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The NYT's have finally admitted what pretty much everyone has already figured out for themselves. The surge has worked. But all that we have gained, all we have achieved could be undone by a precipitous withdrawal: Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope,...

Mr. Hamdan, We're Ready For Your Closeup Aug. 17, 2008(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.Of course George Clooney’s production company has just purchased the rights to a book written about Salim Hamdan, the most famous mechanic and driver in the history of the world. The sensitive star knows a good story when he sees one, and Hamdan’s story (the final chapters of which have yet to be written) over the past six years surely ranks as one of the best of the decade. Hamdan drove Osama bin Laden for a while (imaging having that...

Gaza smuggling tunnels are for milk, say Palestinians Gaza smuggling tunnels are for milk, say Palestinians Palestinian officials from the Gaza Strip have distributed a set of carefully-staged photographs they say are evidence that the smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border are for milk and other essential goods, not weapons. The photographs show masked Palestinian militants lifting jugs of milk and sacks of baby food from the entrance to one of the tunnels on the Gaza side of the border. Israel insists that the tunnels, of which intelligence estimates indicate there are hundreds, are used to import small arms...

George Clooney, already one of Hollywood's leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden's driver. Clooney's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan's capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success. Last week Yemen-born...

Hollywood A-lister George Clooney is planning to bring the story of Osama bin Laden's driver to the big screen. The actor's production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, according to The Observer newspaper. The Challenge by journalist Jonathan Mahler chronicles Hamdan's capture and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay and his subsequent trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. Charles Swift. Hamdan, from Yemen, was sentenced last week to 5 1/2 years in jail. It was the first sentence handed down to a Guantanamo Bay detainee by a U.S. military tribunal....

Media: Four years ago this week, we noted how negative coverage of the Iraq War had become. But that was when things weren't going well. This is now, when things are going much better. So coverage must be much more positive, right? (with asterisks indicating page-toppers): • June 11: "Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say"* "NATO Not Expected to Send Force to Iraq" • June 13: "Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go"* "Insurgents and Islam Now Rulers of Fallujah" • June 14: "At Least 20 Killed in Baghdad (Car) Bombings" • June 15: "Iraq's Foreign Contractors in...

An unbylined Associated Press report yesterday, at least as carried at MSNBC, acknowledges improvement, and then explains why it's not going to get much future coverage from the wire service as long as things stay that way: BAGHDAD - Signs are emerging that Iraq has reached a turning point. Violence is down, armed extremists are in disarray, government confidence is rising and sectarian communities are gearing up for a battle at the polls rather than slaughter in the streets. Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States, where the war-weary public is focused on the American presidential...

Have you seen this delicious little quote from Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Paul Jankorski? Why it would seem that Mr. Jankorski is admitting that the Democrats lied about what was going on in Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections? Here's his quote: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we ... the Democrats ... that if we won the Congressional elections we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. "But you know ... the temptation to want to win back the Congress ......

Dennis Miller has Vincent Bugliosi (famous Manson case prosecutor and author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder") on the show today. Bugliosi has got a MAJOR case of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Anyone who calls to counter Bugliosi's "arguments" and "evidence" is either a "Bush lover" or a "right-winger". Oh, man!

U.S. troops serving in Iraq may be getting more letters during mail call, but they won't be care packages — one group is sending them letters and DVDs claiming 9/11 was an “inside job” and that they should rethink why they’re fighting. Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance, which he calls a media watchdog group, says that the U.S. government was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the armed forces should know it. “People want the facts. The Marines are hungry for the truth — what got them there [in Iraq], why are they risking their lives...

Every Thursday since the United States started bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, several men and women have stood on the street in front of San Francisco's Federal Building in a quiet vigil for peace.This week marked the 333rd Thursday that the group - 30 to 40 people - most of them older, some of them young, have gathered at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Larkin Street with their signs.They don't chant or sing. They don't demonstrate or block traffic. They pray, some of them; they stand vigil, with signs: "NO TO WAR YES TO PEACE."They are a familiar...

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has been a fairly undistinguished member of the House of Representatives for nearly a quarter of a century. He is a career member of the Financial Services Committee who has made little or no name for himself since his first electoral victory, and has maintained incumbency through the funneling of pork back to his district. Even his Wikipedia entry says that Kanjorski "usually plays behind-the-scenes roles in the advocacy or defeat of legislation and steers appropriations money toward improving the infrastructure and economic needs of his district." “But [in] the temptation to want to win back...

