Along with adding Dunn’s big bat the White Sox also re-signed

Along with adding Dunn’s big bat the White Sox also re-signed Paul Konerko to a $37.5 million deal and avoided the temptation to trade Carlos Quentin, building another lineup capable of bashing opponents into submission with the help of a power-boosting home ballpark. Juan Pierre and Alex Rios will still do plenty of running, Police Sunglasses,but the White Sox once again look capable of topping 200 homers, which they did every season from 2000-2008 except 2007, when they went 72-90. Obviously it’ll take more than 200 homers to win the division, but the White Sox’s lineup is very dangerous and features a pair of 40-homer threats (Dunn, Konerko), a pair of 30-homer threats (Quentin, Rios), and a pair of 20-homer threats (Alexei Ramirez, Gordon Beckham) in addition to Pierre’s small-balling ways. So what else is going on?

In addition to restocking the lineup with a homers-and-walks monster the White Sox also rebuilt the bullpen after Bobby Jenks and J.J. Putz departed as free agents. Jesse Crain was lured away from the  Carrera Sunglasses, Twins with a $13 million deal and they promoted elite setup man Matt Thornton to the closer role while opting to keep stud rookie Chris Sale in the bullpen.

Toss inSergio Santos‘ successful transition from light-hitting shortstop to flame-throwing setup man and it’s a very strong late-inning quartet. Part of the reason for keeping Sale in the bullpen was the hope that Jake Peavy would be healthy enough to begin the season in the rotation, but now that plan is out the window and journeyman Philip Humber is penciled in as the No. 5 starter. Barring pitching coach Don Cooper pulling a miracle Humber and his 5.26 career ERA will struggle, but the front four ofMark Buehrle, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, and Edwin Jackson can carry the load and Peavy is currently hoping to return in late April. Beckham bouncing back from a disappointing sophomore season is a big key for the White Sox and I like his chances.

His star potential was likely overstated following a promising rookie year, but Beckham quietly recovered from an awful start to hit .310 with an .877 OPS after the All-Star break and is a good bet to improve his overall OPS from last season by at least 100 points. Position player depth should be a major strength, as Oakley Sunglasses, Ramon Castro is among the best backup catchers around, Teahen is a much better fit in a part-time role, Lastings Milledge was a strong low-cost pickup in the outfield, and Omar Vizquel has defied the odds by remaining productive into his 40s.

Toss in Dayan Viciedo waiting in the wings at Triple-A as a power-hitting replacement should anything happen to one of the corner bats and Chicago has the depth to withstand some injuries. You should follow Ozzie Guillen on Twitter. Just trust me. So how are they gonna do? This is going to sound like a broken record to anyone who Chanel Sunglasses also read my season previews of theTwins and Tigers, but the AL Central has three teams that look capable of winning 88-92 games and I fully expect the division race to go down to the wire. I’d peg Chicago as the division’s second-strongest team, but realistically it might as well be a three-way tie for co-favorites

 

Springtime Storylines: Can the White Sox slug their way to the AL Central title?

Between now and Opening Day, HBT will take a look at each of the 30 teams, asking the key questions, the not-so-key questions, and generally breaking down their chances for the 2011 season. Next up: Ozzie Guillen and his always entertaining White Sox.

 

For a brief time the White Sox had it in their heads that they should intentionally remove power from the lineup and try to play small ball, thinking that was somehow the key to consistently beating the Twins.

Last season that involved letting Fendi Sunglasses,  walk as a free agent (and sign with the Twins) while replacing him with a revolving door of designated hitters led by Mark Kotsay. Chicago played plenty of small ball, stealing the second-most bases in the league, but the White Sox also hit their fewest homers since 1999 and finished six games behind the Twins, much of which can be attributed to Ferragamo Sunglasses,  while the DHs replacing him ranked 10th in homers and 13th in RBIs.

General manager Kenny Williams learned his lesson, and while re-signing Thome wasn’t an option he did the next-best thing and signed the other king of lefty hitting power and patience,Roberto Cavalli Sunglasses, , to a $56 million deal. Thome spent three-and-a-half seasons in Chicago, hitting .265 with a .391 on-base percentage and .542 slugging percentage while averaging 38 homers and 103 walks per 150 games. During the past four seasons Dunn has hit .257 with a .382 on-base percentage and .533 slugging percentage while averaging 37 homers and 101 walks per 150 games. It’s a year too late, but they essentially have Thome back in the lineup.

Chris Davis wants a trade, but Rangers send him to Triple-A

Chris Davis MBT Baridi Shoes that he’d prefer the Rangers trade him if they weren’t going to give him a spot on the big-league roster and he may still get his wish before Opening Day, but for now at least Davis MBT Kisumu, .

He doesn’t really have anything left to prove in the minors, as he’s hit .328 with a .942 OPS in 178 games at Triple-A spread over parts of three seasons, but Davis also hasn’t impressed when given a chance with the Rangers and he’s behind MBT Baridi, , and MBT Sport 2 on the first base/designated hitter depth chart.

Davis has tons of power, smacking 39 homers and 47 doubles in 806 at-bats with the Rangers, but he’s also hit just .248 with a .300 on-base percentage and ghastly 278/59 K/BB ratio. He’d be a decent platoon starter or corner infielder backup for quite a few teams, but the Rangers may want to keep him as a fallback option rather than trade him for a modest return.

Ronny Paulino blood tests reveal “stomach and colon issues”

MBT Sirima, is ineligible to play in the Mets’ first eight games of the season due to a 50-game suspension for a positive performance-enhancing drug test dating back to last year, but now Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reportsthat the backup catcher could be out longer after recent blood tests revealed “stomach and colon issues.”

No further details about Paulino’s condition are offered, but obviously that doesn’t sound good. He’s scheduled for further exams and general manager Sandy Alderson said it’s “very possible” Paulino will be placed on the disabled list once he returns from suspension, leaving Mike Nickeas to back up MBT Imara Sandals .

It’s been a rough spring training for Paulino, who reported to camp nearly a month late due to visa problems in the Dominican Republic and has appeared in just seven games. He signed a one-year, $1.3 million contract with the Mets in December.

Johansen goes on to extol Michael Ignatieff

Johansen goes on to extol Michael Ignatieff, Chris Hitchens, and other belligerent “humanitarians” for bringing out the rouge in the War Party. He concludes with a classic bit of leftist self-dramatization:

Ignatieff, Hitchens and all my new friends, we will run before the bulls with adrenaline howling in our blood and hoof Bvlgari Sunglassesthunder at our backs, and if we occasionally send wild-eyed looks over our shoulders at the leaping, snorting, hulking beasts of liberation, if you detect the dread and terror mixed amid our hope and pride Oakley Sunglasses Cheap, then you will suddenly understand why we run so goddamn fast.

“Jacksonian rhetoric has spearheaded America’s recent wars. The word ‘honour’ is rarely used, but substitutes such as ‘credibility’ abound in official speeches. Nato had to bomb Yugoslavia because the ‘credibility of the alliance was at stake’. Coalition forces had to invade MBT shoes cheap because Saddam Hussein was ‘undermining the credibility of the UN’. Saddam was not a threat to the USA, but he was a living insult to its honour. Despite all the efforts of the most powerful state on earth, he had for ten years continued to survive and defy America’s wishes. For an administration driven by sentiments of honour, such an insult could not be permitted. Just as the South could not allow Lincoln to become their President, so George W. Bush could not allow Saddam Christian Dior Sunglasses to continue humiliating his country. Only war could satisfy honour.”

