September 2006 archive
09-30-06 - Iran rejects short-term enrichment suspension
09-30-06 - U.S. Senate votes to extend Iran sanctions President George W. Bush signed the bill later on Saturday and said in a statement it would give the him flexibility to tailor sanctions and "impose sanctions upon entities that aid the Iranian regime's development of nuclear weapons."
09-30-06 - NORAD says intercepted Russian aircraft off Alaska U.S. and Canadian fighter aircraft intercepted Russian planes off the Alaska coast, but it was not considered a hostile incident, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said on Friday.
09-30-06 - New US sanctions bill targets Iran's partners Although it does not name any countries, the measure is seen as a clear warning to Russia and China, two key members of the UN Security Council that have been resisting calls for new international sanctions against Tehran in response to its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
09-30-06 - Iran wants 'large scale' uranium enrichment programme Enriched uranium can be used both as a fuel in nuclear power stations and as a component of nuclear weapons.
09-30-06 - Most in U.S. say Congress short-sighted
09-30-06 - British Newspaper Claims to Have Previously Unseen Video by Sept. 11 Ringleader There was no soundtrack, the newspaper said. It quoted an unnamed U.S. source as saying that attempts to lip read the tape to transcribe the content had been unsuccessful.
09-30-06 - UN probe of Hariri murder to target suspects' communications UN chief investigator Serge Brammertz said analysis of communications among the suspects in the murder of a Lebanese ex-premier could shed light on the operation and other attacks on foes of Syria in Lebanon.
09-30-06 - Briton Cites 'Divergence' With U.S. Falconer recently called Guantanamo Bay "an affront to the principles of democracy." In a lengthy interview Friday, he said Britain had learned hard lessons in the 1970s when it pursued a hard-line course in response to the bombing campaign of the Irish Republican Army.
09-30-06 - Bush challenges "misimpressions" about Iraq Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, said the document was highly damaging to the administration because it exposed mistakes. "They have done things that they ought not to have done -- such as invading Iraq -- and they have left undone things that they ought to have done -- such as a serious effort at Israeli-Palestinian peace," Walt said. "As a result, they have made jihadis and other extremists look like heroes."
09-30-06 - Detainee law may not provide total immunity for CIA interrogators International legal experts said the measure is meaningless overseas, where international courts theoretically could still prosecute alleged violations of anti-torture treaties
09-30-06 - Groups Unanimously Assail New Detention Law
09-30-06 - Iraq, China discuss reviving Saddam-era oil deal Iraq could hand China the first foreign contract to develop its vast oil resources if Beijing agrees to put into effect a deal originally signed with Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Oil Ministry said on Wednesday.
09-30-06 - Israel minister demands swift killing of Hezbollah chief A government spokesman in Beirut said the French commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), General Alain Pellegrini, had told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that Israel would withdraw the last of its troops on Sunday. But the Israeli military refused to confirm a definitive timing for the pullout "for security reasons".
09-30-06 - US boosts Israel aid by half a billion The Bush administration initially requests a USD 268 million increase to military aid to Israel, but the congress double that amount citing the importance of US-Israeli military cooperation I was just think yesterday, we really need to give more aid to Israel. It's imperative that the American people secure Israel. The American taxpayers have tons of money to give away for these matters...
09-30-06 - Last Israeli troops leave Lebanon
09-30-06 - Take UK troops out of Iraq, senior military told ministers "What is more important, Afghanistan or Iraq?" a senior defence source asked yesterday. "There is a group within the Ministry of Defence pushing hard to get troops out of Iraq to get more into Afghanistan."
09-30-06 - Syria has little room to maneuver in Tehran's shadow An economist pointed out that Syria's alliance with Iran was wholly based on its international isolation since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
09-30-06 - Analysis: Only an antimissile system can save our tanks Despite the clear threat, the IDF was at a loss for how to stop them
09-30-06 - Report: Diskin holds secret talks with Arab intelligence heads The newspaper reports that the participants in the secret meeting included Diskin, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a senior Jordanian official, head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department Mohammed al-Dahabi, Head of Egyptian intelligence General Omar Suleiman as well as senior officials from two Persian Gulf states that do not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.
09-30-06 - In Washington: Why I'm optimistic Reports from Washington, Europe and Jerusalem indicate that President Bush is beginning to view the seemingly endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an obstacle to his primary Middle East goal right now - preventing Iran from going nuclear. The Europeans have made clear that they will resist US demands for sanctions unless America starts showing leadership on the Israeli-Palestinian front. And, according to administration officials, Washington is getting the message.
09-30-06 - Falling on His Sword He was told that the case had already been put together by the White House, and he assumed that with a little tweaking he could turn it into a speech that would fit his voice and style. He was taken aback on Tuesday, January 28, when he received the bulk of the document, a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some.......Powell, Libby and Stephen Hadley, Rice's deputy, joined the process the next day.
Cheney had called Powell to say he hoped the secretary would "take a good look at Scooter's stuff." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who accompanied Powell to the CIA sessions, later recalled Libby himself appealing to Powell to look more carefully at the now-discarded White House material. "Powell said: 'I don't want to. I want to use what Larry's been working on.' ".....Tenet and McLaughlin became irritated with Hadley, who kept pressing to reinsert jettisoned White House language and information. Powell was deliberately misled. And it's not his fault. As far as I'm concerned, he still ranks up there.
09-30-06 - Nuclear issue could stall Japan-Iran oil project Japan has decided to stop financial support for the development of Iran's largest onshore oil field if the Islamic republic continues uranium enrichment, a press report said.
09-30-06 - Legislating Violations of the Constitution Such a bill could have only one motive: to protect unconstitutional government actions advancing religion. The religious right, which has been trying for years to use government to advance their religious views, wants to reduce the likelihood that their efforts will be declared unconstitutional. I've a related article by reknowned British journalist Robert Fisk - and a caution on the language in the first paragraph.
09-30-06 - A Letter from 18 Writers including three Nobel Prize recipients against the Lebanon and Palestinian War
09-30-06 - Why I'm Banned in the USA Between 1998 and 2002, I had contributed small sums of money to a French charity supporting humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories.
Support Palestinians? That's reason enough to get banned from the US these days.
09-29-06 - US judge backs Halliburton on Iraq overtime claim U.S. District Court Judge Melinda Harmon agreed with Halliburton's contention that, although the Pentagon contract called for overtime wages to be paid in Iraq, U.S. laws governing military contracts allow only workers employed inside the United States to be given the overtime pay
09-29-06 - House Approves Warrantless Wiretap Law
09-29-06 - Military official: Iranian millions funding insurgency The official, who asked to remain anonymous, briefed reporters Wednesday about the conflict in Iraq.....Some of the equipment is of the same type that Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia, used against Israeli forces in Lebanon during the summer, the official said.
Mm k.
09-29-06 - U.S. Military to Investigate Deadly Airstrike on Home Four men and four women were killed in the predawn clash at a house in Baqubah, a center of insurgent fighting 35 miles north of the capital.
09-29-06 - Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill
09-29-06 - Iran rules out suspending nuclear activities Iran has said there was no reason to suspend its nuclear activities, maintaining a tough line despite talks with the European Union aimed at persuading Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.
09-29-06 - Report: Troops left Iowan under fire
09-29-06 - UN: Israel used precision bomb to hit UN officers While there was speculation Israel may have been targeting Hizbollah positions near the Khiam post, Holl Lute said there was no Hizbollah firing coming from near the outpost.
An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned Israeli forces six times that its strikes threatened the lives of the four observers, Ireland's Foreign Ministry said.
09-29-06 - Bush 'concealing Iraq violence' Veteran US journalist Bob Woodward has claimed that the true extent of insurgent attacks in Iraq has been hidden by the administration.
09-29-06 - US Senate backs terror trial bill The US Senate has passed controversial legislation endorsing President George W Bush's proposals to interrogate and prosecute foreign terror suspects.
09-29-06 - Iran mulled nuclear bomb in 1988
09-29-06 - Rushing Off a Cliff The Bush administration uses Republicans? fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws ? while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats
09-29-06 - Tooth a key clue in UN probe into Hariri killing Brammertz called the tooth "extremely important." In a report released this week, he said it showed a "distinguishing mark ... rarely seen among people from Lebanon." "That tooth has SYRIAN markings, I's just knows it!": John Bolton.
09-29-06 - Carter: U.S. in more danger of terrorism
09-29-06 - House approves Iran Freedom Support Act "It would be a critical mistake to allow a regime with a track record as bloody and as dangerous as Iran to obtain nuclear weapons," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., sponsor of the measure. "Enough with the carrots. It's time for the stick." Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of Israel's top agents on Capitol Hill. She cares about as much for Iranian freedom as she does for that of the Palestinians.
09-29-06 - Americans favor diplomacy on Iran: Reuters poll One in four respondents, 26 percent, said they supported the use of U.S. ground troops in Iran, while 70 percent opposed it. Nine percent favored air strikes on selected military targets in Iran
09-29-06 - Iraq's Kurds threaten secession over oil rights
09-29-06 - Missing From the NIE: Afghanistan The media missed the real story regarding the National Intelligence Estimate of the global terror threat. It's not what's in the declassified executive summary of the report ? Iraq, which was unavoidable ? it's what's absent from it ? Afghanistan, where the Taliban are making a frightening and bloody comeback.
09-29-06 - Ministers break taboo of criticising Bush Mr Straw added that there were people in the US administration in 2003 who wanted to invade Iraq "in any event" but he did not believe Mr Bush was one of them
09-29-06 - Don't rewrite U.S. history to explain Iraq mess But this nugget of truth came amid a flood of retrospective reinvention in which Rice equated the war in Iraq with the civil rights struggle of the 1960s ? and left me wondering whether I was hearing polished sophistry or a case of total denial.
09-29-06 - Iraq war threatens the Gulf, report says Wait til we attack Iran.
09-29-06 - Document: Pakistan agency backs al-Qaeda A leaked document accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of indirectly supporting terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and calls on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to disband the agency. Pakistan has nukes, folks.
