The Pentagon is moving rapidly to build new missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter the threat posed by Iranian long-range missiles, the head of the Missile Defense Agency told The Washington Times on Thursday.

“The immediate threat in terms of emerging threats that we see is obviously the Iranians, and they-re putting a lot of energy into that [long-range missile] program,” the paper quotes Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering, the agency’s director, as saying.

Obering told the Times that plans call for deploying 10 long-range missile interceptors in Poland along with a tracking radar in the nearby Czech Republic.

“We want to have this in place by the 2011, 2012 time frame because we think the Iranians, for example, shortly thereafter will be able to have a long-range capability,” he told the paper.

The sites will cost about $3.5 billion and are part of a global integrated missile defense designed to counter “rogue” nations- missiles, including those from Iran and North Korea, he told the Times.

Iran has no long-range missiles, but is working on Shahab-4, Shahab-5 and Shahab-6 missiles that have ranges from 1,240 miles to 4,154 miles, which also could be used as nonmilitary space launchers, the Times reported.

Read more at Stars & Stripes

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Jon Stewart talks about Cheney’s interview on CNN

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

How I wish this guy could run for President and win.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday in his Judiciary Committee subcommittee to explore whether Congress has the authority to cut off funding for the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. The move comes as Congress prepares to vote on a congressional resolution opposing President Bush’s escalation of the war.

Feingold, a fierce war critic, will force Democrats to consider an option many consider politically suicidal: cutting off funds for the military campaign in Iraq. Democratic leaders have privately called on members to restrain from seeking any funding restrictions and focus instead on congressional resolutions condemning the Bush policy. The resolutions are nonbinding and therefore symbolic. [See "Bush Allies Warn Iraq Vote Could Harm War Plan, GOP Future"]

Republicans “would like this debate to be as whether or not we are going to be cutting off money for the troops,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently told The Politico. “The logical conclusion is that a lot of things can happen. But right now, the most important thing is to tell the president that what he has done with the escalation is wrong. And that’s what we are doing, bi-partisanly.”

Read more at Politico.com

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Getting? How about already gone!!

A group of Republican lawmakers was waiting for an elevator on Capitol Hill when one of them said in frustration to his colleagues, “What’s with Cheney? Anybody know?”

One colleague muttered, “The guy’s getting a little strange, seems to me. Big chip on his shoulder.”

Vice President Dick Cheney has re-emerged from the shadows, causing a new ripple of speculation about whether his pit-bull attitude serves the president well, whether he’s the one dictating Iraq policy, whether he’s even thinking clearly.
Cheney, who was in charge of vetting potential running mates for George W. Bush in 2000 and ended up taking the job himself, is an enigma to many. Whether swearing at a Democrat on the Senate floor or calling former defense chief Donald Rumsfeld the best secretary of defense in U.S. history, Cheney’s conduct makes even some Republicans nervous.

Presidential contender Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Cheney have butted heads over U.S. torture policy, with McCain, a Vietnam POW for five years, demanding the White House forbid it. In an interview with a Capitol Hill newspaper, McCain said of Cheney, “The president listens too much to the vice president. Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he’s been very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of defense (Rumsfeld).”

When asked about that by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Cheney responded laconically, “So?”

Cheney also told Blitzer that the problem with the situation in Iraq is that America may not have “the stomach to fight.” When asked about the possibility that Iraq may refuse to be a U.S. ally, Cheney insisted that won’t happen and retorted, “That we don’t have the stomach for the fight. That’s the biggest threat.”

Cheney’s statement is amazing. Americans have given the administration a virtual blank check for four years in Iraq. The price tag has included the loss of 3,000 sons and daughters, the disabling of thousands more, the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars and lost prestige around the globe.

Read more here

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an outspoken critic of U.S. President George Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq, arrived in Baghdad on Friday for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Pelosi, a key player in the Democratic takeover of Congress, has helped lead opposition in Washington to Bush’s retooled Iraq strategy which envisages sending 21,500 reinforcements to help quell raging sectarian violence, especially in Baghdad.

