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Holder Just Made Me a Promise

Holder Just Made Me a Promise
Submitted by davidswanson on April 23, 2009 - 4:44pm.
Bush Prosecution
As Attorney General Eric Holder left an appropriations subcommittee hearing on Thursday I spoke loudly from the third row as he prepared to leave the room:
"We need a special prosecutor for torture, Mr. Attorney General. Americans like the rule of law. The rule of law for everybody."
He replied as he approached and walked by, surrounded by bodyguards:
"And you will be proud of your country."
I was joined by others in replying simultaneously:
"Yes, we want to be proud of our country. We're ready. No need to wait."
Holder knew exactly what it would take for me to be proud of my country, and he told me directly that I would be.
Will I? Time will tell.
Some friends from Code Pink and Veterans for Peace and I had held up signs during the hearing: "Torture Is Illegal", "Special Prosecutor", "Justice for ALL", "Are Laws for Everyone?", "Special Counsel for War Crimes", "No Torture", etc.
But I had come with a coalition of groups led by the ACLU in an attempt to present a petition to Holder asking for a special prosecutor.
Pre-hearing we presented the petition to an assistant attorney general who then sat in the front row with a few other DOJ staffers. He promised to hand Holder the petition, and I asked him again in the hallway afterwards, and he promised to hand it to him.
Here's the opening of the ACLU's press release:
"A broad coalition of advocacy groups today will deliver petitions containing a quarter million signatures to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that he appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s use of torture on terrorism suspects. The petitions were gathered by the American Civil Liberties Union, MoveOn.org Political Action, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Firedoglake.com, Democrats.com and other advocacy groups. The petitions will be delivered during Holder’s testimony before a House Appropriations Subcommittee."
And here's what I said in that press release:
"David Swanson, Washington Director of Democrats.com: 'Torturing people to compel agreement with fictional justifications for war suggests that we have not advanced greatly during the past millennium. And yet I know that we have, and that we can prove it by enforcing our laws in the face of fear and misunderstanding. A delay cannot be justified by a lack of evidence (the evidence is overwhelming) or by a political calculation. Appointing an independent special counsel to enforce our laws would give a new basis for progress in our relations with the world, a rationale for improving our criminal code moving forward, and the necessary space for congress to properly pursue accountability and prevention of future abuses of power.'"
This was my blog of the hearing. A number of congress members said and asked very good things, but the questioning was not very pointed, and the answers were either vague or put matters off until June when task forces finish their work. (Do I have to wait until then to start being proud of my country?)
2:40 p.m. Rep David Obey opens with story of political prosecution in WI.
2:45 pm Rep Frank Wolf (R., Va.) talked about 9-11.
2:50 Holder says OPR report should be done "relatively soon."
2:55 Obey is asking about prosecution for torture team.
2:59 Holder says DOJ task forces on interrogations and detentions will report in July, but does not actually answer the question of whether there will be prosecutions.
3:01 Wolf is worried that enforcing the law might make employees in the future feel they had to be careful to obey laws. So, Wolf repeats the question: will you pursue the prosecutions? AND are there docs that show torturing saved lives?
3:02 Holder will not prosecute people who acted in good faith on justice dept memos, but claims to enforce the rule of law blah blah and MIGHT be open to prosecuting the people who wrote the memos. Holder has not seen and is unfamiliar with any memos that back up Cheney's claims but he hopes to make all OLC memos public. Wolf wants ALL memos, OLC and otherwise.
Let him have em!!! Here's how crazy Cheney's claim is.
3:09 hearing's being played live on MSNBC right now, and covered on CNN and Fox. Fattah is now asking about massive funding of prisons and pittance for re-entry programs, and about mortgage fraud.
3:10 Holder answers re mortgage fraud.
3:13 Asked again, Holder says he supports the Second Chance Act. He supports schools and parenting. (Not really his department?) He supports educating prisoners. (So why not fund it?)
Questioning drifting from topic of torture. I'm reading the news. NY Times has an op-ed from Roger Cohen, who wants immunity for torturers.
3:21 Schiff nails it. Holder said water boarding torture. Torture has occurred. Laws must be enforced.
3:25 Holder hems and haws.
3:25 Culverson wants to know if CIAers who did not act in good faith might be prosecuted. Holder says yes.
3:31 Serrano: if we do not prosecute torture we provide a recruiting tool to terrorists, and we leave people unable to travel outside the country for fear of arrest. But Serrano asks no question and moves on to immigrants issues.
3:40 Rep Ruppersberger asks about the torture again and Holder answers about his task forces through July again.
I just posted an excellent article the AG should read.
I'm going to turn this off and try to talk to Holder when he leaves.
More to come.
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Us,Iranian and Afghan Talks/Whoa

 

Published on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 by the Associated Press

US and Iran at Afghan Talks

The United States was meeting today with countries from around the world, including its adversary Iran, to seek support for its new strategy to end a stalemate in Afghanistan.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not expected to hold substantive talks with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh at the meeting in The Hague.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, left, and Afghanistan's President Hamid Karma, right, are seen at the start of a meeting at the Afghanistan Conference in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday March 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

But the conference would nonetheless bring the two together as Washington tries to enlist regional support in tackling Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Richard Holbrooke, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Iran's presence at the conference was a logical part of efforts to produce peace for Afghans.

"How can you talk about Afghanistan and exclude one of the countries that's a bordering, neighbouring state?" he told reporters in The Hague. "The presence of Iran here is obvious."

Ahead of the conference, Akhoundzadeh repeated Iran's opposition to the presence of US troops in Afghanistan.

"The presence of foreign troops cannot bring peace and stability for Afghanistan," he was quoted as saying by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

"It encourages radicalism," he said. "This policy (that the Western countries) decide for the Afghan nation and for the Afghan officials does not work out any more."  Full Story

London Bridge Is Falling Down

Sunday, March 29, 2009 by TimesOnline/UK

G20 Protesters Face Police with Tasers

by David Leppard and Steven Swinford

LONDON - Scotland Yard is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week's G20 summit in London.