09-29-06 - Congressmen say Iraq war weakens military response to other crises Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Reps. John Murtha, D-Pa., and Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, warned that because funding for the military has been siphoned off to pay for the war, the Army and Marines are running dangerously short of the necessary troops, equipment and training to stay combat ready.
09-29-06 - Congress chronicles Abramoff's contacts The draft report of the House Government Reform Committee said the documents - largely Abramoff's billing records and e-mails - listed 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials over three years, including 10 with top Bush aide Karl Rove.
09-29-06 - Israel backs off plan to kill Nasrallah Israel has quietly backed off its plan to assassinate Hezbollah's leader because of the international condemnation that his killing would create, the Israeli daily Maariv reported Friday. To get around that, they'll Hariri-ize him.
09-29-06 - Judge may have stymied Abramoff probe
09-29-06 - GOP Slanders Dems With 'Anti-Israel' Ads President Bush, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and many other Republicans have certainly been reliable friends of Israel. But they have been no better friends than the great majority of Democratic leaders - including former president Bill Clinton, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi - all of whom are unwavering supporters of the Jewish state. The real issue here is the fact that both parties put the interests of Israel over the interests of the American people.
09-29-06 - 'Israel Lobby' Caused War in Iraq, September 11 Attacks, Professor Says Later, in response to a question from the audience, Mr. Mearsheimer claimed that the "animus to the United States" of Qaeda terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed "stemmed from U.S. foreign policy toward Israel." In fact, Us Policy on Israel Key Motive for Effort, according to the findings of the 911 Commission. Americans are not to know this though.
09-29-06 - U.N.-Israel encounter highlights discord Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force, said French peacekeepers "observed an Israeli violation of the Blue Line" ? the U.N.-demarcated line between Lebanon and Israel......Tobacco farmer Moussa Obeid had similar concerns.
"It is not clear yet what these U.N. troops will do to protect us from the Israelis," he said, pointing to the Israeli position. "This is occupation. Look how close they are to us."
09-29-06 - Israel Sends in the Clowns - Debating the Lobby in Manhattan Indyk and Ross showed up in fighting trim, and Slaughter threw them a slow soft one in her first question: Was the Mearsheimer-Walt paper anti-Semitic? Well, more or less, yes, was the predictable answer from Israel's defense bench.
This proves one of the points of the study in the first place.
09-29-06 - Iran farmers fear possible sanctions
09-29-06 - Military Intelligence: Syrian Front Now Cause for Concern Each week, members of the Israeli Defense Ministry flip a coin to determine which nation is the biggest threat and thus will be the next target of US condemnation: "Iran, Syria. Iran, Syria. Syria it is!"
09-29-06 - German navy will help Lebanese army: Merkel
09-29-06 - Dems: Iran sanctions act diluted According to a comparison document circulated by Democrats, the new version removes sanctions on offshore subsidiaries of U.S. companies that deal with Iran.
09-29-06 - Children face perils of bomblets in Lebanon
09-29-06 - U.N. says Israel blocked investigators A U.N. official said Israel never sufficiently explained why it kept bombing the base. "We do not have a satisfactory answer as to why those attempts failed," said the official, who spoke anonymously because the report was confidential. "The Israelis are fully aware of our position on this incident
09-29-06 - Swiss team tours country to assess needs Switzerland has pledged an additional $4.5 million to assist the Palestinian people living in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
09-29-06 - Syria threat over Golan puts Israel on war alert Israeli reports have revealed that the threat level had been raised after intelligence assessments that Damascus is "seriously examining" military action. Riighht. With US forces across the border in Iraq, Syria isn't going to commit national suicide by striking Israel. Chicken Little's at it again.
09-29-06 - Democrats hit back after ads claim GOP is for Israel supporters "There is a longstanding tradition of bipartisan support by both Democrats and Republicans for Israel, which we cherish and for which we are grateful," said David Siegel, the embassy spokesman. "The special relationship between Israel and the United States is deep and profound, based on shared values which transcend party lines in both countries." Which is why there is a need for AIPAC, among other powerful pro-Israel lobbies?....
09-29-06 - Al-Qaeda brands Bush 'a failure'
09-29-06 - Abramoff, Rove discussed Israel One confirmed contact, however, was when Abramoff secured hard-to-get tickets for Rove to a college basketball game. At the game, Abramoff, who is Jewish, discussed Israel with Rove, according to an e-mail account by Abramoff.
09-29-06 - Jewish state presses bid to dictate UNIFIL's rules of engagement Occupiers want peacekeepers to disarm hizbullah fighters
09-29-06 - Russia Wants Some of U.S. Uranium Market
09-29-06 - Lebanon's children: the true victims of the civilized world's disregard during Israel's attacks
09-29-06 - Rattling the Cage: The big con about Iran It means being prepared for a much bigger war than the US has been fighting in Iraq for the last 3-1/2 years, and counting. America won't do it. No way on earth. With the US so hopelessly out of its depth in Iraq, the American people will as soon let Bush start a war in Iran as they'd let him bring back the draft, which would be necessary to fight such a war. So forget it. America might be up for a quick little in-and-out operation, something like it did in Granada or Panama, but that's not a military option with the likes of Iran.
And what is Israel going to do?
09-29-06 - Marwahin, 15 July 2006: The anatomy of a massacre The Israelis had been firing at all vehicles on the roads of southern Lebanon for three days - they hit dozens of civilian cars as well as ambulances and never once explained their actions except to claim that they were shooting at "terrorists".
09-29-06 - As Kurd and Arab clashes surge, a third war is looming in Iraq it is the Kurdish determination to allow Kurdish majority areas in the rest of northern Iraq, notably Kirkuk, to join the KRG that is leading to a deepening conflict between Arabs and Kurds on the ground.
Oil-rich Kirkik.
09-29-06 - Bush issues Yom Kippur greetings In holiday greetings, President Bush said Jewish observance of Yom Kippur makes the world a more peaceful place.
09-29-06 - Sadat's widow says Israeli-Palestinian peace would curb terror Madame Jehan Sadat says the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is the core of the war on terror. She says the U-S should convince Israel to pull out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and get the two sides together to make peace.
09-29-06 - The Great Debate at Cooper Union Last Night Rashid Khalidi was the emotional life of the debate. He spoke of the lobby in more sweeping terms than Mearsheimer; he conveyed in a way no one else was able the ways in which the pro-Palestinian view is suppressed in the American scene
09-28-06 - Iran-EU nuclear talks 'positive' but no accord
09-28-06 - Britain distances itself from terror report Britain's Ministry of Defence on Wednesday distanced itself from an intelligence report published by the BBC that said the U.S.-led war in Iraq had fuelled Muslim radicalism around the world.
09-28-06 - Canada's top Mountie apologizes to deported man The head of Canada's federal police force offered an unprecedented public apology on Thursday to a man who was deported by U.S. agents to Syria after the Mounties mistakenly labeled him an Islamic extremist.
09-28-06 - UN leader race heats up; U.S. wants quick decision U.S. Ambassador John Bolton pushed on Wednesday for a quick resolution to the race to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary-general, a move that could favor a South Korean front-runner.
09-28-06 - Beirut may file UN complaint over Israel's failure to withdraw And for the last two days, Israeli forces have been erecting checkpoints in a village in southern Lebanon to search vehicles and check passengers' identities according to Lebanese sources. "The Israeli troops are erecting checkpoints, stopping people as well as Lebanese and foreign journalists," said the Lebanese senior military official. "This is not acceptable, these are part of provocations and pressures by the Israelis to negotiate security measures and rules of engagement," he said.
09-28-06 - UN, Israeli tanks in brief face-off in south Lebanon Standing some 50 meters from each other, the tanks were locked in a 20-minute face-off, the first between the Israeli army and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has been boosted to oversee the current truce.
The French tanks then withdrew from the area, as observers of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation deployed in the area. Israeli soldiers confiscated the identity cards of photographers at the scene, claiming they may give pictures of the Israeli military to militants of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.
Is it only a matter of time before Israeli forces fire on UN forces (again)?
09-28-06 - Senate Passes Detainee Bill Sought by Bush The bill would create military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects. It also would prohibit blatant abuses of detainees but grant the president flexibility to decide what interrogation techniques are legally permissible.
09-28-06 - Bin Laden is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, insists Musharraf General Musharraf has been in a verbal duel with President Karzai over Pakistan?s role in the War on Terror, with the Afghan leader accusing it of allowing cross-border operations by Taleban from tribal areas
09-28-06 - Israeli cluster bomb kills 1 child, wounds 3 near Marjayoun The four children were playing in a field in the region of Marjayoun when a bomblet exploded, killing one and wounding the others, the source told AFP
09-28-06 - They're Back - An Iran contra-era fabricator and his associate appear to have opened a new channel to Washington. U.S. intelligence sources surmise that the agency taking Ghorbanifar?s associate?s information is not the CIA, but the Pentagon, most likely the Defense Intelligence Agency.
09-28-06 - House passes homeland security cooperation The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbied for the bill, said its passage would allow the United States "to leverage the anti-terrorism expertise of our leading allies in the global war against terror. It provides a framework for expanded homeland security collaboration and creates increased opportunities for the United States and Israel to work together to address the common terrorist threat."
09-28-06 - Israeli PM leaves it understood he met Saudis
09-28-06 - Lebanon leader excluded at summit Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has been excluded from a summit of French-speaking nations in Romania.
09-28-06 - More drama over 'controversial' opera production After cancellation: fears of violence by Muslims, then debate over freedom of speech, religious tolerance.
09-28-06 - Oliver Stone Says He is 'Ashamed for My Country' "I think that conspiracy-mongering on 9/11 is a waste of time," he said. "The far greater conspiracy occurred after 9/11 when basically a neo-cabal inside our government hijacked policy and went to war. That was as broad a conspiracy as we can get and it was about 20, 30 people. That's all, they took over and all these books are coming out and they are pointing it out," said Stone. Right on, Mr. Stone.
