for Curious1

curious1
10 hours ago

Your ranting, How old are you anyway?

"It figures you wont watch it but I'm sure you will have many negative comments on it. You will be one of the liberals yelling the loudest. I guess you will get your information on what he says from one of the liberal websites..Probably michael moore's."

Who is michael moore? Did he write some books?
Have you read "The Truth by Al Franken"?
How about "the Sept. 11th report by Congress"?
Or "Against all Enemies by Richard Clark, good read.
ooooooops, you don't read do you?
BTW, I get all my news from WOSU and PBS not Conservative Bias News Papers and TV.
BTWW, I am still waiting on your list of Constitutional scholars who say the President "acted within the law" on NSA wire tapping.

State of the Union, lie #999

The Economy is great, things are looking up. Stay the course of Deficit spending in Washington.

To finance the increased spending, Americans dipped further into their savings, pushing the savings rate for all of 2005 into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent. That was the lowest annual savings rate since a decline of 1.5 percent in 1933, a year in which the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression.

numbers for 2004 Fraud Elections

Link for 2004 Presidential Election numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004

State of the Union address

Will you watch the “State of the Union” Address?

No. I do not waste my time listening to propaganda. It is also not one of my favorite pass times to listen to the Republican Congress and Bu$h cronies clap in agreement.

Many followed Hitler blindly some even to there death. Hitler was short. Hitler was not very smart.
Hitler wanted to rule the world by force. Hitler wanted his race to be the master race. Hitler also had no conscience. Hitler in his final madness ordered the death of 1.5 million who did not agree.
Under Hitler there was no voice of descent.

More on spying

The monitoring is not as simple as Bush, his aides and administration officials have explained, Pelosi said. She said Congress must have a full set of facts in hearings to determine "how far down the road" the administration went.
For example, Pelosi did not know if a reporter covering the war in Iraq would be caught in the surveillance net.
A Senate hearing on the program is set for Feb. 6. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has written Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the former White House counsel, about subjects he wants to see addressed:
_Why did the White House not ask Congress for changes to a 1978 foreign surveillance law?
_Why didn't the administration go to an established intelligence court to get approval for the monitoring?
_Will the White House consider doing that now?
Gonzales has agreed to answer questions about the legal basis of the program, but not its operations.
Pelosi tried to walk carefully between making a case for national security and protecting civil liberties.
She rejected recent comments by Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, that Pelosi and Democratic Party leader Howard Dean would want the NSA to hang up when terrorists dial their sleeper cells.
"It is a disservice to a very serious debate about security and liberty for him to resort to that kind of a statement," Pelosi said.

note to Curious1

your ranting was,

" Just as many scholars say he didnt. I guess we'll see wont we?"

BTW, you never did produce your list of scholars who say he did not break the law, i'm still waiting. I would be interested in seeing your list. The truth will always find you out.

Small minds used by Little people

Question on Yahoo,

Are there any other religions that PROMOTE killing of innocent human beings other than islam?

My Answer,
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Yes. Ours. In Iraq over 30,000 civilians have been killed. It is not known how many were "terrorist", it is known that none were Bin Laden. He is in Afghanistan not Iraq, Ooooooops, wrong Country.
BTW, the UN says it was more like 500,000 civilians since Desert Storm when Iraq surrendered.
What religions would Invade a defenseless Country, that had already surrendered?
Curious1 (unknown of course) reply,

I picked ur answer only so i could repsond.
As usual you start ranting instead of reading the question carefully and answering appropriately. My question was what RELIGION...not what country. You are so biased and indomitable that you cant read the question rationly and correctly.

Ooooooohhhhh, indomitable, am I to be impressed?
Yes I agree, I am unconquerable, thanks for the complement. The truth always finds you out.
we are done now, I have no time for those who are not well educated and do not read books and become well informed. I also have no time for those who refuse to seek out the truth.

A long history of lies

By Mark Mazzetti, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A secret U.S. military program that pays Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the American mission appears to violate a 2003 Pentagon directive, according to a newly declassified document released Thursday.

The information campaign run by U.S. troops in Baghdad and a Washington-based private contractor is the subject of a high-level military investigation. Last month, the top U.S. general in Iraq said a preliminary investigation into the program had found it did not violate U.S. law or Pentagon regulations.
A secret directive on the Pentagon's information operations policy released Thursday, however, appears to prohibit U.S. troops from conducting psychological operations, or psy-ops, targeting the media.

"Psy-op is restricted by both DoD [Department of Defense] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets," says the directive, dated Oct. 30, 2003, and signed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

But one senior Pentagon official said that based on the wording in the directive, the operation seemed to violate Pentagon policy.

"It's clearly a violation based on the language used in the Rumsfeld document," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly on the issue.

Since early last year, the military's Information Operations Task Force in Baghdad has used private contractor Lincoln Group to plant stories in Iraqi media about U.S. and Iraqi military and rebuilding efforts.

It also has placed reports indicating that anti-insurgent sentiment is rising among Iraqi citizens.

American troops write articles, called storyboards, which are then delivered to the Iraqi staff of Lincoln Group. The staffers then translate the storyboards into Arabic and pay newspaper editors in Baghdad to run the articles.
U.S. law forbids the Pentagon from conducting propaganda efforts that target U.S. audiences. Yet many in the military say that the globalization of media, driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, makes it likely that information campaigns targeting foreign audiences find their way into U.S. media coverage.