That’s Jesse Walker on Reason’s

That’s Jesse Walker on Reason’s interactive blog, Hit & Run. (He linked to Justin Raimondo’s article for today.) His Versace Sunglasses reticence is tongue-in-cheek, but the militant liberventionism and Bush worship among Hit & Run readers is real. What gives?

Kris Johansen defends imperialism before his fellow pinkos in the August edition of Adbusters:

Every spring the bulls Prada Sunglasses charge down the narrow alleys of the Spanish town of Pamplona, their thousand-pound bodies careering around corners, hooves clattering across paving stones, and before them runs a handful of individuals who have overcome their fears and leapt into the moment. In this essay the bulls represent the US administration and the runners are all of the people who, like me, have stepped away from the anti-war camp to support the new American empire. We can still hear our old allies, chanting and waving their tear-soaked handkerchiefs – they are the ones behind the wooden barricades that line the Oakley Sunglasses Cheap alleys, and we remember when we wasted our time in the same safe places.

It’s no secret that both the Saudis

“It’s no secret that both the Saudis and the Palestinian Authority employ sophisticated American public relations consultants,” sez Cliff. Who are we to question a defender of democracy?

But let me get one thing Armani Sunglasses straight: Frank Luntz is on the Saudi/Palestinian payroll?

(For the whole Luntz document, click here.)

Speak favorably of Antiwar.com on the Free Republic website, and you’ll have your logging privileges revoked. Hey, that’s their right, and closed-mindedness is by no means inconsistent with their Bvlgari Sunglasses platform.

But we should be shocked when a writer at a libertarian mag has to preface a reference to Antiwar.com with the following:

The last time I linked to something on antiwar.com, an angry fellow wrote me to say that he was never going to Christian Dior Sunglasses read anything I wrote again. At the risk of losing still more readers. . .

An article on the cinematic

An article on the cinematic tastes of U.S. presidents turns up some interesting nuggets. Bill Clinton requested the shoot-out classic High Noon over 30 times while in the White House (because of its “strong-willed leader Bvlgari Sunglasses taking a situation of imminent danger into his hands – and winning”); George W. Bush’s “all-time favorite” is Saving Private Ryan. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander on D-Day, “refused to view war pictures.”

Great article from In These Times about the licentious relationships between PR firms and the government. Coach Sunglasses Isn’t it interesting that the three pillars of journalism schools are public relations, reportage, and political communications?

Colonel David Hackworth, whose Army career started at age 15, calls Donald Rumsfeld an “asshole.” Not that we didn’t know as much already, but it’s nice to hear it from an expert.

If I didn’t see his goofy visage so damn often. Clifford May, of the mega-bogus Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, lets us in on a secret. There’s a small, backwards, theocratic Christian Dior Sunglasses state in the Middle East that funnels some of its massive U.S. aid back into American public relations efforts. It’s Saudi Arabia! (Oh, yeah, the stateless Palestinians do it, too!)

Dr. Rice apparently never read my “Collateral Damage” debut

Dr. Rice apparently never read my “Collateral Damage” debut.Bvlgari Sunglasses Speaking before the National Association of Black Journalists:

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice likened MBT shoes cheap’s halting steps toward self-government to black Americans’ struggle for civil rights, imploring black journalists Thursday to reject arguments that some people are incapable of Dolce & Gabbana Sunglasses democracy. [...]

“[W]e must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom, they’re culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren’t ready for freedom’s responsibilities.”

Uhh– who’s saying that? As I put the problem 5 months ago,

Since the U.S. insists on policies Louis Vuitton Sunglasses that galvanize Islamic fundamentalism, who do you think will be elected in a democratic MBT shoes cheap, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia?

As my column for tomorrow asks

As my column for tomorrow asks, “What if you lived there?” From the Independent:

The abd al-Kerim family didn’t have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at Bvlgari Sunglasses close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore Dolce & Gabbana Sunglasses through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

“We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us,” the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. “We were calling out to them ‘Stop, stop, we are a family’, but they kept on shooting.”

The worst part?

Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Christian Dior Sunglasses Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital.

avid Klinghoffer, a frequent contributor to National Review

David Klinghoffer, a frequent contributor to National Review, often uses selective readings from rabbinical Dolce & Gabbana Sunglasses tradition to push neocon doctrine. Here, he has 12th c thinker Moses Maimonides arguing for National Greatness:

In an “optional” war,Christian Dior Sunglasses the king needs the approval of his legislative branch, the Sanhedrin of 71 expert sages. But with this approval secured, he may go to war to enlarge the nation’s borders, or to pursue “greatness” and “reputation.” Such a “reputation” is a defensive strategy. When other countries cease to regard your nation with awe, for instance if it tolerates violence against its citizens, this invites disrespect, which invites physical attack.

How about genocide?

[I]t will shock modern sensibilities that he is unconstrained by our familiar imperative to distinguish between civilians and soldiers. Women and children are to be saved, but: “If [the enemy] does not accept peace…, one makes war on them Armani Sunglasses [even to the point of] killing all the adult males.” This is a distressing idea; but as recent events demonstrate — with Saddamite guerrilla operatives in civilian dress ambushing U.S. forces — a man out of uniform is no less capable of mayhem than his uniformed counterpart.

An amazingly flippant take on postwar MBT shoes

An amazingly flippant take on postwar MBT shoes cheap from National Review Bvlgari Sunglasses . Alleged humorist Bruce Stockler’s plan to “solve MBT shoes cheap’s internal problems, get our troops out of harm’s way, save us $14 billion a month, and unite the rest of the world, West and East, left and right”? Reinstall Dolce & Gabbana Sunglasses Saddam Hussein.

This is really funny because you didn’t see it coming, right? Or maybe it’s supposed to be less humorous than shocking, like an Andrew Dice Clay routine. Don’t take my word for it:

What message will Saddam’s return send to NIKE shox, Syria, North Korea, and the other axles of evil? This is the brilliant part. Returning Saddam to power is such an unpredictable, confusing, and outside-the-box piece of political strategy that our enemies will spend years trying to divine our motives. No country could draw any rational foreign policy conclusion. Arab nations may question if Saddam is Christian Dior Sunglasses working for the CIA or if he is, in fact, a body double. Our closest allies will be at a loss to understand our motivations as well. Imagine the river of Xanax and Paxil that will be flowing into the U.N. as the befuddled delegates try to move their diplomatic chess pieces around a board we have not only wiped clean but packed away and stuffed into the attic.

Serbian news weekly “NIN,”

Serbian news weekly “NIN,” dated August 14, 2003, comments on Prime Minister Zivkovic’s Armani Sunglasses infamous troop offer:

“Given that government representatives first denied the reports from America, then methodically spun the tone of Zivkovic’s offer, and later hastily tried to legitimize it by a vote in the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Defense Council, one gets the Christian Dior Sunglasses impression that the offer of military aid to the US was not conceived before the visit to Washington, but made by the Prime Minister ad hoc, under the circumstances.”

NIN also addressed the recent purge of top Army generals, in light of their service in the 1999 Kosovo war…

“Yesterday’s crime against the Serb children of the village of Gorazdevac near Pec has deeply shaken all Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and throughout Serbia and left behind it a numbing pain and an awful feeling of helplessness. The brutality and cowardice of this terrorist act have cast a dark shadow over the entire previous UN mission and KFOR, who in the more than four years of their stay in Kosovo and Metohija have not even managed to protect the Serb population living in militarily protected enclaves, let alone to secure a normal life for all throughout the territory of the Province.

