Originally posted by KEYNAN22: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: You need to wake up, somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world. How the hell would a militia inside this poor state defeat the most powerfull nation in the contemporary world? is this a fucging joke!!? funny nomad! They may not defeat the US but they will defeat your dabadh*lif uncle who is the real fcuking joke.

The president is an ex-warlord in his 70s who owns the transplanted liver of a young Englishman. Hmmm. I guess the heart and testicles of that donor were unavailable. If a U.S.-backed African Union plan to deploy 8,000 peacekeepers goes ahead, prepare for bloody disaster. How can it do any better than the 30,000-strong U.S.-led UN mission that collapsed in 1995? Good question. The Somalis are fearless fighters who often call other black non-Muslim Africans "adon," or "slave." In 1994, they disarmed an entire battalion of Zimbabwean blue helmets, looted their weapons and sent them walking back to Mogadishu in their underpants. LOL. I look forward to the day the transplanted clown government of Yeey are sent walking in their underpants out of of Muqdisho, nay out of Somalia altogether.

U.S. stirring pot in Somalia AIDAN HARTLEY The Spectator Saturday, February 10, 2007 KIUNGA, Somalia - He was a quiet American, and an oddity in Kiunga. For 20 hours I had rammed the Range Rover through tse-tse fly-infested jungles teeming with buffalo. When earlier this month I limped into this Indian Ocean village, within earshot of U.S. air strikes against Islamists across the frontier in Somalia, astonished Swahili fishermen said mine was the first vehicle to arrive for three months. Soon afterward, the American - let's call him "Carter" - appeared out of nowhere. Two U.S. navy warships bobbed on the horizon and we could hear fighter jets hunting for Islamic militants a few miles to the north. Carter said he worked for U.S. Civil Affairs. He had the awkward manner of a stage actor who doesn't know what to do with his hands. His skin was pallid beneath the equatorial sun and for hours he sat alone, watching children play among fish bones in the dust. When we went to eat with the locals, Carter refused to join us. He had brought his own food. He was unable to speak Swahili and said he was no good at languages, having failed in his attempts to learn Arabic. If young Carter seems out of his depth, then so is the United States, which is helping to transform a backwater tribal conflict in Africa's Horn into what could turn out to be the worst Islamist insurgency in the world after Iraq and Afghanistan. For almost a decade, Washington's policy in Somalia has hinged on the hunt for Al-Qa'ida terrorists, and particularly the men wanted for killing 225 people in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam U.S. embassy bombings of 1998, and the 2002 attacks on Israelis in Mombasa. The U.S. air strikes earlier this month were specifically aimed at these men - Fazul Abdallah Mohamed, Abu Taha al-Sudani, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. They escaped. So did Aden Hashi Ayro, a Somali linked to Al-Qa'ida, but some of his followers were killed. For Washington, it was the second bungled attempt to kill or capture Ayro, who was linked to a string of assassinations when he was leader of an extremist militia known as Shabaab (Arabic for "youth"). Somalia's current phase of chaos is not simply the latest episode in a civil conflict that has dragged on since 1991; it is also the direct result of a rogue CIA operation that went badly wrong. Al-Qa'ida fugitives have long taken refuge in Mogadishu. After 9/11, Washington did a policy U-turn by recruiting as bounty-hunters the very same warlords its forces had fought during the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" battle. In return for suitcases of cash, the warlords handed over a flow of Al-Qa'ida suspects, who were ferried on rendition flights to the new U.S. base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. No really "high-value" terrorists were captured, but U.S. intelligence at least got some good information and was able to avert several terrorism plots in Kenya. One of them was the 2003 plan to drive a truck-bomb into a taxiing British Airways jet in Nairobi. The terrorists are associated by the Americans with the Islamic Courts Union, which has operated in Mogadishu since the 1990s. A couple of years ago, this coalition of Muslims, by no means all of them militants, began to assert themselves as a political force, and quickly gained popularity among residents exhausted by the gun rule of the warlords. To the Americans, however, the courts were just another manifestation of Al-Qa'ida. The CIA tried to organize some of the most brutal warlords into an "anti-terrorism" political alliance against the them. The policy backfired: Mogadishu residents rose up against the warlords in support of the Islamists, who last June seized control of the ruined city and became its de facto government. When I visited Mogadishu in November, I observed how the Islamic Courts had kick-started the economy and established peace on the streets for the first time in 16 years. But U.S. propaganda had turned them into international pariahs, and in response to the perceived threat from the West, Ayro and the extremists gained control of the courts. Taliban-style rule was imposed. The popular stimulant qat was banned, along with cinemas, long hair and World Cup football on TV. The West and African countries put their confidence in a "transitional government" formed in 2004 and led by President Abdullahi Yusuf. This government, dominated by former warlords, sat in the farming town of Baidoa, bankrolled by the UN and protected by forces from neighbouring Ethiopia. A Christian-led country with a majority Muslim population, Ethiopia is motivated in this saga by its deep fear of Islamic militancy in the Horn. Just before Christmas, Washington gave Ethiopia the green light to invade Somalia. The offensive wiped out about 1,000 Islamists. The de facto government of the courts fell. Its leaders fled. U.S. neocons gloated over what they saw as a victory for the good guys in the war on terror. But they overlooked the complexities of the conflict. Somalia is facing a fresh surge of civil conflict. The militants' network of schools, mosques and finances is still intact. Most of the Islamist clan forces melted away in Mogadishu with enough weapons to fight an Iraqi-style insurgency. After vowing to disarm the capital, the Ethiopians and their government allies have on a daily basis fallen victim to bloody hit-and-run attacks. Not only that, but Ethiopia's invasion and the U.S. strikes have also made heroes of the Somali militants among jihadis across the world and have, thus, further internationalized the conflict. Even before the Ethiopian/U.S. intervention, when I was in Mogadishu in November, I was struck by the large number of Somali youths with British accents. Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said this month he wanted to start withdrawing his troops "within days," but the transitional government is so loathed in Mogadishu that without Addis Ababa's support it would probably quickly implode. This is because at root Somalia's conflict is still driven by clan politics: The transitional government is dominated by ******, and the Islamic Courts and the majority of Mogadishu's residents are from the ****** clans. The only way to avert catastrophe, it seems, is for Yusuf to offer an olive branch to moderate Islamists and the ******, but chances of that happening are slim. The president is an ex-warlord in his 70s who owns the transplanted liver of a young Englishman. He has declared martial law, which has done nothing to calm passions. If a U.S.-backed African Union plan to deploy 8,000 peacekeepers goes ahead, prepare for bloody disaster. How can it do any better than the 30,000-strong U.S.-led UN mission that collapsed in 1995? The Somalis are fearless fighters who often call other black non-Muslim Africans "adon," or "slave." In 1994, they disarmed an entire battalion of Zimbabwean blue helmets, looted their weapons and sent them walking back to Mogadishu in their underpants. Before the Islamists' retreat, I sipped camel's milk at the front line with their field commander, Abu Mansoor. I asked what he would do if it came to fighting the Ethiopians. "My arms will become tired from beheading them," he laughed. And what about Americans and foreign peacekeepers? Abu Mansoor told me he had prayed at his sons' births that their lives would bring them the opportunity to die as martyrs in holy war. The Gazette