Thousands of demonstrators take part in the "Put People First" march through central London. Tens of thousands of demonstrators from trade unions and environmental and anti-capitalism groups marched through London Saturday, starting a series of mass protests ahead of the G20 summit.(AFP/Leon Neal)

The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with speedcuffs, extended batons and CS gas spray.

The Met confirmed yesterday that they will be supported by officers equipped with Tasers on stand-by should trouble break out.

"There will be an armed response vehicle element to this operation and [those officers] will be carrying Tasers," said a spokeswoman.

The Met's admission that Tasers could be used for the first time in the UK during riots came as protest groups claimed police had contacted them to warn that a day of protest in the City on Wednesday would be "very violent".

All police leave has been cancelled and 10,500 officers, including reinforcements from other forces, will be deployed in the biggest policing operation undertaken in London.

Demonstrations intended to bring the capital's financial centre to a standstill on Wednesday and disruption to the G20 summit at the ExCel centre in Docklands on Thursday will provide the first big test for Sir Paul Stephenson, the new Met commissioner. He will be aware that the protests provide an opportunity to show the world that London is up to the security and public order challenges of the 2012 Olympics Full Story

An American Foreign Legion ?

Published on Monday, February 16, 2009 by TomDispatch.com
Is the US Military Now an Imperial Police Force?
An American Foreign Legion
by William Astore
A leaner, meaner, higher tech force -- that was what George W. Bush and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised to transform the American military into. Instead, they came close to turning it into a foreign legion. Foreign as in being constantly deployed overseas on imperial errands; foreign as in being ever more reliant on private military contractors; foreign as in being increasingly segregated from the elites that profit most from its actions, yet serve the least in its ranks.
Now would be a good time for President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to begin to reclaim that military for its proper purpose: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now would be a good time to ask exactly why, and for whom, our troops are currently fighting and dying in the urban jungles of Iraq and the hostile hills of Afghanistan.
A few fortnights and forever ago, in the Bush years, our "expeditionary" military came remarkably close to resembling an updated version of the French Foreign Legion in the ways it was conceived and used by those in power -- and even, to some extent, in its makeup.
For the metropolitan French elite of an earlier era, the Foreign Legion -- best known to Americans from countless old action films -- was an assemblage of military adventurers and rootless romantics, volunteers willing to man an army fighting colonial wars in far-flung places. Those wars served the narrow interests of people who weren't particularly concerned about the fate of the legion itself.
It's easy enough to imagine one of them saying, à la Rumsfeld, "You go to war with the legion you have, not the legion you might want or wish to have." Such a blithe statement would have been uncontroversial back then, since the French Foreign Legion was -- well -- so foreign. Its members, recruited worldwide, but especially from French colonial possessions, were considered expendable, a fate captured in its grim, sardonic motto: "You joined the Legion to die. The Legion will send you where you can die!"
Looking back on the last eight years, what's remarkable is the degree to which Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration treated the U.S. military in a similarly dismissive manner. Bullying his generals and ignoring their concerns, the Secretary of Defense even dismissed the vulnerability of the troops in Iraq, who, in the early years, motored about in inadequately armored Humvees and other thin-skinned vehicles.
Last year, Vice President Dick Cheney offered another Legionnaire-worthy version of such dismissiveness. Informed that most Americans no longer supported the war in Iraq, he infamously and succinctly countered, "So?" -- as if the U.S. military weren't the American people's instrument, but his own private army, fed and supplied by private contractor KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary whose former CEO was the very same Dick Cheney.
Fond of posing in flight suits, leather jackets, and related pseudo-military gear, President Bush might, on the other hand, have seemed overly invested in the military. Certainly, his tough war talk resonated within conservative circles, and he visibly relished speaking before masses of hooah-ing soldiers. Too often, however, Bush simply used them as patriotic props, while his administration did its best to hide their deaths from public view.
In that way, he and his top officials made our troops into foreigners, in part by making their ultimate sacrifice, their deaths, as foreign to us as was humanly possible. Put another way, his administration made the very idea of national "sacrifice" -- by anyone but our troops -- foreign to most Americans. In response to the 9/11 attacks, Americans were, as the President famously suggested only 16 days after the attacks, to show their grit by visiting Disney World and shopping till they dropped. Military service instills (and thrives on) an ethic of sacrifice that was, for more than seven years, consciously disavowed domestically.
As the Obama administration begins to deploy U.S. troops back to the Iraq or Afghan war zones for their fourth or fifth tours of duty, I remain amazed at the silent complicity of my country. Why have we been so quiet? Is it because the Bush administration was, in fact, successful in sending our military down the path to foreign legion-hood? Is the fate of our troops no longer of much importance to most Americans?
Even the military's recruitment and demographics are increasingly alien to much of the country. Troops are now regularly recruited in "foreign" places like South Central Los Angeles and Appalachia that more affluent Americans wouldn't be caught dead visiting. In some cases, those new recruits are quite literally "foreign" -- non-U.S. citizens allowed to seek a fast-track to citizenship by volunteering for frontline, war-zone duty in the U.S. Army or Marines. And when, in these last years, the military has fallen short of its recruitment goals -- less likely today thanks to the ongoing economic meltdown -- mercenaries have simply been hired at inflated prices from civilian contractors with names like Triple Canopy or Blackwater redolent of foreign adventures.
With respect to demographics, it'll take more than the sons of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin to redress inequities in burden-sharing. With startlingly few exceptions, America's sons and daughters dodging bullets remain the progeny of rural America, of immigrant America, of the working and lower middle classes. As long as our so-called best and brightest continue to be AWOL when it comes to serving among the rank-and-file, count on our foreign adventurism to continue to surge.
Diversity is now our societal byword. But how about more class diversity in our military? How about a combat regiment of rich young volunteers from uptown Manhattan? (After all, some of their great-grandfathers probably fought with New York's famed "Silk Stocking" regiment in World War I.) How about more Ivy League recruits like George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy, who respectively piloted a dive bomber and a PT boat in World War II? Heck, why not a few prominent Hollywood actors like Jimmy Stewart, who piloted heavy bombers in the flak-filled skies of Europe in that same war?
Instead of collective patriotic sacrifice, however, it's clear that the military will now be running the equivalent of a poverty and recession "draft" to fill the "all-volunteer" military. Those without jobs or down on their luck in terrible times will have the singular honor of fighting our future wars. Who would deny that drawing such recruits from dead-end situations in the hinterlands or central cities is strikingly Foreign Legion-esque?
Caught in the shock and awe of 9/11, we allowed our military to be transformed into a neocon imperial police force. Now, approaching our eighth year in Afghanistan and sixth year in Iraq, what exactly is that force defending? Before President Obama acts to double the number of American boots-on-the-ground in Afghanistan -- before even more of our troops are sucked deeper into yet another quagmire -- shouldn't we ask this question with renewed urgency? Shouldn't we wonder just why, despite all the reverent words about "our troops," we really seem to care so little about sending them back into the wilderness again and again?
Where indeed is the outcry?
The French Foreign Legionnaires knew better than to expect such an outcry: The elites for whom they fought didn't give a damn about what happened to them. Our military may not yet be a foreign legion -- but don't fool yourself, it's getting there.
© 2009 William Astore