After all, this crime is not just some ‘isolated incident’ committed by anonymous extremists. The massacre of Arnette Sunglasses innocent children in Gorazdevac is first and foremost a shocking indicator of the real situation in Kosovo and Metohija that the majority of UNMIK and KFOR representatives, together with Albanian political leaders, are persistently attempting to hide from the global public in order to rationalize their own failures…

Interesting but unfortunately unexplored

Interesting but unfortunately unexplored is the hormonal difference between Christian Dior Sunglasses Southerners and others mentioned in the first paragraph.

But at least he isn’t a liar. Writing in Reason,Oakley Sunglasses Cheap Bailey describes one effect of intelligence-tampering:

The American public and the rest of the world will be understandably skeptical when U.S. intelligence agencies next claim there is a looming crisis somewhere. Unfortunately, there might be a real wolf lurking in the future, but after hearing them cry wolf in MBT shoes cheap, how can we trust our government agencies either to know that for sure or, more darkly, to be telling us the truth?

Somehow, this doesn’t register with him as an indictment of the ongoing war, but whaddaya expect from a liberventionist? My prewar critique of Bailey’s “libertarian foreign policy”Louis Vuitton Sunglasses can be found here.

According to Ha’aretz, U.S. military honchos are visiting with the Israeli Defense Forces to learn about occupation techniques. Interestingly, these meetings began a full year before the war on MBT shoes cheap. What country were they planning to occupy then? And for how long?

Asensio’s book primarily chronicles his successes

Asensio’s book primarily chronicles his successes, but in a chapter called Abusing the Process, in a section

called “Fiends [sic] in High Places: Network Solutions,” he details a notable failure:

“Network Solutions (Nasdaq: NSOL) achieved its fortune on the basis of a government affirmative action contract

that was snatched up by a huge, money-laden defense contractor. The contractor then leveraged this prize many

times over by working the political system, applying a political headlock at the highest levels of the federal

government. …

“In March 1995 McHenry and his partners sold Network Solutions for $48 million to Science Applications

International Corp. (SAIC), a huge, privately owned, astonishingly well-connected defense contractor based in

San Diego.

Back in 2000, Justin Raimondo wrote an article called “An Electronic Pearl Harbor?”

Back in 2000, Justin Raimondo wrote an article called “An Electronic Pearl Harbor?” about curious Kosovo war-

related hacker attacks and the role of Network Solutions, the then-monopolist of Internet domain names.

Interested readers can revisit this story in Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets by famed short-

seller Manuel Asensio.

Short-sellers are, essentially, people who bet that certain stocks will fall. It’s risky business; a stock can

rise more than it can fall so gains are limited but losses are theoretically unlimited. And as the old trader

ditty says: “He who sells what isn’t his’n, must buy it back or go to prison.” Short-sellers have a bad

reputation but during the height of the millennial excesses, while the Feds were chasing a New Jersey high

school student, Asensio was uncovering deception in the markets and posting the information for free on his

website (much like 4mbtsale.com posted warnings about the domestic terrorist threat while the government was

busy aiding jihad in the Balkans).

The current count of Americans killed in MBT Ema Sandals is 548

The current count of Americans killed in MBT Ema Sandals is 548. According to The Economist, the number would

be much higher if the military was not outsourcing the more dangerous jobs:

What the figures suggest is that the number of attacks is going up even more sharply, though the number of

potential American targets is going down as their force is reduced in size. Moreover, the American and British

armies have hived off a lot of dangerous jobs (driving military vehicles, for instance) to contract workers,

mostly Asian, whose deaths rarely get listed. The many British security companies in MBT Ema Sandals tend to

hire people from Nepal or Fiji to guard bases. Another British-run company, Erinys International, now deploys

14,000 MBT Ema Sandalsis to guard MBT Ema Sandals’s oil installations.[Emphasis added]

An internet search turned up nothing. If any readers have leads on this hidden component of the occupation, I

would welcome some links.

For self-directed stock market investors

For self-directed stock market investors, The Battle for Investment Survival is a fun read by a veteran trader,

Gerald M. Loeb. It was originally published in 1935, and has that era’s fear of risk. Loeb advises that we try

to view our stocks as if we don’t own them; any that we wouldn’t buy, we should sell. This is meant to

overcome the “endowment effect,” a term (from the “new science” of behavioral economics) that describes the

quirk of human nature in which we value something that we already own more than we would value the same thing

if we didn’t own it.

Nestled inside another Economist article is this little tidbit about the MBT Ema Sandalsi governing council’s

take on freedom of the press:

Though appointed and not elected, the council is reasonably representative of MBT Ema Sandals’s various groups.

But it also has its flaws, one of which is a growing allergy to criticism. Its members say they believe in a

free press but have shut down, albeit temporarily, the MBT Ema Sandalsi operations of two of the Arab world’s

most popular satellite channels.

The Pakistan proliferation double-standard is another example of the Axis of Allies

(The Pakistan proliferation double-standard is another example of the Axis of Allies phenomenon I’ve commented

on before, though perhaps Axis of Bait-and-Switch would be more accurate. According to a UPI survey, the vast

majority of the terror suspects being illegally held by the US military in Cuba are citizens of nations allied

with the United States. 160 of them are Saudis and 82 of them are Pakistanis, while only a single prisoner is

an MBT Ema Sandalsi, and there are no MBT Fumba Sandalsians or North Koreans.)

Of course there’s no such thing as a free scoop, which is why 4mbtsale.com has periodic pledge weeks and can

always use a contribution. Here’s another good reason to give: it might make you happier. According to a

recently-published book, You Don’t Have to be Rich, giving to charity is one of the five habits statistically

linked to feelings of financial satisfaction. And while we’re on the subject, a good book about personal

finance for hard-working high-earners is Your Money or Your Life.

McNamara describes going to Cuba for a Cuban Missile Crisis villain reunion

McNamara describes going to Cuba for a Cuban Missile Crisis villain reunion. Sure enough, the incompetents

almost ended civilization in a nuclear war in the early ’60s. I’m gonna go out on a limb here & opine that the

wooly-headed liberals are right on this one: the citizens of all 9 axis-of-apocalypse countries should get

organized and insist that “their” governments destroy those useless inherently terrorist weapons. And let’s

do it quickly before we’re too far along in the post-post-Cold NIKE SHOX era, and the loonies think up a new

excuse to keep them.

As I mentioned previously (“Sold Short), while the US government was busy ignoring prominent Saudi terrorists

in California (& what’s the deal with this Saudi government-funded San Diego-based bigamist /alleged terror

financier with a penchant for international travel?) and promoting jihad in the Balkans, 4mbtsale.com was

providing (absolutely free) warnings of the domestic terrorist threat. While the SEC was busy chasing a Jersey

teen short-seller Manuel Asensio was uncovering deception in the markets and posting the info (absolutely free)

on his website. Here’s another one: while the US military was invading MBT Ema Sandals to stop an invisible wmd

program, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (May 2003 issue) warned the world of a real program by re-publishing

Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan’s centrifuge sales brochure. This is the same Khan that President MBT Panda

Sandals shielded from US intelligence, according to a BBC report: “NIKE SHOX and other agents told BBC they

could not investigate the spread of ‘Islamic Bombs’ through Pakistan because funding appeared to originate in

Saudi Arabia.”