That much is acknowledged in the 78-page document released Thursday, which says that "information for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and psy-op, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience."

The directive recommends that boundaries be established to ensure that U.S. military information operations don't target U.S. audiences directly. It does not say what the boundaries should be.

The document was written to set out policy guidelines and establish the Pentagon's reasoning for elevating information operations to a "core" mission for the U.S. military, Pentagon officials say.

"Information, always important in warfare, is now critical to military success and will only become more so in the foreseeable future," the document says.

Economic Growth Slows

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter to the weakest pace in three years as consumers spent less robustly, growth in home building eased and businesses were less eager to boost investments, a government report on Friday showed.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity within U.S. borders, advanced at a surprisingly weak 1.1 percent annual rate in the October-December period -- little more than a quarter of the third quarter's 4.1 percent rate and the weakest for any three months since 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002.
The softer-than-anticipated data shocked financial markets, prompting a decline in the dollar's value and a jump in bond prices as investors prepared to shift assets from stocks into debt securities.
Fourth-quarter growth was far weaker than the 2.8 percent rate that Wall Street economists had forecast and reflected widespread softness.
Consumer spending, which fuels two-thirds of national economic activity, slowed to a 1.1 percent rate of growth, sharply below the third-quarter rate and the weakest since a 1 percent gain in second quarter of 2001. Spending on costly durable goods, which include cars and other items intended to last three years or more, plunged at a 17.5 percent rate.
That was the steepest drop in durables spending in nearly 19 years, since a 23.2 percent fall in the first quarter of 1987.

Hillary Speaks the truth

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called President Bush's explanations for eavesdropping on domestic conversations without warrants "strange" and "far-fetched" Wednesday in blistering criticism ahead of the president's State of the Union address. "Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way," the New York Democrat said.
Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, told reporters she did not yet know whether the administration's warrantless eavesdropping broke any laws. But the senator said she did not buy the White House's main justification for the tactic.
"Their argument that it's rooted in the authority to go after al-Qaida is far-fetched," she said in an apparent reference to a congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. The Bush administration has argued that the resolution gave the president authority to order such electronic surveillance as part of efforts to protect the nation from terrorists.
"Their argument that it's rooted in the Constitution inherently is kind of strange because we have FISA and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission," she said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established by Congress to approve eavesdropping warrants, even retroactively, but Bush has argued that the process often takes too long.
Polls suggest the public is divided on whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications, a practice that has drawn criticism from many congressional Democrats, human rights and civil liberties groups. Bush and his political team have signaled that the eavesdropping program will be a campaign issue in November, part of a broader strategy to cast Democrats as weak on terrorism.

"We are shifting costs and shifting risks on to individuals and families and local governments," Clinton said. "Mayors, you're on your own to protect citizens. Senior citizens who were promised a prescription drug benefit are on their own to figure out how to access the complicated and confusing program. Three-and-a-half million children who will be affected by cuts to Medicaid are on their own."

Troops thin

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.
"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army's condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report's chapters, "The Thin Green Line."
He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.
Col. Lewis Boone, spokesman for Army Forces Command, which is responsible for providing troops to war commanders, said it would be "a very extreme characterization" to call the Army broken. He said his organization has been able to fulfill every request for troops that it has received from field commanders.
The Krepinevich assessment is the latest in the debate over whether the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn out the Army, how the strains can be eased and whether the U.S. military is too burdened to defeat other threats.

No one should be above the law

President Bush launched a new political campaign yesterday to defend his apparently illegal eavesdropping program with a speech in Kansas, where he said, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"1
There's a simple answer to that question: he wasn't briefing Congress.
Wiretapping Americans without a warrant appears to violate the Constitution and the president has admitted to doing just that.3 Here are checks on some of the things President Bush has been saying to defend his apparently illegal program:
This is not about tracking terrorists, it's about a potential breach of the Constitution. The administration says the spying program is narrow,4 and even said it's limited to people with ties to Al Qaeda.5 But the president already has the authority to track terrorists. Further, the New York Times reports the facts differently, saying the data was overwhelming and often led to innocent Americans.6
Republicans and Democrats believe the president may have broken the law. The White House is claiming that Democrats are the only ones objecting to the program7 However, Republicans like Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, John McCain and Arlen Specter have offered some of the harshest criticism of the program.8
Congress did not give the president authority to conduct the secret program. The White House has claimed the authority to conduct secret wiretaps because of a Congressional resolution passed after 9/11.9 The non-partisan Congressional Research Service found that the resolution didn't authorize the program,10 and found it "unlikely" that any court would agree with the White House's justifications.

Bu$h's and his cronies are telling big lies again

Follow this link.

The legal experts speak out.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650

Evil is as evil does

In order to defeat Evil you must first recognize evil for what it is. Neocons are Evil, a part of that are the "conservatives", so called majority. They have a agenda that is not in the best interest of the average working class person. Capitalists and Neocons and Conservatives are all the same but each a small part of the larger evil. Look at political donations. Follow the money, each contribution has a favor in return in the form of Government Legislation. The oil industry wrote the current National Energy policy. Congress rubber stamped.

The average persons opinion

Why do so many hate Bu$h? Yahoo questions,

President Bush breaks the law and desecrates the Constitution.