Obama Shows Resolve

Now Before The Post for Today; A Word From

" WeThe People "

                  

Published on Saturday, January 31, 2009 by the Chicago Tribune

Obama Lets CIA Keep Controversial Renditions Tool

by Greg Miller

WASHINGTON - The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism-aside from Predator missile strikes-for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the U.S. is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing legal reasoning behind the decision. "The legal advisers working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."

One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

Obama's decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human-rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense, even among advocates, that the United States and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."

In his executive order on lawful interrogations, Obama created a task force to re-examine renditions to make sure that they "do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture" or otherwise circumvent human-rights laws and treaties.

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

Work Needed; Apply Here

Jan. is coming to a close and I am ready (in spirit ) to update my site. Had to wait
and see Just what will Our New President Do & How long will he take to make the Moves
to undo the Damage Done By GW & Co.So be patient and all will come in its' Time!
God bless, Neo

Neos' Notebook & Jounal

Neos' Notebook: "Neos' News & Reports { from Our Matrix }


How The Uk Furthers ' The New World Order '


Neo News & Reports { from Our Matrix }"

Presidential Debates? A Democratic Process ?

I, Like Millions of American Voters,I Would Like to see All viable Candidates Invited.
or It's Just Demoracy Being ignored and Americans being cheated again out of our Demorcracts elections by The Exclusion of all Candidates that represent a Third or more Political Parties who have demonstrated themselves to be another Credible American Political Party who have Recieved The People's vote of Confidence that have Enough suport to alter or begin Their Influence on The American Political Election Process.We Must Have More Than A Two Party System If We Are To Be A Goverment By The People, For The People And Of The People. Respecfully Yours, Neo

History Of The Bush Family - The Library Of Congress Documents all Info.

The Truth Inspite of The Lies

How Total Control Begins (Police State)

BIG MEDIA REFRESHER Video

Truth Without The Spin 24

Ron Paul; He Can Do It.....

Fresh Meat=More Of ur Young&Poor

9/11 & the NWO, Explosive Devices & Iluminati etc.

9/11 The DVD, One Of The Best

US Intelligence Review Directly Contradicts Bush’s Line On Iran

Published on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 by Inter Press Service

US Intelligence Review Directly Contradicts Bush’s Line On Iran
by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - Despite the White House spin that the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) supports its policy of increasing pressure on Iran, the estimate not only directly contradicts the George W. Bush administration’s line on Iranian intentions regarding nuclear weapons, but points to a link between Tehran’s 2003 decision to halt research on weaponization and its decision to negotiate with European foreign ministers on both nuclear and Iranian security concerns.

By using unusually strong and precise language in characterizing its pivotal judgment that Iran ended work relating to nuclear weapons four years earlier, the estimate deals a serious blow to the administration’s claim that Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons. The key judgment released Monday said, “We assess with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program [and] that the halt lasted at least several years.”

The intelligence community also said for the first time in the new NIE, “[W]e do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

That judgment confirms what International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohammed ElBaradei and other close observers of the Iranian nuclear program have been saying since 2004: Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons but in the deterrent value inherent in the knowledge of mastering the nuclear fuel cycle.

The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the White House had been briefed on the new evidence of the Iranian abandonment of weaponisation in 2003 as early as last July, and that White House officials had sharply challenged that evidence. According to a story by Dafna Linzer and Joby Warrick, “several of the president’s top advisers” had argued that electronic intercepts of Iranian military officers, which were reportedly a key element of the new evidence, were part of a “clever Iranian deception campaign”. Full Story , Link Below http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/05/5629/inphase.rock@gmail.com

This Looks Like " Just The Beginning "!

 

In This era, There Is a Dangerous Tension Between Millions of American Patriots ( citizens ) & What The President Can Handle; given his all to obvious Presidential Stance that translates to his Agenda Objectives. Now is the time when Peacefull Demonstrations, Internet Petition signings,ect.

We need to make our #s strong and keep The Pressure, as much we can bring to bear on This White House before it is able to distract us with some legal maneuvering, or worse; Events of warlike nature. Which is possibly the last card to be played.Let us Not Forget, or exclude the unbelievable; which would be of an Emergency or Wartime Sabotage. Nothing like an alleged Radical Attack or A Threat of an Impending Terrorist Act.

This Scenario is one a 1/2 Dozen I could come up with as possible's that would cause more American military & probably Iraqi civilian kill stats and Distract The Congress and enough Key Legislative Pressure. Lets make his escape from the United States Constitutional Arm of Justice. Thank You and Peace In All Things, GOD Bless One  and All ......Neo

 

Published on Friday, November 9, 2007 by DesMoines Register (Iowa)

18 Peacemakers Busted at Giuliani and Hillary Offices and No Original Reporting From The Register

by David Goodner

Eighteen peace activists were arrested in Des Moines, Iowa Thursday for trespassing inside the campaign offices of presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, according to the Associated Press.

