha can't.

For a whole month, one writer practiced a kind of abstinence so she could better understand her own complicity in our throwaway culture. It wasn't easy.

I'm back...ho hum

My posts may be sporadic in the next few days, but life doesn't always conform to my wishes.

Let's start with horrible pictures from Baghdad. If you are squeamish, please don't follow the link.