09-28-06 - Congress releases $25 million for homeland security The U.S. Congress released $25 million in homeland security funds to protect nonprofits....Most of the $25 million allocated in 2005 went to Jewish organizations for improving security.
09-28-06 - Lebanese border village eagerly awaits Israeli pullout Three weeks ago, the young woman came home, with her three daughters, her disabled husband and her parents-in-law to find their house bombarded and vandalized, and her tobacco fields nearly all dried to the roots
09-28-06 - U.S. to press UNIFIL on 'robust' mandate U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed unhappiness with reports that the expanded U.N. force in Lebanon is reluctant to set up roadblocks and check vehicles to keep Hezbollah, the terrorist group that launched this summer?s war with Israel, from rearming.
09-28-06 - House approves funds for missile interceptor Such appropriations, considered defense investments, are separate from the $2.8 billion Israel gets annually in U.S. assistance
09-28-06 - Israelis boost Britain Almost two in three Israelis consider British Prime Minister Tony Blair a "true friend of Israel," the poll found.
09-28-06 - Author's 'J curve' puts new spin on world's politics
09-28-06 - Lugar says vote on nomination unlikely before Senate recess Chafee wants the administration to restrain Israel from expanding settlements in Palestinian areas on the West Bank. Bolton, as U.S. ambassador, has taken a strong and visible role in across-the-board support for Israel.
09-28-06 - Israel does not expect another imminent fight with Hezbollah: Olmert For the price of ceasing its vicious onslaught against the Lebanese people as a whole, Israel is betting on the UN to do their work (neutralizing Hezbollah) for them.
09-28-06 - Syria defies U.S. threat, still backs Hamas, Hizbollah "If the U.S. administration is serious about combating terrorism then it should play a constructive role in pushing forward the peace process on the basis of U.N. resolutions 242 and 338," The UN resolutions, passed decades ago, emphasize the inadmissibility of acquiring territory through war, call on Israel to withdraw from Arab land it has occupied since 1967 and call for negotiations to reach a "just and durable peace" in the Middle East
09-28-06 - U.N. shifts from aid work to rebuilding in Lebanon The United Nations declared an end on Thursday to the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon caused by the Israeli-Hizbollah war and said it planned to shift its resources to rebuilding the war-shattered area.
09-28-06 - Israel explains trepidation over Lebanon On Thursday, an Israeli armored vehicle and two jeeps crossed the border and tried to penetrate into Lebanese territory when U.N. French peacekeepers blocked their path, said an Associated Press photographer who witnessed the incident. The Israelis retreated after a brief standoff, but the incident highlights the lingering tensions along the border. Ahh. So that's why the Israeli army confiscated the identity cards of those photographers, per an earlier article.
09-28-06 - House approves Iran sanctions The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which led lobbying for the act, praised its passage. A lot of Israel-friendly goings on on Capitol Hill today. See my post from the 09-26 news batch about Israel's newest wishlist. Mission accomplished (for now)!
09-28-06 - House suspends Israeli contract tainted by Abramoff The U.S. Congress suspended a contract with an Israeli wireless firm because of its ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
House finally got one right.
09-27-06 - U.S. May Hold Off on Iran Sanctions The Bush administration said Wednesday it was willing to defer seeking U.N. sanctions against Iran for a few weeks if there is a chance for a diplomatic resolution of a long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear programs.
09-27-06 - Report: Tehran willing to secretly halt enrichment
09-27-06 - Poll: Iraqis back attacks on U.S. troops The State Department poll found that two-thirds of Iraqis in Baghdad favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to The Washington Post.
09-27-06 - EU to probe bank data monitoring by U.S European data protection officials agreed Tuesday to investigate further allegations that a Belgian-based company's sharing of confidential banking records with U.S. authorities for anti-terror probes could have violated EU laws.
09-27-06 - U.S. did not threaten to bomb Pakistan: Armitage Washington did not threaten to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" after the September 11 attacks but a Pakistani official may have distorted U.S. resolve to press Islamabad for help, a former U.S. diplomat said on Monday.
09-27-06 - Bin Laden 'Not Our Priority'
09-27-06 - John Bolton and US Lawlessness At the United Nations, he represents the neoconservatives who stand for everything that is hated about America ? to paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so few made so much disaster for so many.
09-27-06 - Judge to Weigh Evidence in CIA Leak Case The hearing, which could last several days, will help establish what classified information is relevant to the case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
09-27-06 - Congress Bans Funding for Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq The U.S. Congress this week finalized legislation that bars funding to construct permanent military bases in Iraq, and states definitively that it is the policy of the United States government not to exercise control over Iraq?s petroleum resources.
09-27-06 - Hariri killing 'linked to 14 other attacks' "There may have been more than one motivating reason," it said, adding the crime could have been committed by one group, or "a well-defined or disparate collection of individuals or groups joined together". Mark Turner, United Nations
09-27-06 - Rice says she would not back gas embargo on Iran
09-27-06 - Bush and Clinton Teams Debate Pre-9/11 Efforts Hillary Clinton pointed to the intelligence memo presented to Bush in August 2001. "I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team," she said
09-27-06 - EU and Iran go into nuclear talks
09-27-06 - Syria cooperating to prove innocence in Hariri murder: FM
09-27-06 - Merkel warns against bowing to fear of Muslim violence Christianity is routinely denigrated -in the West in particular. Strange though, how nobody is allowed to bash that OTHER religion that isn't being mentioned. It also needs to be said that Merkel is a known Israel-defender. Folks like that are doing all that they can these days to inflame the Muslim world. The individual responsible for publishing the anti-Muslim cartoons in the Danish newspaper was known to be enthralled by Daniel Pipes, a neocon.
09-27-06 - Family disputes U.S. raid on Iraqi house
09-27-06 - Lebanon accuses Israel of stealing border river waters Mohammad Ghamlush, the engineer heading the Wazzani river pumping systems, told AFP the Israeli army sabotaged the water pumps on the river last week and installed a pipe to pump hundreds of cubic meters to Israel....In a region where water is scarce, the issue may have dramatic consequences. and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has opened an investigation.
09-27-06 - Marines charged over Iraq killing Three US marines are to be tried by a military tribunal for the alleged murder of an Iraqi civilian, the US military has said in a statement.
09-27-06 - More US Hispanics drawn to Islam
09-27-06 - Siniora: IDF presence in Lebanon 'mother of all ills'
09-27-06 - Russia in threat to turn off gas to US giants The apparent snub to American interests is further evidence of increasing tension between Washington and Moscow over trade and the willingness of the Kremlin to use its energy resources as a political lever.
09-27-06 - Iran seen borrowing nuclear strategy from Israel In developing its nuclear program Iran is using strategies that allowed its enemy Israel to assemble the Middle East's only atomic arsenal without admitting it had one, according to a leading expert on the Israeli program.
09-27-06 - IDF: Troops can shoot Lebanese stone-throwers if lives threatened Cabinet ministers at Wednesday's weekly meeting were outraged over a protest Friday in which several dozen yellow-clad Hezbollah supporters on the Lebanese side of the border threw stones at soldiers on the Israeli side of the border. Some of the ministers criticized the army for not responding to the violent protest.
09-27-06 - Web Of Terror As ordinary people without any connection to terrorist organizations are swept up into George Bush?s war, there are three specific cases that should be carefully watched as especially troubling bellwethers.
09-27-06 - Calls rise for ban on cluster bombs "The Israeli Defense Forces have some explaining to do about the military necessity of firing so many cluster munitions into populated areas with the cease-fire in sight," said Mark Hiznay, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.
09-27-06 - Children's Bodies Found Months After Attack
09-27-06 - Anti-boycott language in Oman agreement President Bush signed a free trade agreement with Oman that includes language barring boycotts of Israel.
09-27-06 - House resolution calls for Lebanon force The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging Lebanon to allow international troops along its border with Syria Why is this a matter for American legislators?
09-27-06 - Peres: Assad Sr. missed chance on Golan Vice premier says if Bashar Assad's father, former Syrian president Hafez Assad, came to Camp David, ?I can promise you the Golan Heights would have been in Syrian hands for years now?
09-27-06 - WASHINGTON OUT OF TOUCH WITH ANGER OF ARAB WORLD, SYRIAN MINISTER TELLS UN He asserted that the people of the region are angered by the denial of their sovereign national rights. Summing up the collective sentiment, he said: "We want an end to the Israeli occupation of our lands in Palestine, Lebanon and the Golan. We want to recover all our usurped rights. We want the flow of American weapons to Israel, which are sowing death and destruction, to stop. We refuse hegemony over our resources and interference in our affairs."
09-27-06 - Hezbollah construction wing leaves gov?t in the dust
09-27-06 - Saudis Plan Border Fence With Iraq The pro-Israeli crowd is all up in arms over the Saudi fence proposal. The point they continue to have trouble with is this: there's nothing wrong with building a fence provided you build it on your own land. Israel built its fence or wall such that it confiscates large swaths of Palestinian land. This is a violation of international law. Our government is poised to build a fence along the border with Mexico. Do you think that we will steal large swaths of Mexican land in the process? Doubtful. That's the difference between America and Israel (one of many).
09-27-06 - Analysis: Clinton eyes roots of terrorism He pledged to dedicate his remaining days in office to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wider issue of the Occupied Territories, "because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism."
09-27-06 - Israel Navy eyeing new US warship The Israel Navy inched a step closer to receiving a next-generation coastguard vessel over the weekend when Lockheed Martin launched the USS Freedom, which is slated to join the US Navy, at the Marinette Marine Shipyard in Wisconsin.
09-26-06 - Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
09-26-06 - US insists any Iranian enrichment suspension must be verified The United States noted "hopeful" signs from Iran, on the eve of Tehran's latest nuclear talks with Europe, but warned sanctions were still on tap if diplomacy fails
09-26-06 - Iraq war 'cause celebre' for terror: US intelligence report The Iraq war is a "cause celebre" swelling the ranks of Islamist terrorists, who are likely to grow in numbers for the next five years, according to declassified US intelligence findings.
