Bush hails Afghanistan as a “great achievement” as Taliban take control, troops die, corruption runs rampant and opium production at record levels

Even a Necon useful idiot should be able to see what a huge stinking pile of dung Bush’s “achievement” is.

Amid signs that the Taliban insurgency is regaining strength, President Bush on Friday defended his efforts to stabilize war-savaged Afghanistan and blasted critics who charge that his policies there are failing.

Afghanistan is reeling from its worst bloodshed since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention as the Taliban and allied warlords tie down 42,000 American and NATO-led troops and President Hamid Karzai struggles with colossal corruption, record opium production and nose-diving popularity.

mercurynews.com

Lott On Iraq: ‘Why Do Sunnis Kill Shiites? … They All Look The Same To Me’

In some racial circles (maybe all), the old “they all look alike to me” addage is taken as an insult and a racial slur. The fact that Lott has no compunction about using it, demonstrates how little he gives a damn about the “ragheads” and it proves that the motivation for being in Iraq has nothing to do with freedom (theirs or ours) or “democracy”. So, while our troops are being slaughtered on the altar of the New World Order, these stinkin Neocon dirtbags get away with tons of loot and more and more power accumulated into fewer and fewer hands, while the middle-class sinks into near despair, secret treasonous deals are made with Canada and Mexico and torture becomes the law of the land. This is the New America. It should make you fightin mad and wanting to do something about it. If it doesn’t, then you are complicit with these scumbags.

PW

Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), who famously suggested the U.S. wouldn’t have “all these problems” had Strom Thurmond been elected President, said today that the religious differences among Iraqis makes the conflict very difficult for him to understand:

“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.“

Speaking shortly after a meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Lott added that Iraq wasn’t among the White House’s priorities.

thinkprogress.org

Middle-class families in worse shape than ever, study finds

But don’t worry. Neocon News propagandist Neil Cavuto says the economy is in great shape and everything so wonderful under our Dear Leader, and besides, there are more billionaires now than ever. Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Typical families have not stashed enough money; struggling to pay for home, insurance, and education according to Center for American Progress.

The typical double-income family is worse off financially than ever, a study released Thursday said, warning that few Americans have saved enough to brace for financial setbacks.

Middle-class families are struggling to pay for a home, health insurance, transportation and their children’s college with wages that have not kept pace with higher prices, according to the study by a think tank headed by a former top aide to President Bill Clinton.

cnn.com

Should We Make Cyborg Soldiers?

A group of ethicists is getting $250,000 to ask how much we should use nanotechnology to enhance humans.
Should we implant future nanotech-enabled computers and actuators into soldiers to make them more effective? If nanotech can help kids do better in school, are parents obligated to provide them with it? Does it make a difference if these enhancements are implanted, rather than just worn outside the body?
Patrick Lin, director of The Nanoethics Group, James Moor at Dartmouth University, and Fritz Allhoff at Western Michigan University have been given a quarter-million dollars, in the form of a pair of grants from the National Science Foundation, to try sorting out the answers to these kinds of questions.
In a press release, Lin said, “Today, human enhancement may mean steroids or Viagra or cosmetic surgeries. But with the accelerating pace of technology, some of the more fantastic scenarios may arrive sooner than people think.”
The Nanoethics Group has previously considered subjects such as the potential environmental and health impacts of nanotech.

technologyreview.com

Pakistan accused of hundreds of terror abductions

Pakistan has abducted hundreds of people as part of the U.S-led war on terror, often secretly holding them for months while they are interrogated, the human rights group Amnesty International said on Friday.

Some suspects were held in Pakistani interrogation centers, but many were handed over to U.S. custody and held in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase or other secret detention facilities, the group said in a report on “enforced disappearances in the war on terror”.

In many cases, U.S. agents paid a bounty of $5,000 to those, usually intelligence agents, who simply declared people terrorists, seized them and handed them over for interrogation with no legal process, Amnesty said.
“Enforced disappearances were almost unheard of in Pakistan before the start of the U.S-led war on terror — now they are a growing phenomenon, spreading beyond terror suspects,” Amnesty researcher Angelika Pathak said.

“The Pakistani government must set up a central register of detainees and publish regular lists of all recognized places of detention so that in future nobody can be secretly imprisoned and face the risks of torture,” she added.

The rights group said the clandestine nature of the war on terror made it impossible to know exactly how many people had been forcibly ‘disappeared’ and tortured or illegally executed, but the number must run into hundreds.

 reuters.com

Bush is lying to you about Iraq, Americans told

THE Bush Administration has lied about the level of violence in Iraq, especially against American troops, according to the investigative reporter Bob Woodward, who has spent the past two years researching and writing his new book State of Denial.

Woodward says that not only has the Administration lied about the level of violence, but it has buried intelligence reports that warn of the insurgency in Iraq getting worse in 2007.

The book, a detailed account of the war in Iraq, will hit the book stores in the next few weeks, and observers say it will not please the US President, George Bush – who agreed to be interviewed by Woodward – or his senior officials.

Woodward will be interviewed on the American program 60 Minutes tomorrow and The Washington Post will publish excerpts of the book at the weekend.

smh.com.au

Torture bill passes first hurdle

 

THE US House of Representatives has passed a controversial bill overnight concerning the treatment of detainees held in the US “war on terror,” which has been denounced by human rights and constitutional law experts.

The bill, which President George W. Bush has called a critical tool for pursuing suspected terrorists, was passed in a 253-168 vote.

The sweeping legislation sets guidelines to interrogate war-on-terror suspects and would send several hundred inmates held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to trial after years of detention.

The draft law allows for secret CIA-run prisons, authorises special tribunals to try the Guantanamo detainees, and forbids “cruel and unusual” punishment of detainees – without further clarification of what falls in that category.

The hard-fought victory was crucial for the Bush administration, as his Republican Party faces the possibility of losing control of both chambers of Congress in November legislative elections.

news.com.au