^ That's possibly the friendliest threat ever uttered.

^^^ The US is rapidly on its way to being broke. It's not broke yet but the looming war with Iran will seal the deal on this toddler empire. And unfortunately, we'll all feel the pain of this foolish war. Finally, it's not about Iran's nuclear ambitions. How close is Iran to a nuclear bomb? By Gordon Corera BBC security correspondent In the coming days, Iran is expected to make what is being billed as a major announcement on its nuclear programme to coincide with the anniversary of the Iranian revolution. But just how close is Iran to mastering nuclear technology? Both Iran and some of its critics may have their own reasons for exaggerating the progress - but the real truth is hard to establish. In its announcement, Iran may claim to have begun large-scale industrial enrichment of uranium. But any statement is likely to be as much about political positioning as real technical progress, according to nuclear analysts. The announcement may focus on work Iran has conducted in installing two cascades of more than 300 centrifuges in an underground industrial size plant at Natanz with the aim of moving towards a total of 3,000 machines. The centrifuges are used to enrich uranium. This is in addition to two existing cascades in a pilot plant above ground. But Iran's plan to initially run 3,000 centrifuges before moving towards an ultimate goal of 54,000 has run into obstacles and delays and is well behind target. Even the cascades in the pilot plant have seen problems. However, once Iran has mastered the technology of enrichment and the ability to enrich gas at high speeds in a centrifuge then transferring it to a larger scale presents a lesser challenge. 'Own mistakes' Uranium enriched to around 5% can be used as nuclear fuel, but if it is enriched to around 90% it can be used in a weapon. Over the years, some of the problems with the programme seem to be due to Iran's own mistakes. For instance, one of the top figures in the programme has talked of how in the early days, those assembling the centrifuges did not wear cloth gloves. As a result, tiny beads of sweat would be transferred to the rotor which spins inside the centrifuge. This almost imperceptibly increased the weight of the rotor which then unbalanced the centrifuge when it started to spin, causing it to "explode". Iran also was thought to have had problems with the purity of the uranium hexafluoride which is fed into the centrifuges, although its scientists now say this has been solved. 'Mossad's hand' But the problems may also be due to more shady activity by others. Over a number of years, both US and Israeli intelligence are believed to have covertly passed flawed parts and equipment to Iran to cause technical difficulties and slow the Iranian programme down. In one event last April, according to Iranian press reports, the explosion of another set of centrifuges was attributed to problems with the power supply. The supply needs to be kept precise and constant to ensure the centrifuges spin at the correct speed but Iranian scientists said that on this occasion the power supply might have been "manipulated" which may imply they were sabotaged. It is possible that some of the electrical parts for Iran may have come through the Turkish end of the network run by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan which also supplied electrical components to the Libyan nuclear programme. By the end of the network's activity in early 2004, it had been penetrated by British and American intelligence with some of the suppliers turned as agents. Recent reports have also questioned whether the death in January of a 45-year-old Iranian scientist, Ardeshire Hosseinpour, might have been the result of an operation by Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. Hosseinpour had been involved in the enrichment programme, but Iranian reports have denied that his death was due to anything other than natural causes. Mossad is widely believed to have been behind a campaign of killings and intimidation targeted at the Iraqi nuclear programme and some of its suppliers in Europe in the early 1980s, but this has never been definitively proven. 'Many unknowns' Arguably it is human expertise in the form of trained scientists rather than equipment which is the most important element of a nuclear programme. Whether or not there has been extensive covert activity directed at Iran (and by definition it is hard to discern the truth), the variety of technical problems mean that its hard to know if Iran is actually far away from mastering nuclear technology or relatively close to it and thereby able to make the relatively short journey from "peaceful" civilian technology towards manufacturing nuclear material for a bomb. The problem is that there remain many "unknowns" when it comes to the Iranian programme. One of the most important is exactly how much help Tehran received from the Khan network. The network first sold centrifuge designs to Iran in 1987 and provided on-off help for more than a decade after, including parts and designs for more advanced machines. But international investigators remain unsure that they have an understanding on the full extent of the assistance, not least because no-one outside Pakistan has been able to question Khan directly whilst he remains under a form of house-arrest in Islamabad. The biggest question surrounds the more advanced P2 centrifuge design that Khan passed to the Iranians. Iran initially said it had conducted little work on the design but last year Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was working on the machine (which would be far more efficient than the model in Natanz). However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been provided any information on such work. No rush? If Iran was able to run a parallel, second enrichment program which it had managed to keep secret, then many of the estimates of how far Iran was from mastering the technology might be way of the mark. But this remains an unknown. The degree of uncertainty can cut the debate over action against Iran in both directions. Some voices argue that Iran remains at least five years away from nuclear weapons capability, and US intelligence estimates have consistently pushed back when that might be - so some argue there is no rush. Other hawkish and pessimistic voices argue that Iran could soon master the technology and the time-frame for action lies this year. Israel is keen to emphasise that it sees the shorter time-frame as the valid one and is willing to take action. The US has been playing down its willingness to engage in military action but is currently pushing the Europeans to squeeze Iran financially. 'Accidental war' But conflict between the US and Iran is still possible. President Ahmadinejad is facing his own domestic problems with mounting criticism of not just his approach to foreign policy and the nuclear issue but also his failure to deal with economic concerns at home. This could lead to other power centres in Iran forcing him to back down but could also encourage him to take a harder line on the nuclear programme in order to try and rally support. At the same time, Washington has been increasing the pressure over Iran's alleged involvement in Iraq. With US troops so close to Iran's borders, a small event could easily ignite a wider escalation and even trigger an "accidental" war - although conspiracy theorists might argue that there are some in both Tehran and Washington who would like to engineer just such a confrontation and blame the other side. BBC