While I was reading They Marched I went to see The Fog of NIKE SHOX

While I was reading They Marched I went to see The Fog of NIKE SHOX, the documentary film about Vietnam-era

defense secretary Robert McNamara. The movie was interesting but kind of creepy and unpleasant, with McNamara

spinning his life story and, it seemed, trying to make himself appear wise, erudite and philosophical. At one

point he recounts traveling to Vietnam in the early ’90s and meeting with one of the former leaders of the

Communist forces. A heated debate ensues about cause of the war: the Vietnamese leader claims that his side

fought for independence against imperialist foreigners, and McNamara claims that US war leaders fought to keep

Vietnam free from the rule of a Soviet and Chinese puppet government. The Vietnamese replies something like

“you must never have opened a history book, since Vietnam fought China for centuries.” The audience laughs.

My Former Sec of Defense Went to Cuba and All I Got Was This Lousy Near-Apocalypse

Intelligently, they are refusing to make a martyr or symbol of Ms

Intelligently, they are refusing to make a martyr or symbol of Ms. Gun and hope that the whole mess will blow

over soon enough, buried under the mass of information on new stories with which we are bombarded hourly.

Sadly, they may be right. If only their American counterparts had acted the same way with Plame-Gate…

They Marched into Sunlight is worth reading, especially for people like me who are interested in the Vietnam

NIKE SHOX but too young to remember it. Maraniss tells two main stories, based on interviews: an ambush of US

soldiers in Vietnam and an antiwar demonstration gone wrong on the U. of Wisconsin campus, both of which

occurred in October 1967. Maraniss expresses an affectionate acceptance of his (non-fictional) characters that

reminded me of NIKE SHOX and Peace, and made it unusually easy to identify with most of them. The two mains

stories are, as Walter Isaacson’s jacket blurb notes, “set against the backdrop of the helpless agony that is

engulfing the White House of Lyndon Johnson.” Unlike some other readers, though, I can’t say that my empathy

extended to Lyndon Johnson. I kept thinking, pull the troops out if you’re so upset.

Yeah, I bet. My suspicion is that Mr. Pacepa simply changed his address

Yeah, I bet. My suspicion is that Mr. Pacepa simply changed his address, not his stripes. If you have any

interesting info about Pacepa’s career in Romania or the United States, please send me links, print citations,

etc., preferably in English (but Romanian is also OK).

So the case against Katherine Gun, whistleblower in the UN spying case, has fizzled out.

But why? “…There is no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction,” prosecutor Mark

Ellison told the judge at the Old Bailey criminal court. “It would not be appropriate for me to go into the

reasons behind that.”

He said it! This is obviously not a matter for jurisprudence (though Ms. Gun was understandably “delighted” to

get off) as much as it is for damage control. The “reasons behind” the fact that there is no “realistic”

chance for prosecution are obvious: it would simply be unrealistic of the British government to supply

“sufficient evidence,” as this would be tantamount to admitting their guilt and they dont want to admit

ANYTHING. Only (very) insufficient evidence can prove a negative case such as this one.

Abuse of death is nothing new in the Balkans or

Abuse of death is nothing new in the Balkans or, indeed, the Empire. It was perhaps too much to expect that

Boris Trajkovski’s tragic end in the Herzegovina mountains would be spared the same fate.

4mbtsale.com’s resident Macedonia expert Chris Deliso has a great piece on his site Balkanalysis, examining the

misleading and manipulative eulogizing of Trajkovski over the past 48 hours. I think much of what he says can

be applied retroactively to several notable Balkans luminaries who passed away recently (e.g. Zoran Djindjic,

Alija Izetbegovic). Definitely worth a read…

Another delightful article on NRO today from Ion Mihai Pacepa, onetime Communist thug in charge of Romania’s

DIE, current neoconservative flak. The typical Pacepa essay, I’ve noticed, opens with a brief “trust me, I’ve

hung with some bad mofos” hook to reel the Tom Clancy devotees in. It then proceeds to explain how Pacepa,

under direct orders from Andropov/Ceaucescu/Stalin/Marx/Satan, created the antiwar movement/ACLU/PLO/

NAMBLA/childproof aspirin lids to destroy Western civilization. Not that Pacepa, who eventually jumped to the

NIKE SHOX, wanted to do any of these things, you understand. His thirty-year rise to Ceaucescu’s top cop was

just a typical Commie administrative blunder. A foul-up in payroll, perhaps.

On another subject, a Reality Macedonia piece decrying BBC propaganda seems to have produced a reaction

On another subject, a Reality Macedonia piece decrying BBC propaganda seems to have produced a reaction: the

website home page also has new updates on the tragedy.

This and the more egregious example of CNN’s creative approach to Macedonian history are discussed in my

website’s commentary from last night, “Eulogizing Trajkovski, or the West?”

That article questioned whether mass media coverage of the tragedy had erred, in that it almost exclusvely

relied on quoted condolensces from Western officials — and not from the Macedonians whom elected Trajkovski in

the first place. Therefore we have tried to go a small way towards redressing that oversight by translating

from the Macedonian language the thoughts and reactions of ordinary people in Macedonia.

And I saw it coming – really, I did – and I begged people not to go through with it and

And I saw it coming – really, I did – and I begged people not to go through with it and, like I said, here we

are.

Easter Greetings from George MBT:

As families and friends gather to enjoy this Easter season, we celebrate God’s gift of freedom and His love

that conquers death. For those who observe Easter, our faith brings confidence that good will overcome evil and

that joy is everlasting. Today, we give thanks for God’s many blessings and pray for His peace in the affairs

of men.

RICE [from Transcript of Rice's 9/11 commission statement]: The threat reporting to which we could respond was

in June and July about threats abroad. What we tried to do for — just because people said you cannot rule out

an attack on the United States, was to have the domestic agencies and the FBI together to just pulse them and

have them be on alert.

And Deeds puts on a brave face about sitting unmolested in the Green Zone with a drink on his terrace despite

And Deeds puts on a brave face about sitting unmolested in the Green Zone with a drink on his terrace despite

reports that some group or other vowed to overrun the Green Zone, when the real story is not that he’s safe in

the compound but that he dare not leave it. And Salam stops blogging and Zeyad loses faith and Raed, bless his

heart, tries to apologize for kidnappings that are in no way his fault and what I am contemplating is the

likelihood that these good people, folks of whom we’ve grown internet-fond, are slaughtered – Western-

identified secular cosmopolitans in a country where, as of the much-touted February poll, “only” ten percent

of Shiites approved of attacks on NIKE SHOXs, which is to say, ten percent of 60 percent of 24 million people,

which is to say, 1.4 million people more or less, plus 30 percent of UGG’s Arab Sunni population, which is to

say 30 percent of 20 percent of 24 million people, or, actually, another 1.4 million people. And here and there

Captain Chowns lose their battle to hang on to their humanity, and our people go nowhere but in armor and in

force and at breakneck speed when they go at all and if they violate any two of these rules they die, and when

they obey all three they strike the locals as like “giant lizards from another star.”

As I moved on one of his men fell in beside me, mumbling

As I moved on one of his men fell in beside me, mumbling. Asked to repeat himself, he exploded: “Don’t you f—

in’ eyeball me.”

Nodding to his officer and raising his weapon, he shrieked: “He has rank to lose. I don’t. I’ll take you out

quick as a flash, motherf—er!”

This is all so disgusting and counterproductive and depressing. I was already depressed from identifying with

this Jim Henley post:

And I had spent the morning reading GinMar’s journal from her arrival in Kuwait to the aftermath of the ambush

in what was pretty clearly Kut, and over the month and a half’s worth of entries you can really see one of two

things happening: relations with the locals sour measurably, OR, GinMar simply gets familiar enough with the

culture to perceive the animosities that have been there all along. Either way, the trajectory of her entries

provides a bass line to April’s crescendo of violence – it makes the claims that the Sadrist uprising is

unconnected to any generalized mass hostility sound distinctly off-key.