Both the New York Times and the Huffington Post picked up the AP story. The protest is the top story this morning over at the KCCI Channel 8 homepage, and their video coverage last night and this morning was exceptional.

The Des Moines Register ran the AP story Friday morning, but was apparently too busy for any original reporting about a major protest in their own backyard.

The Des Moines Register should fix that today by doing some original reporting in time for the weekend edition. Kathy Kelly, a 2-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and several others are scheduled to be arraigned in Polk County this morning.

Those arrested Thursday at Giuliani’s campaign office are:

Nick Kinkel, 19, Des Moines, Iowa

Mickey Davis, 16, Waukee, Iowa

Joy First, 53, Madison, Wisconsin

Jeff Leys, 43, Chicago, Illinois

Dan Pearson, 26, Chicago, Illinois

Suzanne Sheridan, 31, Chicago, Illinois

Ed Bloomer, 60, Des Moines, Iowa

Ron Durham, 26, Chicago, Illinois

Kathy Kelly, 54, Chicago, Illinois

Elton Davis, 45, Des Moines, Iowa

Those arrested at Hillary’s office Thursday are:

Renee Espeland, 46, Des Moines, Iowa

Robert Braam, 51, Manhaton, Illinois

Chrissy Kirchoefer, 30, Marseilles, Illinois

David Goodner, 26, Iowa City, Iowa

Mona Shaw, 56, Des Moines, Iowa

Chris Guant, 51, Grinnell, Iowa

Brian Terrell, 51, Maloy, Iowa

Farah Mokhtareizadeh, 24, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Our campaign, Seasons of Discontent: A Presidential Occupation Project, is demanding that all presidential candidates agree to:

• A complete withdrawal of U.S. military forces and private contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan within 100 days of assuming the office of President of the United States;
• A complete halt to any and all military actions against Iraq and Iran;
• Reparations and full funding for the reconstruction of Iraq;
• Work to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine while ensuring security for Israel and justice for Palestine;
• Publicly commit to oppose the use of U.S. military forces against Iran, Pakistan or any other opening front in the “war on terror.”;
• Publicly commit to dismantle most of the U.S. nuclear arsenal
• Full funding for veterans health care
• Full funding for the Common Good in the U.S.- rebuild our education and health care systems; job training programs and livable wages for all Americans; universal health care for all; rebuild our country’s inner cities and rural communities; and initiate a comprehensive campaign on the scale of a new Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification Project of the Great Depression era to create affordable, safe and sustainable alternative forms of energy and energy consumption; and for other vital social programs.
• Repeal NAFTA and CAFTA and implement fair trade agreements, foreign aid, and other foreign policies that give a preferential option to the poor.

  © 2007 DesMoines Register

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Climate Change will devastate Impoverish

 

Countries and The Ongoing Relife Programs

 

Program Details: Climate Change

Climate change threatens agricultural production - and food security - for farmers around the world, leading to food crises and conflict. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is preparing for climate change impacts in its global operations in over 32 countries. The agency accepts the Stern Report findings that climate change threatens the life support systems for all people on our planet by disrupting water access, food production and health.

Climate change will increase poverty and conflict in the countries and communities where Mercy Corps works. It is critical to address this paramount challenge on an immediate and ongoing basis in everything we do.

The agency is taking steps to prepare for the impacts of climate change by strengthening and expanding environmental programs, all of which will be impacted by climate change. These include agroforestry, ecotourism, environmental governance and natural resource management.

Mercy Corps also seeks to set an example in being climate responsible: the agency in assessing its carbon footprint to become carbon neutral. It is also designing a green building for its American headquarters, which will include an educational center focusing on issues including Mercy Corps' mission and how it is impacted by climate change.

New partnerships are being forged with universities and researchers to develop a methodology for producing actionable information from climate change data. This information will be integrated with conflict analysis and mitigation tools to predict conflict trends and develop recommended mitigation policies.

The Case For Impeachment & lets not Forget GW Bush

Published on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 by USA Today

House Tied In Knots Over Resolution To Impeach Cheney

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is trying to impeach Vice President Cheney for what he describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors” before the invasion of Iraq.

Right after the proposal was read on the House floor this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stepped forwarded and tried to convince lawmakers to table the bill.

“Impeachment is not on our agenda. We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those,” Hoyer told Fox News.

Update at 3:39 p.m. ET: We thought that the vote to table was over — the clock said 0:00 — but lawmakers are still switching things around and Kucinich is within a few votes of getting his bill to come up for a vote.

Update at 3:43 p.m. ET: At least 149 Republicans have voted in favor of considering the impeachment resolution. Hoyer’s motion, which would have blocked a vote, looks like its going to fail by at least 31 votes.

Update at 3:53 p.m. ET: The 15-minute vote began at 2:53 p.m. ET. It’s been an hour, and they’re still voting. The tally stands at 170-242 right now. Hoyer needed 218 votes to push the bill off the agenda. He’s 72 votes short.

Update at 4:02 p.m. ET: Hoyer’s motion failed 251-162. (Roll Call) The House is now voting on whether to vote on whether the resolution should be sent to the Judiciary Committee.

Update at 4:25 p.m. ET: The vote to decide to vote (yes, you read that correctly) just ended. By a 218-194 margin, the House has to vote on whether to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That’s happening right now.

Update at 4:30 p.m. ET: Perhaps we should pause to explain. When most Republicans unexpectedly — and on orders of GOP leadership, the AP is reporting — switched sides and voted against tabling the measure, they essentially forced Democrats to keep talking about it on the floor. Tabling the measure would have killed it.

Debate over Cheney’s impeachment is in direct opposition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wishes. She has repeatedly said an impeachment of Cheney or President Bush is off the table. Thus, failing to table this measure is a essentially a jab in Pelosi’s ribs.

