"It's Saturday Night" will assemble tomorrow night at 8:30 PM

Living with War (click here)

I believe in competent leaders, in all areas of the American experience. I have exhibited my disgust for the leadership of the Republican Party when it is based in extremist views, values and budgets that rob Americans of their lives, dignity while providing debt for generations that will never benefit from a safer world.

I have a presentation on journalism. I think it is unique and provides a 'new standard' or at least one forgotten. One that even China can find comfort. I look forward to presenting it to you. I have a surprise visitor for Memorial Day Weekend. It's lovely to realize people simply plan to come to enjoy the weekend unexpectedly. I love surprises when they are full of joy and excitement.

The link under the title of this blog by Michael Knight is entitled "Pat Tillman, Memorial Day and Veterans." Mr. Knight reflects strong sentiment I share. It's worth reading. It is in no way Anti-Americanism. It reflects people that realize their military is vital to a secure nation and a secure world, however, a breed of American that doesn't appreciate their patriotism and loyalty toyed with as occured under Richard Cheney and Don Rumsfeld twice in the USA's history. Shame on us, we should have known better. Oh. Wait. Some of us did.

We don't belong in Iraq.

We never did.

Bring the troops home now.

Oppose the draft.

Write your US House and Senate representative demanding impeachment.

Until tomorrow night ...

Morning Papers - It's Origins

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Wild rooster, Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii

May 26, 2007

Greeneville, Tennessee

Photographer states :: Results of a lightning strike on a drought stricken mountain. At this point 600 acres have burned and is completely out of control. All pictures in this series are of different parts of the fire.

Singapore is at the tip of Malaysia. Southeast of Kuala Lumpur.




May 25, 2007
Singapore
Photographer states :: A waterspout off the east coast of singapore

5 die in storm surge

May 25, 2007
Polvadera, New Mexico
Photographer states :: Green Storm - A different area of the sky showing the clouds from a fairly strong thunderstorm just passed through with 30mph winds, heavy rain, and a bit of hail. This is a single RAW image with minimal processing, just a little contrast adjustment.


Green clouds such as these are usually hail clouds. Dangerous stuff. Hail can accompany tornadoes.


"By Justin Cox
Killeen Daily Herald

Ravaging floodwaters claimed the lives of at least five people in the Killeen area in less than a 12-hour period during the overnight hours Thursday.

Three of the five victims met their fate in Killeen, and one man is still missing, while two others died in Copperas Cove.

Carroll Smith, public information coordienator for the Killeen Police Department, said authorities were called after a report of an overturned vehicle on Watercrest Drive between 8 and 9 p.m. Thursday. A woman and two of her children had been rescued from her white Ford Excursion.

But her two other children remained trapped in the vehicle and could not be rescued, Smith said, adding that the SUV was swept away in the swift current, eventually sinking below the surface.

Divers from the Morgan's Point Water Recovery Team were not able to locate the vehicle until 8:32 a.m. Friday, when the two boys, 5-year-old Jarvis Tarrance, and 6-year-old Javiante Tarrance, were recovered from the vehicle, stuck engine down in an estimated 18 feet of water that flowed across Watercrest Drive.

Justice of the Peace Garland Potvin pronounced the two brothers dead at just after 9 a.m.

Potvin said the mother and the two other children, a 3-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, owe their lives to a man who transported them from their flooding vehicle by canoe to the safety of the banks."

The mother drove the vehicle into the water, and it got picked up and carried it off the roadway," Potvin said. "He just heard the screaming, and he went and tried to help. He got in his canoe and paddled out there to help."

That guy saved three of them, because they wouldn't have gotten out of there by themselves, I don't believe."

Potvin said the height of the water at that location was unprecedented...."

This was a rough guestimate of the civilian toll as of November 4, 2006; three days before the majority shift.