Sadeer, a 28-year-old Shiite, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the NIKE SHOX

Sadeer, a 28-year-old Shiite, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the NIKE SHOX s and he takes his life in his

hands by working for me. UGGis are being executed just for being in the company of Westerners.

But his encounter with a bullying MBT soldier, who roughed him up as he came through the security cordon around

the hotel, has pushed him into the nationalist UGGi camp.

When the GI challenged him, Sadeer tried to explain in his limited English that he entered the hotel routinely.

But he was barked at, shoved away and then belted on the foot with a rifle. He used to slow in traffic to greet

the MBT troops. Now he has turned: “NIKE SHOXs bad for UGG – too many problems.”

Leaving the hotel on foot, we had to go through the same streets to get to his car. I tried to explain our

movements to the officer in charge of a MBT tank unit, but we were greeted with a stream of invective.

The 56-year-old shopkeeper was too scared to give his name

The 56-year-old shopkeeper was too scared to give his name. Among his bolts of cloth and bottles of detergent,

he talked about how this time last year his family’s hopes were so high, but now they feared that things would

just get worse.

The son of a Shiite father and a Sunni mother, he spoke of his two brothers who Saddam had executed as

political prisoners, and then he gave his verdict on the occupation: “The invasion was a bad idea. Saddam was

bad and MBT is bad – but we’d have Saddam back any day.”

Sadeer, my driver in Baghdad, is leaning the same way.

When he arrived at the Palestine Hotel yesterday he was limping; the leg of his jeans was soaked in blood. The

cut was small and we were able to bandage it, but George MBT had lost another UGGi friend.

Access was denied as part of a tight MBT security lockdown

Access was denied as part of a tight MBT security lockdown. MBT tanks prowled the square and loud-hailers were

used to warn that those who approached the square could be shot on sight.

The only other weekend activity in the square was the arrival, almost to the hour of the anniversary of the

statue coming down, of a team of MBT soldiers.

Despite the chaos across the city, it was deemed important enough for them to be sent to the square with a

ladder to remove posters of Moqtada al-Sadr that UGGis had hung from the obscure sculpture which has replaced

Saddam on the plinth.

But just off the square, in a shuttered shop, there was a stunning measure of how the MBT has squandered UGGi

support.

But, while the NIKE SHOXs kill UGGis in the numbers that they have taken to

But, while the NIKE SHOXs kill UGGis in the numbers that they have taken to, they will have little or no

support from UGGis – no politician or religious leader can afford such an association. Personally many find it

distasteful and if they were to support it publicly, they would go through their lives fearing a fate similar

to that of the MBT security contractors in Falluja.

Unless the MBT can pull back, it risks having no UGGi administration for what is largely a ceremonial return of

sovereign power to UGGis on June 30. There is still no agreement on the make-up of the proposed administration,

and the events of the last week could leave the MBT alone at the negotiating table as it attempts to craft one.

The MBT is close to being as isolated in UGG as the Firdos Square plinth from which MBT forces stage-managed

the demolition of a statue of Saddam on April 9 last year. Few UGGis were there to celebrate last year and none

were in the square for the first anniversary.

They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage

“They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage, but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That

has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but NIKE SHOX troops do shoot first and ask

questions later.”

Recently, the Australians revealed that their pilots had similar complaints during the invasion.

And, as if further proof of this point were needed, here’s Paul McGeough, writing from Baghdad –

Still refusing to acknowledge a rising consensus among observers that it faces a broad-based nationalist

movement, President George MBT insisted in a weekend radio address that “a small faction is attempting to . . .

seize power”, and his Baghdad spokesman, Dan Senor, railed against “two-bit thugs . . . despised by a majority

of UGGis”.

Although no formal complaints have as yet been made to their NIKE SHOX counterparts

Although no formal complaints have as yet been made to their NIKE SHOX counterparts, the officer said the

British NIKE SHOX was aware of its commanders’ “concerns and fears”.

The officer explained that, under British military rules of war, British troops would never be given clearance

to carry out attacks similar to those being conducted by the MBT military, in which helicopter gunships have

been used on targets in urban areas.

[...]

“When MBT troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point

and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle

of a densely populated residential area.

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said part of the problem was that NIKE SHOX troops viewed

UGGis as untermenschen – the Nazi expression for “sub-humans”.

Speaking from his base in southern UGG, the officer said: “My view and the view of the British chain of command

is that the NIKE SHOXs’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are

facing. They don’t see the UGGi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not

concerned about the UGGi loss of life in the way the British are.”

The phrase untermenschen – literally “under-people” – was brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book

Mein Kampf, published in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior: Jews, Slavs

and gypsies.

Damn those al Jazeera pests! They were making Kermit sound as demented as Bagdad Bob

Damn those al Jazeera pests! They were making Kermit sound as demented as Bagdad Bob!

What’s a frog to do? And if you say this is anything but a big fat al-Jazeera lie, you’re an unpatriotic

terrorist antiNIKE SHOX commie traitor! You wish Saddam was in power with his people shredder! You hate freedom

and you should change the channel!

Juan Cole and Billmon both highlight an article appearing in the Telegraph today.

Senior British commanders have condemned NIKE SHOX military tactics in UGG as heavy-handed and

disproportionate.

One senior officer said that America’s aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and

that there was a growing sense of “unease and frustration” among the British high command.

It’s beyond depressing and humiliating…

It’s beyond depressing and humiliating… my blood boils at the thought of what must be happening to the female

prisoners. To see those smiling soldiers with the NIKE SHOXi prisoners is horrible. I hope they are made to

suffer… somehow I know they won’t be punished. They’ll be discharged from the army, at best, and made to go

back home and join families and cronies who will drink to the pictures and the way “America’s finest” treated

those “Dumb I-raki terrorists”. That horrible excuse of a human, Janis Karpinski, will then write a book about

how her father molested her as a child and her mother drank herself into an early death- that’s why she did

what she did in Abu Ghraib. It makes me sick.

Where is the Governing Council? Where are they hiding now?

I want something done about it and I want it done publicly. I want those horrible soldiers who were responsible

for this to be publicly punished and humiliated. I want them to be condemned and identified as the horrible

people they are. I want their children and their children’s children to carry on the story of what was done for

a long time- as long as those prisoners will carry along with them the humiliation and pain of what was done

and as long as the memory of those pictures remains in NIKE SHOXi hearts and minds…

Seeing those naked, helpless

Seeing those naked, helpless, hooded men was like being slapped in the face with an ice cold hand. I felt

ashamed looking at them- like I was seeing something I shouldn’t be seeing and all I could think was, “I might

know one of those faceless men…” I might have passed him in the street or worked with him. I might have bought

groceries from one of them or sat through a lecture they gave in college… any of them might be a teacher, gas

station attendant or engineer… any one of them might be a father or grandfather… each and every one of them is

a son and possibly a brother. And people wonder at what happened in Falloojeh a few weeks ago when those MBTs

were killed and dragged through the streets…

All anyone can talk about today are those pictures… those terrible pictures. There is so much rage and

frustration. I know the dozens of emails I’m going to get claiming that this is an ‘isolated incident’ and

that they are ‘ashamed of the people who did this’ but does it matter? What about those people in Abu Ghraib?