Consider the evidence: The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment," but Bush approves of extraordinary rendition, which allows suspects to be sent off to foreign regimes that condone cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. He thus circumvents the Geneva Conventions forbdding torture.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees "due process of law," but the secret prisons operated overseas by the CIA totally ignore the "presumption of innocence," and thus run roughshod over this right.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable search and seizure" unless there is "probable cause," but Bush authorizes electronic eavesdropping on all American citizens without the court-approved warrants required for domestic spying. He also violates the "separation of powers" principle when he commands the executive branch of the government to operate secretly, and evade the checks and balances of the judicial branch.

The Fourth Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their papers and effects," but Bush's reauthorization of the Patriot Act --- which allows the government access to medical and library records --- makes a shambles of this right to privacy. Since an Orvellian Big Brother might be spying on you, you had better not borrow Marx's "Communist Manifesto" from the local library.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of the accused to "a speedy trial" and the right "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation," but the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are held for indefinite periods without legal representation, and without even hearing the charges against them.

The First Amendment ensures freedom of the press, but Bush mocks that freedom when he denounces the media as "shameful" for reporting his illigal domestic surveillance, and when he threatens an investigation of The New York Times.
------------
He's a moron.
Source(s):
My thoughts.

Because most people hate liars, stupid people, tyrants or crooks. So, imagine how they feel about a stupid, liar, crook, tyrant!

Of course, there are actual IDIOTS who believe the war in Iraq had ANYTHING to do with 9/11. They should take reading lessons and read the newspapers. Then there are those who say the President is always right. Really, then maybe the German people should not be blamed, after all they just thought their Chancellor (Hitler) was right. THEN, the biggest hoot is when someone says Bush does not cater to special interests. He IS a special interest. He is the ultimate Manchurian Candidate. Sticking his finger in the air? He wouldn't even know how to do that unless Cheney told him how.

Read my lips. We are in Iraq for Haliburton.

Bin Laden is NOT in Iraq, and is still out there planning to kill us. 3000 Americans DIED while AND BECAUSE Bush ignored the SPECIFIC warnings of aircraft hitting buildings. 2200 MORE have died fighting in Iraq, 3000 miles from where Bin Laden was, is and remains.

Now he is spying on US, if we criticize his administration. Is this some people's idea of the USA? They ought to move to the USSR.

So, anyone with half a brain, ability to read and THINK, will detest Bush for being the worst enemy of the American Constitution and our freedoms that Bin Laden and his terror dogs ever could be.

Neocons put profit before people

silver seed to a new home
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn't get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, disputes the allegations about water problems at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi, even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails.
We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated," said a July 15, 2005, memo written by William Granger, the official for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary who was in charge of water quality in Iraq and Kuwait.
"The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River," Granger wrote in one of several documents. The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.
Sen. Byron Dorgan , D-N.D., who will chair the session, held a number of similar inquiries last year on contracting abuses in Iraq. He said Democrats were acting on their own because they had not been able to persuade Republican committee chairmen to investigate.
The company's former water treatment expert at Camp Junction City said that he discovered the problem last March, a statement confirmed by his e-mail the day after he tested the water.
While bottled water was available for drinking, the contaminated water was used for virtually everything else, including hand washing, laundry, bathing and making coffee, said water expert Ben Carter of Cedar City, Utah.
Another former Halliburton employee who worked at the base, Ken May of Louisville, said there were numerous instances of diarrhea and stomach cramps — problems he also suffered.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton said its own inspection found neither contaminated water nor medical evidence to substantiate reports of illnesses at the base. The company now operates its own water treatment plant there, spokeswoman Melissa Norcross said.
A military medical unit that visited Camp Ramadi in mid-April found nothing out of the ordinary in terms of water quality, said Marine Corps Maj. Tim Keefe, a military spokesman. Water-quality testing records from May 23 show the water within normal parameters, he said.
"The allegations appear not to have merit," Keefe said.
Halliburton has contracts to provide a number of services to U.S. forces in Iraq and was responsible for the water quality at the base in Ramadi.
Granger's July 15 memo said the exposure had gone on for "possibly a year" and added, "I am not sure if any attempt to notify the exposed population was ever made."
The first memo on the problem — written by Carter to Halliburton officials on March 24, 2005 — was an "incident report" from tests Carter performed the previous day.
"It is my opinion that the water source is without question contaminated with numerous micro-organisms, including Coliform bacteria," Carter wrote. "There is little doubt that raw sewage is routinely dumped upstream of intake much less than the required 2 mile distance.
"Therefore, it is my conclusion that chlorination of our water tanks while certainly beneficial is not sufficient protection from parasitic exposure."
Carter said he resigned in early April after Halliburton officials did not take any action to inform the camp population.
The water expert said he told company officials at the base that they would have to notify the military. "They told me it was none of my concern and to keep my mouth shut," he said.
On at least one occasion, Carter said, he spoke to the chief military surgeon at the base, asking him whether he was aware of stomach problems afflicting people. He said the surgeon told him he would look into it.
"They brushed it under the carpet," Carter said. "I told everyone, 'Don't take showers, use bottled water."
A July 14, 2005, memo showed that Halliburton's public relations department knew of the problem.
"I don't want to turn it into a big issue right now," staff member Jennifer Dellinger wrote in the memo, "but if we end up getting some media calls I want to make sure we have all the facts so we are ready to respond."
Halliburton's performance in Iraq has been criticized in a number of military audits, and congressional Democrats have contended that the Bush administration has favored the company with noncompetitive contracts.