It was Baghdad then and it still is. It would seem as though the USA military takes solice in applying "Lessons Learned" while civilians die. This is one of my favorite "Lessons Learned" by the USA military. It was post illegal invasion and the way Saddam's munitions, under UN Seal were never secured although they drove around them and through them, the bunkers were never considered significant to secure. Yep, one of my favorites.

GAO-07-444 Operation Iraqi Freedom: DOD Should Apply Lessons Learned Concerning the

Need ..... gov.

Following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003—known as ... on unsecured conventional munitions in Iraq, (2) report related risk mitigation ... conventional munitions storage sites in Iraq, combined with certain prewar planning ...

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07444.pdf

OVERVIEW:-->Following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003--known as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)--concerns were raised about how the Department of Defense (DOD) secured Iraqi conventional munitions storage sites during and after major combat operations. Because of the broad interest in this issue, GAO conducted this work under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations.

This report examines

(1) the security provided by U.S. forces over Iraqi conventional munitions storage sites and

(2) DOD actions to mitigate risks associated with an adversary's conventional munitions storage sites for future operations on the basis of OIF lessons learned. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed ...

Background: Following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003--known as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)--concerns were raised about how the Department of Defense (DOD) secured Iraqi conventional munitions storage sites during and after major combat operations. Because of the broad interest in this issue, GAO conducted this work under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations. This report examines (1) the security provided by U.S. forces over Iraqi conventional munitions storage sites and (2) DOD actions to mitigate risks associated with an adversary's conventional munitions storage sites for future operations on the basis of OIF lessons learned. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed ...

There was this report that I haven't found at the GAO yet. I would be nice if they would include a link to the report they refer to:

Despite the ‘surge’ A ‘continuing high level of attacks’ in Iraq (click here)

The number of attacks carried out by factions in Iraq’s overlapping conflicts has dipped slightly since the start of a new security plan but remains high, according to a US report released last week.The Government Accountability Office report recorded only the raw number of attacks, not the number of casualties, so it remains possible that a recent spate of large-scale car bombings had kept civilian deaths at record levels.

The GAO’s report into the problems facing US reconstruction efforts cites Pentagon figures showing the number of daily attacks peaked in October before dropping off in recent months, but remained twice as high as one year ago.“The US reconstruction effort was predicated on the assumption that a permissive security environment would exist. However, since June 2003, overall security conditions in Iraq have deteriorated”, the report said.“The average total number of attacks per day has risen from 71 per day in January 2006 to a record high of 176 per day in October 2006”, it added.“For the last three months, average attacks per day were 164 in February, 157 in March, and 149 in April 2007”.

The GAO used the Pentagon’s figures to compile its estimates, despite these being compiled using a methodology which has been much criticized in the past as likely to severely underestimate the true level of violence.

Last year’s report by a panel of senior American lawmakers and policy experts headed by former Secretary of State James Baker said the military’s method for recording attacks led to “significant underreporting of the violence”.

“For example”, it said, “on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence”.

Whether complete or not, the US government’s figures show a clear trend of escalating daily attacks since the invasion of March 2003, dipping slightly after the launch of a security operation in February this year.

"...Dipping slightly..." That justifies everything doesn't it. Slight dip. Bush has no conscience.

Just a reminder...

For quality of life, Baghdad ranks last in world, survey finds (click here). Who would have thought.

Who's war is this anyway? I mean let's just give Bush all the money he wants and keep him smiling.

Leaving Iraq will not make the circumstances these people face worse, it will 'stabilize' them. The Iraqis have been taking care of themselves all this time, it won't change.

The role the holy men of Iraq play now is no different or dissimilar than that of someone like Nasrallah. It isn't preferable but for the Iraqis at least livable. I don't believe it can get worse from here. The 'scare' tactics/pleadings for continued war' simply don't hold water. The only issue at peril in Iraq is Baghdad. All the other provinces are reasonably stable. We leave Baghdad and it will find it's perscibed fate/gravity if you will. That IS what Bush is afraid of.