09-26-06 - EU, Iran close to deal for nuclear talks: report The report said Iran had agreed to suspend uranium enrichment for 90 days so additional talks could be held with European states. However, an Iranian nuclear official was quoted by an Iranian news agency denying such suspension plans.
09-26-06 - Army investigates Afghan prison deaths
09-26-06 - Russian fuel to be sent to Iranian plant ** once the fuel is delivered to Bushehr, new International Atomic Energy Agency requirements will come into force, including greater surveillance of the reactor operations. That would make an attack of Bushehr - for example, by U.S. or Israeli forces - much less likely, he said, since IAEA inspectors would have more access to the facilities.
09-26-06 - Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere from Battlefields in the Middle East Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided irrefutable documented evidence that the US has unethically and illegally used depleted uranium munitions on cities and other civilian populations. These military actions are in direct violation of not only the international conventions, but also violate US military law because the US is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol.
09-26-06 - Media Tall Tales ** The Sept. 25 edition of Time magazine illustrates how the U.S. news media are gearing up for a military attack on Iran.
09-26-06 - PM: Bush won't allow nuclear Iran ** Olmert's assessment is at odds with those inside the intelligence community who argue that the US president is too over-extended in Iraq and Afghanistan, and too politically weak at home, to take military action against Teheran.
09-26-06 - Concern over Middle East nuclear plans Both Turkey and Egypt have also signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This bans the further spread of nuclear weapons among member states.
09-26-06 - Two terror cases expose Bush's double standard In sending Arar - whom a Canadian government commission recently cleared of any terrorist ties - to Syria, the Bush administration had good reason to know he would be brutalized. Rice : "We shall sanction Syria for making us look bad! That's IT!"
09-26-06 - Rice evokes possible new sanctions against Syria The United States is hoping to convince its allies to back new sanctions against Syria in response to its purported role in destabilizing Lebanon and Iraq and supporting the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. Overheard in Condi's office last night, "Ok ok. So the Hariri report did not implicate Syria. Hmm. We can't use that to sanction them. Wait! We can always fall back on the 'destabilizing' trick! Yeh yeh!"
09-26-06 - US troop presence keeps neighbors from invading Iraq: Talabani Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that the US military presence in Iraq keeps neighbors from invading his country.
09-26-06 - Bush orders public release of Iraq intelligence report
09-26-06 - Beware the NIE If the war in Iraq is producing hundreds, or thousands, or millions of recruits for Osama bin Laden, well, where are they? .....It?s a mistake, and a dangerous one, to confuse anti-Americanism with terrorism. Even states that militantly oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East, such as Iran and Syria, haven?t used terrorist proxies against us. Violent insurgencies, such as Hezbollah and Hamas?along with Islamist insurgencies in Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Algeria and the Philippines?haven?t attacked us, either.
09-26-06 - Coming Soon: Gulf War III **
09-26-06 - Israel's lethal bomblets keep 200,000 Lebanese away from homes
09-26-06 - Golan heights an 'integral part" of Israel: PM Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called the occupied Golan Heights an integral part of Israel and said he would never hand it back to Syria. The Golan Heights - one of the territories unlawfully seized and 'settled' by Israel.
09-26-06 - Russia, Iran agree power station launch date Russia and Iran have signed an agreement setting next September as the deadline for the launch of the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power station.
09-26-06 - Unexploded bomblets hinder S. Lebanon recovery: U.N. Up to a million unexploded cluster bomblets from Israel's war with Hizbollah are now the biggest threat to civilians in south Lebanon, where they litter streets, homes and orchards, U.N. agencies said on Tuesday....Clarke said Israel had also yet to provide detailed information on the amounts of cluster bombs fired or the coordinates of the strikes, which would help munitions clearance teams identify the main areas on which to focus their efforts. Again, this is likely due to the fact that the maps would show mainly civilian areas.
09-26-06 - Why Bush Will Nuke Iran **
09-26-06 - Consult America before Iran war ** Early this year, Israel was warning that if Iran was not stopped by March 2006, it would be too late. Iran by then would have acquired the knowledge and experience needed to build nuclear weapons. The neoconservatives, too, have been demanding "Action this day!" and were stunned by Bush's statement at the United Nations that America does not oppose Iran's acquisition of peaceful nuclear power.
Check this news batch for a similar flashback to last year.
09-26-06 - From Sept. 2005: Israel: Iran may be 6 months from bomb know-how ** Iran may be as little as six months away from completing the know-how to build a nuclear bomb, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said on Monday.
09-26-06 - Lebanon: We need missiles against IAF aircraft Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr says his country's army will respond if Israel violates ceasefire after IDF's withdrawal. Murr meets with his Belgian counterpart, asks to equip Lebanese army with antiaircraft missiles in order to hit Israeli aircraft Even before the July 12th abduction of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, Israel was routinely and provocatively violating Lebanese air space (as well as Syria's on occasion).
09-26-06 - Beckett defends Lebanon policy "She skidded over troubled waters. She implied that we did all we could to obtain a ceasefire over Lebanon. This was not true,"
09-26-06 - Saudis deny secret Israel contact Israeli media said Saudi and Israeli had discussed the Saudi peace initiative and Iran's nuclear programme. That's all Saudi royalty needs is to admit they met with the Israeli government. Not going to happen.
09-26-06 - Russia Selling Iran Missiles to Protect Bushehr Nuclear Reactor ? Source Russian diplomatic and industry sources said Moscow has been negotiating to sell Iran a range of anti-aircraft systems to protect Bushehr from Israeli or U.S. air strikes.
09-26-06 - Olmert says Israel will not accept a nuclear Iran "Israel can't accept the possibility of Iranians having nuclear weapons and we will act together with the international forces, starting with the Americans, in order to prevent it," Olmert told The Jerusalem Post daily in an interview. "starting with the Americans, in order to prevent it," We've got our hands full already, thanks to the neocons/AIPACers.
09-26-06 - IDF: Sorties will continue over Lebanon
09-26-06 - Israel Intended to Assassinate Nasrallah After Ceasefire
09-26-06 - Israeli to address Congress Some of the issues expected to be raised are Iran's support for Hezbollah, the militia's status and influence in Lebanon following the 34-day war with Israel, its widely viewed Al-Manar television station and its activities in Africa, Asia, South America and the United States. Congress will receive Israel's newest wish list.
09-26-06 - Illinois buys $10 million in Israel Bonds The Illinois state treasurer, Judy Baar Topinka, announced Monday that it would be part of the state?s $25 million in foreign investment for 2006. More money for Israel.
09-26-06 - Washington out of touch with anger of Arab world, Syrian minister tells UN
09-26-06 - Hizbullah moving rockets to Palestinian camps Hizbullah has been transporting rockets and heavy weaponry to Palestinian camps in south Lebanon just a few miles from the Israeli border, according to Lebanese officials. Another article by World Net Daily's Aaron Klein. The 'facts' therein should be taken with a grain of salt.
09-26-06 - IDF withdrawal from stalled until UNIFIL role spelled out In the IDF the view is that after the withdrawal is completed, if Israeli soldiers along the border fence feel threatened and the peacekeeping forces do not deal with the situation, the soldiers will be entitled to defend themselves. However, the UN view of the role of UNIFIL is that of a police force, which will only fire if it is fired upon, in an act of self-defense.
09-25-06 - Iran warns it can finish nuclear plant without Russia "In the event that the Russian contractor proves incapable of completing the Bushehr project, Iran is ready to finish it itself,"
09-25-06 - Iraq war fuels Islamic radicals: retired U.S. general The views of retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste buttressed an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies, which intelligence officials said concluded the war had inspired Islamist extremists and made the militant movement more dangerous.
09-25-06 - White House admits Iraq fuels extremism
09-25-06 - Hariri death probe turns up new leads
09-25-06 - Iraq tours stretched for 4,000 US troops: Pentagon The US Army will lengthen tours in Iraq for 4,000 soldiers to maintain the US troop level there at 145,000 until next spring, the Pentagon said.
09-25-06 - Tests show Hariri killed by truck bomb Brammertz' predecessor as chief of the investigation, Germany's Detlev Mehlis, had said the killing's complexity suggested the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role in Hariri's assassination. Yet Brammertz shied away from making any such claims. Speaking of car/truck bombings in Lebanon : "On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994." From August.
09-25-06 - Man deported to Syria had no link to terror, Canada told U.S. WASHINGTON When the United States sent Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured for months, the deportation order stated unequivocally that Arar, a Canadian software engineer, was a member of Al Qaeda. But a few days earlier, Canadian investigators had told the FBI that they had not been able to link him to the terrorist group
09-25-06 - Senate Intelligence Panelists Want Terror Report Declassified Bush administration officials including Negroponte are contesting the media accounts, saying they describe only a portion of the conclusions and therefore distort the analysts' findings on trends in global terrorism.
09-25-06 - Hariri 'killed by suicide bomber' However US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said the latest report did not mean Syria was in the clear.
09-25-06 - Crisis Is Upon Us Neocons seek maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term U.S. occupation of the region. Following this line of thought, neocons would regard the loss of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf as a way to solidify public support for the war. American anger at the Iranians could even result in support for a military draft in order to win "the war on terror."
09-25-06 - Presbyterians talked to Ahmadinejad
Earlier this year, the U.S. Presbyterian Church replaced a 2004 call for divestment from Israel with a policy of peaceful investment in Israel, the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Israeli lobby has clearly worked on the Presbytarians.
09-25-06 - Israeli PM met top Saudi figure Saudi Arabia and Israel have a common interest: the containment of Iran which is a threat to both nations.
09-25-06 - U.N. troops wary of attack in Lebanon And just who is most likely to attack UN troops in Lebanon, mm?
09-25-06 - Israel pullout from Lebanon on track for this week: UN Israeli troops are still occupying 10 areas of south Lebanon from which the last soldiers are due to withdraw by the end of this week -- seven days later than first planned -- a senior UN official said.