She has accused Bush, a long-time foe, of playing politics with soldiers’ lives and said after his State of the Union address to Congress this week that he had ignored the concerns of the American public over the unpopular war.

A U.S. embassy official said Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the House, had arrived in Iraq at the head of a six-member congressional delegation for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. officials but did not plan any public appearances.

The delegation includes John Murtha, a Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania, who has also been vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the war.

Newly empowered congressional Democrats are pushing for a phased withdrawal from Iraq. Opinion polls show Americans are strongly opposed to Bush’s plan for a troop increase.

Read more here

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Carlene Carter & Brooks & Dunn
Jackson

I do love me some Brooks and Dunn. I was looking for a good version of Neon Moon, one of my all time favorite songs, but found this instead. A tribute to Johnny and June, 2003.

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Jan. 26, 2007 - White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials-including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. While that is no guarantee they will be called, the odds increased this week after Libby’s lawyer, Ted Wells, laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, had been made a “scapegoat” to protect Rove. Cheney is expected to provide the most crucial testimony to back up Wells’s assertion, one of the lawyers close to the case said. The vice president personally penned an October 2003 note in which he wrote, “Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the other.” The note, read aloud in court by Wells, implied that Libby was the one being sacrificed in an effort to clear Rove of any role in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joe Wilson. “Wow, for all the talk about this being a White House that prides itself on loyalty and discipline, you-re not seeing much of it,” the lawyer said.

Read more at MSNBC

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

The only reason the truth about this came out is because somebody leaked it. They had no intention of reporting what happened to these poor guys. And what kind of checkpoint is it that these guys roll right in, kidnap 4 soldiers and roll right back out.

CBS News) BAGHDAD The U.S. command on Friday confirmed that four American soldiers were abducted during a sophisticated sneak attack last week in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. It said three were shot to death and a fourth was fatally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province.

Two of the four soldiers were handcuffed together and dead from gunshot wounds. A third was on the ground nearby, also killed by a gunshot. The fourth soldier died on the way to the hospital, the military said in a statement issued late Friday, several hours after The Associated Press reported details of the raid.

On Jan. 20, the day of the highly sophisticated raid on a security meeting Karbala, the military said five soldiers were killed repelling the attack.

Within hours of an AP report that four of the five dead soldiers had been abducted and found dead or dying about 25 miles to the east, the military issued a long account of what took place.

Read more here

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

The Decider has decided that he gets to decide Iraqi troop decisions. Why does he surround himself with staff? Why does he speak to military advisers? Why does he take the time consulting with anyone on anything if it’s just going to be a big waste of time? Why does he even bother with SOTUs? He’s hell-bent on doing everything his way, like a twelve-year-old spoiled brat.

Why do we have a congress if their powers are moot? Why do we have a Constitution if it’s thought of as just a damn piece of paper? Why have an America if it stands for nothing (good) any more?

Bush: ‘I’m the decision-maker’ on Iraq troop levels

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday “I’m the decision-maker” about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to prematurely condemn his buildup.

“I’ve picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed,” Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with senior military advisers.

The president had strong words for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are lining up to support resolutions opposing his decision to send 21,500 troops to Iraq. He challenged them to put up their own ideas.

“I know there is skepticism and pessimism and that some are condemning a plan before it’s even had a chance to work,” the president said. “They have an obligation and a serious responsibility therefore to put up their own plan as to what would work.”

Despite doubts in Congress and among the public about his strategy, Bush said lawmakers agree that failure in Iraq would be a disaster and that he chose a strategy that he and his advisers thought would help turn the tide in Iraq.

The president met with Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, newly confirmed by the Senate to command U.S. troops in Iraq.

“My instruction to him was `Get over to the zone as quickly as possible, and implement a plan that will achieve our goals,”‘ Bush said.

“You’re going into an important battle in the war on terror,” he told Petraeus.

Source: CNN.com

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Nope. Not any more.