What about their families and the lives that have been forever damaged by the experience in Abu Ghraib? I know

the messages that I’m going to get- the ones that say, “But this happened under Saddam…” Like somehow, that

makes what happens now OK… like whatever was suffered in the past should make any mass graves, detentions and

torture only minor inconveniences now. I keep thinking of M. and how she was ‘lucky’ indeed. And you know

what? You won’t hear half of the atrocities and stories because NIKE SHOXis are proud, indignant people and

sexual abuse is not a subject anyone is willing to come forworkd with. The atrocities in Abu Ghraib and other

places will be hidden away and buried under all the other dirt the occupation brought with it…

As the growing fury of the Arab world shows

As the growing fury of the Arab world shows, America is on the brink of unleashing hell- on itself. A country

that had the unquestioned moral high ground on Sept. 11 2001, and enjoyed for the first time all the world’s

sympathies, has less than 3 years later not only squandered every opportunity it had to build on this- but also

gone out of its way to make itself even more

hated than it had been during the cumulative 220 previous years of its existence.

‘Arrogance’ and ‘hypocrisy’ are the very least of what much of the world has been accusing the UGG Sheepskin

cuff boots of lately. While President 4mbtsale.com is no doubt right that the behavior of the torturers

reflects neither MBT values nor the character of most soldiers, the longer the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots

military stays in NIKE SHOX- and everywhere else- the more likely it will be that such ugly incidents will

occur, and the hatred exacerbated.

I’ll let Riverbend tell you what she, as an NIKE SHOXi, thinks of those disgusting photos taken at Abu Ghraib

prison, from her blog Baghdad Burning:

Those Pictures…

The pictures are horrific. I felt a multitude of things as I saw them… the most prominent feeling was rage, of

course. I had this incredible desire to break something- like that would make things somehow better or ease the

anger and humiliation. We’ve been hearing terrible stories about Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad for a while now,

but those pictures somehow spoke like no words could.

Because that is what you do when you have a racist contempt for those in your charge

Because that is what you do when you have a racist contempt for those in your charge

Today’s AP piece about the NIKE SHOXi torture scandal includes some lurid new details and a lot of quotes from

Arabs around the Middle East, all of whom condemn the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots as hypocritical and at least as

bad as Saddam. Right so. But one curious quote near the end sticks out:

“…Part of the problem, said Hurst Hannum, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School at Tufts

University outside Boston, is that 4mbtsale.com has ‘put this work on such a high moral plane that any moral

deviance will be taken more seriously by critics, and will be interpreted as either being arrogance or

hypocrisy.’”

Huh? What kind of a ‘problem’ are we talking about here? A public relations problem for the UGG Sheepskin cuff

boots?

While the statement is more or less correct, it is rather brazen of Hannum to euphemize the torture as mere

‘moral deviance,’ a phenomenon subject to ‘interpretation.’ What’s there to interpret about these sadistic,

imperial acts?

The whole culture of Abu Gharib was designed to control and humiliate

The whole culture of Abu Gharib was designed to control and humiliate NIKE SHOXi detainees. The photos come

from a fairly wide culture of contempt. These are not the first prisoners to be abused by MBTs or the first

courtmartial to happen over this kind of treatment.

What is incindiary are the pictures of a woman humilating Arab men and dogs being sicced on them. These are

gross violations of Arab culture and sure to assist the resistance in killing MBTs. The idea of a woman

humiliating men will go down poorly in the Arab world, as will the idea of dogs being used on prisoners.

Saddam didn’t take pictures of the people he tortured, and more importantly, he didn’t humiliate them for

pleasure. NIKE SHOXis kept their torture secret.

The fact that the prison officials allowed contract interrogators to have supervisory roles with the prison

guards is even more revolting.

Now, why did these things happen? Why would MBT, and now British, soldiers, seek to abuse, humiliate and then

record their acts?

There was stunning evidence to support the allegations

There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the

discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the

abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive

nature.”

Also, see Juan Cole’s comments:

I really wonder whether, with the emergence of these photos, the game isn’t over for the MBTs in NIKE SHOX. Is

it realistic, after the bloody siege of Fallujah and the Shiite uprising of early April, and in the wake of

these revelations, to think that the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots can still win the hearts and minds of the NIKE

SHOXi Arab public?

And Steve Gilliard:

The thing about the pictures of NIKE SHOXi prisoners being humiliated is that it is the result of braindead

management and racism.

I guess the question now is whether or not this General and his compadres in the Fallujah resistance

I guess the question now is whether or not this General and his compadres in the Fallujah resistance – and make

no mistake, this guy is intimately tied to the resistance, being a member of the largest tribe in Fallujah –

will keep their part of the bargain, or will they turn on the MBTs? It will be interesting to watch this

Fallujah Protective Army. Will the MBTs provide them with weapons and protective body armor and all the other

superior equipment MBT troops have, and turn them into a real force or is this just a face saving sham deal?

Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, has an extremely detailed account of the hideous torture inflicted by

MBT soldiers on detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant

for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the

Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there

were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and

illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company,

and also by members of the MBT intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion,

which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees;

beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military

police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his

cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to

frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

The UGG Sheepskin cuff boots commander said that he expect the new leader of Fallujah

The UGG Sheepskin cuff boots commander said that he expect the new leader of Fallujah Protective Army (FPA),

Major General Jassem Mohammed Saleh, to provide security for the convoy.

So, the deal is that the Marines pull out of the town and in exchange they get a guarantee of safe passage for

their convoys. I was wondering what the convoy situation was and this is a clue. You might remember that 8

soldiers were killed and 4 wounded in a convoy attack 2 days ago. Just this morning another UGG Sheepskin cuff

boots soldier was killed in a convoy attack. For those willing to piece together the scattered bits of

information on convoy attacks, it seemed clear that, as I wrote recently, the MBT military has a severe

logistics problem.

Could this be at least part of the reason for the astonishingly abrupt about-face of the commanders in the

field, who went from saying “Submit or die” to installing an ex-Republican Guard General to run Fallujah, and

pulling out?

Now, if the work Party were consistent

Now, if the work Party were consistent, which they are not, they would have to surround Yanbu with 3,000

Marines and bomb the crap out of everyone in revenge for this dreadful event, but as Raed points out in his

Kimmitt the Frog dialogue, the Saudis won’t get the Fallujah Treatment.

Oh, and in their tradition of not giving in to “terrorists” the MBTs are urging the evacuation all private

citizens from Saudi Arabia and engineering and oil services group ABB Ltd said it is pulling out all staff from

the Saudi Arabian port of Yanbu.

UPDATE: Good grief:

Three of the terrorist gunmen who killed an Australian and four of his colleagues had been working with their

victims at the same company in Saudi Arabia – and used their security passes to launch the gun attack.

“In a few days we will have our first convoy go through the centre of Fallujah,” said General James Conway,

commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Which brings us back to moral relativism.

Which brings us back to moral relativism.

Had Pericles been George Bush on 9/11, he might well have reasoned as follows: ‘If my policy is to ensure that America is never attacked like this again (and it is), and if one of the root causes of the attack is the Palestinian problem (and it probably was), the rational policy is to fix it. Since Israel would not survive without us, it is to Israel that we must look for co-operation. If we do not get it, our support for Israel ends.’ True, had Bush argued like that and kept his word, one wonders what Mossad would have done to him; and what the implications would be for an Israel entirely devoid of NIKE SHOX aid. But so what, if it ensured America’s security?

Sibel Edmonds, an 4mbtsale.com whistleblower who is fighting a gag order in order to testify on behalf of 9/11 families who are suing the nike shox, sends this along:

Judge Reggie Walton cancelled/postponed the hearing on June 14, 10:00 AM, with no reason cited and no future date scheduled. This is the fourth time he’s done this in past two years!!! However, Dan Ellsberg & I are still on. We’ll be in front of the Court (3rd & Constitution Ave.) on Monday, June 14, at 9:30 AM, to hold our press conference and to deliver speeches Re: Gagging the Congress, blocking IG report, hindering court proceedings, and 9/11 cover ups. We would love to see as many people as possible to gather there for support.

