Church to burn copies of Koran to mark 9/11. The Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville asked other religious to stand "against the evil of Islam" / AP Source: AP A FLORIDA church was yesterday promoting an event where it will burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the U.S. In the announcement on its Facebook page, The Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida, asked other religious groups to join in standing "against the evil of Islam.
Islam is of the devil! " The Facebook event has received more than 1,500 "Like" recommendations by users, but had also been attacked with a number of threatening messages posted on the page and corresponding anti-Islam rants. The church's pastor, Terry Jones - who has written a book titled "Islam is of The Devil" and sells T-shirts bearing the same message - defended the controversial event. "Islam and Sharia law was responsible for 9/11," Jones told Agence France-Presse. Media conservatives "favor religious freedom," but ... August 05, 2010 8:55 am ET — 146 Comments Several prominent media conservatives have claimed to "favor religious freedom" while qualifying that claim in order to attack the Islamic community center and mosque set to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero, demanding that it be moved elsewhere in New York City.
Palin: "We're all about religious freedom, but" do it "down the road. " Discussing her opposition to the proposed Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin said: PALIN: I just think this is just one of the worst decisions that ever has been made that will adversely effect New York City. And those innocent victims, those families of those who were killed in the 9-11 tragedy, it saddens me to think that people don't understand what building this mosque at such hallowed ground really represents. Gingrich: "I favor religious freedom," but "there are over 100 mosques in New York City. " GINGRICH: Well, I think it's outrageous.
State of the States. TomDispatch. Tom Engelhardt: Whose Hands? Whose Blood? Killing Civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Crossposted with TomDispatch.com. Consider the following statement offered by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference last week. He was discussing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks as well as the person who has taken responsibility for the vast, still ongoing Afghan War document dump at that site. "Mr. Assange,” Mullen commented, “can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” Now, if you were the proverbial fair-minded visitor from Mars (who in school civics texts of my childhood always seemed to land on Main Street, U.S.A., to survey the wonders of our American system), you might be a bit taken aback by Mullen’s statement.
Mullen was still chairman in April 2009 when members of the family of Awal Khan, an Afghan army artillery commander on duty elsewhere, were killed in a U.S. The Lunatic’s Manual : ICH - Information Clearing House. Barry Eisler: Militarization and the Authoritarian Right. Yes, former Bush administration speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen's demand that "WikiLeaks Must Be Stopped" is, as his colleague Eva Rodriguez notes, "more than a little whacky. " But it's useful, too, because an infatuation with the notion of using the military in non-military operations, particularly domestic ones, is a key aspect of the modern American right and of the rightwing authoritarian personality. Examining Thiessen is a good way to understand both. Thiessen lays out his premise in his first sentence: "WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a criminal enterprise. " The premise is silly -- unless the Washington Post -- for whom Thiessen writes, and every other news organization that seeks and publishes leaks -- is a criminal enterprise, too.
Apparently Thiessen didn't bother to read 18 USC 793, which he cites as the basis for his opinion about criminality, citing it instead just to sound authoritative. PostPartisan - A final warning to WikiLeaks? War Crime Whistleblower in Obama’s Sights, War Criminals Not. Printer-friendly version The Obama administration is even more fixated on secrecy than its Republican predecessor, whose crimes go unpunished and in many case, repeated.
The continuity of the two war-making regimes is obvious. As it turns out, there are only so many ways to run “the world’s greatest killing machine” – and they are all mass murderous. War Crime Whistleblower in Obama’s Sights, War Criminals Not by Paul Street This article previously appeared in Znet. “The new leak of classified documents suggests a murderous empire that is out of control, compelled to kill and kill again like a pitiless Mafia Don in order to create an illusion of success.” Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22 year old U.S. It might seem odd to some that the Obama White House is going after Manning and not the war criminals Manning may have helped expose. This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Obama’s Response to the WikiLeaks War Logs: Deplore, Downplay, and (Yet) Exploit “If Only He Knew” 1. 2.
Julian Assange, monk of the online age who thrives on intellectual battle | Media | The Observer. How many people had even heard of WikiLeaks a week ago? Or Julian Assange? And yet, seven days after the biggest intelligence leak of all time – the publication of over 75,000 files amounting to an entire history of the Afghanistan war – he is everywhere; in every newspaper, on every news broadcast, in what appears to be every country in the world.