Canada compensates man U.S. deported to Syria

OTTAWA, Canada (AP) – Canada’s prime minister apologized to Maher Arar on Friday and announced the government would compensate him C$10.5 million (US$8.9 million) for its role in his deportation from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured while held in prison for nearly a year.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper again called on the U.S. government to remove the Ottawa telecoms engineer from any of its no-fly or terrorist watchlists and reiterated that Ottawa would keep pressing Washington to clear Arar’s name.

“We think the evidence is absolutely clear and that the United States should in good faith remove Mr. Arar from the list,” Harper told a news conference in Ottawa. “We don’t intend to either change or drop our position.”

The U.S. government has repeatedly insisted it has reasons to leave the 37-year-old on its watchlists. The issue has grown into an unpleasant diplomatic row between the world’s largest trading partners and closest allies.

The Syrian-born Arar, who moved to Canada with his family when he was 17, is the best-known case of rendition, a practice in which the U.S. government sends foreign terror suspects to third countries for interrogation.

Arar thanked the Canadian government at a news conference Friday.

“The struggle to clear my name has been long and hard; my kids have suffered silently and I feel that I owe them a lot,” said Arar, who also thanked Canadians for standing by him.

“Without the support of the Canadian people, I may never have come home and I would not have been able to stay strong and push for the truth,” he said.

Source: CNN.com

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Well this should be real simple, since all the Iranians in Iraq run around with the word “IRANIAN” stamped on their forehead. So “aggressive new strategy” = “war with Iran.” Ok…..now I get it. Nevermind all the Sunni and Shiite militia death squads. Nevermind the democracy crap. Nevermind a better life for the Iraqis. It’s all about Iran now.

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The “catch and release” policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian’supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq “has been quite striking.” (By Lawrence Jackson — Associated Press)

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran’s regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country’s nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.

Read more here

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

CNN.com has for their QuickVote question today, “Should cab drivers be able to refuse passengers on religious grounds?”

Here are the results thus far:

I see you’ve noticed that “Yes - 12%“, and you’re wondering why that’s not closer to 36% (because of that pesky thirty’something-percent crowd that usually shows up in political/religious polling). Allow me to explain the discrepancy going on here:

12% - Firmly do not want their cab drivers carting around someone who may be carrying a copy of the Qur’an.
12% - Confused. Thought the question was aimed at specifically keeping Pat Robertson et al out of cabs.
12% - In their excitement, hit the wrong response button and CNN offers no “Let me try this again” option.

I hope this helps. Religion

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta

Do you ever get the feeling that all things political in this country are choreographed? Kinda like a game of chess… but planned out. If someone had asked me yesterday who’s making the next move and what would that move be? I might have said McCain but not got the benchmarks part right…or possibly the other way around… and maybe even both right!
Perhaps more like the game of Clue: “Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with a candlestick”… or, “Senator McCain lying on a benchmark with a finger up his butt.” One needn’t be politically savvy to play.

McCain says he’ll propose benchmarks for Iraq

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. John McCain, a leading advocate of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, said Thursday he’ll try to blunt the impact of proposed Senate resolutions opposing a buildup with a new resolution of his own.

McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he will propose benchmarks for Iraq’s government to meet as part of the new push, and he also will seek to increase congressional oversight of the war.

He offered no details of his “embryonic” proposal, but he said those steps “might be a way of calming the concerns that many of our colleagues have.”

McCain, a likely presidential contender in 2008, said his plan might ease colleagues’ frustration over the “rosy scenarios” put forth by the Bush administration about progress in Iraq.

“There is a legitimate concern about the lack of congressional oversight, about sending Gen. [David] Petraeus there saying we don’t approve of his mission,” he said. Bush has nominated Petraeus to be the new commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq.

“One of the areas we really want to work on is setting some benchmarks, so the American people and Congress will know if we’re making progress or not,” McCain said.

Source: CNN.com

Comments OffEmail Post Toggle Meta