09-25-06 - Address Palestinian issue to fix Iraq: Musharraf Nahh. That'd be too easy.
09-25-06 - Bush seeks private US aid for Lebanon Why private?
09-25-06 - Iran's gulf of misunderstanding with US In the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, there were some tentative steps. In Iran, vast crowds turned out on the streets and held candlelit vigils for the victims. Sixty-thousand spectators respected a minute's silence at Tehran's football stadium.
09-25-06 - Israel shrugs off Syrian overtures An official from the Israeli prime minister's office reiterated Israel's existing position, saying that 'conditions have not yet ripened' for negotiations with Syria, the Ha'aretz Daily reported. He meant to say : "We have yet to get the US to slap Syria around a little bit. THEN the conditions would be ripe!"
09-25-06 - Pope says Christians, Muslims must reject violence No bias there. K.
09-25-06 - Israel Deploys Nuclear Weapons against Iran "Israeli policy is likely to change, in order to demonstrate that the country has continued strategic superiority,"..."There must be a deterrent policy that will leave no room for misunderstandings," he added. "Thus, for example, we would make it clear that the identification of any missile launched from Iran in a westerly direction means, as far as we are concerned, the launch of an Iranian nuclear missile at us."
In other words, if Ahmadinejad sneezes, there's a good chance he'll get a nuke up his arse?
09-25-06 - McCain wants Bolton confirmed quickly
09-25-06 - Mel Gibson Criticizes Iraq War While Promoting Film in Texas
09-25-06 - Pope stresses respect for Muslims
09-25-06 - Israel Police admitted into Interpol Israel?s representative, Major-General Yohanan Danino, head of the Israel Police's investigations and intelligence, surveyed Israel?s police operations at the assembly, saying that 70 percent of Israel's international operations occur in Europe, and not in Asia.
09-25-06 - McGreevey's Israeli 'lover' denounces book The truly strange part is how and why McGreevey's Israeli lover found himself the director of Homeland Security for New Jersey.
09-25-06 - Poll: Europeans view extremism as cause of Middle East tension A new poll has found that public opinion in the major European countries is prepared to view the conflict between extremists and moderates as the cause of tension and wars in the Middle East, instead of seeing Israel's policy as the cause of problems in the region.
09-25-06 - Osama bin Laden, R.I.P.?
09-25-06 - LEBANON: Children play to tackle war trauma
09-25-06 - Muslim Scholar Barred by U.S. Denies Support for Terrorism Mr. Ramadan, who has been a vocal critic of the United States over the war in Iraq and its support for Israel, received a visa in 2004, but the United States later revoked it on advice from the Department of Homeland Security, which gave no reason for its decision.
09-24-06 - US spy agency CIA paid Pakistan for al-Qaeda suspects: Musharraf The US Central Intelligence Agency paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the United States, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has reportedly said.
09-24-06 - New US intelligence report says terror theat worse because of Iraq: reports The findings contained in the National Intelligence Estimate appear to be in stark contradiction with recent claims by President George W. Bush and other top administration officials that victory in Iraq is the key to winning the global war on terror.
09-24-06 - Iran ready to negotiate 'everything' if US changes approach: Ahmadinejad Asked if Iran was willing to take any steps to suspend uranium enrichment, Ahmadinejad responded to the Post: "We think that the American politicians should change their attitudes. If they think that by threatening Iran they'll have results, they are wrong."
09-24-06 - 'No evidence' of Bin Laden death The Saudi government has denied a French newspaper report saying France's secret services believe Osama Bin Laden is dead.
09-24-06 - Feds seek to block Oregon spying case
09-24-06 - 'Threats' to Venezuelan minister provoke war of words with US Predictably, the American version of events was somewhat different. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees airport security screening in the US, denied that Mr Maduro had been mistreated.
09-24-06 - Solana, Iran have weeks to agree on talks: France French President Jacques Chirac said on Saturday he was optimistic a negotiated solution could be found to the standoff over Iran's plans for nuclear development.
09-24-06 - US senators deny war triggers terrorism Senior Republicans in the United States are playing down a secret report that has found the war in Iraq has increased the global terrorist threat.
09-24-06 - US army?s kill-kill ethos under fire In a paper published by the institute last week, British Perspectives on the US Effort to Stabilise and Reconstruct Iraq, he notes: ?The perception of the British military, many independent observers and almost every Iraqi interviewed is that the US military continues to employ excessive force in Iraq.?
09-24-06 - New Anthrax Theory Offered FBI Scientist Says Little Expertise Needed
09-24-06 - Critics say bill on detainee interrogation will not prevent torture
09-24-06 - After the war, Hizbullah reevaluates the deployment of up to 15,000 foreign troops and another 15,000 Lebanese soldiers into south Lebanon, as well as tightened restrictions at Lebanon's sea and land entry points, suggests that Hizbullah will be unable to revive its well-entrenched military presence along the border with Israel, casting into doubt a future role for its vaunted military wing.....One example, apparently under serious consideration by Hizbullah, is how to retaliate against Israel's violations of Lebanese airspace. UNIFIL has recorded more than three dozen violations by Israeli aircraft since the cease-fire came into effect. "We have reported them to the UN Security Council. What more can we do? Shoot them down?" says UNIFIL spokesman Alex Ivanko.
09-24-06 - Thousands hear call to disband Hezbollah Mr Geagea, who served 11 years in prison for crimes he committed as a leader of the LF militia in Lebanon's civil war, has called for Hezbollah to disarm.
09-24-06 - Egypt slams West for blocking resolution on Israeli nuclear arms In a news release on Saturday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit slammed what he described as double standards and discriminatory policies on the part of Western countries.
09-24-06 - Lebanon's Nasrallah emerges as idol post war
09-24-06 - Failure of resolving Palestinian issue aggravates anger among Arabs: Egypt's FM Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Sunday that failure to resolve the Palestinian issue was fuelling the feelings of anger and frustration in the Arab region, the official MENA news agency reported.
09-24-06 - War saddles Palestinians with even more burdens "Whatever affects the Lebanese affects the Palestinians, given that they are residing in this country," she adds. "But the Palestinians also lack coping mechanisms. Any emergency affects them even more than other groups, as the Palestinians in Lebanon are vulnerable by definition."
09-24-06 - U.S. to blame for attack on its embassy - Syria's Assad "This seems to have been the background of the attack, a reaction to America's policy in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan," Assad was quoted by Der Spiegel weekly as saying.
09-24-06 - Lebanese army beefs up border posts ahead of Israel pullout
09-24-06 - Assad says US foreign policy breeds terrorism
09-24-06 - Analysts Say US Image Slipped in Lebanon After Israel-Hezbollah War Jawad Boulos is a Christian member of the Lebanese parliament. He says, before the conflict, many Lebanese looked up to the United States as the defender of freedom and the protector of human rights. But, he says, Washington?s decision to deliver an existing order of sophisticated bombs to Israel during the war tarnished that image. America's foreign policy can best be summed up by the following two words: "Israel first!"
09-23-06 - Blair 'turned blind eye to Iraq intelligence' in Bush meeting A note of a private meeting between Mr Blair and President Bush in January 2003 shows that Tony Blair failed to confront Mr Bush when he claimed Saddam Hussein had tried to buy aluminium tubes for nuclear weapons production. Mr Blair did not contradict the President despite having received "private briefings" which indicated that the aluminium tubes were more likely to be for conventional weapons, according to the new edition of a book by the international lawyer Philippe Sands published tomorrow
09-23-06 - U.S. can't confirm bin Laden death report: official The U.S. government is unable to confirm a French newspaper report that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to have died last month in Pakistan, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Saturday.
09-23-06 - More war veterans suffering from stress Contributing to the higher levels of stress are the long and often repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, troops also face unpredictable daily attacks and roadside bombings as they battle the stubborn insurgency.
09-23-06 - New York City?s Reservists Are Asked to Return Iraq Pay
09-23-06 - Nuclear talks with Iran may start without U.S. Citing unnamed German diplomatic sources, weekly Der Spiegel said the goal of this new strategy would be to lure Tehran to the negotiating table to discuss a package of incentives offered by six world powers in June in exchange for a suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program.
09-23-06 - U.S. "very concerned" by Russian steps on Shell Casey said he was not aware of any actions taken against U.S. companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. but said Russia's actions on Shell "cast doubt" on its willingness to keep its international commitments, including promises made at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg in July.
09-23-06 - As Crazy as It Sounds ** So far, the Bush administration has eerily followed the exact same pattern it used to justify the attack against Iraq. Bush keeps insisting, without a shred of evidence, that Iran, despite its denials, is seeking nuclear weapons. Remember how he kept insisting that Iraq had huge stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction?
09-23-06 - US-Iran Shootout Is Inevitable ** As the Bushies see it, they need to "do something" to "correct" the current balance of power which has been shifting in favor of Iran (thanks to US policies, that is).
09-23-06 - Armitage denies threatening to send Pakistan "back to the Stone Age"
09-23-06 - U.S.-Pakistan relationship getting shaky
09-23-06 - Not coming soon: US troop cuts in Iraq
09-23-06 - UN report: Torture in Iraq 'totally out of hand'
09-23-06 - Nationwide Actions 'Declare Peace', Raise Pressure on Congress A nationwide civil disobedience campaign aiming to force the administration of President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to end the military occupation of Iraq is now in full swing.
09-23-06 - Syria key to stability in Mideast: Peretz "Every war creates opportunities for a broadened political process ... We must establish talks with Lebanon and prepare the conditions for a dialogue with Syria," Peretz said. Peretz easing concerns about a conflict with Syria?
09-23-06 - Bush Presses Israel in Apparent Bid to Maintain Anti-Iranian Front Uzi Arad, who advised former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is still close to the head of the rightwing opposition Likud party, told the Forward that if Israelis agree - as they should - that all efforts ought to be devoted to stopping Iran's nuclear quest, then "it would be wise to adopt a slightly more flexible policy toward the Palestinian issue." He added that "there is much that could be done" to engage with the Palestinians, short of making significant concessions. Same thing happened in the run-up to the Iraq war.
