Bush created a terrorist training ground in Iraq

Bush's war in Iraq has become the terror training and recruiting ground he's always claiming he's going to prevent. Terrorists trained in Iraq are now starting to take their fight to other parts of the world based on a report in Monday's NY Times. This happened on Bush's watch in Bush's war:

In an April 17 report written for the United States government, Dennis Pluchinsky, a former senior intelligence analyst at the State Department, said battle-hardened militants from Iraq posed a greater threat to the West than extremists who trained in Afghanistan because Iraq had become a laboratory for urban guerrilla tactics.

“There are some operational parallels between the urban terrorist activity in Iraq and the urban environments in Europe and the United States,” Mr. Pluchinsky wrote. “More relevant terrorist skills are transferable from Iraq to Europe than from Afghanistan to Europe,” he went on, citing the use of safe houses, surveillance, bomb making and mortars.

A top American military official who tracks terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said: “Do I think in the future the jihad will be fueled from the battlefield of Iraq? Yes. More so than the battlefield of Afghanistan.”

Militants in Iraq are turning out instructional videos and electronic newsletters on the Internet that lay out their playbook for a startling array of techniques, from encryption to booby-trapped bombs to surface-to-air missiles, and those manuals are circulating freely in cyberspace.

Heckuva job, Bush. Heckuva legacy. And, for the record, this didn't happen when Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq. This happened when George Bush controlled Iraq.

Bush and Cheney, who claim they're fighting terrorists, never caught Osama Bin Laden who did attack us. Instead, they've been the best recruiters for Bin Laden's cause. Read the rest of this post...

Peruse some initial results from our blog reader survey

You can check out some of the initial results from our reader survey here. 8,355 people answered the survey, though I don't have the breakdown of how many answered each question (some may have skipped some questions). Also, if you hover your mouse over the charts and/or labels on the charts, you'll see the actual percentage for each data group (e.g., men vs women, Ford vs Toyota owners, etc.) This is just a sample, we have much more than this, some of it still being tabulated. Read the rest of this post...

Associated Press prints false Cheney claims unchallenged

They don't call them the Associated Pravda for nothing. AP has become a shell of its former self. They used to do journalism. Now they're little more than stenographers, reprinting any assertion, however outlandish, from the Bush administration as fact.

For example:

"We're fighting a war over there because the enemy attacked us first," Cheney said.

Iraq had nothing to with September 11. Why did AP fail to mention that?

The terrorism fight now centers on Iraq, the vice president said, because that is where the enemy has massed.

The war in Iraq started before the "enemy" was amassed there. Again, AP couldn't mention this?

He promised that the Army will have all the manpower, equipment and support it needs.

This, the same day we learn that the Bush administration refused to give our troops IED-proof vehicles because the Bushies were too cheap.

In AP's eyes, one assumes, it would be biased of them to challenge Cheney's lies. They see their job as the daily stenographers of the administration's latest tales. They are simply unable to look at any of their stories in a larger context, going so far as to contradict their own previous stories because to reference those previous stories, to note facts that prove the administration's latest assertions to be untrue, is somehow "biased." Yes, the truth is now "biased." So AP simply reprints the lies, unchallenged. Who needs FAX machines when we can read partisan press releases on AP. Read the rest of this post...

Iraq is a disaster

Frank Rich via E&P;

Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That’s a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq’s child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation’s. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what’s happening in the country he gave “God’s gift of freedom.”

Read the rest of this post...

US mercenaries in Iraq

You don't hear much about them. But there's a shadow war going on, and they don't have to follow the rules. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

So again this week looks like the main topics are Iraq and immigration. Of course, last week, we saw Bush get yet another blank check for the war he started, but won't end. We saw that Congress didn't hold Bush accountable, either.

Richardson gets his one-on-one with Russert. All in all, the shows look pretty low key this holiday weekend:

ABC's "This Week" — Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez; Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; former Gov. Jim Gilmore, R-Va.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.

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CNN's "Late Edition" — Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

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"Fox News Sunday" — Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.; Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As always, provide the comments and commentary. Read the rest of this post...

Who knew working at McDonald's was so stimulating?

Brace yourself for the tidal wave of support from the masses who are unhappy with the current definition of "McJob" and want change now.

Figures including Sir Digby Jones, former head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and David Frost, director-general of the British Chamber of commerce, complained that the term was "insulting" and "out of touch".

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), seen as the definitive guide to the English language, describes a McJob as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."

But Jones, Frost and 13 others said in a letter to the Financial Times that the dictionary should change this "to reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding and offers genuine opportunities for career progression."

Oh yes, I feel the anger on the streets, seething from this wrong that must be righted before it's too late. Thank goodness there is a "sir" managing this critical campaign, once again proving the value of this truly out of date, out of touch with reality and embarrassing system that should have been left behind a few centuries ago. Read the rest of this post...

Blair wants wartime powers for UK police

Now where have we heard this kind of pitch before? No wonder the right wing extremists in the US love this guy.

The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.

If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said. Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.

This from the same guy who wants to track all vehicles in the UK via satellite and who had the police arrest an elderly member of his party (who dared to criticize The Poodle in front of others) and charge him under previous anti-terrorism laws. Hundreds of years of democracy, down the drain. Read the rest of this post...