Sorry. Stability has it's virtue.

The USA is killing too, too many people. There are an average of 2 to 4 dead civilians for each of the 167,400 square miles of Iraq. Texas is 163696 square miles. Picture that for every square mile of Texas one would walk there would be two to four dead bodies. That is what the USA is doing in Iraq. If we were to leave it would not get worse, those statistics would improve.

7 U.S. troops die as May toll nears 100 (click here)

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military Friday reported the deaths of seven more troops in Iraq, hours after President Bush warned that a bloody summer lay ahead.

Military officers in Baghdad predict that insurgents will seek to inflict maximum casualties before the top commander, U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, delivers a review of the troop buildup in September.

Three of the U.S. service members died Friday. One soldier was killed by small-arms fire in Baghdad province, another in a roadside bombing north of the capital, and a Marine died of noncombat causes in Al Anbar province, the military said.

On Thursday, a soldier was killed by small-arms fire and two died in bombings in Baghdad and north of the capital, the military said. One of the blasts also killed an Iraqi interpreter.

A U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday in an explosion near his vehicle in Baghdad province.

The deaths brought the number of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003 to 3,444, according to the website icasualties.org, which tracks military deaths and injuries.

At least 93 U.S. troops have died this month, putting May on course to be one of the deadliest months for the U.S. military in Iraq. Last month, 104 soldiers were killed, the sixth time since the war began that more than 100 troops died in a month.

Congress gives Bush his Iraq money, but President faces mounting opposition to war (click here)

Saturday, May 26, 2007
By Rupert Cornwell
President George Bush was able to sign the "no-strings" Iraq funding bill he demanded. But this is likely to be a short-lived victory, as domestic opposition to the war grows, and a bloody summer of fighting lies ahead.
Congress finally approved the $120bn (£60bn) measure by relatively comfortable margins yesterday. In the House the majority was 280 to 142 - even though more than half of the Democrats opposed a bill they considered a betrayal of the platform on which they won back control of Congress last November.
The Senate margin, of 80 votes for and 14 against, was even more conclusive. But Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the two leading contenders for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, both voted no - a sign of their fear of alienating the party's liberal anti-war constituency, so important in the upcoming primaries.
Unlike the initial funding measure which Mr Bush vetoed on 1 May, this one contains no timetable for an American troop withdrawal. It does lay down "benchmarks" for political progress by the Baghdad government, but even these can be waived by the President.
But for the White House the going is likely to get much tougher in the next few months, even before a new funding measure comes up for debate in September. The Senate and House will hold repeated votes on whether US troops should be pulled out, and whether Mr Bush even has the authority carry on the war.

The Shape of a Shadowy Air War in Iraq
Turse, TomDispatch, 25 May 2007

Did the U.S. military use cluster bombs in Iraq in 2006 and then lie about it? (click here)

Does the U.S. military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?

These are just two of the many unanswered questions related to the largely uncovered air war the U.S. military has been waging in Iraq.

What we do know is this: Since the major combat phase of the war ended in April 2003, the U.S. military has dropped at least 59,787 pounds of air-delivered cluster bombs in Iraq -- the very type of weapon that Marc Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls, "the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon that is in use." We also know that, according to expert opinion, rockets and cannon fire from U.S. aircraft may account for most U.S. and coalition-attributed Iraqi civilian deaths and that the Pentagon has restocked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these weapons in recent years.

Unfortunately, thanks to an utter lack of coverage by the mainstream media, what we don't know about the air war in Iraq so far outweighs what we do know that anything but the most minimal picture of the nature of destruction from the air in that country simply can't be painted. Instead, think of the story of U.S. air power in Iraq as a series of tiny splashes of lurid color on a largely blank canvas.