09-23-06 - Lebanese troops deploy on border
09-23-06 - Bush names delegation to help Lebanon reconstruction
09-23-06 - More Bush Diplomacy
09-23-06 - The Bushes & the Truth About Iran Having gone through the diplomatic motions with Iran, George W. Bush is shifting toward a military option that carries severe risks for American soldiers in Iraq as well as for long-term U.S. interests around the world. Yet, despite this looming crisis, the Bush Family continues to withhold key historical facts about U.S.-Iranian relations.
09-23-06 - A global crisis of understanding Gove also rewrites history when he alleges it was the "appeasement" of the Palestinians represented by the Oslo peace process that encouraged Al-Qaeda to launch the 9/11 attacks. In fact it was the violent repression that followed Israel's unilateral ending of peace talks that formed the backdrop to the attacks.....Throughout Gove's book, neocon myths are reheated and served up, despite being long discredited, most recently by the 2005 CIA report just released by the Senate Committee on Intelligence. Anyone that tells you that we were attacked on 911 for 'our freedom', is either grossly misinformed or a liar.
09-23-06 - Video: Buchanan and Mclaughlin laugh as Bush declares victory
09-23-06 - Video: Buchanan on Israel
09-23-06 - Lebanon's divided Christians feel rudderless
09-23-06 - Abandoned pets to go to U.S. sanctuaries Some 300 homeless dogs and cats, many left behind by owners who fled Lebanon during the Hezbollah- Israel war, will be heading to new sanctuaries in the United States for adoption, an animal rights activist said Friday.
09-23-06 - From the New "Anti-Semitism" to Nuclear Holocaust How Israel is Engineering the "Clash of Civilizations"
09-23-06 - Video: Buchanan on Ali G It is funny.
09-22-06 - Libby plans to testify in CIA leak trial Prosecutors oppose the use of many documents, saying Libby is trying to torpedo the case by demanding information that is too sensitive to be released at trial. The tactic they described, known as "graymail," is used to get a case dismissed.
09-22-06 - Iran warns of 'lightning' response to any attack Iran has warned Western powers the armed forces would hit back "like lightning" against any attack as it crowed over its military prowess and showed off firepower at a major army parade.
09-22-06 - War Signals? ** First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress......Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. The October surpise?
09-22-06 - $70B OK'd for Iraq and Afghan war funds House-Senate negotiators Thursday approved a new $70 billion infusion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as they wrapped up talks on a $447 billion Pentagon funding bill.
09-22-06 - Senior intel official: Pentagon moves to second-stage planning for Iran strike option **
09-22-06 - China, Russia shun U.S.-hosted Asia security talks U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told reporters the United States did not see China and Russia's decision not to attend the meeting as a snub. "They did not say it was for policy reasons," he said, adding that seven other countries had been there.
09-22-06 - Suspending enrichment unacceptable, says Iranian cleric An influential Iranian cleric says Iran will not halt uranium enrichment work, calling it an unacceptable precondition set by six world powers for talks over the country's atomic activities
09-22-06 - Iraqi Kurds deny receiving training from former Israeli commandos "This information is baseless," Mm k.
09-22-06 - Pentagon: Able Danger Couldn't Stop 9/11
09-22-06 - The Armitage effect - Star prosecutor Fitzgerald faces tough battle in CIA leak probe
09-22-06 - Syria-bound ship free to go but not defence cargo The managers of the vessel told Reuters the pipes were loaded in China. They also said the ship?s charterer was state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO).
09-22-06 - Coping with an Iran with Nuclear Ambitions
09-22-06 - Déjà Vu on Iran? ** Which brings us to the media and Congress. Each will have to be far more discriminating and diligent than it was the last time around. No automatic transmission belt. No rubber stamp. No forgetting.
I would not bet on that.
09-22-06 - Israel quits two more Lebanese border points: UN
09-22-06 - West bars Arab bid at IAEA to rap Israel atom "threat" "The (Western) blocking manoeuvre is astonishing when innocent blood has not yet dried in Lebanon,"
09-22-06 - New book reveals FBI did not suspect Pollard ties to Israel The publication of the book, with reviews and testimonies from U.S. Navy veterans and other security experts, is indicative of the bitterness still felt over how Israel betrayed the United States and the "colossal" damage Pollard caused to U.S. national security.....Former president George Bush told Olive in 2005 that Pollard "belongs just where he is, in jail. You do know there are a lot of people trying to get him out. That really burns me out." ......According to Olive's calculations, when Pollard is released, he will receive $3.6 million in compensation from Israel Read that last bit again. And then read this. And this.
09-22-06 - 'One-sided' Middle East policy attacked by Labour Arab group "Unfortunately, Mr Blair has failed to treat both sides equally. Instead he has bowed to pressure put on him by Israel backed by George Bush," it says. The group, most of whom are Labour members, includes Jews, Christians and Muslims.
09-22-06 - In surprise move, feds drop count in Hamas terrorism count The decision to drop one count of the indictment came at a hearing after Deutsch asked St. Eve to press federal prosecutors to turn over background material on a prospective government witness, Jack Mustafa. Deutsch asked for information about how much the FBI had paid Mustafa and whether he had an arrest record. He also asked if the prospective witness had met with agents of the Mossad _ Israel's intelligence agency.
Wait a minute here. How much (more) American taxpayer money will be spent on what would appear to be the witchunts of Palestinians in this country who are brought up on charges, only to later see them dismissed due to lack of evidence? And how much are American officials relying on 'evidence' provided by the Israeli government or their lackeys, mm? Is that why the cases are falling apart? We quickly learn the difference between the America's legal system and that of Israel. See some of it described here too (look for the bit about the Fourth amendment, or lack thereof).
09-22-06 - Jewish Dems score Jewish GOP contender Fine has called Ellison "a person who believes the Jews are the scourge of the earth" and, in a debate, appeared to mock Ellison's Muslim name, Mohammed.
09-22-06 - House resolution calls for border force The resolution urges Lebanon?s government "to request without delay a robust international force deployment on the Lebanese border with Syria, so as to prevent the re-supply of weapons to Hezbollah." Why is this a matter for the US Congress?
09-22-06 - Nasrallah says no army can disarm Hizbollah Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday rejected international calls to disarm his Lebanese guerrillas and told a huge "victory" rally they still had more than 20,000 rockets after a month of war with Israel.
09-22-06 - Lebanon war underscores inequality of Arab Israelis Prime Minister Ehud Olmert toured the Israeli north, which had been badly hit by the Hezbollah rockets, and promised that in the reconstruction ahead, Arab villages and townships would get the same treatment as the Jewish ones.
09-22-06 - Israel's Elbit wins US security contract A consortium led by Boeing, the second-largest US defense contractor, and including Israel's Elbit Systems has won the first piece of a $2 billion government contract to develop and provide new technological means to secure the US borders and curb illegal immigration, officials said Thursday. You have got to be #!@$ing kidding me.
09-22-06 - Zelikow's Candor Angers Pro-Israel Activists, Again In a keynote speech before the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy conference on Friday, Philip Zelikow argued that a renewed effort for peace may be needed in order to maintain support for the hardline U.S. position against Iran among our European allies and "moderate" Arab governments Now why would pro-Israelis be so angered at peace, mewonders?...
09-22-06 - Israelis' main fear is a nuclear Iran: poll ** Israel's fears become our fears.
09-22-06 - Tehran says gives spiritual support to Hizbollah Iran's president said on Thursday his country gave cultural and spiritual support to Lebanon but sidestepped questions about whether Tehran would obey a U.N. arms embargo imposed on Hizbollah guerrillas.
09-22-06 - The Doomsday Code End Timers parade through the streets of Jerusalem and take large amounts of cash to illegal West Bank settlements to encourage the residents to entrench themselves more deeply on this Palestinian land. In Jerusalem itself, Jews are being bankrolled by Christian fundamentalists to reside in Arab houses. The End Timers think that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke ('was removed from the scene') because he wanted to give back some of the Palestinian land.
09-22-06 - World Politics and Show Biz
09-21-06 - 9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes (The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I.)
That's one hell of a coincidence. Why isn't that little tidbit common knowledge? In other words, how many Americans know of this hijack exercise that was to take place on September 11, 2001?
09-21-06 - The Surprising End of the New American Century ** US Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who taught strategy and military operations at the National War College and who just finished a paper entitled "Considering the US Military option for Iran," appeared on CNN this week and said: "The order has been given (to strike Iran) In fact, we've probably been executing operations for at least 18 months...I've talked to Iranians (and they tell me) we've captured some people who worked with them (American Special-Ops) We've confirmed they're there." Gardiner added that "US naval forces have been alerted for deployment. That's a major step. ..And the (battle) plan has been sent to the White House."
09-21-06 - U.S. Army defends Raytheon contract amid storm Army officials opted in April to forego a rival Israeli system to boost combat vehicle protection from rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, even though it is closer to being ready for use.....NBC, in its report, quoted unnamed Pentagon sources as saying the Army "cooked the books" to justify its choice of Raytheon's "Quick Kill" technology. Well well well. Are some neocons in the Pentagon boohooing over lost Israel deal? The neocons may have had an economic interest in the Israeli company, which is not uncommon when it comes to neocons, Israel and the arms business.
09-21-06 - Ahmadinejad: Iran doesn't need the bomb
09-21-06 - U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11: Musharraf
09-21-06 - Iraq torture 'worse after Saddam' Manfred Nowak said the situation in Iraq was "out of control", with abuses being committed by security forces, militia groups and anti-US insurgents.
