Politics

Strategic-planning question: �Sir, now that you�’ve acknowledged that there was never any evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11th attacks by Al Qaeda, does it remain your policy that in the event of any future Al Qaeda attack against this country we would still retaliate against Iraq, and, if so, how would you avoid hitting our own troops?�
Coalition question: �Is Bulgaria still part of the coalition, and, if so, what have they done for us lately?�
Somewhat off-the-wall question: �Speaking of Iraq and Al Qaeda, sir, do you think it�s fair that Arabs don�t have to use a �u� after a �q�?�
Follow-up to somewhat off-the-wall question if answer is no:� Then would that justify having gone to war with Iraq?�

TALLAHASSEE — A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday’s Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental.
Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War were yanked off a downtown Tallahassee street, directly in front of the Old Capitol, while marching in the holiday parade they had legitimately registered in.
As organizers allowed the parade to roll on — including veterans from various wars, several high school marching bands and even a group of young women from the local Hooters restaurant — the anti-war veterans were ordered onto sidewalks where they passed out leaflets and displayed a banner reading, “Honor the Warrior, Not the War.”

Below are excerpts from a recent speech by Al Gore. I would urge you to go read it, especially for the section where he covers exactly how the CIA and FBI had specific information that they could have used to detect and prevent two of the 9-11 hijackers, and thus foiled the whole tragedy.

After receiving top secret clearance, Flat Stanley was shown a report by White House Chief of Staff Andy Card.
Later, Flat Stanley told us that the report contained proof that the 2000 election was fixed, that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened and let it happen so he could invade Iraq, that Bush helped Enron manipulate the California energy crisis that unseated Gray Davis, and that Bush knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, but invaded anyway to help ensure his buddies at Halliburton could get lucrative government contracts at the expense of the lives of U.S. soldiers.
A few days later Flat Stanley was discovered in the wastebasket beneath a White House paper shredder, cut to ribbons.

You might be aware that CBS caved to pressure from the right-wing and decided to cancel airing of the mini-series on the Reagans. In part, the controversy stems from the mini-series portrayal of Reagan’s handing (or more accurately, non-handling) of the AIDS crisis, which hit hard during his administration. The mini-series gets it pretty close to accurate, and that makes Reagan look really bad — appropriately so, because he was bad. And the right-wing can’t stand that their Saint Reagan might look bad, so they put the screws to the network.
So network television is controlled by the Republican party. And that scares the living shit out of me.

According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration’s prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue. Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either.