Cluster Bombs

Even among the least covered aspects of the air war in Iraq, the question of cluster-bomb (CBU) use remains especially shadowy. This is hardly surprising. After all, at a time when many nations are moving toward banning the use of cluster munitions -- at a February 2007 conference in Oslo, Norway, 46 of 48 governments represented supported a declaration for a new international treaty and ban on the weapons by 2008 -- the U.S. stands with China, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia in opposing new limits of any kind.

Little wonder. The U.S. military has a staggering arsenal of these weapons. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the Army holds 88% of the Pentagon's CBU inventory -- at least 638.3 million of the cluster bomblets that are stored inside each cluster munition; the Air Force and Navy, according to Department of Defense figures, have 22.2 million and 14.7 million of the bomblets, respectively. And even these numbers are considered undercounts by experts.

A cluster bomb bursts above the ground, releasing hundreds of smaller, deadly submunitions or "bomblets" that increase the weapon's kill radius causing, as Garlasco puts it, "indiscriminate effects." It's a weapon, he notes, that "cannot distinguish between a civilian and a soldier when employed because of its wide coverage area. If you're dropping the weapon and you blow your target up you're also hitting everything within a football field. So to use it in proximity to civilians is inviting a violation of the laws of armed conflict."

President Gerald R. Ford, center, with Chief of Staff Donald H. Rumsfeld, left, and Rumsfeld's assistant, Dick Cheney, on April 28, 1975. (By David Hume Kennerly -- Ford Library Via Associated Press)

For those that seem to think Bush is correct. Well, for about 24% of the country (click here) the fact of the matter is, the man that 'called off' Vietnam would do the say with Iraq. To 'stop the killing' in Iraq there has to be a USA exit of that country, especially now, there will be more and more aggression by the Bush/Cheney military and the slaughter of people will be astronomical again.

...According to the survey, which was conducted May 18-23, more than three out of four citizens (76 percent) now believe the Iraq war is going badly, up from 66 percent just a month ago. (May 25, 2007)...

Muqtada. Muqtada. Muqtada. The West is emboldened againt him. They need a scapegoat to justify occupation.

In his recent appearance he looks well. I congratulate him for marshalling the Shia forces under a Fatwa. Very interesting. His father's son.


The foolishness of the Western Press is that upon his return the USA has lead a successful attack on Sadr City. For one, he isn't in Sadr City, which is East Baghdad. He never has been there. So any titles in the media spoken or print or video tempting people of The West to believe the Cleric is under seige in Baghdad is a lie. It's not nice to lie and deceive when American troops lives are on the line while lining the pockets of billionaires. Shame on them all. As a matter of fact the so called attack by the USA into Sadr City was completely botched killing innocent people.



