Winterpills - Threshing Machine

I just love this group. Their harmonies are unique and haunting

What We Are Fighting For In Iraq

Vigilantes kill 40 women in Iraq's south

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 9, 6:14 PM ET

BAGHDAD - Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.

The religious fanaticism for south Iraq Shia Islamists always make one cringe with horror. These events though are barbaric even by Iraqi standards. Fourty women killed simply because they were not dressed right. Mubarak of Egypt warned Bush before his invasion of Iraq that it would open Pandora's Box.

One more bit of good advice ignored by Bush and now Iraqi women are being murdered because of how they dressed. This is what you created in Iraq GWB. Their blood and the blood of thousands more civilians and US soldiers is on your hands for eternity. Some day you'll get to face the God you claim supports your bloody visions of democracy through the barrel of an M16 assault rifle.

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Led Zepellin

Catch 22

Here's an example of our Constitutional governmental system stuck of stupid.
From the Washington Post :

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk

Congressional officials say the groups' ability to challenge the practices was hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited them from being able to take notes or consult legal experts or members of their own staffs.

So our congresscritters get briefed on waterboarding and other fun and enhanced interrogation techniques, and are not allowed to tell anybody about what they were told. Please explain how congress is going to do oversight with this kind of non-sense. No wonder American's opinion of their government is at the barrels bottom.

Wingnuts Say the Strangest Things

Does anyone see anything wrong with this enlightened comment from mouths of The Sundries Shack.

It’s an amazing country in which we live where we will 1) allow a suspected terrorist operating outside the bounds of the Geneva Conventions a civil lawyer, 2) allow someone who is not a U.S. citizen to act in our courts, and 3) allow such a case knowing that it follows exactly the instructions we know that al-Qaeda has given its operatives.

That's right, so it's just dandy to jail and use "enhanced interrogation techniques" torture suspected terrorists while holding them incommunicado from the world and a lawyer. I truly wonder what country the assholes grew up in.

Update
From the innertubes we get wisdom from Powerlie

That title reminds us that much of what the CIA does is supposed to be clandestine. In essence, the CIA was conceived as an organization that would do secret things to obtain information, and then analyze that information. It was always understood that some of the secret things would be unsavory. It was never understood that the CIA would keep recordings of these actions just in case a court, a congressional committee, or a newspaper might want to take a look. The idea was to win the Cold War, not to create an album.

"Some of these secret things would be unsavory. They can't even bring themselves to say torture. By all means the CIA should be beyond any accountability to do whatever the hell they it wants in our name. SCARY PEOPLE are the Torture Party GOP.

Wounded Warrior Project

You can oppose the war in Iraq, but not these guys and gals who have given so much.

The Bamboo Shute Party

Ok! we haven't heard if the GOP has defended the CIA for inserting Bamboo Shutes under anybodies fingernails lately. However, the broader point is that many of the current 35% Bush supporters would joyfully defend a whole range to torture methods to defeat the inhuman Islamofacsists. Yesterday's article in the New York Times has stirred the blogosphere, left and right into a gathering storm as to who, why and where destroyed what most consider videotape evidence of possible criminal acts of torture.

If you believe the Times and their "government officials" sources everyone one in the Bush government and especially Bush himself are completely innocent and many actually voiced opposition to CIA's plan to destroy the tapes of interrogations of two Al Quaida leaders Abu Zubaydah and ABD as-Rahim as-Nashiri reportedly involved in the 9-11 attacks. According to the Times sources a single individual, Jose A. Rodriguez, the then chief of the Directorate of Operations is responsible for defying the entire Bush administration , his superior at CIA and Congress to authorize the destruction of the tapes.

Of course, the pinko left-wing rag New York Times is now being quoted profusely by wingnuts as vindication of any White House involvement in the sordid affair. Here are some sample from our friends in fact-free quadrant of the blogosphere.

Here's Captain Ed, the sometimes reasonable voice on the right.

In other words, Rodriguez decided for himself what his legal obligations required in terms of retention. Despite the expressed will of Congress, the White House, and the CIA's own attorneys, Rodriguez destroyed the tapes -- even though his own boss had gone on record as demanding their retention. Afterwards, the agency didn't bother to inform anyone of the destruction for almost a year, and lied about the one-time existence of the tapes to federal prosecutors working on the Moussaoui case.

This clears the White House of responsibility for the decision and the cover-up. Mark Mazzetti reports that George Bush didn't know about the destruction until Hayden announced it publicly on Thursday

A different Twist from MacsmindHe goes after his own.

Honestly, I would expect the left to go ga-ga, but it’s the right leaning bloggers which reinforce my belief that some will do anything to appear “mainstream”. All the holding of principles and maintaining the “rule of law” sounds nice and it gets you hits - especially from the lefty blogs who scream - “See even they agree!”

And from Jules Crittenden, who once again so nobly points out operational ties between MoveOn.org, the Democratic National Committee and Al Quaida.

It is worth noting that not only would these tapes be of compelling interest to news organizations such as al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, CNN, CBS, BBC, etc., they also could be very significant to the political operations of organizations such as MoveOn.org, the Democratic National Committee, and al-Qaeda.

And Gateway Pundit takes the bait hook, line and stinker.

Call Off the Dogs... White House Advised CIA Not to Destroy Tapes

Bum Deal.
The White House advised the CIA not to destroy the interrogation tapes of two Al-Qaeda killers but the CIA destroyed the tapes anyway.
Prairie Pundit has the latest on this from The New York Times.

The always reliable folks at the aptly named Hot Air

Pretty much everyone in Washington is claiming to have urged the CIA not to destroy
those DVDs
posted at 1:08 pm on December 8, 2007 by Bryan

More to follow.

UPDATE 1;

ThinkProgress is making the pushback with comment on the NYT story from Ron Susskind.


"The full blame for the destruction of the tapes has fallen on Jose Rodriguez, then the CIA’s head of the clandestine division. Rodriguez reportedly undertook the destruction of the tapes in a unilateral manner, without receiving any instructions from his bosses or giving them advance notice of his actions.

Last night on CNN, Ron Suskind — author of the One Percent Doctrine — said the idea that Rodriquez didn’t get “some authorization from above” is “hard to believe.” “It simply doesn’t work that way,” Suskind said, noting that “at this point, lots was being authorized from the White House in terms of the CIA.” Watch it:"