Terry Jones has a funny one on the distortion of language in Iraq.
Guardian: "Then there's the problem of what the Americans are going to call the Iraqis - especially the ones that they kill. You can call people who are defending their own homes from rockets and missiles launched from helicopters and tanks 'fanatics and terrorists' only for so long. Eventually even newspaper readers will smell a rat."

Which reminds me of several other similar ones lying around.
Paul de Rooij: Glossary of the Iraqi Occupation
A Glossary of Warmongering
Glossary of Occupation

And from a pro Israeli occupation view
CAMERA: Dictionary of Bias

Guardian: "One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other.
He told CBS: 'We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations.'
His lawyer, Gary Myers, told the Guardian that Sgt Frederick had not had the opportunity to read the Geneva Conventions before being put on guard duty, a task he was not trained to perform. "

Not having been taught the Geneva Conventions, how could he possibly have known that it was wrong?
Remember, they hate us for our freedoms.

60 Minutes II: "60 Minutes II acquired graphic photos of U.S. troops mistreating and humiliating Iraqi POWs. Dan Rather spoke to Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt about the military's probe of the events."

You can see some of the images here. American prudishness: torture images are OK, but people's butts and genitals are airbrushed out...

BBC: "But in an interview with Reuters news agency, Mr Powell said that while the new government would take full sovereignty over the country, it would have to give some of it back to the Americans so that the US would still be in command of its own troops.
'I hope they will understand that in order for this government to get up and running - to be effective - some of its sovereignty will have to be given back, if I can put it that way, or limited by them,' Mr Powell said.
'It's sovereignty but [some] of that sovereignty they are going to allow us to exercise on their behalf and with their permission.' "

washingtonpost: "'Our soldiers and our Marines have the inherent right of self-defense,' Kimmitt said. 'Whether that is somebody who is trying to defend their city, which seems to be somewhat of a ludicrous concept, or somebody who's just out to kill an American, both of those will find the full force of the United States Marine Corps and the coalition brought down on them.' "

Why is "trying to defend their city" "somewhat of a ludicrous concept"?

BBC : "Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he no longer feels bound by a promise to the US not to harm veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
In a TV interview, Mr Sharon said he had informed US President George W Bush about the change in his position when they met in Washington last week. "

BBC: "Maj Gen Martin Dempsey said about 10% of new officers were rebels and a further 40% had left their jobs - but the rest 'stood tall and stood firm'. "

No doubt these are all "deadenders", or "foreign terrorists" and other evildoers. Trouble is, this leaves at best 50% being freedomloving good dooers.

Guardian: "'The Greeks have this Mediterranean mentality that is like the syrtaki dance, we start very slow and then speed up,' says Costis Hadjidakis, an MEP. 'That's why we've now started working 24 hours a day. The Greeks are very lazy and very disorganised but they're also very clever. When they decide to work they can create miracles.' "

Couldn't resist this...

Miserable Failure: International bodies can be important in the war against terror if they're effective. They're lousy in the war against terror is they're not effective, because this is a results-oriented game we're in right now. We've got to be effective to stop them.

Who are them? International bodies? I guess so. After all they did prove that they had no relevance.

I would urge you to see the movie "Osama." It's hard for the American mentality to grasp how barbaric the Taliban was toward women in Afghanistan. So see the movie, and then maybe -- it'll speak better than I can possibly speak. Burl is always accusing me of not being able to speak so good anyway.

See. He does want Americans to be informed. Go see "Osama". But he is cute in his stupidity isn't he? Burl, whoever that is thinks so anyway.

We all thought he had weapons. We found out -- the truth will be known over time. We found out he had the ability to make weapons. He had the capability. I think the intent was clear. After all, he hated America. He paid suiciders to go kill Jews.

It is all so clear. He had ability and capability and America hatred and Jew hatred.

See, free societies don't promote terror.

No, I guess not. How many civilians died in Iraq? In Viet Nam? Chile? El Salvador? Nicaragua? Palestine? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Dresden? No indeed. Free societies don't promote terror.