By see-dubya • May 9, 2008 01:55 AM For what it’s worth, the New York Times reports that the U.S.’s designated new commander in Pakistan, General James Hood, has not been allowed to take up his new job. He had served as commander of Gitmo, and although he actually did away with some of the roughest forms of interrogation there and won some (grudging) praise from human rights groups, his legacy in the Middle East is tainted by Newsweek’s lie: General Hood, who took command of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay in March 2004, shortly before the Abu Ghraib...

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein on Wednesday after holding him for more than two years without filing formal charges. Hussein, 36, was handed over to AP colleagues at a checkpoint in Baghdad. He was taken to the site aboard a prisoner bus and left U.S. custody wearing a traditional Iraqi robe. He was smiling and appeared in good health. "I want to thank all the people working in AP. ... I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody," Hussein said after being freed. AP President Tom...

This is a scattered editorial. Rich begins by puffing an Abu Ghraib film supposed to excite the masses. It doesn't sound interesting and, to Rich's credit, he gives up on this score. He then confesses his confusion and unhappiness and blames the American people for disinterest in his and the NYT's preoccupation with Iraq an alleged atrocities. "...This is not merely a showbiz phenomenon but a leading indicator of where our entire culture is right now. It’s not just torture we want to avoid. Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the...

Data from the Defense Intelligence Agency indicates that enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians peaked in October 2006, the month leading up to the U.S. midterm elections. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgents were "very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled" and were trying to "break the will of the American people." Democrats, who cast the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on Iraq, ended up taking control of both the House and the Senate. The DIA data shows that between November 2006 and May 2007, attacks...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

Thousands of people march to protest the war in Iraq in Hollywood on March 15, 2008. Opponents of the Iraq war plan to hold marches, sit-ins and other protests on Wednesday in cities across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion. (AFP/File/Valerie Macon)

BERLIN (AP) - Lynndie England, the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a German news magazine that she was sorry for appearing in photographs of detainees in the notorious Iraqi prison, and believes the scenes of torture and humiliation served as a powerful rallying point for anti-American insurgents. In an interview with the weekly magazine Stern conducted in English and posted on its Web site Tuesday, England was both remorseful and unrepentant—and conceded that the published photos surely incensed insurgents in Iraq. "I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton charged on Monday the Iraq war may cost Americans $1 trillion and add strain to the sagging U.S. economy as she made her case for a prompt U.S. troop pullout from a war "we cannot win."

Maybe we need to change it from Bush Derangement Syndrome to simply American Derangement Syndrome: The hot fashion accessory [at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony] was apparently orange ribbons and bracelets in solidarity with terrorist suspects in Guantanamo: Out on the red carpet, Paul Haggis (the director whose “Crash” won Best Picture in 2006) said he didn’t know what accounts for all these deeply dark, brooding, troubled films. But isn’t it obvious, he asked, flashing an orange ribbon on his lapel. Orange, why orange? “It’s Guantanamo,” his Max Azria-clad wife, Deborah, said, showing off her orange bracelet, which read: “Silence + torture...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Tuesday, February 26, 2008 ArchivesPermanent Link FORMER CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite is 91 years old and ailing. Poor health prevented him from accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award in person on January 19. At such a moment, I would prefer to speak charitably of Cronkite. But the times call for candor. Cronkite's intrigues have cost the lives of countless American soldiers. Even worse, it appears that our Central Intelligence Agency assisted Cronkite in his betrayals. Americans need to know why. Born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, Cronkite grew up in Kansas City and Houston, Texas. He dropped...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques. The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote...

Revelations make it clear that Bush still thinks illegal interrogation tactics are OK -- In the past, the United States had a straightforward standard in defining torture: Would the United States object to a particular interrogation technique if it was used by an enemy against a captured American?For example, the United States used that standard to prosecute Japanese soldiers in World War II for using waterboarding, sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures to torture American soldiers.But that all changed with the Bush administration. In what have become infamous memos worldwide, John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel and Jay Bybee...

AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo Feb 6 05:15 PM US/Eastern By ANDREW O. SELSKY Associated Press Writer GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded—a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The...

Sen. John Kerry is calling on Democrats to help presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama avoid the fate he endured in the 2004 election -- "swiftboating" by political foes. In an e-mail sent out Tuesday to Obama's supporters, Kerry wrote: "I support Barack Obama because he doesn't seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating -- he seeks to end it. "This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election. As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been...

