Reprehensible…Is there a reason that they don’t trust the Iraqi newspapers to print accurate reports?

The US secretly pays Iraqi newspapers to run stories by US military information operations troops, the LA Times reports. Meet the Lincoln Group: As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish…

[War and Piece]

I’m glad that the EU and GB aren’t backing down on this.  If the Administration doesn’t listen to the people, the Congress or the media, maybe when the Coalition starts to fall apart, they’ll listen to world leaders!

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday it had asked the United States to respond to media reports that the CIA is running secret jails in Eastern Europe and covertly flying prisoners through airports in the European Union.

[Reuters: Politics News]

Should I ever feel the need to create a list of enemies to America, Mr. O’Reilly, I’ll add you to it.

Bill O’Reilly on the Today Show this morning:

These pin-heads running around going, “Get out of Iraq now” don’t know what they are talking about. These are the same people before Hitler invaded in WWII that were saying, “He’s not such a bad guy.” They don’t get it.

Watch it:

(QuickTime Streaming)

Of course, the most prominent person calling for withdrawing from Iraq now is decorated Vietnam veteran Rep. Jack Murtha.

[Think Progress]

 You’ve got to be kidding me…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) — Men arrested at what a United Arab Emirates official said appeared to be a gay wedding are to be given hormone therapy, officials said on Tuesday.

The U.S. State Department condemned the forced medical treatment of gay couples in the Muslim Gulf Arab state and called on the UAE to comply with international legal standards.

[CNN.com - World]

Who needs history when Fox News and the White House political machine can change things years after they happened… 

In a stunning display of historical revisionism, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace argued this morning that President Bush never tried to link al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein:

[T]hat specific quote there where you say he couldn’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, he wasn’t saying that they were linked at all. He was saying one was as bad as the other, and when he said in that same answer something about that Saddam Hussein would like to use a terrorist network, he wasn’t saying that they would like to use al Qaeda. So you’re making a link there that the President never made.

Wallace focused on a single statement President Bush made on September 25, 2002. (“[Y]ou can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”) But that statement was part of a series of statements that intentionally and explicitly linked Saddam and al Qaeda in the lead up to war. For example, this statement by Bush on February 8, 2003:

Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraqhas also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

Virtually none of that was true. The administration’s hand picked weapons inspector, David Kay, concluded “We simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all.” But to pretend that President Bush never made an effort to link Saddam and al-Qaeda is incredibly irresponsible, even for Fox.

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video.

UPDATE II: Low on the Hog catalogues all the times Bush linked Saddam and al-Qaeda.

Related…

[Think Progress]

 One corrupt politician down…Many to go.

Cunningham DeLay Frist Rove Rumsfeld Cheney Abramhoff … And that’s just off of the top of my head!

The repugnant Duke Cunningham — who was involved as well in the old Tailhook scandal — has finally resigned his House seat after admitting that he took bribes. An Associated Press report just posted on the New York Times website:…

 [The Washington Note]

 We Can Work It Out
(Lennon/McCartney)

 Lead vocals: John & Paul

~~~

Try to see it my way,
Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?
While you see it your way,
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.

Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we may fall apart before too long.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.

I’m impressed with the EU’s gall on this. Impressed and I agree. Torture and secret prisons and prison ships and CIA flights and all this shadowy and dark and mysterious stuff ain’t right. No nation should be allowed to do the things that the U.S. has done without repercussions. I will be surprised if the EU doesn’t begin to initiate trade sanctions on the U.S. until there’s been a full disclosure and accounting for every captured or detained individual to the U.N.

You know, Anakin Skywalker didn’t know he was evil until it was too late. Perhaps, the U.S. has accidentally fallen to the Dark Side…

The European Union’s justice commissioner Monday said that any bloc nation found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

[FOXNews.com - Politics]

 If Shimon Peres joins the centrist (Kadima or Forward) party along with Mr. Sharon, perhaps there’s a solid possibility that Israel will move to a more logical and more central political stance…Perhaps, there may be Israeli/Palestinian peace in my lifetime…Something that I really never ever thought was a realistic idea…

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres may leave the Labor Party that ousted him as its leader and join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s new centrist list, a spokesman for Peres said on Monday.

[Reuters: International]

 Finally, something that makes sense from the Vatican…

“The horror of events unfolding in Darfur … points to the need for a stronger international resolve to ensure security and basic human rights,” the Pope told Gabriel Zubeir Wako at a meeting in the Vatican.

[Reuters: International]