“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told the AP of the impeachment’s supporters. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”

Update at 4:32 p.m. ET: The House just voted, 218-194, to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That should end today’s debate — but it does keep the resolution at least technically alive.

© 2007 USA Today

Much Ado 'Bout Nothing

The Washington Post Published A News Piece Yesterday With The Following HeadLine.

Published on Monday, October 8, 2007 by the Washington Post    by Dan Balz

"Clinton’s Iran Vote Prompts A Harsh Back-and-Forth"

The Article had less dramatic news then The headline Suggest. In fact , if you were scanning The Headlines for what to read next ect, You just might get the impression That the The Rock, Mrs. Hillary Clinton Had Somehow Stirred the flames underneath the already Tence Feelings between Iran and President Bush, who Speaks For,in Effect, The Whole of All Americans.

Now, I'm not a big " Anybody's Fan", But after reading The short artical, I had to say "Good for you Hillary" For telling us exactly what the Bill in Question was and then how the amended version was very moderate in tone and Diplomacy With tact ! 

Here it is >>

Clinton’s Iran Vote Prompts A Harsh Back-and-Forth

by Dan Balz

NEW HAMPTON, Iowa - Randall Rolph said he came to New Hampton, Iowa, on Sunday to see Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) with an open mind about whether to support her candidacy. After a tough exchange over Iran, he left saying he had ruled her out.

                      Randall Rolph was one of several hundred people who turned out in this small town  in northern Iowa for Clinton’s appearance. When she called on him for a question, he pulled out a piece of paper and read a question about Iran.

Rolph asked Clinton to explain her Senate vote Wednesday for a resolution urging the Bush administration to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Rolph interpreted that measure as giving Bush authority to use military action against the Iranians.

“Well, let me thank you for the question, but let me tell you that the premise of the question is wrong and I’ll be happy to explain that to you,” Clinton began.

She offered a detailed description of the resolution, which she said stressed robust diplomacy that could lead to imposing sanctions against Iran, and then pointedly said to Rolph that her view wasn’t in “what you read to me, that somebody obviously sent to you.”Continued

Syria Steps Up To The Forefront As They Resort To Gestapo Ways

Syria: Stop Arrests for Online Comments

Two Internet Activists Held Incommunicado,

" May Be ‘Disappeared "

NEW YORK - October 8 – Syria should immediately release writers and activists detained solely for expressing their opinions or reporting information online, Human Rights Watch said today. Syrian authorities have held two men in incommunicado detention since June for expressing online views that are critical of the Syrian government. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts of the detained men to their families. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced a third man to two years in prison for posting online comments that displeased the authorities.

“The fact that Syria arrests people solely because they criticize the state speaks volumes about the government’s utter disregard for the most basic human rights,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Even worse, Syrian intelligence has the nasty habit of not telling families where their loved ones are being detained – in effect, disappearing them for periods of time.”

On June 7, the Mantaqa Branch of Military Intelligence detained Karim `Arbaji, 29, allegedly for moderating http://www.akhawia.net/, a popular online forum for Syrian youth covering social and political issues. Persons familiar with the case told Human Rights Watch that the Mantaqa Branch may have transferred him to the Palestine Branch in Damascus, but the authorities have provided no official notification of `Arbaji’s whereabouts. On June 30, 2007, Military Intelligence in the coastal city of Tartous arrested Tarek Biasi, 22, because he “went online and insulted security services,” according to a person familiar with the case. Biasi remains in incommunicado detention, his whereabouts unknown. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Ali Zein al-`Abideen Mej`an to two years in prison for “undertaking acts or writing or speeches unauthorized by the government ... that spoil its ties with a foreign state” because he posted comments online attacking Saudi Arabia.

The UN General Assembly condemned “enforced disappearances” as “a grave and flagrant violation” of human rights, and defined the violation in these terms: “[P]ersons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government ... followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.” The UNGA Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance states that enforced disappearance violates the right not to be subjected to torture, and constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.

Syrian security services frequently require internet cafe owners to spy on customers that access “sensitive” sites. On December 13, 2006, Political Security arrested `Ahed al-Hindi, 23, and one of his relatives, in an internet cafe in Damascus, because al-Hindi was sending comments and information to opposition websites outside Syria. The owner of the internet cafe had filmed al-Hindi posting the comments. Al-Hindi and his relative were released on January 15, 2007.

Syrian authorities recently took measures to restrict the use of anonymous comments that many Syrian writers rely on to escape state surveillance. On July 25, 2007, the Syrian minister of communications and technology, `Amr Salem, issued a decree requiring all website owners to display “the name and e-mail of the writer of any article or comment [appearing on their site] ... clearly and in detail, under threat of warning the owner of the website, then restricting access to the website temporarily and in case the violation is repeated, permanently banning the website.” In the first documented application of the directive, the Ministry of Communications and Technology restricted access to http://www.damaspost.com/, a popular Syrian news website, for 24 hours after a commentator identified as “Jamal” criticized the head of the Journalists’ Union and the al-Ba`ath newspaper for nepotism.

Under international law, the rights to privacy and free expression entail a corollary right to communicate anonymously. Allowing persons to speak anonymously, without fear of reprisal or stigma, encourages the sort of expression that is critical to protection of rights and a democratic society – from political pamphleteering, to anonymous tips for journalists, to “blowing the whistle” on corruption by officials or companies. While the right to anonymity is not absolute, the restrictions imposed by the Syrian decree eliminate it altogether in the name of repressing purportedly “criminal” expression.

The Syrian government blocks websites that span a range of categories. Authorities impose most substantial filtering against sites that criticize government policies or support Syrian opposition groups. Censored websites also include Arabic newspapers outside Syria that carry materials critical of the government, such as the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi (http://www.al-quds.co.uk/) and al-Sharq al-Awsat (http://www.asharqalawsat.com/), the Beirut-based al-Mustaqbal (http://www.almustaqbal.com.lb/), the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Seyassah (http://www.alseyassah.com/), as well as websites belonging to Syrian opposition or Kurdish political parties and Islamist websites. OpenNet Initiative, a partnership of four leading universities in the US, Canada and the UK, which monitors government filtration and surveillance of the internet, says that filtering of political websites in Syria is “pervasive.” The Syrian government’s censorship also covers popular websites such as Google’s blogging engine, www.blogspot.com, and www.youtube.com.

