“Freedom of speech, just watch what you say”

U.S. closes newspaper in Iraq

 The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq on Sunday closed a newspaper sponsored by a popular anti-American Shiite cleric, accusing it of creating unrest and inciting violence against occupation forces.

 To many Iraqi readers, however, the articles in Al Hawza seem more like shrill tabloid fare than dangerous rhetoric that would merit the serious step of closing a newspaper — especially given the potential backlash. Many Iraqi newspapers routinely publish articles that are blatantly untrue, although most avoid tangling with the coalition.

This is just another example of  how the ham-fisted tactics of the Bushies backfire. Their forced closing of the newspaper caused demonstrations in Iraq - and was the front page lead story in the L.A. Times this morning.

And of course, you can’t pretend to be for democracy and freedom, then shut down newspapers because you don’t like what they say.

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Makin’ shit up

Much of the Bush “case” for invading Iraq came from a now discredited source the US never spoke to directly and didn’t even know the identity of. Yet Colin Powell trumpeted this “evidence” as a reason for war.

The Bush administration’s prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of trucks and railroad cars to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were based chiefly on information from a now-discredited Iraqi defector code-named “Curveball,” according to current and former intelligence officials.

<These reports> became a crucial part of the White House case for war — including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s dramatic presentation to the U.N. Security Council just weeks before the war.

However the Bushies never got independent corroboration, never investigated themselves, and thus based their justification for war on second-hand reports from a mystery man now proven to be lying. One wonders if he ever existed at all. If he did, and they believed him without checking the facts, then they are bumblers. What’s more likely, if this mystery person actually exists, is his story was deliberate misinformation and propaganda designed to build a spurious case for war. Now, WHO could have wanted that to happen?

Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice would just love to testify publicly, but darn it, she just can’t.

“Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify,” Rice told CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle involved here: It is a long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.”

What a bunch of evasive hooey. Even her allies think she’s shooting herself in the foot.

White House allies and Republicans investigating the Sept. 11 attacks pressed Sunday to hear open testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice with one commissioner calling her refusal a “political blunder of the first order.”

And why doesn’t she want to testify? Well, there are those darned perjury laws, y’know.

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It’s a trend! First in Spain, now France

Socialists win big, conservatives get stomped.

From BOP News

The run off rounds in France are over - and the results are clear. As with Spain, the governing party has been soundly thrashed - the left attained an absolute majority of votes according to early counts, and almost complete control of the regional councils. The right lost 11, and perhaps 12 councils - from 14 down to 1 or 2.

From Reuters

Pressure mounted on French President Jacques Chirac on Monday to fire his prime minister and shake up the government after opposition Socialists dealt his conservative camp a humiliating defeat in regional polls.

Sunday’s election results were a worst-case scenario for Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, as the left won in nearly all of France’s 26 regions and trounced almost all of the 19 cabinet ministers running for regional council seats.

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