A Baptist pastor in Florida removed the American flag from the church's sanctuary because he thought members should be focused on the cross of Christ instead of on the flag.  

What happened?  He received veiled death threats both at church and at his home.

Last year, First Lady Laura Bush infamously said of the costs of the Iraq war for the American people, "no one suffers more than their President and I do."  Now we know why.  While U.S. troops were sacrificing life and limb in the battlefields of Baghdad, President Bush sacrificed...golf.

I offer more wage suppression, with employers gouging more unions and driving down wages in this country.

For more than two months, 3,600 United Auto Workers (UAW) members have walked picket lines in Detroit, Three Rivers, Mich., and upstate New York. The strike at American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM), a major supplier of truck and sport-utility axles for General Motors (GM), is shaping up as a line-in-the-sand campaign for the embattled union.

I've got a friend in the CIA in Pakistan. He leaked me this memo from Bin Laden himself. Pretty interesting...

Part 3b by Amad on a collaborative book-review on one of most important book addressing Muslim opinion. Buy it here.

| Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3a | Part 3b |Part 4 | Part 5 |

Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe the stress of having been the mayor of New York, the false idolatry that celebrity provides, and the mental decay of advanced age have turned Ed Koch into the blight on the Democratic Party that he is today.

This is the diary that asks--"Is there no argument so ridiculous that somebody somewhere won't buy it?  I offer the following statement from Debra Hananian-Freeman:

"...unless Sen. Hillary Clinton continues her campaign for the Democratic nomination until the Party's convention, there is no presently visible chance that the U.S. will come out of the presently skyrocketting hyperinflationary crisis in any form easily recognized as being, still, our Constitutional republic. The attempt by the powerful, and also predatory financier groups which have sought to crush Senator Clinton, as they had attempted to destroy the nomination of President Franklin Roosevelt in Hoover's favor in 1932, has the smell of a serious attempt at fascist dictatorship all over it."

Follow me over the fold for more Sunday morning silliness.

Are you going to let a terrorist tell you how to vote?

John McCain thinks you should.

Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat

When a bipartisan Congressional committee issues a report on the threat of domestic terrorist violence during an election year, you can be sure that the centrist establishment is worried about the popular backlash against government repression and the threat to civil liberties.

Many things put the lie to the claim that the United States is fighting a "war on terror," but few do so as effectively as its treatment of one of the world's most notorious terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles, a man responsible for the mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and the death of its 73 passengers and crew, along with a long string of other terrorist actions, including some as recently as the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro during a visit to Panama in 2000, an action in which Posada was personally involved (and convicted).

And now Posada walks free in Miami, with the U.S. government still refusing to comply with, or even formally acknowledge, an extradition order by Venezuela filed three years ago (Flight 455 originated in Venezuela, and it is in Venezuela where Posada is wanted on 73 counts of murder).

Luis Posada Carriles, an admitted terrorist wanted for crimes in Latin America, had a nice dinner the other night.

...the man being honored by 500 fellow Cuban Americans at a sold-out gala was Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges and under a deportation order for illegally entering the United States three years ago.

Posada Carriles should be behind bars right now.  He's an international terrorist who was trained and financed by the US government.  He was the ringleader in the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, has bombed hotels in Havana and abroad, tried to assassinate Castro, all with the full knowledge of the CIA.  But he's not only free, but feted as a hero.

Part 3 by Amad on a collaborative book-review on one of most important book addressing Muslim opinion. Buy it here. The following is quoted from him.

| Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3a| Part 3b |Part 4 | Part 5 |

See important notes on survey methodology at the bottom of this post.

The so-called "war against terrorism" has been raging for more than six years, yet the author argue that Muslim extremism and violence continues to spread and grow all over the world.

‎Does support of terrorists make one a terrorist? Presumably that depends on whether you take Mister Bush’s squint-eyed November 6, 2001, prescription – "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror" – in a blindly nationalistic fashion or in a moral one. Terrorism isn’t an ideology. It’s a technique. Much as sophists and thugs - such as the late Jeane Kirkpatrick - like to twist the definition to fit who is carrying out a policy, terrorism can't be one thing for them and something else for us.

Yet one of the most pre-eminent of the Pentagon’s chosen propaganda team of ex-military-cum-television-analysts, retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, not only supports but promotes terrorism against Iran. He's still spewing on Fox News despite having been exposed by David Barstow’s revelations three weeks ago.

This isn’t new territory for McInerney. He’s argued for attacks on Iran for as long as Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives have done. As a member of the Iran Policy Committee, McInerney has long argued that the State Department should take the Mujahideen-e Khalq off its terrorist watch list. The group originated as leftwing opposition to the Shah of Iran in 1963 and was involved in various operations, including the taking of U.S. Embassy hostages in 1979 and the bloody suppression of the Shiite revolt in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Although MEK killed Americans as well as Iranians in the past, it has since adopted a public veneer of being a backer of freedom and democracy as soon as the Iranian mullahs are overturned, the idea being to install one of its founders as Iran’s president.