It's been an extraordinary week for WikiLeaks, which has seen the entrance on to the world stage of a remarkable new character: Assange, a man who, even friends and supporters admit, looks "a bit like a Bond villain". Could it be the week that changed the war in Afghanistan? It's possible, if the revelations contained in the files swing popular and then political opinion. At the very least, they've triggered a whole new debate about the future course of the conflict. By last Wednesday, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan had branded Assange "irresponsible". "It would be a bit silly for me but I'm tempted to. "Is it clear? " Maybe. Diary: Julian Assange Vs. The Basturds. WikiLeaks Puts Afghanistan Back on Media Agenda. By Mark Jurkowitz, Associate Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism The war in Afghanistan — a subject that has generated periodic spikes in media interest but not a high level of sustained coverage — was back atop the mainstream news agenda last week.
And this time, the catalyst was neither violence on the ground nor deliberations in Washington, but the leak of about 90,000 classified war reports by a whistleblower website. Driven by WikiLeaks’ dissemination of those documents — which highlighted the difficult challenges faced by NATO forces — Afghanistan led the news for the week of July 26-Aug. 1, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Taken together, coverage of the WikiLeaks saga and the overall war effort combined to fill 19% of the newshole.
Afghanistan coverage has generally followed a roller-coaster trajectory in the past year. The WikiLeaks story triggered a renewed debate over the wisdom of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. U.S. Wikileaks: The National-Security State strikes back « Later On. Afghanistan: The war logs | World news. Iran poised to fill vacuum after U.S. withdrawal. By Richard Engel, NBC chief foreign correspondent BAGHDAD - Every conversation I have in Iraq these days reaches back in history. When I ask policemen, government officials or Iraqi journalists what they think will happen after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of this month, our discussions inevitably become two-hour examinations of Islamic and Middle Eastern history. This is not simply an American pullout. Here August 2010 is seen as a turning point for Iraq. The biggest concern many Iraqis seem to have is that the U.S. combat withdrawal will leave a power vacuum that will be filled by Iraq’s traditional rival and longtime enemy, Persian Iran.
For seven years the United States has exerted its influence in Iraq bluntly, sending in troops, tanks and contractors. Iran’s strategy to influence its neighbor has been slower, cheaper, but also effective. Five centuries years later, many Iraqis believe Iran has played a similar game with the United States in Iraq. TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect. Wyoming most conservative state, D.C. most liberal (though it's not a state) | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times. Get out your U.S. map and your favorite red and blue crayons. Color in red that big square of Wyoming (kids, it's the one above the four squarish states on the left side of the map). The home state of the lovable Dick Cheney is the most conservative in the union, with 53% of respondents saying they're conservative, according to a recent Gallup poll. The pollsters asked more than 90,000 to identify their political beliefs during the first half of this year.
The most liberal state is not actually a state at all. The District of Columbia, where a Democratic president, his Democratic cabinet and the Democrat-heavy Congress does their work, has the most liberals, with 42% identifying as such. Behind Washington in the liberal rankings is a bunch of tiny northeastern states -- Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts. After Wyoming on the conservative list is Mississippi, which also has about 53% conservatives. -- Mark Miliantwitter.com/markmilian. Cheney still hospitalized « Under the Mountain Bunker & Coffee Shop. WASHINGTON — Former US vice president Dick Cheney is out of intensive care but still in hospital more than five weeks after being admitted for his latest heart problems, his daughter said Sunday.
Last month doctors implanted a pump that improves heart function in the 69-year-old Cheney at a hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, in the Washington suburbs. He was admitted late June. (AFP) Like this: Like Loading... Cheney hoping to leave hospital this week. ‘Ethics’ violations: What about Bush & Cheney? Published Aug 4, 2010 10:16 PM One of the first things the Bush-Cheney administration did on taking office in 2001 was to set up a super-secret energy task force. Oil and gas company executives descended on the White House for hush-hush conclaves with Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials.
The individuals and their companies were never named publicly. In fact, when environmental groups sued to find out the particulars of these meetings, the administration successfully defended its right to keep them secret, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The rest is history. Iraq was pulverized and taken over by the Pentagon in a war and occupation that were planned in the early days of the administration and had nothing to do with 9/11. Both Bush and Cheney owe their fortunes and their political careers to the energy companies. On both these earth-shaking issues — war and environmental pollution — the U.S. The U.S. We now have the answer. Halliburton balks at telling U.S. early of major deals.