Originally posted by Xoogsade: Do you visit "www.counterpunch.org"?, "antiwar.com"? or "lewrockwell.com" is cool too lol. All of them plus democracynow.org, commondreams.org, zmag.org (specially the Chomsky archive), juancole.com, nologo.com and many more 'left leaning' websites. You could find a comprehensive list on the Common Dreams link. Though it is the only way I learn about the world around me, be warned that the more you read about what horrible things are really happening around you (and the media won't bother telling you about), the darker your mood will get. Check out this 3-year old article about invading Iran published on ZMAG: The Next Imperial Lunacy Super-bully going to Iran? by Aseem Shrivastava; August 14, 2004 "My idea of our civilization is that it is a shabby poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meanness, and hypocrisies. As for the word, I hate the sound of it, for it conveys a lie; and as for the thing itself, I wish it was in hell, where it belongs." - Mark Twain "The budget should be balanced; the treasury should be refilled; public debt should be reduced; and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled." - Cicero. The coming months may eliminate the question mark from the title of this article. And American civilization may well end up where Twain wished in his despair that it should. History returns to haunt in strange ways. It was on August 19th, 51 years ago, that Britain and the US orchestrated a military coup in Iran, dislodged the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq and installed the exiled monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne. What lay behind this maneuver? One of the main organizers of the coup was the Princeton-educated student of Persian architecture, Donald Wilber. He published an account of the coup in 1954 that has since then been confirmed by the release of classified documents from Washington. The summer of 1953 was much like this one. Iran was in a major dispute with the Western powers. The popular government led by Mossadeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, controlled hitherto by British interests who were siphoning off the bulk of the revenues in a colonial-style operation. In reaction to this, the British froze Iranian assets, got all the world’s oil companies to boycott Iranian oil and pulled their technicians out of the country. Oil output collapsed, Iran’s economy suffered and public unrest grew. Meanwhile, Britain managed to convince the US of the need for regime change in Teheran. On July 11th President Eisenhower secretly signed an order to overthrow Iran's fledgling democracy. After a well-organized secret campaign, involving people like the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and the father of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and in which CIA agents did everything from posing as Communists in order to bomb the house of a prominent Muslim leader to forging royal decrees dismissing Mossadeq and getting Associated Press to wire it in the course of an extended propaganda campaign in the media, the Western powers finally managed to purge Iran of democracy and install their chosen vassal, the Shah, inaugurating a quarter century of a reign of terror, before the Islamic revolution put an end to the brutal regime in 1979. (According to ex-US Foreign Service officer William Blum, one of the artifacts recovered by the Iranians after the Shah had been deposed was a CIA film made for his secret service, the SAVAK, on how to torture women.) The CIA’s secret history records that August 19, 1953 "was a day that should never have ended. For it carried with it such a sense of excitement, of satisfaction and of jubilation that it is doubtful whether any other can come up to it." So giddy did the CIA get with its first smell of success in toppling Third World governments that it followed this up with numerous successful coups across the world over the next five decades. That was 1953. The events of 2004 are moving eerily in the same direction. There has been a marked increase in official rhetoric against Iran in recent weeks. Iran has been in American gun-sights for a long time now. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been a "rogue state" in Washington’s classification. The US backed Saddam Hussein, when he was still Washington’s blue-eyed boy, in his aggression against Iran from 1980 to 1988, a war which accounted for over a million victims. More recently, Iran was named in the infamous ‘Axis of Evil’ speech made by Bush Jr. in January 2002. The main fear is that Iran will soon come to possess nuclear weapons. In early August, President Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said they would demand UN-imposed sanctions if Iran persists with its nuclear program. Speaking with customary alarm at a community college in Virginia, Mr. Bush emphasized again the other day that he has put "hard questions to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), so they ask the hard questions to the Iranians." In a Freudian slip, he said "we got the Iranians to sign what's called an additional protocol, which will allow for site inspections that normally would not have been allowed under IAEA." Immediately he corrected himself and said "not we, the world got the Iranians" to do so. He pointed out that "ever since the late '70s", the US has had no contacts with Iran. "We're out of sanctions. And so we've relied upon others to send the message for us. And the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Great Britain have gone in as a group to send a message on behalf of the free world that Iran must comply with the demands of the free world. And that's where we sit right now." The "free world" is also seeking, through "different methodology", to incite rebellion against the theocracy in Teheran. The newly liberated Iraq proves, according to King George, "that free societies are possible", that "a free country in the midst of the Middle East will send a very clear signal that freedom is possible." A free society was not just possible, but was actually realized for the people of Iran, back in 1953, when the "free world" sabotaged it because it proved too democratic to allow Western plunder. Media commentary on Iran has also been hostile. Writing in The Washington Post a few weeks back conservative intellectual Charles Krauthammer gave what is a far from unrepresentative view: "The fact is that the war critics have nothing to offer on the single most urgent