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could...

The Taliban has The Associated Press and Reuters on speed dial. Elias Wahdat, a stringer for Reuters and BBC news services in Khost province, said that every time the Taliban launch an attack or American troops call in an air strike, he gets a text message. The Taliban will give its version of what happened, often claiming that American bombs killed civilians. It may take officials with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan hours to put together a news release for the press. In the meantime, the Taliban version is already circulating. Lt. Col. David A. Accetta, the 82nd Airborne Division...

Isn't it interesting the way Iraq news gets reported in our media. A Jan. 10 Associated Press story begins: "Nine American soldiers were killed in the first two days of a new offensive to root out al-Qaida-in-Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of he capital. ... "The losses came as many enemy militants fled U.S. and Iraqi forces massing in Diyala" -- a lot of those guerrillas fleeing north into the province of Salahuddin -- AP correspondent Christopher Chester continues. Read down to the seventh paragraph -- halfway through the story. There, we finally learn that our troops "killed...

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons. Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be...

Harry Reid doesn't know when to give up, or more precisely, when to give up on giving up. After spending the last several months trying to live down his declaration of America's defeat in Iraq on the Senate floor, Reid once again gave al-Qaeda a propaganda boost that sounds as if he took it from Ayman al-Zawahiri's latest video message: Indeed, Republicans have gotten their way in the battle over spending, have forced Democrats to jettison rollbacks of tax breaks for oil companies, and have beaten back attempts to pay for expanded children's health care programs with a tobacco tax...

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and two other senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.Baldwin and fellow Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois on Friday distributed a statement, "A Case for Hearings," that declares, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our Constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation...

There is a disputed quote, attributed to North Vietnamese General Võ Nguyên Giáp, which states the American military would have won the Vietnam War were it not for the efforts of the American media to demoralize the nation. Giap purportedly wrote, "What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. ... We were ready to surrender! ... We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields." While this quote is...

Follow the link to read about a play making a hero out of Rachel Corrie that is running in Montreal. Corrie was a nitwit, indoctrinated by Israel-hating leftists at Evergreen State College who got flattened by an Israeli military bulldozer. Good riddance to her! Anyone dumb enough not to move out of the way of a slow moving bulldozer shouldn't be using up valuable oxygen. Does the play have a bulldozer come on stage, like the helicopter in Miss Saigon? Because watching a re-enactment of the flattening of the unlamented Rachel Corrie might be worth the price of a ticket.

In a reprise of its notorious December 2004 delivery of $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to the 'other side' in the then al Qaeda controlled Iraqi city of Fallujah as American forces were fighting to liberate the city from the terrorists, the anti-American group Code Pink is again raising money to send to an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq.Several weeks ago, Code Pink announced that it was soliciting money to send to Nineveh province to aid "Iraqi orphans, widows and internally displaced people."It just so happens that Nineveh province is where al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents have recently regrouped...

Franken announced in February his candidacy as a Democratic contender for the U.S. senate seat now held by first-term Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who many see as one of the most vulnerable national incumbents, The New York Times reports. Franken is in a competitive race for Coleman's seat with Mike Ciresi, a lawyer who has run for the job previously. Franken lobbies potential voters to support his claim the former comedian is a serious contender, arguing his political commentary as of late offers credibility. Franken and Ciresi are both impressive fundraisers, raising $1.89 million and $1.7 million, respectively, the Times...

Democrats are increasingly bailing on their previously held view that the troop surge in Iraq has been a "failure," but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid isn't ready to jump on the bandwagon with other Democrats who say the surge has worked. The Senate re-opened for business on Monday after a two-week Thanksgiving break, during which key Democrats traveled to Iraq and declared that the surge is working, at least from a security and military perspective. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one the top war critics, stunned fellow Democrats late last week with his statement that "the surge is working," even though...

For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations that stories we published by an American soldier then serving in Iraq were fabricated. When these accusations first arose, we promised our readers a full account of our investigation. We spent the last four-and-a-half months re-reporting his stories. These are our findings. ::very big snip:: In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity--which, in the wrong hands, can become...

Transcript: HELEN THOMAS: Does the President want no troops out from Iraq on his watch? I’m talking about all the troops. MS. PERINO: Well, 5,700 troops will be home by the end of the year, so that is some troops coming home. The President said that troop levels are going to be made by commanders on the ground, and that we’re going to have to talk about – THOMAS: Why should it be? Why can’t the American people have a say? MS. PERINO: — return on success. The American people have had a say. They elected a President who is...