The last six years have seen an explosion of internet use in Syria, with close to 1 million of the country’s 18 million people now online, compared to just 30,000 in 2000. The Arab Advisors Group, an Amman-based business-consulting firm, projects that the number of Syrian internet users will exceed 1.7 million by 2009.

Human Rights Watch called on Syria to cease blocking websites that carry material protected by the right to free expression and access to information, and to release all those detained solely for exercising these rights, online or otherwise. Full Story

Bush, Smarter Than Scientists

Published on Monday, July 16, 2007 by Agence France Presse

Bush Administration Accused of Putting Ideology Above Science

by Jean-Louis Santini

WASHINGTON - Testimony from President George W. Bush’s former surgeon general last week has fueled charges that his administration has trumped science in favor of its political and religious ideologies.

The administration has been at loggerheads with scientists since it came to power in 2001 on issues ranging from stem cell research to global warming and the theory of evolution.

It stood accused again of putting ideology over science this week after the administration’s former surgeon general charged that it deliberately quashed or downplayed several important health reports for political reasons.

Dr Richard Carmona, a Bush appointee who held the post as the country’s chief health educator from 2002 to 2006, told a Congressional committee Tuesday that he was not authorized to discuss certain sensitive subjects in public.

They included embryonic stem-cell research, whose federal funding Bush restricted in 2001, the controversial morning-after pill and sex education.

Carmona admitted to lawmakers that when he had taken up his post he had been “still quite politically naive” but he was “astounded” by the “partisanship and political manipulation” he witnessed.

Health department spokesman Bill Hall rejected Carmona’s accusations, saying: “It has always been this administration’s position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science.”

Michael Halpern, a member of the influential Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said scientists believe the Bush administration is the “worst” ever in terms of political interference and censure.

“Information inconvenient to the administration’s priorities is sidelined,” Halpern told AFP.

In 2004, the Union of Concerned Scientists organized a petition signed by more than 12,000 scientists, including 50 Nobel prize winners and former senior science advisers to several US presidents, to denounce political interference by the Bush administration.

“Scientists believe that political interference is unacceptable,” the petition said.

“If our policy makers are going to make fully informed decisions about our health, safety, and environment, they need access to independent science,” it said. “Reforms can and should be put in place to insulate science from politics.”

The petition has apparently had little impact on the White House.

In 2006, NASA’s top climate expert, James Hansen, accused the administration in a New York Times interview of pressuring him to censure his research on global warming, notably during the 2004 presidential campaign.

His charges were confirmed by other staffers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, leading Democrats as well as Bush’s own Republicans in Congress to call for greater scientific transparency in the agency.

A NASA press official, George Deutsch, who was close to Bush’s reelection campaign, was forced to resign after being accused by Hansen for barring journalists from interviewing him.

In his book “The Assault on Reason,” former vice president Al Gore said that Deutsch, who has no scientific education or university diplomat, wrote a memo to scientists saying that the Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is an opinion.”

“This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue,” Deutsch wrote, according to Gore, the former Democratic candidate who lost the 2000 election to Bush.

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse

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Most Want War Funding Cut

Published on Tuesday, October 2, 2007 by The Washington Post

Most in Poll Want War Funding Cut

by Jon Cohen and Dan Balz

Most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush’s $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sizable majority support an expansion of a children’s health insurance bill he has promised to veto, putting Bush and many congressional Republicans on the wrong side of public opinion on upcoming foreign and domestic policy battles.

                        The new Washington Post-ABC News poll also shows deep dissatisfaction with the president and with Congress. Bush’s approval rating stands at 33 percent, equal to his career low in Post-ABC polls. And just 29 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, its lowest approval rating in this poll since November 1995, when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. It also represents a 14-point drop since Democrats took control in January.

Despite discontent with Congress this year, the public rates congressional Republicans (29 percent approve) lower than congressional Democrats (38 percent approve). When the parties are pitted directly against each other, the public broadly favors Democrats on Iraq, health care, the federal budget and the economy. Only on the issue of terrorism are Republicans at parity with Democrats.

Part of the displeasure with Congress stems from the stalemate between Democrats and the White House over Iraq policy. Most Americans do not believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war, with liberal Democrats especially critical of their party’s failure to force the president into a significant change in policy.

At the same time, there is no consensus about the pace of any U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. In July, nearly six in 10 said they wanted to decrease the number of troops there, but now a slim majority, 52 percent, think Bush’s plan for removing some troops by next summer is either the right pace for withdrawal (38 percent) or too hasty (12 percent would like a slower reduction, and 2 percent want no force reduction). Fewer people (43 percent) want a quicker exit.

John Csanadi of Nanuet, N.Y., said he has mixed feelings about what to do next in Iraq. Asked about Bush’s proposal for a modest drawdown of troops, he said: “It’s a start. Not the best solution, but at least it’s a start.”

Sara Carter, a schoolteacher from Westland, Mich., called Bush’s plan “better than it might be, not as good as it could be.”

But Don Hiatt of Las Vegas said he sees the proposal as a holding action by a president stalling for time. “I think he’s trying to just play it until he gets out of office and let the next president handle it, and that’s not a good thing if that’s what he’s doing,” Hiatt said.

Overall, 55 percent of Americans want congressional Democrats to do more to challenge the president’s Iraq policies, while a third think the Democrats have gone too far. The level of agitation for more action in opposition to the war has not dissipated since August 2005, when Democrats were the minority party in Congress. Rest of The Story>>>http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/02/4251/

When I Hear Impeachment, I :)

Then I pray. Neo

   "Well let me be among the 1st to say I Love Oregon" and that we now have what we can Call more than half-dozen Confirmed States that Represent Millions of American Voters Across These United States. And There's more in the wings who for no good reason, Have Not Answered The Bell. Well There's still Time.......   " Let Us Pray "  &     GOD Bless

Oregon Impeachment news Link, This Story Received a Ton Of Comments , if not the Story I'd Go just for The Comments :)

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/02/4255/

Palestinians Sue To Use Their Road. Israelis Say No!