issue of our time -- rogue states in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done nothing about either country. There would today be two major Islamic countries sitting on an ocean of oil, supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction -- instead of one. Two years ago there were five countries supporting terrorism and pursuing these weapons -- two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil varsity: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has eliminated two: Iraq, by direct military means, and Libya, by example and intimidation. Syria is weak and deterred by Israel. North Korea, having gone nuclear, is untouchable. That leaves Iran. What to do? There are only two things that will stop the Iranian nuclear program: revolution from below or an attack on its nuclear facilities." To add fuel to the fire, one of the more handy conclusions drawn by the Kean Commission investigating the 9/11 attacks was, interestingly, that several Al-Qaeda operatives involved in the attacks had "passed through" Iran during the year preceding 9/11, their passports unstamped. This shows, in their remarkable opinion, that Iran and Al-Qaeda are working hand in glove. Just like Iraq and Al-Qaeda were presumably doing so when the US-UK invasion of the country took place last year. It’s not Iraq the US should have invaded, but Iran. What difference does a consonant make, after all, when there is a whole civilization under threat? When you couple all this with the constant barbs being directed by trigger-happy, nuclear-armed Israel in its direction, Iran’s consternation – expressed through its pursuit of a nuclear program and more urgently, its recent testing of a medium-range ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel – is more than understandable. These fears are fueled further by signals that are being sent by the Americans. Unreported in the US media (but in the Israeli press), 100 F16-1 advanced jet bombers have been delivered to Israel recently, with the specific announcement that they can be used to fly to Iran and return to Israel, and that they are capable of carrying "special weapons." At the same time, it is also surely understandable that if Grenada and Nicaragua could scare President Reagan, and Cuba has terrorized all American presidents since Kennedy, Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability is a matter to keep the best of them awake at night. Iran has been a member of the Axis of Evil for two and a half years. It suddenly becomes an imminent threat. The question is, why now? It is perhaps true that the fuel rods from Russia have not arrived yet and there is still time to intercept Iran’s nuclear program. (Why Washington never bothered to intercept India’s or Pakistan’s nuclear programs before they weaponized is a question well worth asking (there isn’t much oil there?). The fact that the brain behind Pakistan’s program, A.Q.Khan was selling nuclear secrets and centrifuges in the global free market (including, apparently, to Iran), and was pardoned earlier this year by President Musharraf, with the full knowledge of Washington, is also best left alone.) If Bush is so friendly with Putin, as the media appears to believe, why doesn’t he get him to stop supporting Iran’s nuclear program? Nor has Iraq worked out as intended by the Americans. While Saddam Hussein has been deposed, no WMDs have been found, nor any links with Al-Qaeda (a fact reiterated by the 9/11 Commission). Democracy is but a mirage in the desert, as the Americans have installed a thug named Allawi to be their chief executioner. Revealingly sadistic Abu-Ghraib tortures remain uninvestigated and probably still continue. American reputation (or whatever was left of it) is in tatters, in any case. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Iraqis and over a thousand Coalition troops have been buried in the sands in the name of freedom. Last, not least, despite setbacks the insurgency threatens to turn into a national uprising against the Allawi regime. Oil pipelines are being sabotaged every other day and hundreds of attacks on Coalition forces are being reported every week. In other words, the end is not in sight for the Americans. Memories of Vietnam are returning to haunt them. From Iran’s point of view, the tragic element in the timing may be that it is the year for regime change in Washington and there is little that the Republicans have to show for the $130 billion ($4500 for each US citizen) of the American taxpayers’ money already blown up on the misadventure. Given the stakes, Iran has been willing to sort things out diplomatically, but the Bush administration has not condescended to do its part, not having an envoy in Teheran in the first place. (Civilized societies do not deal with rogue states.) Iranian overtures (made through the Swiss, who look after American interests in Tehran) have been ignored. Thus, the Bush administration, with an absence of professionalism that has become all too predictable in the age of vainglorious empire, is dealing with Iran third-hand, through the UN’s IAEA, and of course the muddled media, neither group having any executive power. The timing of the Najaf offensive in Iraq also calls for an explanation. Sh’iite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army has been on the scene for a while. Why precisely now has the US decided to risk wounding Sh’iite sentiments, and perhaps provoking a nation-wide rebellion, by launching a massive offensive against the insurgents in their hideout in the Imam Ali shrine? The Republican National Convention in New York City begins on August 30. A victory in Najaf, unlike the fiasco in Fallujah, would lend some cheer to the Bush-Cheney ticket. Al-Sadr’s capture or killing would bring a smile of hope to Republican faces, anxious as they are with the fallout of Michael Moore’s film. Better still would be a full-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in an appropriate week before the November elections. And that is what the shipment of 100 F16-1s to Israel and the stab at Najaf are about. They are meant to provoke Iran’s ruling Sh’iite theocracy into some form of military retaliation, which would give Bush the ideal pretext to attack Iran. There are already murmurs in the media (BBC, for instance) that there are Iranians fighting in Najaf. Hazim al-Shaalan, defense minister in the Iraqi stooge-government declares, "Iranian intrusion has been vast and unprecedented since the establishment of the Iraqi