Oil and Money

Most of the 69 criminal investigations the CPAIG instigated related to alleged theft, fraud, waste, assault and extortion. It also investigated "a number of other cases that, because of their sensitivity, cannot be included in this report". One such case may have arisen when 19 billion new Iraqi dinars, worth about £6.5m, was found on a plane in Lebanon that had been sent there by the American-appointed Iraqi interior minister.
At the same time, the IAMB discovered that Iraqi oil exports were unmetered. Neither the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation nor the American authorities could give a satisfactory explanation for this. "The only reason you wouldn't monitor them is if you don't want anyone else to know how much is going through," one petroleum executive told me.
Officially, Iraq exported $10bn worth of oil in the first year of the American occupation. Christian Aid has estimated that up to $4bn more may have been exported and is unaccounted for. If so, this would have created an off-the-books fund that both the Americans and their Iraqi allies could use with impunity to cover expenditures they would rather keep secret - among them the occupation costs, which were rising far beyond what the Bush administration could comfortably admit to Congress and the international community.
In the few weeks before Bremer left Iraq, the CPA handed out more than $3bn in new contracts to be paid for with Iraqi funds and managed by the US embassy in Baghdad. The CPA inspector general, now called the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir), has just released an audit report on the way the embassy has dealt with that responsibility. The auditors reviewed the files of 225 contracts totalling $327m to see if the embassy "could identify the current value of paid and unpaid contract obligations".

Iraq money missing

At the end of the Iraq war, vast sums of money were made available to the US-led provisional authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, to spend on rebuilding the country. By the time Bremer left the post eight months later, $8.8bn of that money had disappeared. Ed Harriman on the extraordinary scandal of Iraq's missing billions.

When Paul Bremer, the American pro consul in Baghdad until June last year, arrived in Iraq soon after the official end of hostilities, there was $6bn left over from the UN Oil for Food Programme, as well as sequestered and frozen assets, and at least $10bn from resumed Iraqi oil exports. Under Security Council Resolution 1483, passed on May 22 2003, all these funds were transferred into a new account held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, called the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), and intended to be spent by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) "in a transparent manner ... for the benefit of the Iraqi people".

The US Congress also voted to spend $18.4bn of US taxpayers' money on the redevelopment of Iraq.
By June 28 last year, however, when Bremer left Baghdad two days early to avoid possible attack on the way to the airport, his CPA had spent up to $20bn of Iraqi money, compared with $300m of US funds. The "reconstruction" of Iraq is the largest American-led occupation programme since the Marshall Plan - but the US government funded the Marshall Plan.
Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer have made sure that the reconstruction of Iraq is paid for by the "liberated" country, by the Iraqis themselves.
The CPA maintained one fund of nearly $600m cash for which there is no paperwork: $200m of it was kept in a room in one of Saddam's former palaces. The US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.
The "financial irregularities" described in audit reports carried out by agencies of the American government and auditors working for the international community collectively give a detailed insight into the mentality of the American occupation authorities and the way they operated. Truckloads of dollars were handed out for which neither they nor the recipients felt they had to be accountable.
The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution.
They have also discovered that $8.8bn that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it has gone. A further $3.4bn appropriated by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance "security".
Although Bremer was expected to manage Iraqi funds in a transparent manner, it was only in October 2003, six months after the fall of Saddam, that an International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) was established to provide independent, international financial oversight of CPA spending. (This board includes representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.)
The IAMB first spent months trying to find auditors acceptable to the US. The Bahrain office of KPMG was finally appointed in April 2004. It was stonewalled.
KPMG has encountered resistance from CPA staff regarding the submission of information required to complete our procedures," they wrote in an interim report. "Staff have indicated ... that cooperation with KPMG's undertakings is given a low priority." KPMG had one meeting at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance; meetings at all the other ministries were repeatedly postponed. The auditors even had trouble getting passes to enter the Green Zone.
There appears to have been good reason for the Americans to stall. At the end of June 2004, the CPA would be disbanded and Bremer would leave Iraq. There was no way the Bush administration would want independent auditors to publish a report into the financial propriety of its Iraqi administration while the CPA was still in existence and Bremer at its head still answerable to the press. So the report was published in July.
The auditors found that the CPA didn't keep accounts of the hundreds of millions of dollars of cash in its vault, had awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to American firms without tender, and had no idea what was happening to the money from the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was being spent by the interim Iraqi government ministries.
This lack of transparency has led to allegations of corruption. An Iraqi hospital administrator told me that when he came to sign a contract, the American army officer representing the CPA had crossed out the original price and doubled it. The Iraqi protested that the original price was enough. The American officer explained that the increase (more than $1m) was his retirement package.
When the Iraqi Governing Council asked Bremer why a contract to repair the Samarah cement factory was costing $60m rather than the agreed $20m, the American representative reportedly told them that they should be grateful the coalition had saved them from Saddam. Iraqis who were close to the Americans, had access to the Green Zone or held prominent posts in the new government ministries were also in a position personally to benefit enormously. Iraqi businessmen complain endlessly that they had to offer substantial bribes to Iraqi middlemen just to be able to bid for CPA contracts. Iraqi ministers' relatives got top jobs and fat contracts.
Further evidence of lack of transparency comes from a series of audits and reports carried out by the CPA's own inspector general's office (CPAIG). Set up in January 2004, it reports to Congress. Its auditors, accountants and criminal investigators often found themselves sitting alone at cafe tables in the Green Zone, shunned by their CPA compatriots. Their audit, published in July 2004, found that the American contracts officers in the CPA and Iraqi ministries "did not ensure that ... contract files contained all the required documents, a fair and reasonable price was paid for the services received, contractors were capable of meeting delivery schedules, or that contractors were paid in accordance with contract requirements".
Pilfering was rife. Millions of dollars in cash went missing from the Iraqi Central Bank. Between $11m and $26m worth of Iraqi property sequestered by the CPA was unaccounted for. The payroll was padded with hundreds of ghost employees. Millions of dollars were paid to contractors for phantom work. Some $3,379,505 was billed, for example, for "personnel not in the field performing work" and "other improper charges" on just one oil pipeline repair contract.