Published on Monday, September 17, 2007 by the Baltimore Sun

Palestinians Sue for Use of Road Built for Them

by John Murphy

BEIT SIRA, West Bank - Every day, thousands of Israeli drivers speed through the olive-tree-dotted hills and valleys of the West Bank on Highway 443, a popular four-lane roadway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
But this convenient commuter shortcut comes at a heavy price for Palestinians.

Since the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, only Israelis have been allowed to use the highway because of security concerns - though it is built on Palestinian land and, according to Israeli courts, is meant primarily for the benefit of thousands of Palestinian villagers who live alongside it.

The ban has effectively marooned about 40,000 Palestinians living in a half-dozen villages that have long depended on the 15-mile highway. Residents complain that the closure has ruined their businesses, created frustratingly long and expensive commutes to work and school on back roads, and isolated their communities from emergency and medical services.

Now the Palestinian villagers are taking their grievances to Israel’s high court, demanding that Israel reopen the road to them.

The court case, in effect, weighs the demands of an estimated 40,000 Israeli commuters, who use the road daily as a rapid thoroughfare, against the needs of about the same number of Palestinians who relied on the road for their own livelihoods.

After a string of Palestinian attacks against Israeli motorists, Israeli authorities barred Palestinians from driving or walking on 443, and they erected steel gates, concrete barriers, walls and security watchtowers to keep them out.

For seven years, Israel has sided with Israeli motorists, turning the highway into a heavily fortified corridor.

Even with the ban in place, attacks against Israelis on 443 have continued, leaving five people dead and a dozen more injured.

Attorneys representing Israeli citizen groups, who are helping to defend the Israeli government against the petition, say they fear that violence would increase if Palestinians and Israelis were allowed to drive side by side again.

“Many Israelis are going to be killed if this petition is accepted by the court. If you let Palestinians on 443, it is like giving them a ticket to enter Tel Aviv,” says Ilan Tsion, an attorney and founder of Fence for Life, a grass-roots group that supports Israel’s separation barrier and other Israeli security measures.

If security is the issue, Israelis - not Palestinians - should be banned from the road, says Limor Yehuda, attorney for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, which, along with six Palestinian villages, filed the petition against Israel.

“It’s a road inside the West Bank, and in this sense it is outside the borders of Israel, and basically Israelis don’t have a right to go there,” she said. “It’s the same as Israelis claiming that Palestinians don’t have the right to enter Israel. The same argument should apply to Israelis [in the West Bank].”

But Israel has been reluctant to give up what has become a key artery for Israeli drivers.

“This is a road that Israel wants,” Yehuda says.Full Story

Activists; No Longer Safe Globally

Published on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 by Agence France Presse

Global Trade Union Reports 144 Activists Killed in 2006

Paris - Nearly 150 labour labour activists were killed worldwide in 2006, a new global trade union said in a report Tuesday outlining a rising tide of violence and harassment against unionists across the globe.

The number killed of activists killed rose to 144 from 115 in 2005, while 800 were injured or tortured and more than 5,000 arrested and 500 jailed, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) said.A single country, Colombia, accounted for more than half the victims with 78 unionists killed last year, according to the ITUC’s first annual survey of rights violations since being founded in November 2006.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is spending millions to “tell the world that the situation is Colombia is improving … instead of using its resources to tackle the real problem,” ITUC secretary general Guy Ryder says in the report.

“They are lying,” he said.

Those killed included Jose Gregorio Izquierdo, a public service union leader, murdered after receiving threats from paramilitary groups, Daniel Cortez Cortez, an electrician shot dead at work, and farmers Jose Mario Guerrero Garzon and Hector Jairo Yate.

Violence against unionists soared worldwide, with the outlook particularly worrying in parts of Asia and across Africa.

In the Philippines, at least 33 unionists were killed in “an orgy of extrajudicial violence,” ITUC said, charging that members of the government or security forces were guilty in several high-profile cases.

The ITUC said a “prevailing atmosphere of impunity” in the country had further undermined labour rights, “with many other trade unionists facing intimidation, abduction and even torture.”

One Filipino factory worker and activist, Rogelio Concepcion, was abducted by armed men on a motorcycle and later found dead, his body bearing marks of torture.

Across Africa in 2006, the report said the “use of disproportionate force against trade union protestors and striking workers was a depressingly common occurrence.”

In Guinea for example, the report said, at least 11 people were killed during national demonstrations organised by the country’s two main unions.

Dozens of labour activists were kept in jail in China, Myanmar and Cuba for pursuing independent trade union work, while in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, trade unions remained banned altogether.

In the United States, it said “millions more were deprived of organizing and bargaining rights” after a federal ruling expanded the definition of a “supervisor,” who do not have the right to vote in union elections.

In Europe, meanwhile, the ITUC quoted the corporate social responsibility firm Vigeo as saying that less than 10 percent of all companies fully upheld union rights and promote collective bargaining.

The Brussels-based ITUC was created in November 2006 from the merger of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labour

Full Story.

"How Is He Still Around ?" Asked of Intelligent Comm.

 

Bin Laden urges martyrs in anniversary video

9/11 hijacker appears along with al-Qaida leader six years after attacks

NBC News video

Al-Qaida has 9/11 anniversary message
Sept. 11: Al-Qaida releases a new videotape on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

 

NBC News and news services

Updated: 12:42 p.m. ET Sept 11, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden urged sympathizers to join the “caravan” of martyrs as he praised one of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers in a new video that emerged Tuesday to mark the sixth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Al-Qaida traditionally issues a video every year on the anniversary, with the last testament of one of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. This year’s video showed hijacker Waleed al-Shehri addressing the camera and warning the U.S.: “We shall come at you from your front and back, your right and left.”