Sadr uses dramatic reappearance to deliver blast of anti-US rhetoric (click here)
Saturday, May 26, 2007
By Patrick Cockburn
The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has reappeared before thousands of supporters for the first time in months to call for American troops to end the occupation of Iraq.
In an impassioned sermon to 6,000 worshippers in a mosque in the holy city of Kufa al-Sadr, wearing a white martyr's cloak thrown over his dark robes, he cried: "No, no to Satan! No, no to America! No, no to the occupation! No, no to Israel!"
He had appeared earlier in the morning in the nearby shrine city of Najaf to travel in a long motorcade to Kufa to deliver the Friday sermon.
Mr Sadr, leader of a powerful Shia political movement and the much-feared Mehdi Army militia, disappeared some four months ago, evidently fearing that he would be targeted by the US. But he stood down his militiamen as the US Army introduced a security plan for Baghdad and avoided an all-out confrontation with the US.
In his sermon yesterday he forcefully demanded an end to the US-led occupation and offered reconciliation to Sunni Arabs. The Sadrist movement, founded by Muqtada's murdered father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, in the 1990s, has always been nationalist but the Mehdi Army is hated by many Sunnis for its death squads and sectarian cleansing.
Surrounded by guards and aides in Kufa al-Sadr, Mr Sadr declared: "I renew my demand for the occupiers to leave or draw up a timetable for withdrawal, and I ask the government not to let the occupiers extend the occupation even for one day." He has removed six Sadrist ministers from the government, citing its failure to set a timetable for American departure.
Mr Sadr's demand for an end to the occupation is likely to resonate in Iraq where the Sunni community has favoured this since the invasion of 2003 and the majority Shia community has increasingly wanted a timetable for a withdrawal, according to opinion polls. The Sadrists have been meeting with anti-al-Qa'ida Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar to discuss forming a common front. Sectarian suspicions between Shia and Sunni are so deep and bitter, however, that differences will be difficult to bridge.
There has been escalating intra-Shia fighting in southern Iraq over the past two months with skirmishes in all the main Shia cities. Often the police and security forces are simply militiamen in uniform.
Yesterday, Mr Sadr condemned fighting between the Mehdi Army and Iraqi security forces, saying that this served "the interests of the occupiers". He said that he preferred peaceful protests and sit-ins.
In an attempt to refurbish his reputation as a non-sectarian nationalist, Mr Sadr said he was ready to co-operate with Sunnis "on all issues". He added: "I am completely ready to defend them [Sunnis and Christians] and be their armour against their enemies."
Mr Sadr has been out of Iraq in Iran and Lebanon according to one of his aides, abandoning the Sadrist claim that he never left Iraq. He seems to have returned about a week ago, at which time Iraqis talking to Sadrist leaders noticed that they seemed to be able to reach him rapidly by phone on landlines, though there are no landlines to Iran.
His return now is probably explained by the damage his prolonged absence was doing to his movement. It is very dependent on the cult-like devotion felt towards the 33-year-old Mr Sadr by millions of poor and devout Shias.
Previously unheard of by the outside world, he emerged as a surprisingly powerful leader in 2003 at the time of the fall of Saddam Hussein. He inherited much of the authority of his father, who was assassinated with two of his sons by Saddam Hussein's agents in Najaf in 1999.
The Sadrist movement's blend of Islam, Iraqi nationalism and populism has proved highly attractive to Shia, particularly those who are very poor. The US tried and failed to eliminate Mr Sadr in two armed confrontations in April and August 2004. The Sadrist movement survived and went on to do well in the parliamentary elections of 2005, gaining 32 seats in the 275-member national assembly and six ministerial posts.
A further reason for Mr Sadr's return now is the growing competition between his supporters and those of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) led by the ailing Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. SIIC, formed under Iranian auspices in Tehran in 1982, has been trying with some success to rid itself of the imputation that it is subservient to Iran. The Sadrists, by contrast, were traditionally hostile to Iran but under US pressure have increasingly come to depend on Tehran's support.
The Sadrists and SIIC are the main components of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia front supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the religious hierarchy or Marjai'iyyah. Much though they dislike each other, they will be under pressure from the grand ayatollah not to divide the Shia community.



Iraq is a pilgram's haven. The Shia have their holiest lands in Iraq. There are going to be Iranians in Iraq all the time because of personal pilgramages to their holy land. These Iranians will be armed and I would not be surprised to find they are in possession of substantially armed escorts. Did the USA know there is a war torn nation still in chaos of leadership, food, water and medical care? Maybe they didn't know that to 'get around' Iraq one travels well armed and in multiples to add maximum protection to 'that movement.' Makes sense, huh? So no matter whom in Iraq the USA decides to 'target' is guilty because they carry arms. One would think the NRA is in it's glory in Iraq. Arm the nation. Isn't that the rant of the NRA? Right? Sure, why not?