Congress has a sworn duty in oversite

If you want some more information on this issue, here's a briefing on what the Bush administration has said—and what the truth is. As you can see, they're pretty far apart on this issue.

1.

They have claimed this unauthorized wiretap on phone calls and email was legal because of Congressional resolution.8
WRONG: Congress has passed no resolution allowing the president to ignore the 4th Amendment and spy on Americans.9 Moreover, Congress explicitly denied this right to the administration.10
2.

Then they claimed that they did it because they needed to act swiftly.11
WRONG: Current law allows immediate wiretaping, with up to three days after the tap to get the official court order. 12
3.

They claimed that Congress was fully briefed and knowledgeable on the program.13
WRONG: Only a handful of Congressional leaders were briefed on the program. Those who attended briefings were ordered to keep quiet about it.14 When Congressional leaders submitted concerns to Vice President Cheney's office about the program, there was no response. 15 Now, it also seems that the administration wasn't forthcoming on major parts of the program.16
4.

They argued that the administrative overhead is too high.17
WRONG: Too much 'paperwork' is not an excuse to break the laws of the land. If it did prove to be too difficult, the president could have sought to fix the law; after all, that's what the Patriot Act is all about.
5.

They said that the spying program was narrow and limited.18
WRONG: A New York Times article about the program reports that the data from the eavesdropping program was 'swamping investigators.' "The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month. But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans."19
6.

The president said the person who leaked the spy program to the New York Times caused great harm to our security and now the Justice Department is involved in an investigation to discover their identity.20
WRONG: Anyone who brings illegal and unconstitutional activity to light is just doing their job—upholding the laws of the land. Our nation has a rich history of protecting whistleblowers—they are heroes who keep our democracy strong.
7.

The administration is now attacking the Clinton-Gore White House by saying they also engaged in warrantless searches of Aldrich Ames' home.
WRONG: The Clinton White House never violated the law in its searches. Warrants were not required for physical searches at that time, and Clinton supported and signed legislation changing the law to require warrants.21

Sources:

1. "Bush: Secret wiretaps won't stop," CNN.com, December 20, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/19/bush/

2. "Official: Bush Authorized Spying Multiple Times," Associated Press, December 16, 2005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10488458/

3. "Report Rebuts Bush on Spying," Washington Post, January 7, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1373

4. "Specter: Bush has no `Blank Check' to Spy," Chicago Tribune, January 16, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1384

5. The Situation Room, CNN, January 16, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1374

6. "Real Oversight on the War on Terrorism," San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1375

7. "Bush Vigorously Defends Domestic Spying," CBS News, December 19, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1376

neocon agenda headed for court

The following statement can be attributed to ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero:

"President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens. But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss. Our nation is strengthened, not weakened, by those whistleblowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law."

"To avoid further charges of cronyism, Attorney General Gonzales should call off the investigation. Better yet, Mr. Gonzales ought to fulfill his own oath of office and appoint a special counsel to determine whether federal laws were violated."

neocon attacks on the Constitution...

President Bush breaks the law and desecrates the Constitution.

Consider the evidence: The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment," but Bush approves of extraordinary rendition, which allows suspects to be sent off to foreign regimes that condone cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. He thus circumvents the Geneva Conventions forbdding torture.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees "due process of law," but the secret prisons operated overseas by the CIA totally ignore the "presumption of innocence," and thus run roughshod over this right.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable search and seizure" unless there is "probable cause," but Bush authorizes electronic eavesdropping on all American citizens without the court-approved warrants required for domestic spying. He also violates the "separation of powers" principle when he commands the executive branch of the government to operate secretly, and evade the checks and balances of the judicial branch.

The Fourth Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their papers and effects," but Bush's reauthorization of the Patriot Act --- which allows the government access to medical and library records --- makes a shambles of this right to privacy. Since an Orvellian Big Brother might be spying on you, you had better not borrow Marx's "Communist Manifesto" from the local library.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of the accused to "a speedy trial" and the right "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation," but the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are held for indefinite periods without legal representation, and without even hearing the charges against them.

The First Amendment ensures freedom of the press, but Bush mocks that freedom when he denounces the media as "shameful" for reporting his illigal domestic surveillance, and when he threatens an investigation of The New York Times.

Neocons agenda, blunder #999

Neocons were so busy paying drug Companies off for the Campaign contributions they forgot to make the $billions spent on Medicare reform a real working program for all Americans. Is this the Big Government take over of Health Care they accused Clinton and Hillary of when they demonized there plan?