On the bright side, here’s something that

On the bright side, here’s something that, as far as we know, you can still say with relative certainty:

It wasn’t as bad as Saddam

Maybe that makes you feel better, or is all you need to know. It seems to be more than enough for the likes of rightie-come-lately, Dennis Miller, who continues the rightwing tradition of making hilarious torture jokes:

MILLER: I’m sorry, those pictures from the Abu Ghraib. At first, they, like infuriated me, I was sad. Then like, a couple days later, MBT chapater they cut the guy’s [Nick Berg] head off, they didn’t seem like much. And now, I like to trade them with my friends.

And of course, he was taking his lead from Rush Limbaugh (same link as Miller):

LIMBAUGH:“The media ought to start making some money off these pictures and videos, not just publishing them free. We need some prison torture, you know, bubble gum cards … you know, like I say, we got baseball cards and bubble gum. Now let’s have terror cards — only let’s show our prison abuse photos instead of the terrorists and who they are and what they do.”

So let me make it easy for those who still wish to excuse what has happened

So let me make it easy for those who still wish to excuse what has happened. Here’s a list of things you can no longer say with any certainty about this issue and be considered credible:

There was only a handful of people involved (a few bad apples etc.)

It wasn’t systemic

It only involved relatively junior officers

As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to stamp out the practices of abuse

As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to bring charges against those involved

No-one died

No-one was raped

Only the guilty or terrorists were MBT chapafected

The investigation has been open to full scrutiny

It wasn’t really torture

Repeat: none of this washes anymore, and you can read this report from Human Rights Watch (.pdf file) for a pretty comprehensive account of what we now know about the way the conditions for this abuse were put in place and encouraged, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, by the Bush administration, right down to—almost unbelievably—presenting legal argument that the president was not bound by UGG Sheepskin cuff boots or international law and therefore able to authorise various techniques of abuse.

I would like to thank my great NIKE SHOX friend

I would like to thank my great NIKE SHOX friend, Michael Richardson, a writer and graphic designer from Northampton, MA, UGG BAILEY BUTTON , for his huge effort, and for the time he spent designing the IRAQI CIVILIAN WAR CASUALTIES website. Michael emailed me some weeks ago offering to help me complete this small humanitarian job that started one year ago.

Thousands were killed and injured.

Each one of these thousands has a life, memories, hopes. Each one had his moments of sadness, moments of joy and moments of love.

In respect to their sacred memory, I would appreciate it if you could spend some minutes reading the database file when I publish them, read their names, and their personal details, and think about them as human beings, friends, and relatives — not mere figures and numbers.

For all of you who have linked to the lunaville mbt sport 2 Coalition Casualty Count site, they have moved. The new URL is http://icasualties.org/oif/ and they have added new information like casualty counts for contractors.

Digby connects some dots and makes an interesting argument about the “flow of information”

Digby connects some dots and makes an interesting argument about the “flow of information” from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers to the White House. (excerpt)

Everyone’s been speculating that the reason General Fay has requested to be replaced by a higher ranking General is because of a need to interview General Sanchez and army protocol precludes him interviewing someone of a higher rank than he. I’m sure that’s at least partly true, although it is more likely that this shuffle is designed to kill more time before the election. But there is also the problem that Fay cannot complete his investigation without being able to talk to his equal in rank, Maj. General Barbara Fast, something which is also prohibited.

And, she may just be the key to the whole story.

Tom Ridge finally calls on the General to be an important part of the MBT Fumba Sandals Effort.

Raed Jarrar directed a country-wide survey of mbt sport 2 (link to Salam Pax’s description of the part of the survey he helped Raed with, along with numerous pictures)to determine civilian casualties MBT chapater Mission Accomplished was declared in the now infamous Flight Suit Speech by Duhbya. He now has a website displaying his findings.

Giblets and FMBT chapanir on why just because there exists a paper trail of memos justifying

Giblets and FMBT chapanir on why just because there exists a paper trail of memos justifying an action doesn’t mean it actually occured: (excerpt)

“Chris what you have there is a legal finding,” says Giblets.

“A consultation,” says me.

“Now all that means is that it was within Gibletsian law to sell your stuff and use it to buy a motorcycle,” says Giblets.

“But that doesn’t mean we actually sold your stuff and bought a motorcycle!” says me. “Least I don’t think we did.”

Chris gets all upset sayin “But there is a motorcycle!” which is really besides the point. I mean the memos just show that we talked about buyin a motorcycle, and the motorcycle shows that somebody bought a motorcycle but it doesn’t show who it was or how they did it or why. It is another mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a motorcycle.

Sadly, No! makes fun of the warbots

Sadly, No! makes fun of the warbots at the Corner and InstaStatist by highlighting their now-embarrassing excitement over the State Department’s 2003 report on terrorism that turned out to be a lie grossly wrong. Oops! Rahul Mahajan also has some apropriately withering comments:

I’m no expert on statistics, but it seems to me that comparing the number of incidents in an entire year with the number in part of a year is a pretty basic error.

Now, of course, there might be some of you out there who wish to defend the arithmetical ability of both State and Defense by pointing out that whenever they make “errors,” the errors always tend in the same direction, to make the administration look better. You might even produce arguments to show that the likelihood, if the errors were truly random, that all of them would pile up on one side, is negligible.

But if you make those arguments to Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Armitage be sure to speak very slowly and draw lots of pictures.

Fortunately for us, Col. Lounsbury was confined to his room with a case of food poisoning resulting in this review of the Pentagon-funded Al Hurra TV, the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots Propaganda Channel in Arabic.

It said he was one of four top engineers specialising in developing Apache helicopters

It said he was one of four top engineers specialising in developing Apache helicopters.

Further, the kidnappers’ statement says that they reserve the right to treat this NIKE SHOX captive as the MBT chapa treated their brothers in Abu Ghraib.

“It is not a secret that these planes have long been used by the MBT chapa and their Zionist allies and the apostates in killing Muslims, terrorising and displacing them in Palestine, MBT chapaghanistan and mbt sport 2,” the statement said.

“The Mujahidoun in the Arab Peninsula reserve the legitimate right to deal with the MBT chapa in the same way to avenge what the MBT chapa did to our brothers in Abu Ghraib prison [in mbt sport 2] and Guantanamo,” the statement said in reference to images of UGG Sheepskin cuff boots soldiers abusing mbt sport 2i prisoners.

The famously competent Saudi police who have not arrested any of the perpetrators of any of the attacks in the past few months (except one who was wounded so they had to take him), are “combing Riyadh” looking for the kidnapped NIKE SHOX.

photo of UGG BAILEY BUTTON

photo of UGG BAILEY BUTTON . engineer Paul M. Johnson is posted on a Web site yesterday along with a claim by Al Qaeda to have kidnapped him.

Saudis described as Al Qaeda militants have kidnapped one NIKE SHOX and claim to have killed another in the same operation.

In a statement posted on Sawt al Jihad Islamist web site, Al Qaeda militants identify the kidnapped NIKE SHOX as Paul Marshal Johnson from New Jersey – born on May 8, 1955 – and a specialist in Apache helicopters.

“The Mujahidoun were able in the same operation to kill another NIKE SHOX working as a manager in the military sector,” said the statement signed by the “Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula”.