09-21-06 - Bush would send troops inside Pakistan to catch bin Laden
09-21-06 - Iran could cut West's oil supplies in event of war, warns American chief in Gulf
09-21-06 - Ahmadinejad Talks to U.S. Think Tank Some Jewish leaders responded to invitations to the event by asking whether the council would have invited Hitler in the 1930s, and considered resigning from the group en masse, the Times reported. They decided not to resign after the event was changed from a dinner to a meeting,
09-21-06 - Iran War, Diplomacy on Parallel Tracks ** "It's very important for the American people to see the president try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force," Bush told the group in what neoconservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer characterized as an "unmistakable" signal that "an aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities lies just beyond the horizon of diplomacy."
09-21-06 - US cautions Europe on Iran investment Two European banks have limited or ended operations. The US says Iran taps banks for illicit activities.
09-21-06 - U.S. denies Arar was deported under America's 'extraordinary rendition' policy
09-21-06 - Lebanon's president castigates UN Mr Lahoud said Israeli fighter jets and bombs had targeted mostly civilians, "killing and maiming thousands and destroying all that made Lebanon a viable state".
09-21-06 - FBI: LA man allegedly worked for Saddam Hussein's regime William Shaoul Benjamin, 64, of Los Angeles also faces charges of making false statements and conspiracy, according to the FBI. ?
09-21-06 - Iraqi Defense Ministry: Insurgents Kidnapping People for Use in Car Bomb Attacks
09-21-06 - Fitzgerald given way out of Libby CIA leak case In his ruling this morning, the Judge Walton, has given a technical legal victory to Libby's attorneys concerning the admissibility of classified materials they want to present at trial for their defense.
09-21-06 - Karl Rove Promises October Surprise In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.
09-21-06 - World poll favours Iran diplomacy
09-21-06 - American Enterprise Institute: The Pope's Divisions Although many Muslims have apparently found Pope Benedict XVI's recent oration at the University of Regensburg deeply offensive, it is a welcome change from the pabulum that passes for "interfaith" dialogue Neoconservatives love to see the West and the Muslim world further divided. The man behind the Danish cartoon affair was enamored by Daniel Pipes - neocon extraordinaire.
09-21-06 - CIA officers refused to work at secret prisons: report
09-21-06 - Chavez extends anti-Bush tirade on visit to Harlem "Bush is an alcoholic, a sick man with a lot of hang-ups," declared the left-wing Venezuelan leader. "He walks like John Wayne." Mm, he lacks the distinct swagger that Wayne was known for.
09-21-06 - Pro-Israel Rally Virtually Ignored at U.N.
09-21-06 - Ahmadinejad: 'Zionists Are Not Jews' When asked by a reporter from an Irish publication if Iran wants to "wipe" Israel off the map, he replied, "Zionists are not Jews. They are not Muslims. They are not Christians. They are a power hungry, power group."
09-21-06 - Lebanon threatens UN appeal over Israel pullout delay Israel's delayed pullout looked set to cast a shadow over Hezbollah preparations to celebrate a "divine victory" with a massive rally in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut Friday It's probably of no coicidence. Watch for any Israeli bombings of this rally.
09-21-06 - Lebanon begins to clean ravaged coast Israel insists the circumstances of the spill are unclear and it has not accepted responsibility. "It's not clear that Israel was directly responsible for the oil slick. We certainly did not intentionally attack the oil containers," said Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev Wow.
09-21-06 - Hezbollah gears up for massive 'victory' rally
09-21-06 - Germany: Israel ready for Shebaa Farms talks
09-21-06 - Why Israel will never Truly let go of Gaza Whatever the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army?s war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its Government Just like in Lebanon. Read on.
09-21-06 - Refugees protest disparity in UN aid distribution The Palestinian Popular Committees held a sit-in on Wednesday inside the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's main office in Sidon, accusing the body of distributing rotten food to Lebanon's Palestinian refugees
09-21-06 - Lahoud questions UN's credibility on enforcing 1701 "Israel still refuses to submit to the UN the maps indicating the location of thousands of mines it left behind on Lebanese territory, while the fate of the Lebanese detainees in Israel remains unknown,"
09-21-06 - Arab states urge IAEA to slam Israel for atomic arsenal Arab states on Wednesday relaunched a campaign to have the United Nations nuclear watchdog condemn Israel's reputed atomic arsenal.
09-21-06 - Israel troubled that war in Lebanon drove its enemies closer "The connection is all the global jihad," says an Israeli political official who works closely with Israel's intelligence branch and therefore could not be named Really? Then why haven't Hamas or Hezbollah attacked anyone outside of their respective territories? Thus does the PR ministry attempt to conflate its enemy list with that of the United States. And the Christian Science Monitor gives them ample coverage these days.
09-21-06 - Controverisal Israeli security approach takes flight in U.S It is spreading because of its results -- and because it seems to have won over TSA Director Kip Hawley and his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who have recently begun using the same kind of language that Ron uses to describe the aviation security approach that the United States should have. "People have responded very well to bringing in Israeli methods," Ron said. The Israelization of the United States continues. And oddly, our unconditional support for Israel is why it is necessary in the first place. We've been made a party to Israel's war with the Arabs, whether we like it or not.
09-21-06 - Saudi, Russian see consensus for peace
09-21-06 - O.U. opposes Jesus in military prayers The Orthodox Union strongly opposes legislation that would allow military chaplains to mention Jesus in prayers.
09-21-06 - Democrats: Don't rule out force with Iran The responses offered by U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, running for a U.S. Senate seat, and Zack Space, running for an open U.S. House of Representatives seat, to questions in a conference call Thursday with Jewish media suggest that national Democrats will not differ from the Bush administration on this issue in the midterm campaign season
09-21-06 - Assad warns of war The Lebanese newspaper A-Safir on Thursday quoted Bashar Assad as telling a visiting delegation from Beirut that Israel could attack Syria as part of an effort to shore up domestic self-confidence after the war on Hezbollah.
09-21-06 - Bush: Clock ticking on Iran "...I'm not going to discuss with you our intelligence on this subject, but time?s of the essence, in my judgment."
09-21-06 - German warships head for Lebanon for Lebanon peacekeeping mission. What'd you think they were for?
09-21-06 - Iranian leader 'not anti-Semite'
09-21-06 - Viewing Middle East Affairs From Woodbury Home Base "For example, in recent months, the demands that the U.S. government is making on Hamas (are unfair). First of all, they have to recognize Israel, but there's no demand that Israel recognize the Palestinians and their right to a state. We demand that Hamas renounce violence, but we do not demand that Israel renounce violence, and Israel is 100 times more violent than Hamas,"
09-20-06 - Iranian leader attacks Iraq's 'occupiers'
09-20-06 - Early October New Deadline for Iran
09-20-06 - New weapons from Iran turning up on Mideast battlefields: Abizaid He said only a single RPG-29 has turned up in Iraq so far, and it was unclear how it was smuggled into the country.
09-20-06 - Iran, Venezuela plan Syrian refinery
09-20-06 - UK suspects in new claims of torture at Guantanamo
09-20-06 - Israelis use bulldozers to wreck crops in South Israeli bulldozers started to level the soil and cut down olive trees in Yarin in the Tyre region on Monday, spoiling several cultivated fields and preventing farmers from inspecting their lands. "Israeli bulldozers have spoiled my land, cutting down the fruit trees I've planted," said farmer Shaker Afleh on Tuesday, as he and his daughter watched the bulldozers on his land from a kilometer away. I have to use a proxy server in order to get to that site (Daily Star, Lebanon). I'm not sure how well you will be able to connect to it.
09-20-06 - At U.N., Chavez calls Bush 'the devil'
09-20-06 - Americans Want CIA to Respect Geneva Convention
09-20-06 - Lebanese voices after the war Another woman has two teenage brothers with severe facial injuries. They were trying to rescue objects from their house when a cluster bomb exploded in their faces.
09-20-06 - Bush's backing imperils Israel The main product of the war in Lebanon has been hatred, as noted by Israel?s most prominent gadfly, Uri Avnery. The death and destruction wrought by Israel against civilian targets broadcast for 33 successive days by al-Jazeera and other television networks have reinforced hatred of Israel among Arabs and Muslims, which may take generations to undo Bush being blamed for doing what Israel is telling him to do..
09-20-06 - Israeli War Crimes in Lebanon and Gaza?
09-20-06 - IDF tackling Iran's WMD threat Part of the reason for the shift in the HFC's focus was due to the defense establishment's realization that following the war in Lebanon - during which close to 4,000 missiles were fired at the North - Israel was facing a major threat from ballistic missiles. Iran has developed the Shihab-3 missile that can reportedly carry a 500 kg.-650 kg. warhead and has a range of between 1,550 to 1,620 km.
09-20-06 - Israel delays Lebanon pullout
09-20-06 - Kurdish soldiers trained by Israelis ** One constraint facing the Israelis, should they ever want to hit Iran, is distance. Most Israeli jets are short range and they have few in-flight tankers. Some studies have suggested that Israel could make refuelling stops at a modern airfield in Kurdistan.
This is nothing new. It has been reported years ago by the Guardian and Israel's Ynet News. And again.
09-20-06 - Expert: Tactical nukes needed to blast Iranian defenses ** "American experts have said they are not sure that conventional weapons would be able to infiltrate these sites," he said. "Based on information from public sources, any attack should use tactical nuclear weapons."
09-20-06 - Britons lead clearance of Israeli cluster bombs in Lebanon "We appreciate their humanitarian gesture," he said. "We know the British government supported Israel but these men, we thank them." Contrary to what was reported in this article, Israel did not provide detailed maps of where it fired those bombs.
09-20-06 - Israel calls Iran its greatest threat ** Israel = Israel's greatest threat. In nearly sixty years, it has not learned how to get along with its neighbors Hint - stop stealing their land and killing their children (with American cluster bombs).
09-20-06 - Israel 'trains Iraqi Kurd forces' Iran and Syria, which have long accused the Kurds of allowing the Israelis to operate on Iraqi territory, will demand an explanation from the government in Baghdad.