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer Sat Jan 14, 1:16 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Tens of thousands of elderly poor people may have had trouble getting their medicine during the first two weeks of the government's prescription drug benefit, and about 20 states have been forced to step in to help them, the top Medicare official acknowledges.
The problems will be fixed, pledged Mark McClellan, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in an interview with The Associated Press.
In some cases, people are not showing up in databases as being enrolled in a plan. When they do show up, many people are being told they need to pay hundreds of dollars before they can get their medicine. Instead, they should owe only nominal amounts.
"I'm working with the states, with the plans, with all of our partners to make sure people get the prescriptions they need," McClellan said Friday.
Under the program, about 42 million disabled and older people are eligible to enroll in private plans that will subsidize their prescription drug costs. Millions of prescriptions have been filled without trouble, McClellan said, but there is growing concern that some of the poorest beneficiaries cannot get their medicine.
Some advocacy groups say they believe McClellan underestimated the problems.
"We could see the problems coming. We expressed concern, and it was just pooh-poohed. Now, our worst fears have been realized," said Jeanne Finberg, a lawyer with the National Senior Citizens Law Center, which is based in Oakland, Calif.
The problems go beyond technical difficulties, such as when computer databases fail to note that a beneficiary is enrolled in a plan. In some cases, private plans are just not following guidelines established for their participation.
The plans are not issuing emergency supplies as required and they have set up prohibited restrictions on the types of medicine that beneficiaries can get during the first weeks of the program, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
"Relapse, re-hospitalization and disruption of essential treatment are some of the consequences of the bureaucratic nightmare," said the association's president, Steven S. Sharfstein. "I commend those states and other jurisdictions that have taken steps to assure that patients receive their medications in a timely manner."
McClellan said he has directed plans providing drug coverage to make it easier for pharmacists to resolve questions about a beneficiary.
"I've been in touch with the health plans today and they are setting up expedited processes for pharmacists to contact a plan without waiting in a long queue. The plans are setting up those systems right now," he said.
McClellan said plans were required to provide a 30-day supply of drugs, even if their plan does not cover a particular drug. In cases when a drug is not on the list, plans require pharmacists to get pre-authorization before dispensing the drug. Many plans are waiving the pre-authorization requirements, he said.
The agency also updated information on Friday so pharmacists can more quickly reach plans, McClellan said.
McClellan also said he contacted several governors and the staff of the National Governor's Association this past week on how best to help beneficiaries. Some lawmakers have demanded that the federal government reimburse states for those efforts, but McClellan said the insurers and other businesses offering coverage would do that.
"The plans are getting paid additional amounts to provide the extra coverage for the dual eligible beneficiaries. It's a matter of reconciliation," he said. "If the state works with us ... we can send that information onto the plan so the plan reimburses the state for the difference."
Democratic lawmakers wrote Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt on Friday with dozens of questions about the new program.
"We want to know why so many of our constituents have fallen through the cracks during implementation of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and we urge you to take immediate action to correct the problems," the lawmakers said.
A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., sounded a more optimistic note.
"We are pleased with the successes of the program and are working with (the Health and Human Services Department) to resolve the problems, which will naturally occur when implementing a program of this magnitude," spokeswoman Amy Call. "But at the end of the day seniors will have better access to prescription drugs."
McClellan said Medicare also has caseworkers on hand for beneficiaries or pharmacists who are having trouble navigating the new benefit. They can call 1-800-Medicare for help, he said.

oooops, missed again

As everyone with any knowledge of politics knows Clinton tried twice to kill Osama Bin Laden, the last time he tried with a preditor and hell fire missle, Clinton missed twice.
It is not legal to order the Assination of anyone, even if we were at war. We are not at war, Only Congress can declare war and Congress has not done that.

By Mubashir Zaidi and Zulfiqar Ali, Special to the Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The government demanded an explanation today for a U.S. airstrike on a remote village near the Afghan border that Pakistani officials said missed Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader but killed a number of civilians, including women and children.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called the attack "highly condemnable," and demonstrations erupted in the border region near the scene of the Friday morning attack. A crowd that gathered at a local market shouted "God is Great!" and "Down with America!" Protesters ransacked foreign and govern aid organizations, damaging computers and setting furniture and motorcycles on fire.

U.S. officials in Washington said Friday that Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician who is Osama bin Laden's lieutenant, was the target of the attack. At least 18 people died in mudbrick homes that were destroyed by the blasts.

A U.S. intelligence official said today that it was "too early to tell" whether Zawahiri was killed or injured, or even if he was present at the time of the attack. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of ongoing counter-terrorism operations in South Asia.

But Pakistani officials insisted Zawahiri was not among the dead. The information minister said U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker would be summoned by government officials to explain the attack.

Time line of lies to support Iraq war

The Iraq on the Record database contains statements from the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on the Iraq war: President George Bush; Vice President Richard Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Colin Powell; and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
The statements in the database are drawn from 125 public statements or appearances in which the five officials discussed the threat posed by Iraq. The sources of the statements are 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements or articles, and 2 appearances before congressional committees. Quotes from the officials in newspaper articles or other similar secondary sources were not included in the database because of the difficulty of discerning the context of such quotes and ensuring their accuracy. Statements made by the officials before March 2002, one year before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq, were also not included.
The database contains statements about Iraq from the five officials that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. In compiling the database, the Special Investigations Division did not assess whether “subjectively” the officials believed a specific statement to be misleading. Instead, the investigators used an “objective” standard. For purposes of the database, a statement is considered “misleading” if it conflicted with what intelligence officials knew at the time or involved the selective use of intelligence or the failure to include essential qualifiers or caveats.

