DeLay quits House post, WaPo slams Pat Robertson

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Bremer says U.S. did not expect insurgency in Iraq

So, the US invades a country based on lies, then is so muddle-headed it can’t surmise the inhabitants might fight back against the invaders. Right.

Here’s a tip, guys. Vietnam. The same thing happened there too. They fought back. And won. The best way to avoid all this is to stop invading countries.

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The Official Secrets Act in Britain, it appears, is mostly bluff. The recent re-posting by 4,000 bloggers of documents from Craig Murray may have rendered this noxious act impotent. Good.

Whitehall unconfidential: the censors are on the run

There is an unamusing aspect to the shambles into which censorship efforts have degenerated. A cabinet office civil servant faces trial, and jail, under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly disclosing a transcript of a Bush-Blair conversation about bombing al-Jazeera. Another renegade ex-ambassador, Craig Murray - forced out of his job in Uzbekistan for objecting to British/US complicity in torture - is defying the same act with impunity. Over the New Year, he published on his website many classified Foreign Office telegrams and, in a modern touch, has ensured their circulation to more than 4,000 bloggers.

A document has fallen into the Guardian’s hands that seems to explain why ministers have become so bankrupt in these failures to stem a tide of disclosures (most revolve in one way or another around Iraq and allegations of our craven relationship with the US).

The British government concluded in that document that they could not successfully prosecute Craig Murray. "In other words, attempts to censor unwelcome memoirs are largely bluff."

After all, it is tyrannies that are always secretive. Democracies should be more transparent. And, at the very least, the free publication of as many of these disclosures as possible will give ordinary citizens a useful yardstick against which to measure a pair of intimate and self-serving memoirs due out in future years, and expected to make an absolute fortune for their authors - who are, as everyone in government is well aware, Alastair Campbell and Blair himself.

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Sweat pours from the Congressman’s face. It’s only 10 am, but he reaches for a whiskey. He reads the headline again. "Duke Cunningham wore a wire." His mind races, Duke is going to prison, those meetings we had, if those were taped, I’ll be doing the perp walk… He reaches for another whiskey.

Then it hits him. What if Abramoff was wearing a wire too?

And who else is wearing one… 

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Resisting U.S. Aggression in the Middle East

Richard Becker, West Coast organizer for the ANSWER Coalition, spoke at an ANSWER LA forum on Jan 6 about Syria. He attended an international conference in Syria in December on Palestinians and the Right of Return. He speaks about the conference, on the increasing US threat to Syria, how Palestine, Syria, and the war in Iraq are related, and what the anti-war movement can do.

Becker, who has been an organizer for 30 years, has a huge command of the facts and details the history of the region and the US government’s attempt to militarily dominate it in this cogent, sometimes quite humorous talk.

MP3 (54:28 min., 18.7 mb)

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From reader Melanie

Read this letter from the mother of an Iraqi soldier. It’s more shameful behavior on the part of our government.

It wasn’t that long ago that the military command in Iraq started pulling computer access to various units. Seems some of the troops were writing emails home to family, to friends, to various anti-war groups and the like, and the military was getting a bit disconcerted by that. After all, can’t have your own troops pretty much turning the “official news” on its head now can you? So what do you do? You shut them up and any way that you can. Let them know they are monitored works pretty good.

But, what about the "moms" back home that are writing on the Internet? Moms like Robin Vaughan, whose letter detailing her recent experiences with the Department of Defense and the Army is below.

Robin Vaughan started an MSN space for families and friends of those in her son’s deployed unit. It was a support group. The military tried to shut it down and told other families not to use it.

We were a group of 77 families from all over the country, at the time of the call. Every single family was phoned and told not to use the site; and I believe some 150 other families were phoned as well, as it was an official order from a commanding officer.

Robin is not in the military. This is a private website. Not that the Pentagon bully boys who hate freedom care.

There are literally hundreds of military family, private support groups on the Internet. I truly believe we were singled out because of my refusal to hand the site over to the local F.R.G., as well as my outspoken political beliefs.

It’s simply amazing that my son and others risk their lives for ”Freedom" in Iraq, when his own mother’s civil liberties are threatened, and families are intimidated into silence, by the very same Army he is serving. I am hoping after reading this you may direct me as to where I can at least have this concern heard. Basically, are the following common practice, and legal?

-The Armed services can order families from communicating in a private forum?
-The Armed services can threaten private citizens’ first amendment rights?

I want to make sure this is not happening to other service member’s families. We live in a hell everyday during the deployment of our loved ones; we don’t need the added bullying or stripping away our means of helping one another.
 
Robin Vaughan
MomRobin7@msn.com 

 Outrageous. And probably not even legal. What is the military so afraid of? The people, that’s who.

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