state." That is also what the global "realignment" of US troops is all about. London’s Financial Times reports this weekend that 70,000 US troops are being asked to move, mostly from Europe. It is ominous when troops stationed in Germany since 1945 are going to be needed elsewhere. Where? When one considers the history of faked incidents created by the US to start a new war – the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 and blaming it on Spain and the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 for which the North Vietnamese were held responsible, come to mind, not to speak of Saddam himself being lured into Kuwait in 1990 (as the Senate hearings revealed) – it is far from unlikely that Iran will be inveigled into a war. Is it a military threat to the US? No serious expert could claim that. Does it fund and support Al-Qaeda? Again, there is no evidence whatsoever. On the contrary, given the Sunni Wahhabi roots of Al-Qaeda it is at least as unlikely that they are backed by Sh’ite Iran as that they were supported by the secular Baathists of Iraq when Saddam was at the helm. But just as the Bush administration managed to convince the American public (7 out of 10 of them) that Iraq was behind Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack, it can try to do the same now with Iran. Bush’s Axis of Evil speech and the Kean Commission’s naming of Iran in connection with terrorism have already paved the way for making such beliefs credible. Propaganda worked last time. It will work again. Children believe in the innocence of their parents. They will also understand if parents have to occasionally lie and deceive in order to bring the bacon (cheap oil for SUVs) home. Such is the bargain. The ground has been prepared and the Western mainstream media is once again playing ***** Box to Big Brother’s well-planned furtive moves. If someone needs to convince themselves of the cowardly complicity of the Western media in this deceit on an imperial scale, they only need to check how many American and European dailies or TV networks reported the US bombing of the Iraqi town of Kut last Thursday, in which anywhere from 60-100 people, including innocent women and children, have been killed. This writer found the information in Arab dailies and on a South African website. The Western media has also largely failed to report that during the cease-fire in Najaf (to give negotiations a chance) there have been large demonstrations in all the major Iraqi cities as well as in Teheran, asking for withdrawal of US forces from the Gulf. Once again, Al-Jazeera has shown greater daring and accuracy in reporting than anyone from the West. White House whistles, the media wags its tail. Such are the facts. So, Iran must prepare for an air attack from Israel and the US. Given the troop movements a ground invasion can be expected too. And this time, perhaps, no one – not the UN, not European Allies, maybe not even Britain (given its ambivalence on Iran), and certainly not the American public – will be consulted before the invasion is launched. Why would the chickenhawks even bother to tell the lies that they had to last time, only to get exposed later on? Those who have come to believe that the Neo-conservatives have lost for good after their plans for Iraq have been ground in the sand and their criminally awesome lies have been exposed to the world must think again. The climate is psychotic. The empire is in despair. Why shouldn’t an administration, long relieved of any sense of shame and embarrassment plan such an attack? It has much to lose if it doesn’t! The Americans – and the world – are in the grip of a totalitarian system, asleep to the suicide-bombers manning the White House and the Pentagon. The media is silent or obedient and the Democrat Opposition is pusillanimous and bankrupt in imagination. John Kerry responded to Bush’s provocation the other day by asserting that he would have cast the same Yes vote in Congress that he did in Oct. 2002, to authorize the president to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq, even if he had known that Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction and posed no real threat to the world. "I believe it's the right authority for a president to have," Kerry said, adding that he would just have used that power more "effectively." Just like Clinton did during the Sanctions era in Iraq which accounted for the deaths of a million children. And the public is too busy looking for jobs or working overtime or getting entertained by Murdoch’s TV shows to come out in the hundreds of thousands to protest yet another war. In any case, Washington has armed itself with plenty of anti-terrorist legislation to prevent such exercise of civil liberties. If not, the National Guard is at hand. Democracy today is just a slogan copyrighted by the White House. So it appears that we are likely to see recent history repeat itself in short order. And if the Neo-conservatives perpetrate the belief that it would be a farcical repetition of Iraq, the American public should prepare itself for catastrophic surprises. History shows that savage follies provoke their own nemesis. Even the bills of Iraq will keep coming for a long time. Perhaps America is destined to destroy itself, and with it, maybe large parts of the world. Perhaps it has become too diseased in mind and soul to learn from history. Perhaps it has come to cynically accept, as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times did some years back, the heartlessness of its governments’ calculations that there is really no way to retain economic dominance in the world without ruling the entire globe with an iron fist. (The Chinese and the Japanese could, in a few hours, ruin the dollar forever, given how much of the growing US debt of $7.5 trillion they own, and how much the US is able to buy from them – and spend on new weaponry – with the money lent to it. China certainly will not lend money to the US to go to war against itself!) And even that will not last long unless the galloping military costs of empire can be financed by Republican geniuses while giving tax breaks to the rich. Imperial overstretch? No, not merely. Overkill. And capitalist excess. George W. Bush, for his part, will certainly keep his word to the American people. Last week he said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we." "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Can this suicidal course be averted? The answer depends on American patriots.

