Children of Iraq

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm

Sometimes I HATE when I'm right.

Damn.
According to the New Yorker:

"The President has signed a series of findings and executive

orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special

Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected

terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East

and South Asia.



The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations

off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.

Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be

authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate

and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after

a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A.

domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.)

'The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to

Congress,' the former high-level intelligence official said.

'They don’t even call it "covert ops"—it’s too close to the C.I.A.

phrase. In their view, it’s "black reconnaissance." They’re not

even going to tell the cincs'—the regional American military

commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House

did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic

target was Iran. 'Everyone is saying, "You can’t be serious about

targeting Iran. Look at Iraq," the former intelligence official

told me.' But they say, 'We’ve got some lessons learned—not

militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely

on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of

there.'"



The link to the full article can be found here: 

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact

Iran in 2005, Bush sucks.

I have been saying this for at least a year now, but I want to post it, for the record.
Mark my words. During Bush's second term, I believe that we will find a way to bring Iran into the melee.
51% of America voted for Bush, so it apparently doesn't take a great stretch of truth to sway us as a country. Who needs an excuse anyway? All we know is that they don't look like us and their culture is different. Apparently that's all it takes for us to be afraid.

Didn't anyone read Animal Farm, Watership Down, the Lord of the Flies, 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 in school? Doesn't anyone remember Vietnam, and the Cold War?
We suffer from a disease commonly known as a mixture of fear and apathy, and it's what making us vote ourselves into an early grave.

Do yourself a favor. If you haven't yet, read George Orwell's 1984. We have our two-minute hate with Osama bin Laden, and Big Brother is definitely in full force via the Patriot Act. "War is Peace" is the equivalent to "War on Terror". "Freedom is Slavery"- how many times have you heard Bush proclaim that Freedom itself is being attacked? He's using the idea to justify tapping our phones, keeping files of personal information and health records, and can literally shut down our identities with the Patriot Act by seizing all assets and freezing all accounts. They can also hold us for an obscene amount of time without processing.

During his first inaugural parade, Bush's limo was hit with eggs.
Today at Bush's 2nd inauguration, during the end of his oath of office/speech, you could clearly hear the chanting of protestors outside.

I don't want to see the middle east ripped apart, and I don't want to lose my American rights to a man whose oral skills rival that only of a pre-schooler.