US military says five Iraqi militants killed in Sadr City raid
US-led forces seized a suspected militant with ties to Iran and killed five others in an early morning raid in the east Baghdad Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Saturday, the US military said.
However, an Iraqi defence ministry official said an air strike launched in support of the ground raid hit cars lined up to purchase gas at a nearby petrol station, and that those killed were innocent civilians.
The US military statement said the man detained in the raid had been "acting as a proxy for an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer," and smuggling explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) to local militias.
It added that five people were killed when troops called in an air strike after nine vehicles moved into the area following the arrest in an apparent attempt to resist the operation.
The Iraqi official disputed this version and said the cars hit in the air strike had been waiting to fill up with gas, a common pre-dawn scene in a city where shortages are common and lines often stretch for several blocks.
The military official added that several houses were destroyed and six vehicles incinerated, in the raid.
A local hospital official reported receiving three bodies and eight wounded people following the battle.
The United States has long accused Iran of supplying EFPs, sophisticated explosive devices that discharge a ball of molten metal capable of tearing through an armoured vehicle, to Shiite militias.
The United States and Iran frequently accuse each other of fomenting violence in Iraq, but on Monday their respective ambassadors will hold landmark meetings in Baghdad aimed at slowing Iraq's spiralling mayhem.
Saturday's raids came one day after radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr reappeared from a four-month absence to deliver a Friday sermon calling for national reconciliation and the departure of US and British forces.
Sadr called on his forces to refrain from fighting the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police, but a few hours later Iraqi special forces with British support killed one of his senior commanders while trying to detain him at Basra checkpoint.
Sadr's well-armed but increasingly fractured Mahdi Army militia has largely cooperated with a three-month-old US-led security crackdown in the capital, but rogue elements continue to battle coalition and Iraqi forces.


Doesn't anyone beside me recognize propaganda? The article below from The Washington Post outlines what USA intelligence 'estimates' to be expected in Iraq. Where have you heard it before now? Here? Most of it. The al Qaeda mess is irrelevant. The so called "Al Qaeda in Iraq" has proven to be a violent entity against primarily The Shia of Iraq. They are known to be Sunnis. Look. There just aren't that many 'bad guys' in Iraq. They aren't international terrorists. Not even close. There will never be a perfect Middle East until the Shia, Sunnis and Israelis settle their disputes with international intervention promoting good behavior with good economics. Can we please get on with this. It would be good if the USA left Iraq. I don't care how many 'sympathy stories' The Western Media puts out of the hardship in Iraq of the people there. I really don't. Those stories on tell me loud and clear what a mess the USA is making of that country. Sooner or later the USA has to come to terms with it's defeat in Iraq and return to 'the real war' currently floundering badly in Afghanistan. PLEASE GET OVER THIS. Innocent Iraqis are dying in large numbers. The CHAOS in Iraq will end when it isn't confused with an illegal war by Bush and Cheney. Jeeze. The Iraq War, also known as 'Exponential Corruption.'


Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed (click here)
Senate Panel Releases Assessments From 2003
By Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff WritersSaturday, May 26, 2007; Page A01
Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.

A Fatwa called and honored will eliminate any meaningful reason for the USA to occupy Iraq any further. The USA is now an enemy to a martyred war. The Shia in the Iraqi military and police will be 'moved' to honor the Fatwa. The Shia in the Iraqi Unity Government will be feeling their obligations in the face of the USA military and their generals. This is not the USA's war. Iraq will divide into there autonomous provinces, the Iraq 'oil obligation' to the USA due to the illegal invasion of Bush/Cheney will desolve along with Iraq's sovereignty. There will be a Shiastan, Sunnistan and Kurdistan. The alliances are clear, Sunni-Saudi, Shia-Iran, and alas the Kurds. Ah, the Kurds. Well, they already have their eyes set on an expansive country encompassing all of Kurdistan including 'Turkish occupied' lands. It's reality. It will happen and there isn't a darn thing The West can do about it except realize 'it's place' and learn to thrive 'within that reality' through abundant and peaceful trade initiatives. I am not going to discuss the Iranian enrichment facility; I have already done that; it cannot be tolerated. Russia has the best option for Iran and any illegitimate nuclear country.