Death, while natural and the only end to life, is often sad and reminds us of our own mortality, however... Real News Loses to Fluff Again by Antonia Zerbisias Anybody want to bet against me that, over the next few days, the U.S. media will be more consumed with the sudden death of DDD-list blond bombshell Anna Nicole Smith than with Tuesday's report by a U.S. congressional committee that an estimated $12 billion (U.S.) – 360 tons of shrink-wrapped C-notes – were flown to Iraq between May 2003 and June 2004? No, I didn't think so, even though the cash can't be accounted for, even though there are suspicions that much of it ended up with the insurgency, even though U.S. troops are getting killed for lack of proper armour and equipment. Turn on the news and it's been all about "astro-nut" Lisa Nowak, she who should land a Depends endorsement deal, and her wild cross-country pursuit of love lost in space. Or something like that. Fill in your own space oddity pun. Every news organization has, as Jon Stewart pointed out the other night. So here we are, on the eve of the fifth year of the Iraq invasion, and the "shock and awe" continues to be that the mainstream media watchdogs rolled over for the Bush-Cheney war and have yet to report on where they went wrong, what they missed, what they ignored, what they buried. (This, by the way, is not an attack on the journalists who have risked – and even lost – their lives covering the conflict.) Oh sure there have been a few mea culpas, I-got-it-wrongs, and slap me sillies with my soft-white-pundit's hands along the way from the likes of the Toronto Sun's Lorrie Goldstein, the National Post's Jonathan Kay and the National Review's Jonah Goldberg, who in 2002 wrote, "The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense." But nowhere have the media answered the kinds of questions posed this week by a veteran editor in the Nieman Watchdog, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Among the questions raised by Gilbert Cranberg, former editorial page editor of the Des Moines Register and Tribune: "Why did the New York Times and others parrot administration claims about Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons when independent experts were readily available to debunk the claims? "Why was a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace accusing the administration of misusing intelligence by misrepresenting and distorting it given two paragraphs in the Times and 700 words in the (Washington) Post (but deep inside), with neither story citing the report's reference to distorted and misrepresented intelligence? "Why did Colin Powell's pivotal presentation to the United Nations receive immediate and overwhelming press approval despite its evident weaknesses and even fabrications? "Why did the British press, unlike its American counterpart, critically dissect the speech and regard it with scorn? "Why did the Associated Press wait six months, when the body count began to rise, to distribute a major piece by AP's Charles Hanley challenging Powell's evidence and why did Hanley say how frustrating it had been until then to break through the self-censorship imposed by his editors on negative news about Iraq?" Why indeed? But why is not a question often answered nowadays. It's all about who. The celebrity who. The space cadet who. The who did who. The danger is that, as the Bush-Cheney administration continues its bellicose bellowing, not only about Iraq but also Iran, the media again take at face value whatever the White House throws its way, not investing the resources to go beyond cheap and easy "live" time-fillers. Oh, and if you think that what happens on their news doesn't affect Canada, think again. It would be a much easier sell for the Harper government to march us unto war if the Amnets and their counterparts in print once again did not do their jobs. Meanwhile, don't wait for serious discussion of the missing billions or another downed U.S. chopper. For the next few days, your TV will become a boob tube. Can't you see it already: "Thanks for the mammaries." FEAR: The media world is buzzing about this sound byte New York Times chair and publisher Arthur Sulzberger gave Israel's Haaretz; "I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either. "The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we're leading there." LOATHING: Then there's this from News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch, picked up by the Hollywood Reporter at last month's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Asked if his media empire attempted to set the agenda on the war in Iraq, he said: "No, I don't think so. We tried." Tried and succeeded. Toronto Star