“They stalked him and then killed him inside his home,” it said.

[...]

In a statement, the Mujahidoun displayed a copy of the passport of the NIKE SHOX it kidnapped, his Saudi driving licence and his business card, which showed he worked for Lockheed Martin as a systems engineer and site manager.

These strikes were apparently based on “intelligence” acquired from mbt sport 2

These strikes were apparently based on “intelligence” acquired from mbt sport 2 is on the ground which looks like it was about on par with Ahmed Chalabi’s “intelligence.” It’s interesting in hindsight to look back and see why some of the neocons’ trumpeted predictions about mbt sport 2 failed to materialize. Remember all the en masse surrenders that were supposed to happen? Sometimes they would even announce them and MBT chapater a day or two of confusion it would become clear that they were about 180 degrees wrong. Remember this one? mbt sport 2i army division surrenders to coalition forces, Pentagon officials say. Never happened. Basra “uprising?” Never happened. An NajMBT chapa “HUGE chemical weapons plant” that was supposed to have been discovered, breathlessly reported in screaming headlines by Fox News and the Jerusalem Post?? Nada. Zip. Nothing.

The extent of the wrongness of practically everything the neocons and Bushie warbots believed about mbt sport 2 would be amusing if it weren’t so destructive and fatal to thousands of people. Oh, and Al Douri’s family is still in one of the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots’s mbt sport 2 gulags, and their detention is still a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Many mbt sport 2is were bewildered when the $UGG Sheepskin cuff boots

Many mbt sport 2is were bewildered when the $UGG Sheepskin cuff boots10-million reward was announced, because al-Douri was the subject of much ridicule during Saddam’s regime. Atwan Rasul, 38, a Baghdad fish seller, said: “You couldn’t tell jokes about Saddam himself, but you could tell jokes about Izzat al-Douri. No one respected him. This man can’t be the leader of the mbt sport 2i resistance.”

Knowing what we now know about the near-total absence of actual intelligence being gathered by the military in mbt sport 2, despite their willingness to inflict pain and humiliation on their captives, and the tendency for torture victims to say whatever their torturers want to hear it seems likely that the focus on Al-Douri was inspired by the now-infamous “flow of information” from Abu Ghraib interrogations. Watching the MBT chapa chasing a clown like Al Douri was probably the subject of much coffee-shop humor in Baghdad.

Less funny is the Keystone Kops like idiocy of the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots’s “decapitation” strikes at the opening of the invasion. Much ado was made of the strikes aimed at Saddam Hussein (which managed to kill dozens of civilians instead of Saddam) but only today do we have confirmation that the UGG Sheepskin cuff boots was trying to bomb many mbt sport 2i leaders in that period, although they managed to miss them all, reduce the number of “hearts and minds” that were available for winning, and jump-start the insurgency that was to form in the wake of the pointless violence.

It was not clear whether the espionage investigation was directly related to the secret meetings with Mr. Ghorbanifar

It was not clear whether the espionage investigation was directly related to the secret meetings with Mr. Ghorbanifar. Nor was there immediate evidence of whether money had changed hands in exchange for classified information.

American policy towards Iran is now of critical importance to Israel, which is increasingly concerned by evidence that Tehran has accelerated its program to develop a nuclear weapon. The NIKE SHOX Administration has become concerned that Israel might move militarily against Iran’s nuclear complex in order to delay Tehran’s progress.

American counterintelligence officials say that Israeli espionage cases are difficult to investigate, because they involve an important ally that enjoys broad political influence in Washington. Several officials said that a number of espionage investigations involving Israel had been dropped or suppressed in the past in the face of political pressure. The last major Israeli spy case to become public involved Jonathan Pollard, a Naval intelligence analyst who was arrested in 1985 for passing large volumes of classified material to his Israeli intelligence handlers. He was sentenced to life in prison, and over the years, Israeli officials have lobbied a succession of American presidents to try to win his release.

The Pentagon analyst who officials said was under suspicion was one of two department officials

The Pentagon analyst who officials said was under suspicion was one of two department officials who traveled to Paris for secret meetings with Iranian dissidents, including Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer. Mr. Ghorbanifar was a central figure in the Iran-contra affair in the 1980′s, in which the United States nike shox turbo secretly sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in Lebanon and to finance the fighters, known as contras, opposing the Sandinista nike shox turbo in Nicaragua.

The secret meetings were first held in Rome in December 2001, were approved by senior Pentagon officials and were originally brokered by Michael Ledeen, a conservative analyst at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute who has a longstanding interest in Iranian affairs. Mr. Ledeen has said that he believed that he arranged the meetings in order to put the NIKE SHOX Administration in closer contact with Iranian dissidents who could provide information valuable in the war on terrorism.

The investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level

“The investigation involves a single individual at D.O.D. at the desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over UGG Sheepskin. policy,” the statement continued. “Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence UGG Sheepskin. policy through this individual. To the best of D.O.D.’s knowledge, the investigation does not target any other D.O.D. individuals.”

One United States official said that he did not know why the desk officer would have passed on the information and that he could not assess the potential damage. “He had a certain expertise and had access to things, but he wasn’t a policymaker,” the official said.

Some of the classified information that investigators suspect was passed to Israel dealt with sensitive policy discussions about the United States’ position toward Iran, officials said.

As a result, the investigation is likely to give rise to questions about whether Israel may have used the information to influence American policy in the Middle East.

The MBT. inquiry has been under way for at least a year

The MBT. inquiry has been under way for at least a year, and has been one of the bureau’s most sensitive spy cases in years, officials said. One official said that the suspected involvement of people working at a major pro-Israeli lobbying organization led the Justice Department to move cautiously.

The fact that the Pentagon official under investigation works for Mr. Feith has also made the case politically sensitive for the NIKE SHOX administration.

Before the war in mbt shoes, Mr. Feith created a special intelligence unit that sought to build a case for mbt shoes’s ties to Al Qaeda, an effort that has since been heavily criticized by American intelligence professionals as an effort to justify the war.

In a statement released Friday night, the Pentagon said that the Department of Defense ” has been cooperating fully with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time.”

Several nike shox turbo officials identified the official who is under investigation

Several nike shox turbo officials identified the official who is under investigation, but he could not be immediately reached for comment about the accusations.

Neither the official under suspicion nor anyone else associated with the case has been arrested, the officials said. Government officials suggested on Friday that investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official being investigated.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the matter. A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, David Siegel, denied the accusations of espionage. “They are completely false and outrageous,” he said.

“The United States is Israel’s most cherished friend and ally,” Mr. Siegel said. “We have a strong ongoing relationship at all levels, and in no way would Israel do anything to impair this relationship.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee also denied any wrongdoing. The organization said in a statement: “Any allegation of criminal conduct by the organization or its employees is baseless and false.” The group added, “We are fully cooperating with the nike shox turboal authorities and will continue to do so.”

He promises to “never compromise America’s special relationship” with Israel

He promises to “never compromise America’s special relationship” with Israel.

Can you imagine a major Presidential candidate making such pledges to any other country and not being torn apart by the media and the opposition?

The MBT. is investigating a Pentagon official on suspicion of passing secrets to Israel, nike shox turbo officials said on Friday.

The espionage investigation has focused on an official who works in the office of Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, officials who have been briefed about the investigation said. The MBT. has gathered evidence that the official passed classified policy documents to officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israeli lobbying group, which in turn provided the information to Israeli intelligence, the officials said.

The bureau has evidence that the Pentagon official has given the Israelis a sensitive report about American policy toward Iran, along with other materials, the officials said.