Although thousands of MEK fighters based in Iraq were disarmed in 2003 when the U.S. military arrived, the organization has since been implicated in attacks in Iran, including assassinations and bombings in public places. Given Mister Bush’s ordering of clandestine activities in Iran and long-standing White House support for various armed groups along Iran’s borders as – belatedly – reported in the Los Angeles Times three weeks ago, such activity can hardly be surprising to anyone who has followed U.S.-Iranian relations even cursorily.

But, just as Max Boot and Robert Kaplan and Stephen Peter Rosen and others argue quite openly for American empire, now we have a well-connected ex-general openly calling for terrorist attacks – excuse me, responses – in Iran. With a Fox News reader cheering him on.

McInerney starts one minute into the video linked here.

Question: If we do have evidence, and apparently we do, according to officials, that Iran is killing U.S. troops in Iraq or supporting that, why haven't we struck by now?

McInerney: It beats me, Greg. I don't know why we haven't. They have killed hundreds of Americans with their explosively formed projectiles [EFPs], and that's why I think we have to take action. And here's what I would suggest to you. No. 1, we take the National Council for Resistance in Iran off the terrorist list that the Clinton Administration put them on, as well as the Mujahideen-e Khalq that are at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Then I would start a tit-for-tat strategy. For every EFP that goes off that kills Americans, two go off in Iran. No questions asked, people don't know have to know how it was done. It's covert action. They become the most unlucky country in the world. And then I would start moving U.S. carrier battle groups into the region, as well as some of our stealth aircraft, just to make sure they understand, don't try to kick off a major insurrection come October and September, October to impact our elections. They are deliberately ratcheting up and we’ve got to counterattack.

As McInerney pointed out, this isn’t the first time he has made this proposal. He did it in a March 30, 2007, column, too. And while he suggests that the tactic won’t endanger civilians, this is a detestable lie. IEDs, whether equipped with EFPs or not, kill civilians in Iraq all the time. Deploying McInerney’s monstrous terrorist proposal would mean murdering Iranians - men, women, children - who happen to get "unlucky."

The American bodyguards of a Bush administration envoy who was dispatched to the region to monitor the implementation of the road map engaged in a violent confrontation with right-wing Israelis who sought to disturb a visit to Hebron on Friday, Israel Radio reported.

That doesn't quite fit into the standard narrative, does it?

We all know the classic line by Roosevelt about 'fear'.  Conversely, we all know how the 'fear-card' has been played by the Bush administration ( and echoed by all their little droogies across the land ).  Unfortunately, very few Democrats in the House and Senate have had the sand enough to call each and every bluff - they feared their hand wasn't strong, ended-up playin their cards so close to their chest that they forgot what they held.  Those that have stepped-up have either done so with lack-luster results or simply no result at all.  

We are seen by corporations as nothing more than consumers.  We watch American Idol, or Desperate Housewives, or reality progams currently piting has-been rockers of the 80s against former child-stars of the 70's in death-combat-style dance-offs and we absorb every gimmicky new product in every commercial.  We read magazines, newspapers, are pelted with pop-up ads on the internet, sales circulars in the mail, on and on and on.  And we buy - buy - buy - buy!!!!

The same standard seems to hold true when judging people's patriotism.  If you are afraid, and you consume, then you're almost a "partiot".........but not quite yet.

More of my random philosophical ramblings below the flip ------>

We all know how the Bush Administration has failed deliver on the capture of Osama Bin Laden. What has now come to light thanks to the WaPo is that there has also been a complete failure to secure justice in the attack on the USS Cole. 17 sailors were killed in that attack on the Cole and although President Clinton promised justice it seems like neither he nor president Bush has delivered. The story told by the WaPo about the efforts surrounding the Cole is sad in many ways and should serve as a constant reminder of just how badly the War on Terror has been conducted.

[cross-posted on And, yes, I DO take it personally]

i've been posting on various perspectives of kabul and afghanistan... here's another one that captures fairly well the experience of driving around the city of kabul...

Getting around in some parts of central Kabul is like driving inside trenches: two lanes of road between high walls made of modern versions of sandbags referred to by their brand name: "Hesco barriers." They consist of 4-foot-tall wire mesh containers lined with heavy plastic and filled with sand, gravel or dirt, all topped by concertina wire. Other streets have classic sandbag structures, high walls and/or concrete-like barricades. Every dozen yards along the roads are heavily armed guards -- dead serious, with sunglasses, earpieces and legs menacingly spread.

If you—or your son in college, or your 80-year-old grandmother—are planning a bus or train trip within New York State (yes, I said WITHIN New York State), you had best be prepared with proof of citizenship. Riders who lack it may be detained as possible illegal immigrants or terrorists.