Originally posted by -Serenity-: I'm sick of the weather. I'm sick of having zero social life. I'm sick of working all the time and not getting anywhere fast enough. I have just the solution for you in one word: Move. If you don't like the weather, move. I did. I got so sick of the weather where I lived, I just upped and left, 3000 miles, never to return. That was 11 years ago. If you've no social life, move out. Get a roommate. I did. An Austrian, a South African, an Indian and a Canuck. It was great. Possibly the best period of my wretched 20's. "Working all the time and not getting anywhere fast enough?" Weren't you the one celebrating graduation from college in May 2006? How far do you wanna get in 9 months? Oh the arrogance and the nerve. :rolleyes: What happened to saying Alhamdulilah woman?

^^^ And the world as we know it along with it. Armed to the Teeth, America Marches Toward Military State by Pierre Tristam President Bush's 2008 budget includes a $625 billion request for the military, up from $295 billion the year Bush was elected -- a 112 percent increase. Its about $100 billion more than all other military budgets in the world, combined. Plenty of attention is being paid the exhausted military fighting Bush's various wars. There's no denying it. It's overstretched and undermanned. It makes you think the Pentagon needs more money, not less. But little attention is paid the flip-side of that story -- the squandering of money on defense contractors' swindles, whether it's the superfluous $66 billion F-22 fighter jet program -- one of three jet fighters in development -- or the $9 billion-a-year missile shield, which, one test aside, hasn't gotten much past its middle school science project concept since Ronald Reagan fancied it a quarter century and $160 billion ago. The military is strapped by its own doing. Lawmakers are complicit. Job-producing military contracts are seeded throughout the land's congressional districts like above-board bribes. But lawmakers couldn't get away with it if the military weren't the subject of a misplaced, ill-informed and dangerous public infatuation that's been changing American society for the worse since the early 1980s -- the period when Reagan built up the military into the creepy colossus it's been since. As Andrew Bacevich, author of "The New American Militarism," wrote, "The ensuing affair had and continues to have a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue. Few in power have openly considered whether valuing military power for its own sake or cultivating permanent global military superiority might be at odds with American principles." Misuse of the military abroad and its escalating burdens on taxpayers are well documented. The consequences of the infatuation on civilian society are documented less well, because the effects are more subtle than convoys of tanks down Main Street. The consequences are more diffuse, more pernicious. There is, for example, the increasing role the military is playing in domestic life, secretly and not-so secretly, crumbling almost a century and a half old prohibition against military meddling in civilian business. Five years ago the Pentagon established a "Northern Command" over the United States, the first time such a command was based on the mainland, ostensibly to coordinate responses to terrorist attacks. The Pentagon is actively engaged in domestic intelligence gathering, something that would have been thought outright illegal a generation ago. In December, the president signed a law that gave him the authority to declare martial law virtually at will. Militarization is happening in more direct ways. Last week, the Associated Press circulated a story about the Pentagon selling surplus hardware to police agencies. The story projected a happy, fortunate circumstance. The tone was approving. The suggestion rewarding. A picture featured a young police officer called Shane Grammer holding up a massive M-16 rifle with at least two scopes and a muffler-size barrel, a Chevrolet Blazer behind him, also military surplus, cluttered up with soldiers' helmets, camouflage and gear. The officer was a member of the Litchfield, Pa., Police Department. Litchfield is a minuscule township of 500 families. Who does Officer Grammer intend to use his M-16 against? The difference between police agencies and military units is becoming difficult to distinguish. They love their helicopters, they love their night raids, their SWAT teams, their chases, their drawn guns. We often hear about how "attitude" is in itself a trigger of violence among gang members. What we don't often hear about, but endure, because the media are too busy writing cute features about military surplus property in the hands of local police agencies, is the same attitude from police -- the very same approach: Look at an officer the wrong way and you might be in jail before the rooster crows once. All of that military hardware brings with it an attitude all its own, a sense of power and presumption that has to be exercised. At this rate, a police state would be a blessing. What we're heading toward is a military state, perpetually at war abroad, but also perpetually mobilized at home down to the tiniest mom-and-pop police agency. Uniforms are the new cult, force the presumed solution to order's challengers. The law can wait. When a society is no longer exclusively and vigilantly civil, its claim to be a civilized society, let alone a civilizing one, is in peril. Other countries have been discovering that about the United States. We're discovering it at home, too, every time a police shield is flashed with the presumptive power of an M-16 burst. CD

Will the U.S invade Iran? Yes.

