Sam Cooke
Little Red Rooster

But of course they would have…….and been happy to start another war, too. Friggin idiots.

A senior American commander in the Gulf has said his men would have fired on the Iranian Republican Guard rather than let themselves be taken hostage.

In a dramatic illustration of the different postures adopted by British and US forces working together in Iraq, Lt-Cdr Erik Horner - who has been working alongside the task force to which the 15 captured Britons belonged - said he was “surprised” the British marines and sailors had not been more aggressive.

Asked by The Independent whether the men under his command would have fired on the Iranians, he said: “Agreed. Yes. I don’t want to second-guess the British after the fact but our rules of engagement allow a little more latitude. Our boarding team’s training is a little bit more towards self-preservation.”

The executive officer - second-in-command on USS Underwood, the frigate working in the British-controlled task force with HMS Cornwall - said: “The unique US Navy rules of engagement say we not only have a right to self-defence but also an obligation to self-defence. They [the British] had every right in my mind and every justification to defend themselves rather than allow themselves to be taken. Our reaction was, ‘Why didn’t your guys defend themselves?’”

His comments came as it was reported British intelligence had been warned by the CIA that Iran would seek revenge for the detention of five suspected Iranian intelligence officers in Iraq two months ago but refused to raise threat levels in line with their US counterparts. The capture of the eight sailors and seven marines - including one young mother - will undoubtedly renew accusations that Britain’s determination to maintain a friendly face in the region has left its troops frequently under protected.

Full article at the Independent

And the blood keeps flowing…….

BAGHDAD - Roadside bombs killed five U.S. soldiers in Iraq Sunday, including four in a single strike in a volatile province northeast of the capital, the military said.

In Baghdad, gunmen on rooftops opened fire on Iraqi soldiers, prompting fierce fighting in the narrow streets and alleys of one of the capital’s oldest neighborhoods, a Sunni insurgent stronghold and a haven for criminals on the east side of the Tigris River. At least two civilians were killed and four others were wounded in the clashes, police said, as U.S. attack helicopters buzzed overhead.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed and two others were wounded, according to a statement, when an explosion struck their patrol in Diyala province, a religiously mixed area that has seen fierce fighting in recent months.

A roadside bomb also killed a soldier and wounded two others as they were checking for bombs on a road in northwestern Baghdad, the military said.

Full article at Yahoo News

I can’t believe the balls this guy has. He’s the one who slips the provision in the Patriot Act that allows Gonzales to place US attorneys without congressional approval (at the request of the AG’s office), and now he’s talking about firing him. Arlen…..STFU. And these supposed “journalists” aren’t bothering to ask him why he did that to begin with. What a world…..

WASHINGTON - Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness and a Democrat joined the list of lawmakers who want him to resign over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Gonzales would have to step down if he did not tell the truth when he told Congress that he was not involved in discussions about a group of fired U.S. prosecutors at the center of the Washington controversy.

“We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful and if we find that he has not been candid and truthful, that’s a very compelling reason for him not to stay on,” Specter said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Story at MSNBC

More on Gonzales here

Speaking of impeachment…..guess who.

“Any president who says, I don’t care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don’t care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that,”

Article here

War crimes against our own by our own. And what did Karpinski do about it when she was there? What did she do about the torture when she was there? Or was there nothing she could do about it? Just wondering……

NEW YORK - U.S. female soldiers in Iraq were assaulted or raped by male soldiers in the women’s latrines, and an alarming number committed suicide, Col. Janis Karpinski reportedly testified before an international human rights commission of inquiry last month.

“Because the women were in fear of getting up in the darkness [to go to the latrine], they were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon,” Karpinski testified, according to a report on Truthout.org. “In the 100 degree heat, they were dying of dehydration in their sleep.”

Karpinski’s testimony was reported by Margorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild who writes a weekly column for the website.

Cohn wrote that she presented Karpinski’s testimony at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, which convened Jan. 20-22 at Riverside Church.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn-t located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom, Karpinski told retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview, Cohn reported. “There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night.” It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers.

Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition’s joint task force said in a briefing that “women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep.”

“And rather than make everybody aware of that - because that’s shocking, and as a leader if that’s not shocking to you then you-re not much of a leader - what they told the surgeon to do is don-t brief those details anymore. And don-t say specifically that they-re women. You can provide that in a written report but don-t brief it in the open anymore.”

Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the top deputy to Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, saw dehydration listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, Wojdakowski directed that the cause of death no longer be listed. The official explanation for this was to protect the women’s privacy rights, she said.

