In a speech at the National Press Club, Senator Kennedy pre-empted President Bush's address to the nation tomorrow by outlining a bill he's introducing that requires congressional approval for any troop surge in Iraq. Kennedy drew striking parallels between Vietnam and the current conflict, going so far as to say that "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

Its official, apparently the government WOULD send 3000 Americans to their deaths for a lie:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2006/12/26/3003439-ap.html

At least 36 Iraqis died Tuesday in bombings, officials said, including a co-ordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad. Separately, the deaths of six U.S. soldiers pushed the American toll beyond the number of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The three co-ordinated car bombs in western Baghdad injured at least 55 people, a doctor at Yarmouk hospital, where the victims were taken, said on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. The attacks occurred in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighbourhood.

In separate attacks, a bomb exploded in a central Baghdad market, killing four people and wounding 15 others, police said. Two roadside bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol in an eastern neighbourhood of the capital, killing four policemen and injuring 12 people.

In Kirkuk, 290 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital, another roadside bomb killed three civilians - including an 8-year-old girl - and wounded six other people, police said.

ALAIN TERRIEUR
La Lune de la presse internationale

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

Civil War Memorabia enthusiasts rejoiced Tuesday when it was announced that the popularity of the coveted objects had reached record levels in Iraq. Weapons such as rocket propelled grenades, handguns, explosives and depleted uranium had become increasingly valuable in recent weeks, a La Rochelle Times study showed.

If current memorabilia popularity remains at such high levels, it could have a profound effect on the development of Iraqi society and culture, as well as an influence on international oil prices. The Iraqi Dinar, once unpopular with foreign currency holders, could gain ground against other currencies if Iraq is flooded with even more potential Civil War memorabilia.

"In a few years, who knows what some of those depleted uranium rounds will be worth on the memorabilia market," said General Ann R. Key, currently overseeing the Fubar Province in central Iraq.

According to the US dept of energy Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia) along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraqâ??s true potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions. Deep oil-bearing formations located mainly in the vast Western Desert region, for instance, could yield large additional oil resources (possibly another 100 billion barrels), but have not been explored.

That makes 432 billion barrels times todays oil price per barrel, 67 dollars - something like 29 trillion dollars

Trillions in oil revenues is not the only money to be made from the invasion of iraq - the cost of the Iraq war to the taxpayerswas is budgeted at over 318 billion dollars . All of the weapons, uniforms, bases, vehicles, fuels, food and its preparation - all are purchased from private corporations. According to the national priorities project, an non proit that analyzes where federal dollars are spent - more than 28 billion of the total will be paid by the people of New York State - that 28 billion is enough to convert 93,743,138 homes to renewable electricity - according to the 2000 census, there were 105,480,101 occupied housinf units in the united states - just the money paid for the Iraq war by the people of New York state in enough to convert around 90 percent of Amwerican homes to renewable energy.

"what the Iraqi people want"

In yesterday's press conference, President Bush insisted that there would be no withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as long as he was president. He gave a long, scattered list of reasons. Among them was a claim put forward in a number of different ways that boiled down to this: "it's what the Iraqi people want."

Really?

Mark Tessler and Mansoor Moaddel recently released some of the data from their latest survey of Iraqi public opinion. As reported in US News, this survey revealed that

The growing sense of insecurity affected all three of Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups. The number of Iraqis who "strongly agreed" that life is "unpredictable and dangerous" jumped from 41% to 48% of Shiites, from 67% to 79% of Sunnis, and from 16% to 50% of Kurds. The most recent survey, done in April this year, also asked for "the three main reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq." Less than 2% chose "to bring democracy to Iraq" as their first choice. The list was topped by "to control Iraqi oil" (76%), followed by "to build military bases" (41%) and "to help Israel" (32%).

http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/08/what_the_iraqi_.html

The fake "War on Terror" is being driven by public opinion it seems. Whenever the mainstream media televises their propaganda events from the Middle East, Americans seem to stand behind it.

We have no proof that any of these "videos" are of real events...

People need to understand that ANY video - EVEN LIVE VIDEO - can be fake. This article from Technology Review explains all the details about realtime, live, on-the-fly video manipulation, deleting/editing/inserting prerecorded footage into live feed as it's happening.

When MSNBC's Scarborough Country, being hosted by Michael Smerconish, recently had a couple 9/11 related guests on, I wrote Mr. Smerconish a message at his radio site email page and sent it to him no less than 10 times in a row.

The message was a strong request, urging Mr. Smerconish to have Professor Steven E. Jones as a guest on Scarborough Country, to present his hypothesis for controlled demolition of the World Trade Center towers and World Trade Center building 7. At the time of the email, I was under the impression that Mr. Smerconish was the regular host of Scarborough Country. He hasn't taken up the request, maybe I should write the regular host.

Anyway. This morning when looking through one of my email addresses -- the email address used when sending the strong request to Mr. Smerconish -- I saw that since I entered my email address when sending the message, I must have been added to Mr. Smerconish's email mailing list. "Great!"

When reading the email, hoping that it was maybe Mr. Smerconish replying about my strong request to have Professor Steven E. Jones as a guest on Scarborough Country (or even his radio program), alas, I was disappointed to find that it was only him trying to build interest in his new book, and promote his 2006 Book Club season. Click here to read a screen capture of the email which contains: "Then came 9/11." Followed by the line: "While men like me rung their hands, Pantano re-enlisted. He ended up in Iraq."

We should take advantage of this. How about a campaign to inform military bases, families, etc that Bush has admitted NO connection between Iraq and 9/11?

www.nytimes.com By CARL HULSE and MARJORIE CONNELLY Published: August 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The finding that 51 percent of those surveyed see no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort was a jump of 10 percentage points since June. It came despite the regular insistence of Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans that the two are intertwined and should be seen as complementary elements of an overall strategy to prevent domestic terror attacks.

Should the trend hold, the increased skepticism could present a political obstacle for Mr. Bush and his allies on Capitol Hill, who are making their record on terrorism a central element of the midterm election campaign. The Republicans hope the public’s desire for forceful action against terrorists will offset unease with the Iraq war and blunt the political appeal of Democratic calls to establish a timeline to withdraw American troops.

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