Originally posted by Nomadic_Princess: Castro what a bizaare request...er i think you will not be suprised when i say that I will have to pass. I'm not surprised. And it's not so bizarre as you think. The point I was trying to make was our interest in a person's face goes deeper than just curiosity. Once you've seen how a person looks, you color their words with the image. Try it. Look up the picture of someone you've heard of (in the news or otherwise) and think, again, of all that you know about them in light of the image you've seen. We tend to remember faces (not feet ) longer than we do ideas.

You know, I watched this live on Al-Jazeera and after laughing my chest off, I actually felt kinda sorry for the dude. Viva the clown TFG.

Originally posted by -Serenity-: lol@ Che . I just don’t get waxa gabdhaha loogu dul tumanaayo maalmahan, especially from Farax (an object of infinite .....). It's all in your head atheer. There's high level shukaansi going on here. Either join the party or get off the dance floor. Don't be a party pooper.

^^ It's not the 'top shelf' that's offensive, I thought, it was the superstore. Either way, it wasn't the nicest thing to say. There was a time, many moons ago, that second looks from self-respecting Xalimos was not what I sought.

^ Qushi. Waad iska la qabsan. Sanboorku waa inta hore. I too would die a violent death if I acquired a Minyaro at the moment but given enough time, say another 12-15 years, I might be able to swing it. And the new crop of candidates should be even more fabulous. Of course, my own daughters would disown me then.

^ Walee adaa ku garbo beeli. Unless wa tuu ku go'aa ay dhab kaa tahay and you'd kill him. This thread is now officially hijacked.

^^^ Hodman, I know you're not a Minyar candidate but you could go shopping for odaygaaga. He'll thank you for it. Originally posted by Che-Guevara: Stud kulahaa. Afar oday oo gubatay baa niyada isku dhisaaya. Atheer odayaashaa gunta ka dhacay haygu darin.

I don't know about Fulayaal. It sounds contrived. That would mean tuug will become tuugyaal instead of tuug, for the plural. Doesn't sound right. I think both fulayaal and fulayiin are wrong. But Ilaaq is right, not cilaaq. I never said I was an expert but compared to the lot here, I can take any title I please.

^^ Since your avatar shows your hands, throw in a picture of your feet, as they are right now. Don't bother getting a pedicure first. And no, I don't have a foot fetish. Originally posted by NGONGE: A work of art of a work of art methinks. For many of us here, how you look is irrelevant atheer. You're already a work of art. P.S. Out of sheer innocent curiosity, I visited that Facebook page and found a load of pictures of fabulous, young ladies. Is that really you guys? That place is a (top shelf) Minyar superstore.

^ I'm talking about Berbera-Hargeisa. And yes, overloaded trucks heading to Ethiopia have something to do with it. Check your sources atheer. But I didn't ask that to lay any blame or take any swipes at Somaliland. Furthermore, roads are meant to be traveled on but putting limits on weights make them safer and last longer.

^ I know that's not you. I know it. There's really no value, in my view, in having others see how you look. I guess the curiosity stems from our innate desire to put a face to all the talk one spews on this board. That's why no one thinks of posting a picture of their legs, buttocks or love handles. It's always the face. I have to admit I do feel a little exposed now. I don't think I benefited at all from this little escapade. It's ok. Think of it as free ad time. If you're single, you might get hitched out of it. If you're married, your stalker is just around the corner. If I post anything, It'll be a clip from my skydiving video. :cool:

Originally posted by Nomadic_Princess: Back to the topic though, now where did this sudden exhibitionism come from i wonder? I wondered the same thing a few days ago. It's infectious too and you may be itching to drop the pixels on us. Have no fear woman. If you do it, maybe I'll do it. There's an almost nonexistent chance I'd post my picture in public.

Ibtisam, don't tear up your foreign sharci and stuff. You may find it too difficult to live in Hargeisa and may return faster than you thought possible. Virtually nothing is made in Somaliland so anything you import, you can sell. I don't want to sale qaad, or being a jaraita Don't worry, you'll face stiff competition from qaad sellers to make it not worth your effort. And I don't even want to know what a jaraita is. Best of luck. Send regular reports.

^ Aniguba waan sii caraabinayaa ee habeen wanaagsan dhalinyaro.

^ Saaxib you're an old soul. You're right Dabshid, it's dheri and not dhari. qarafaadhug? What the ...? I've no clue. None. Is it like faataa dhugleh? As in af miishaar? BTW, miishar comes from the arabic minshaar, as in saw, or chainsaw.