Month: June 2006

Ishaqi: Another Instance of U.S. Troops Killing Children, Elderly Alleged

Jon Ponder

Another cover-up too: The BBC has video evidence that U.S. forces may have deliberately killed 11 innocent Iraqi civilians, including five children and four women, on March 15, 2006:

According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people – a suspect, two women and a child.

But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.

The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what our world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds.

News of this latest incident follows revelations that U.S. forces went on a rampage in Haditha, killing members of a family in their home and pulling young men out of a taxis and shooting them in cold blood.

Valerie Plame Wilson’s Book Deal Falls Through

Jon Ponder

I will buy Valerie Wilson’s book. It sounds like a pretty good read: a secret CIA agent monitoring the black market for WMD whose cover is blown by treason-ish operatives of her own president, who (probably) get away with it.

Apparently, Wilson was not happy with her deal from Crown and is talking to S&S.

Sounds like she is no fool either.

Poll: Bush Is Worst President Since WWII

Jon Ponder

This new poll from Quinnipiac University got it half right. As we all know, President Bush is not just the worst president since World War II, he is the Word President Ever:

Mr. Bush was chosen [as the worst] by 34 percent of the voters who participated in the the Quinnipiac Unversity survey. Richard Nixon finished second with 17 percent — just ahead of Bill Clinton with 16 percent.

Ronald Reagan was the top choice as best president, with 28 percent. Finishing second was Mr. Clinton with 25 percent.

Note that Bush’s votes were double Nixon’s.

Another interesting number is the 16 percent who think Bill Clinton was a bad president. That’s the hardcore bottom of Bush’s support — the die-hard Clinton-haters. If he manages to complete his term, Bush can always depend on the support of the truly delusional.

Pensito Review Prepared to Provide Content to MSM

Buck Banks

Quality content, cheap: On the heels of the announcement yesterday about the content-sharing deal struck between the International Herald Tribune, owned by The New York Times, and South Korean news Web site OhMyNews International, the board of directors of Pensito Media Group LLC has decided to make Pensito Review’s content available on the open market. The deal between IHT and OhMyNews ramps up the prestige of so-called “citizen journalism” a notch, and reaffirms the market value of on-line journalistic content to the so-called mainstream media, or MSM.

In a press release announcing the availability of Pensito Review content, the directors of Pensito Media Group noted that while OhMyNews relies on a network of some 40,000 nonprofessional and 50 in-house staffers, Pensito Review’s operation is much leaner, though still capable of putting out high-quality, often-relevant content — priced right.

‘Our business plan is to find a bidder somewhere on the middle ground between the two extremes.’
— Jon

“I’m not saying we’re going to sell content to the highest bidder,” said President and Editor-In-Chief Jon, “and I’m not saying we’re going to sell to the lowest bidder. Our business plan is to find a bidder somewhere on the middle ground between the two extremes.”

The board noted that there were several media outlets that it was not prepared to sell content to, on principle. For instance, the Washington Times is not being considered because it’s “run by a bunch of loonie Moonies” the statement said. Likewise, The Miami Herald is not eligible to buy Pensito Review content because “it’s such a crappy newspaper,” noted Editor Buck.

Asked whether the Pensito Group would consider providing content to the Fox Channel, Editor Trish replied, “Yeah, sure, when Jeb Bush is elected president. Um, strike that. When the pope is German? Oh, I know, when George Bush admits he made a mistake. That seems like a pretty safe bet.”

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.

— David Davis (1815-1886), U.S. Supreme Court Justice

American-on-Iraqi Violence Up Startlingly in 2006

Trish

[Editor’s Note: I did not know about the post that follows by Jon Editor in Chief when I wrote this. I think we’re all waking up this morning and coming to the same conclusions.]

Things are going to hell in a handbasket in Iraq.

Pres. Butthead sounds the same wooden note he always does: “If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment.”

More than 4,000 Iraqis — many of them civilians — have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May alone, according to an Associated Press count. That makes May the second deadliest month for Iraqis over the past year…

The figures show that civilians, not Iraqi security forces, are increasingly the casualties of violence. Eighty-two percent of the war-related Iraqi deaths recorded in May were civilians, compared with 61 percent in May 2005, when 746 Iraqis were killed.

Before we go blaming the victim, we should know suicide bombings are down.

During May 2005, about 36 suicide bombings killed at least 331 Iraqis and wounded 962.

This May, by contrast, 11 suicide attacks killed at least 98 Iraqis and wounded 283 — about one-third of the casualties of 12 months earlier.

Meanwhile, amid reports of the Marine massacre at Haditha, Pres. Butthead sounds the same wooden note he always does. And it means no more now than when he said it after Abu Ghraib or the investigation of his staff because someone exposed a CIA agent.

“If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment.”

Whatever. I can guess the rest. “It’s just an aberration, this is not how Americans are, if we say we didn’t do it then it didn’t happen.” When does this nightmare end?

The War in Iraq Is Going to Hell

Jon Ponder

Rightwing Bush-worhipping media types like Laura Ingraham have scolded us for focusing on the negatives about the war in Iraq and not concentrating on the good things being accomplished there.

After members of a CBS news crew were killed and wounded, a blogger wrote, “It’s hard to cover the good news when you’re dead.”

After an insurgent attack killed two members of a CBS crew and wounded a reporter last week, one blogger wrote: “It’s hard to cover the good news when you’re dead.” I think this was the perfect take on the Republicans talking point about the president’s domestic spying program, “What good are civil liberties if you’re dead.” (Which itself is an Orwellian twisting of Patrick Henry’s quote during the Revolutionary War, “Give me liberty or give me death.”)

The war in Iraq has become what I, for one, feared it would. We have opened a Pandora’s box in the Middle East and unleashed a pandemic of nasties that will plague us for decades to come. Just one example: Our presence there is spawning new young terrorists by the minute.

No more coddling the rightwing. They have fucked up the world big time, as Dear Leader’s puppetmaster might say. And it is getting worse by the hour:

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