Source is: http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/

Wrong Priorities

America spends $453 billion on defense and our service men are short equiptment? Armor?

We spend more than twice all other countries on Earth added together, we have well over 2200 nukes.
Our service men ask relatives and friends for phone cards to call there family once a week, our service men are also asking where they can get help with personal products they need and can not afford to buy in Iraq. Our Ready Reserve has been told to pay there own expenses's. They had to file a law suit to get the Money they spent returned to them,

TIKRIT, Iraq - Soldiers exposed to Iraq's increasingly lethal roadside bombs, which can rip through armored Humvees, are drawing on wartime experience and stateside expertise to protect their vehicles with stronger armor and thermal detection cameras.
The upgrades are being done by individual soldiers and units as the Pentagon decides how Humvees should be changed, and follow public criticism of the Bush administration for not armoring all Humvees ahead of the war.
Nearly three years after rolling into Iraq in trucks covered in many instances only by canvas roofs, the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade is adding extra layers of armor to its Humvees.
Col. Michael Steele, the brigade's commander, said he ordered the improvements because the insurgents' roadside bombs — known to the military as "improvised explosive devices" — have become bigger and harder to detect.
"The responsibility of the commander is to figure out what we need to respond to this evolving threat. The easiest, the fastest and most appropriate answer is add additional armor," Steele said.
Iraqi insurgents are also using more anti-tank mines and making bombs that can penetrate the Humvee's current armor. Among the more deadly devices are explosives shaped to funnel a blast through Humvee plating — sophisticated bombs that officials suspect are being imported from neighboring countries like Iran.
Because additional armor won't always stop such explosives — one bomb destroyed an Abrams battle tank last month, for instance — a National Guard unit in Baghdad has added detection devices and other measures to protect its Humvees.

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has agreed to testify at a Senate hearing on the Bush administration's domestic spying program.
Gonzales said he responded to a request by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
Gonzales said Friday he will discuss the legal authority for the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping on telephone conversations between suspected terrorists and people in the United States.
The attorney general will not talk about operational aspects of the program at the hearing or divulge any secret information which would aid possible targets of surveillance.
The hearing is expected to take place early next month.

They serve when called

The proceedings mark a turning point in the Army's struggle to deploy thousands of soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve, a rarely mobilized group of reservists, to war zones in which some have resisted serving.
These are soldiers who had previously served on active duty but not completed their eight-year service obligation. Unlike those in the National Guard or Army Reserve, they are not required to stay in training. Many have requested a delay in returning to service, have asked to be exempted or have ignored their orders.
The Army began mobilizing them in the summer of 2004, reflecting the enormous strain it felt in providing enough soldiers for
Iraq at a time when it was becoming apparent that no early withdrawal was likely.
So far, mobilization orders have been issued for more than 5,700 IRR soldiers since mid-2004.
The Army announced that about 80 soldiers will face review panels, known as separation boards, although the number may grow. If the panels conclude they intentionally did not obey a mobilization order, they would face one of three levels of discharge from the service: honorable, general or other-than-honorable.
As of Dec. 11, the latest date for which the Army had figures, 3,954 IRR soldiers had reported for duty. In addition, more than 1,600 had been excused from duty and 463 had been sent orders but not yet reported. Of those 463, the Army has been unable to locate 383. The other 80 are the ones who now face discharge.
When the Army initially found that it was facing resistance from some IRR soldiers who did not want to get back in uniform, there was talk of declaring them AWOL and pursuing criminal charges against them. But that was deemed too harsh and the Army spent many months trying to contact those who were ignoring their orders.
In its announcement Monday, the Army said that in addition to those who have openly refused to report for duty, those who do not respond to repeated communications from the Army may face discharge proceedings.
Of the three possible types of discharge that an IRR soldier may face in these proceedings, the most severe is "other than honorable." While a soldier given an honorable or general discharge would continue to be eligible for payment for accrued leave, and for health benefits and burial in an Army national cemetery, those given an "other than honorable" discharge would not be.
Two even more severe types of discharge — bad conduct and dishonorable — will not be considered in the IRR cases, the Army said.
Last November the Army started a new policy that ended the practice of involuntary callups of officers in the IRR. The policy change affects 15,000 officers who completed their eight-year military service obligation but chose to stay in the IRR. These officers can now avoid being forced to serve on active duty, but only if they resign their commission. Previously, an officer could not resign once ordered to active duty.