Sanchez’s attitude was: “The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory,” Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told Cohn that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did, Cohn reported.

“It was out of control,” Karpinski told a group of students at Thomas Jefferson School of Law last October, according to the Truthout report. Although there was a toll-free number women could use to report sexual assaults, no one had a phone, and no one answered the U.S. number when it was called. Any woman who successfully connected to it would get a recording.

More at the Vermont Guardian

Jon Stewart recaps his interview with John Bolton

Why do I say this? I say this because the wealthy had been given preferential treatment over all others in the (up until recently) republican-led congress. I say this because of the ‘kingdom’ mentality of our current administration. And even though democrats are now in control, I don’t see this trend reversing anytime soon.

Simply ask yourself this: What am I more likely to hear about tomorrow… “Universal health care has finally came to America!“, or “Attorneys have joined the non-taxpaying club, stating: Taxes are for the poor!“.

MSNBC.com:

Doctors owe more than $1 billion in back taxes

Yet many in arrears still get hundreds of thousands in Medicare payments

WASHINGTON - Americans who have done battle with the IRS may not be happy to hear what thousands of doctors are getting away with. A government investigation finds that doctors and other medical providers who owe more than $1 billion in back taxes nevertheless are still collecting money from Medicare.

Jennifer Reich, a single mother who owns a Pilates studio, was notified two years ago that she owed $35,000 in back taxes.

“I was anxious and I was scared,” Reich says. “Because every morning I woke up, I didn’t know what our future was going to be.”

She says the government made her life miserable until she borrowed money to pay the taxes. However, it appears that some doctors delinquent on their taxes get very different treatment. A new report by government watchdogs finds that in 2005, 21,000 doctors and health care providers who owed $1.3 billion in payroll and income taxes continued to collect big money from Medicare.

Investigators also told Congress Tuesday that some doctors had been sanctioned for substandard care, financial misconduct, even criminal activity.

Sunday Talk
* Meet the Press: fired U.S. attys David Iglesias and John McKay; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA); ex-Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ)
* Face the Nation: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); ex-US Atty Bud Cummins; NYT’s David Brooks
* This Week: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE); Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Eric Winer; Lisa Ling; roundtable of George Will, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts
* Fox News Sunday: Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); ex-DoJ prosecutor Sharon Eubanks; Fisher House chair Kenneth Fisher.
* Late Edition: ex-U.N. Amb. John Bolton; Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL); ex-Clinton special counsel Lanny Davis; ex-U.S. atty Joe DiGenova; Iraqi Amb. Samir Al Sumadaie; Donna Brazile; Ed Gillespie

TV Alerts
* Political Capital: Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) (Bloomberg, repeats throughout weekend).
* Chris Matthews 3/24-3/25: Rick Stengel, Gloria Borger, Patrick Healy, Norah O’Donnell discuss “Has Hillary peaked, and will it become an Obama-Hillary two-person race? How does the Edwards news reorder things? And is Al Gore poised to get in? Are Democrats really after Alberto Gonzales, or actually after Karl Rove?”. Quotes here.
* This Week at War: Sen. Joe Lieberman (CFL)
* Newsmakers: Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) with Politico’s Hearns on 3/25 (CSPAN, 10am).
* Road to the White House: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in NH on 3/25; Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in NH and IA on 3/25
* 60 Minutes: John & Elizabeth Edwards on 3/25; reformed Jihadist on 3/25; ex-Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski
* Today Show: John & Teresa Heinz Kerry on 3/26
* GMA: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in townhall on 3/26
* Washington Journal: ex-US Atty John McKay on 3/26; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on 3/26
* Charlie Rose 3/26: ex-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA); ex-Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ)
* Tavis Smiley: Eddie Glaude on 3/26; Marian Wright Edelman on 3/27; fmr. Educ. Sec. Rod Paige on 3/27; CNN’s Jane Arraf on 3/28; Anne Lamott on 3/28; Benjamin Barber on 3/29; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on 3/30
* The Daily Show: Sen. John Kerry on 3/26; Dennis Miller on 3/27; Philip Zimbardo on 3/29
* Colbert Report: John Perry Barlow on 3/26; Madeleine Albright on 3/27; James Fallows on 3/27; Jabari Asim on 3/28; Clive James on 3/29;
* Frontline’s News Wars series on 3/27. Click link for preview.
* Letterman: Al Franken on 3/28
* Leno: Campbell Brown on 3/29

Source: Newsie8200