The new message, which AP Television News obtained from the IntelCenter monitoring group in suburban Washington, came days after the world got its first current look at bin Laden in nearly three years, with the release of a video Saturday in which the terror leader addressed the American people.

Later in the day it appeared on militant Web sites, with a note from al-Qaida’s media production wing al-Sahab saying it was intentionally sent to television stations before being placed on the Internet.

It begins with an audiotape introduction by bin Laden. While his voice is heard, the video shows a still image of him, raising his finger. In the image, bin Laden has the same dyed-black beard and the same clothes — a white robe and cap and beige cloak — that he had in Saturday’s video.

But it was not known if the audiotape was recently made. In the past, al-Qaida has used footage and audio of bin Laden taped long ago for release later.

Analysis confirms voice

A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that the voice on the latest video “does appear to be that of Osama Bin Laden, according to our technical analysis.”

Content analysis continues, said the official, adding that initial analysis does not show “much new, much more than could be expected on a September 11 anniversary.”

In the tape, bin Laden praised al-Shehri, saying he “recognized the truth” that Arab rulers were “vassals” of the West and had “abandoned the balance of (Islamic) revelation.”

“It is true that this young man was little in years, but the faith in his heart was big,” he said.

“So there is a huge difference between the path of the kings, presidents and hypocritical Ulama (Islamic scholars) and the path of these noble young men,” like al-Shehri, bin Laden said. “The formers’ lot is to spoil and enjoy themselves whereas the latters’ lot is to destroy themselves for Allah’s Word to be Supreme.”

“It remains for us to do our part. So I tell every young man among the youth of Islam: It is your duty to join the caravan (of martyrs) until the sufficiency is complete and the march to aid the High and Omnipotent continues,” he said.

At the end of his speech, bin Laden also mentions the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in an U.S. air strike there. Al-Zarqawi followed in the footsteps of al-Shehri and his brothers who “fulfilled their promises to God.”

  Click for related content

Full coverage — 9/11: Six years later
Bush: Bin Laden’s video underscores threats
Newsweek: Ongoing hunt for bin Laden

“And now it is our turn,” bin Laden says.

After bin Laden speaks, the video of al-Shehri appears. Al-Shehri — one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the World Trade Center — is seen wearing a white robe and headscarf, with a full black beard, speaking in front of a backdrop with images of the burning World Trade Center.

“We shall come at you from your front and back, your right and left,” al-Shehri said, asserting that America would suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union. Cont. and Link To Video

Another Mockery of US Optimism

Published on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 by The Independent/UK

Mounting Death Toll Which Makes a Mockery of US Optimism

by Kim Sengupta

By the time General Petraeus had finished speaking yesterday the slaughter in Iraq for the previous 24 hours could be tallied. It was not an exceptionally violent day by the standards of Iraq: seven US soldiers lay dead and 11 injured in the capital; other instances of sectarian violence included a suicide bomb which had killed 10 and wounded scores near Mosul while 10 bodies were found in Baghdad. Three policemen were killed in clashes in Mosul, and a car bomb outside a hospital in the capital had exploded, killing two and wounding six.

In Baghdad, on the surface the overt violence appears to have diminished. There are fewer loud explosions. But, the city is now being partitioned by sectarian hatred and fear; by concrete walls and barbed wire. Claims that the US military strategy is paving the way for a stable society bear little resemblance to the reality on the ground.

The US is accused of manipulating figures relating to violence to fit their case, ignoring evidence which shows that the influx of 30,000 troops has done little to end the continuing bloodshed.

The death of Omar al-Husseini in the Huriya district of Baghdad is one of many which does not even figure in the American reckoning. His killers, masked and carrying guns, dragged him away as his mother wept and his father pleaded for mercy. That was the last time they saw their son alive. Three weeks later they heard that he had been killed.

Omar was 20. His killers were Shia, he was a Sunni, the victim of a spree of murders which has ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods through the city. But both the US military and the Iraqi police have told his parents that as far as they are concerned the abduction and killings were purely criminal acts. This means, statistically, that his death is not included by the US in the calculations for sectarian killings produced yesterday.

The causes behind the daily death toll, if addressed at all, draw conflicting accounts. Mourners carried the coffin of a young mother along the streets of Sadr City yesterday. She had been killed, said the locals, along with her two daughters when US and Iraqi government forces had stormed four homes. The US military confirmed they had exchanged small-arms fire during the operation, but insisted they had no reports of civilian casualties. Also yesterday, attendants at the Baghdad morgue did their round of collecting bodies, nameless victims of faceless killers.

Omar’s father, 48-year-old Barzan, said the attack on his son came after the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia, declared that they must leave their home. ” We were going to leave, we did not want any trouble. We had very excellent relations with our Shia neighbours, but they could not do anything to help us “, he said. “They [the Mehdi Army] were also saying that my two sons were involved with the insurgents. That was not true, they had nothing to do with politics. Mohammed was away when they came, but Omar was there and they took him away and shot him. The police and the Americans say he was an Ali Baba [thief] and this killing was something to do with that. But everyone knows why he died, it is because we are Sunnis.”

Barzan had fled with his family to the Khadrah district where he found refuge with his cousin. They could not watch much of General Pertraeus’s address on satellite TV because of a power cut. Four years after the war, electricity supply in the city has dwindled to one hour a day.

Not far away from Barzan’s new home are other houses, some with singe marks on doors and windows, properties of Shia who had been terrorised and driven out the other way. The walls being put up by US contractors at a record speed are formalising this break-up of Baghdad along sectarian lines. Militias rule the roost in the newly created ghettos; armed young men with sunglasses manning checkpoints, collecting levies from passing traffic, and meting out their own justice to victims who would never make the calculations on the effects of the surge.

The Americans at first welcomed the forming of the vigilante groups, calling them “guardians”; in some areas this was described as part of the ” Sunni awakening”, away from the insurgency. But this began to be tempered after tales of extortion began to surface, and now some have been arrested for “suspected al-Qa’ida ties”. Full Story