Iraqi people, new poll numbers

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Most Iraqis disapprove of the presence of U.S. forces in their country, yet they are optimistic about future and their own personal lives, according to a new poll.
More than two-thirds of those surveyed oppose the presence of troops from the United States and its coalition partners and less than half, 44 percent, say their country is better off now than it was before the war, according to an ABC News poll conducted with Time magazine and other media partners.
But Iraqis are surprisingly upbeat on many fronts, the poll suggests.
Three-quarters say they are confident about the parliamentary elections scheduled for this week. More than two-thirds expect things in their country to get better in the coming months.
Attitudes about Iraq's future were sharply different in the Sunni provinces and other parts of Iraq, however. Only a third in the Sunni regions were optimistic about their country's future. Shiites, who with the Kurds dominate the current parliament, had a much more positive view than the Sunnis of their own personal safety and whether their own lives are going well.
A majority of both the Sunni and Shiite population say they favor a unified country, however.
In other poll findings:
_Two-thirds express confidence in the Iraqi army and in police.
_Half now say the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was wrong, up from 39 percent in February 2004.
_More than six in 10 say they feel safe in their neighborhoods, up from 40 percent in June 2004.
_Six in 10 say local security is good, up from half in February 2004.
But the national concern mentioned most often is security, named by 57 percent.
A fourth of those surveyed, 26 percent, say U.S. forces should leave now, and another 19 percent say troops should leave after those chosen in this week's election take office. The other half say U.S. troops should stay until security is restored, 31 percent, until Iraqi forces can operate independently, 16 percent, or longer, 5 percent.
The poll was conducted by Oxford Research International face-to-face with 1,711 Iraqis age 15 and over from Oct. 8 to Nov. 22. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Top of Form 1
Bottom of Form 1

What Iraqis want is the USA to leave.

The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;

• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;

• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;

• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;

• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;

• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

The report states that for Iraq as a whole, 45 per cent of people feel attacks are justified. In Basra, the proportion is reduced to 25 per cent.

The report profiles those likely to carry out attacks against British and American troops as being "less than 26 years of age, more likely to want a job, more likely to have been looking for work in the last four weeks and less likely to have enough money even for their basic needs".

The economy is good for the wealthy Neocons

WASHINGTON - The rush of indebted consumers to file bankruptcy before a tough new law took effect pushed personal filings for 2005 to their highest annual level on record — more than 2 million, according to new data.
Significant increases in consumer bankruptcy filings occurred in every region, according to the data released Wednesday by Lundquist Consulting Inc., a financial research firm based in Burlingame, Calif. It tallied 2,043,535 new filings last year, up 31.6 percent from 1,552,967 in 2004 — meaning that one in every 53 households filed bankruptcy petitions, according to the company.
The new law, bringing the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in a generation and making it harder to erase debts in bankruptcy, took effect on Oct. 17. In anticipation, personal bankruptcy filings jumped in September to the highest on record. They averaged more than 9,000 a day, up roughly 50 percent from 2004's average daily volume, during the first two weeks of September.
By contrast, Lundquist analysts noted a sharp drop in the number of filings since the Oct. 17 deadline. Within the smaller number overall, a greater proportion were made under Chapter 13 versus Chapter 7 of the code. Nearly 60 percent of filings made after Oct. 17 came under Chapter 13, compared with the usual 30 percent under the old regime, Lundquist said.
The new law bars those with above-average income from Chapter 7 — where debts can be wiped out entirely — except under special circumstances. Those deemed by a new "means test" to have at least $100 a month left over after paying certain debts and expenses now have to file instead a 5-year repayment plan under the more restrictive Chapter 13.
In November, for example, Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings plunged to 17,286 from 81,952 in November 2004, according to Lundquist. Chapter 13 filings were 9,201, compared with 34,865 a year earlier.
Total filings from Oct. 18 through Dec. 31 were around 38,000, representing fewer than 2 percent of all filings for the year, the firm said.
Filings in Ohio jumped 51.7 percent in 2005 to 135,142, making it the second-highest state in volume, the data showed. California was the highest, with 164,856, a 35.9 percent increase.

impeachment in the wind

If Pres. George Bush broke laws when ordering wiretaps and secret spying on U.S. citizens, a key Senate Democrat said he would not rule out calling for his impeachment.

"I think there is an orderly and dignified way to find out what happened," said Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. "And, if there was a legal violation there needs to be accountability ... you can't put the cart before the horse, but I would not rule out any form of accountability."

That would include impeachment, Feingold told reporters.

ACLU helps Neocons, again

ACLU goes to bat for the NeoCons, again

As most people know the ACLU is frequently attacked by conservative NeoCons, they also like to attack trial Lawyers in general for the frivolous law suits that clog up the courts. Hot Coffee spills and eggs not cooked right in prison, etc.. Most of us see right through this ploy. What NeoCons hate in truth is that poor Democrats sue Rich Republicans. There in lies the truth. The rich Doctor who killed your 79 year old Mother because of the Doctors negligence does not want to be held accountable by giving up his money to a Lawyer and his client. The rich Corporation who poisoned your Dad as a employee in the chemical industry does not want to be held accountable and give up money.
The rich want to be left free to do what they want, steal what they want and let you work in a poison full environment, or unsafe workplace, that is the truth.
In Akron Ohio a rich Republican put up a 32 square foot sign in his yard, supporting the Bu$h Cheney election. The law said “no political signs can be no bigger than 8 square foot”. The rich NeoCon did not agree with the law so he did what he wanted. The city of Akron took him to court and the court found him guilty, they fined him $2900. The ACLU took up the case as a “freedom of speech issue” and won at appeal to a higher court. Of Course the rich NeoCon thanked the ACLU and the city was considering appeal in a higher court.
The ACLU also took up the Limbaugh case to keep his medical records private when he got caught Doctor shopping for drugs. Limbaugh has attacked the ACLU for there frivolous laws suits.

good read

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (ret.), is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as assistant chief of staff for intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was military assistant to the president's assistant for national security affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:
1.We would leave behind a civil war.
2.We would lose credibility on the world stage.
3.It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.
4.Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.
5.Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.
6.Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq's neighbors.
7.Shi'ite-Sunni clashes would worsen.
8.We haven't fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.
9.Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/odom.php?articleid=7487