Fake mug shots of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other White House officials are on display at the main branch of the New York City Public Library, and the exhibit has caused quite a commotion. About six manipulated photographs of members of the Bush administration made to look like mug shots are lining one of the landmark building's hallways, with each current and former official holding a D.C. police date-of-arrest placard bearing the date they made "incriminating" statements about the war in Iraq, The New York Daily News reported. In addition to Bush and Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza...

What is there left to say about the Hollywood assumption that Americans are too clueless to realize that war is hell, that the war in Iraq is particularly troubling and that only moral instruction from, well, Hollywood can bring a benighted nation to its senses? Moviegoers have already signaled their disdain. Three recent antiwar pictures that reflect the film colony's imperious self-regard — "In the Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Lions for Lambs" — have been quickly fitted with box-office body bags. Soon they'll be joined by "Redacted," the talky, torpid, borderline-hysterical new movie by Brian De Palma. The picture's...

More on Redacted Briefings Comments (5) I called the Dallas Mavericks front office today to express my displeasure at Mark Cuban’s funding of Redacted. I started the conversation by saying, “I hope this isn’t the only phone call you’re going to receive like this, but I am a soldier and I never raped nor murdered anyone.” The woman on the other end of the line said, “Why would you blame Mark?” When I responded, “Because he funded the project,” I found myself talking to dead air. My thought is that we should all call, or write and express our displeasure....

Facts Don’t Matter! - A stunning revelation stated almost in emphatic unison from three of the most respected and read political weblog posters presenting at Blogworld & New Media Expo. This bold announcement came out at a lightly-attended conference module held as part of the “Political Track” at Blogworld last week. The module held Friday, November 9, 2007, in a Las Vegas Convention Center conference room was entitled “Right vs Left: Who’s Winning The Battle Of The Blogosphere?” It featured a discussion panel of six political commentators (three from the conservative viewpoint and three from the liberal, uh, progressive viewpoint)....

House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war Wednesday night that would require President Bush to start bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008. The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate — let alone overcome a presidential veto — Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren't giving up. "The fact is, we can no longer...

WEB EXTRA / Readers weigh in as wounds of Vietnam are reopened again . . . I am writing in response to the article published on November 6th about U.S. Senator John Kerry. I find it hard to believe that the issue of Senator Kerry’s service to our country is being brought up yet again by one small group of people with an ax to grind. - TIMOTHY P. MURRAY, Lt. Governor, Massachusetts Dear Senator Kerry, it does not matter what dirt you have on them, what you use to prove you right and them wrong, you lost this battle,...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Government watchdogs have found that thousands of people who shouldn't have been admitted to the United States were mistakenly allowed in last year because of security lapses at legal border crossings. The number of inadmissible aliens who managed to enter through official ports of entry in 2006 was not disclosed in Monday's report from the Government Accountability Office. However, a source who has seen a full version of the report, in which those statistics were included, put the total at 21,000. The author of the GAO report, Richard Stana, said most of those who were wrongly allowed...

It doesn't matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall's surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films. Both "In the Valley of Elah" and, more recently, "Rendition" drew minuscule crowds upon their release, which doesn't bode well for the ongoing stream of films critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's wider war on terror."Rendition," which features three Oscar winners in key roles, grossed $4.1 million over the weekend in 2,250 screens for a ninth-place finish. A re-release of "The Nightmare...

Caption this "representative" of American views being honored by American Atheists Kalifornia director Dave Kong.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under increasing pressure from members of her Democratic caucus Wednesday not to bring a resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide to a vote. The San Francisco Democrat, who had promised to bring the long-debated resolution to the floor, sounded uncertain about its fate as support waned in the face of angry denunciations from Turkey and fears that the symbolic resolution could disrupt U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Whether it will come up or not, or what the action will be, remains to be seen," she said. The Bush administration and the Turkish government...

(CNSNews.com) -The federal government is currently conducting more than 60 "stolen valor" investigations of individuals suspected of making false claims about their military records, according to the Department of Veteran's Affairs, and about 30 people nationwide have been arrested in the past year for crimes related to falsifying a military record. Stolen valor typically occurs when someone falsifies documents or produces medals and awards from the military they didn't earn in order to qualify for veterans benefits. Jeffrey Sullivan, the U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington, prosecuted Jesse Macbeth of Tacoma, Wash., in the past year as well...