09-20-06 - The Israeli-Kurdish Alliance ? On Video Seymour Hersh did the initial reporting on this development, and now the BBC has the pictures ? a stunning video showing Israeli ?ex?-military personnel training Kurdish pershmerga and setting up a base in Kurdistan. The idea is to establish an outpost from which Israeli planes can strike at Iran?s alleged nuclear facilities, and also create a presence on the ground that can strike, at will, across the Kurdish-Iranian border.
09-20-06 - Pope says he was 'misunderstood'
09-20-06 - Congressman Nye and Jack Abramoff: Justice versus lobbies Abramoff used the organization for his pet projects. These included over $4 million to a Jewish school allied with the Zionist movement, $248,742 for Abramoff?s house in Silver Spring, Maryland and hundreds of thousands for sniper training of extremist and illegal Israeli colonial settlers living on Palestinian land. Ironically, Native Americans were defrauded into funding oppression and colonization of other native people. Abramoff also used his influence with Congressman Bob Ney to get a government contract worth $3 million for an obscure Israeli security company
09-20-06 - What's Wrong With American Foreign Policy? Finally, if the president is so eager to champion "Lebanese sovereignty over Lebanese soil," then why did he give the green light to Israeli aggression ? and even rush military aid to the aggressors? If Lebanon becomes, once again, a model of democracy and pluralism in the region, it will be no thanks to this president and his foreign policy.
To answer the title of the article - it's crafted in Tel Aviv.
09-20-06 - Envoy upset at Ahmadinejad's U.N. visit Israel's U.N. envoy criticized the United States for allowing Iran's president to attend the U.N. General Assembly summit.
Oh dear.
09-20-06 - Thousands protest U.N., Iran Other speakers included the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.
09-20-06 - Fashion makes comeback in post-war Lebanon "Like the Phoenix, Beirut shall never die."
09-20-06 - Lofty talk on Middle East Aspiring democrats in the Middle East are also aware that the Bush administration, unhappy with the election of a Hamas government in Gaza and the West Bank, has been undermining that government with an economic blockade. And throughout the Muslim world, indelible images of humiliated detainees at Abu Ghraib have become emblematic of US hypocrisy, suggesting that American principles such as the rule of law and the presumption of innocence are not for export
09-20-06 - Dispelling Brutality Col. Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation
09-20-06 - NDP resolution slams Israel The resolutions at the centre of the controversy focus on Lebanon and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Lebanon resolution called Israel?s response to Hezbollah?s kidnapping of two of its soldiers and the killing of others ?drastically disproportionate.?
09-20-06 - Bush wasting his time with address to Mideast population: analysts
09-19-06 - Canada falsely accused torture victim Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition - the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
09-19-06 - US stepping up pressure on Iran outside of UN ** Washington also is "taking steps to expand the information flow into Iran, support democratic activists and boost people to people contacts," he said, adding "our strategy toward Iran does not begin or end with the Security Council."
09-19-06 - Chavez warns against Iran attack Mr Chavez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US if provoked.
09-19-06 - French leader proposes Iran compromise
09-19-06 - US may ban sale of cluster bombs to Israel Nick Guest, a former British Army bomb disposal officer working for MAG, says the most common bomblets - the M42 and the M77 - are of American manufacture. Some of the bombs are round like a metallic orange and others are like a can of fruit juice. They are small enough to be difficult to detect and may go on killing children and farmers for years. Washington has a very clear picture of Israel's track record when it comes to violations of international and humanitarian law - it compiles a report each year documenting (some) of those violations. Reagan in the 80s banned the sale of cluster bombs to Israel because it was using them against Lebanese civilians back then. This would appear to be a PR move on the part of the US. For, if it were really concerned about Arab civilians, it certainly would not have prolonged the ceasefire, or shipped off jet fuel and cluster bombs to Israel when it knew that they were bombing (fleeing) civilians. Over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed in the offensive. A million cluster bombs were fired off by Israel into Lebanese civilian areas just three days before the ceasefire (when it was established that there would be a forthcoming ceasefire).
09-19-06 - Sources: August terror plot is a 'fiction' underscoring police failures Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."
09-19-06 - Bush envoy faces congressional axe JOHN BOLTON, President Bush?s controversial Ambassador to the United Nations, is in danger of losing his job as opposition to his appointment increases in the Senate.
09-19-06 - Outrageous and Dishonest ** Last year our intelligence community produced ? at the request of Congress ? a National Intelligence Estimate, which, inter alia, addressed Iran's nuclear programs. Although that 2005 NIE was highly classified, Dafna Linzer reported, "A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis..."
09-19-06 - Bush Detainee Plan Adds to World Doubts Of U.S., Powell Says Powell's opposition marks a rare public breach with the administration he left 20 months ago. As secretary of state, he repeatedly clashed privately with Vice President Cheney and others who had more hard-line foreign policy views. But since leaving office he has declined nearly all opportunities to publicly criticize even those policies he opposed internally....Powell also allowed his name to be identified among those opposed to Bush's nomination of his former State Department subordinate, John R. Bolton, as Washington's U.N. ambassador. Colin Powell - one of the good guys.
09-19-06 - Israel cluster bomb use in Lebanon "outrageous": UN While Israel has provided general information about where it believes unexploded ordnance might be, Clark said tactical maps given to the United Nations by Israeli forces withdrawing from the south were "absolutely useless" in clearance efforts. "We have asked through many channels for the headquarters of these units to provide detailed strike data," he told a briefing at the United Nations in Geneva. "It has not yet been received."
09-19-06 - Ex-Workers Testify About Halliburton
09-19-06 - Report: Mounties, US were wrong on Canadian rendition victim The report also says that the Canadian government also tried to smear Arar after his return, releasing "confidential and sometimes inaccurate information about the case to the media for the purpose of damaging Mr. Arar's reputation or protecting their self-interest or government interests."
09-19-06 - US Resorting to 'Collective Punishment,' Iraqis Say
09-19-06 - British soldier is first to admit war crime
09-19-06 - Iran president berates US and UK Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has accused the US and UK of using the UN Security Council for their own ends.
09-19-06 - Israel pressed on cluster targets The UN has urged Israel to say exactly where it fired cluster bombs during its recent bombardment of south Lebanon. Israel won't provide the details because they deliberately fired those bombs into civilian areas, I'm guessing.
09-19-06 - US-Russia effort to contain nuclear experts fades At a Moscow conference in 2000 on stopping the global migration of nuclear-weapons know-how, a Russian security official revealed that Taliban envoys had tried to recruit a Russian nuclear expert.
09-19-06 - Syria hoping for warmer U.S. relations
09-19-06 - U.S. wants to see 'verifiable suspension' by Iran
09-19-06 - Ted Turner says Iraq war among history's "dumbest" "They're a sovereign state," Turner said of Iran. "We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel -- they've got 100 of them approximately -- or India or Pakistan or Russia. And really, nobody should have them.
09-19-06 - Centuries-old partnership binds China, Iran together For more than a decade, starting in 1984, China aided Iran with its fledgling nuclear program. Although Beijing no longer is providing such assistance, Tehran's weapons program would be far less sophisticated had it not received significant Chinese help.
09-19-06 - German Trade Official Warns Against Imposing Sanctions on Iran The President of the Federation of German Wholesale and Foreign Trade (BGA) Anton F. Boerner said his country could be pushed from the Iranian market by China and India following a likely economic embargo against Iran.
09-19-06 - U.S. sending team to Syria to examine embassy attack The United States is sending a team of federal agents to Syria to investigate a failed attack on the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, a State Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
09-19-06 - Young children fight U.S. troops in Iraq Most children, even in traditionally hostile areas, typically approach U.S. troops to ask for water or candy, not to ambush them. Even as unruly gangs roamed the areas near Sadr City on one recent day, soldiers kept playing with curious children on tamer blocks nearby.
09-19-06 - It?s Getting Closer ?. ** BLITZER: How close in your opinion is the Bush Administration to giving that go ahead. GARDINER: It?s been given. In fact, we?ve probably been executing military operations inside Iran for at least 18 months. The evidence is overwhelming
09-19-06 - Peretz: Israel's hand extended to Lebanon, Syria
09-19-06 - China ups Lebanon force to 1,000
09-19-06 - Mubarak son offers 'Arab vision' "We reject these foreign ambitions to erase Arab identity in the framework of what they call the Greater Middle East initiative," Mr Mubarak said.
09-19-06 - Balad member, former MK Miari: 'Syria is not an enemy country' While in Syria, Miari traveled to Palestinian refugee camps where he met some fifty members of his extended family who left Israel during the War of Independence in 1948.
09-19-06 - Bush defends Mid-East line at UN Mr Annan's opening speech to the assembly was his last as secretary general. His second five-year term in office ends at the end of the year. On the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he said: "As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed."
09-19-06 - U.N. Council to meet on Arab peace plan "We still don't see the real utility of the meeting," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. "We have not agreed completely with the idea."
09-19-06 - Kidnap of soldiers in July was Hezbollah's fifth attempt Two months before the July 12 raid in which Hezbollah abducted the two soldiers and killed three others, Israel had learned of another plan by the group to carry out an attack against an IDF patrol at the same location
09-19-06 - EU cancels Lebanon tour after entry refused to Israeli MK
09-19-06 - Rendition Rendered The Syrians. The Syrians we hate. The Syrians we refuse to talk to. The Syrians we will have nothing to do with. Unless, that is, we need them to torture an innocent for us.
09-19-06 - Leaders focus on Middle East peace at UN The first day of the debate by world leaders has been marked by renewed calls to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. ....Mr Annan, making his final speech to a General Assembly after 10 years as UN secretary-general, has singled out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of the most important security challenges facing the world.
09-19-06 - Iranian president takes on U.S., Israel at U.N. "It does not matter if people are murdered in Palestine," he said of the conflicts in which Israel has been engaged in Gaza and the West Bank. "That apparently does not violate human rights."
09-19-06 - Santorum blasted on Iran Sanctioning companies that deal with Iran emerged as an issue in the battle for Jewish votes in Pennsylvania.
09-19-06 - The Ineptitude on Iran, by Numbers