Now look, there's a debate, I readily concede -- some people don't believe if you're a Muslim or an Arab you can be free. I just strongly disagree with that thought. I think everybody yearns to be free, and I think everybody can self-govern. I remind you, some people thought the Japanese could never self-govern or be free. And, yet, as I said in my press conference the other day, I had the honor of sitting down to dinner with President Koizumi -- or Prime Minister Koizumi. And we're talking about North Korea, which I'll get to here in a second.
It's amazing -- he's a great guy, by the way. Elvis Presley is one of his favorites. (Laughter.) His favorite movie was Gary Cooper in "High Noon." One time he walked up to me and said, "You like Cooper." (Laughter.) I said, "I'm like Cooper?" He said, "Yes." (Laughter.) I finally figured out what he meant. (Laughter.)

Yes. Quite.

The long-term strategy of this government is to spread freedom around the world. And I believe -- I told you, a free Iraq will be a major change agent for world peace. I also believe a free Palestinian state would be a major change agent for world peace. Ariel Sharon came to America and he stood up with me and he said, we are pulling out of Gaza and parts of the West Bank. In my judgment, the whole world should have said, thank you, Ariel. Now we have a chance to begin the construction of a peaceful Palestinian state.

Well yes, Thank you Ariel, thank you ever so much. Did I say thank you? Thank you. Thanks for the 2,400 dead Palestinians including 460 children and some 600 Israelis killed including some 100 children (thanks B'Tselem). Thank you. Thank you Ariel. Thank you Dubya.

Letter I sent to the Chron regarding their surprisingly good editorial...

Editor -- Thank you for pointing out the unfairness of President Bush's embrace of Sharon's policies ('Hurting our Arab friends', Editorial, April 21.) International treaties enshrine the rights of refugees to return to their homes, and prohibit an occupier from transferring populations to occupied territories. Neither Bush, Sharon, nor Arafat can take away these rights. Palestinian refugees will continue to have the right of return to their homes in Israel and Jewish settlements in the West Bank will continue to be illegal.

Guardian: "When US forces recently demanded that a team from the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera leave Falluja as a condition for reaching a ceasefire with the local resistance, it came as no surprise at the network's headquarters in Doha...
The al-Jazeera reports of US snipers firing at women and children in the streets of Falluja have now been corroborated by international observers in the city. Perhaps it is natural that a military force should seek to suppress evidence that could be used against it in future war crimes trials. But it is equally natural that a free media should resist."

Guardian: "King Abdullah of Jordan flew home from the US after abruptly cancelling a meeting planned for today with the president in Washington. The king's move came as the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, said there was more hatred of Americans in the Arab world today than ever before...
King Abdullah's cancellation was in retaliation for Mr Bush's support last week for a plan by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in which he offered to pull out of Gaza in return for US recognition of illegal settlements on the West Bank and an end of the right of 3.6 million Palestinians to return to Israel.

Mr Mubarak cited as reasons for the increased hatred Israel and the US occupation of Iraq. In an interview with Le Monde published yesterday, he said : "After what has happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred. What's more - they [Arabs] see Sharon act as he wants, without the Americans saying anything"."

BBC: "'We went in because we had to find the perpetrators and what we found was a huge rat's nest that is still festering today,' the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. "

Bring it on. Freedom loving liberators describing their quary.

Monbiot explains US policy wrt Israel: "The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be."

Haaretz 2004.06.24: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

This quote was attributed to Bush in Dilip Hiro's new Book (Secrets and Lies). I found the original quote above. It is also reported in the Washington Post.

washingtonpost: "Kerry said. "We need to offer to share responsibilities with the United Nations, NATO and others, so they will work with us in Iraq to achieve security, stability, and freedom."
However, Albania, a predominantly Muslim country, told the United States it was prepared to send more non-combat troops to Iraq, the government said Monday, in a possible expansion of the 71-member-strong contingent patrolling the northern city of Mosul under U.S. command."

Well that's ok then. Who needs freedom hating Spain when freedom loving Albania is there to help

More consequences of the loss of the Spanish from the Guardian: 'Honduras now has 370 troops in Najaf under Spanish command, alongside small forces from El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

``Those troops depend on the Spanish troops for logistics and language reasons,'' said Grzegorz Holdanowicz, Polish correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly.

Honduras had planned to withdraw its contingent in July as scheduled.'

Bush Names U.S. Ambassador to Iraq: "President Bush named John Negroponte, the United States' top diplomat at the United Nations, as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq on Monday and asserted that Iraq 'will be free and democratic and peaceful.'"

Those of us with some memory will remember his role in Honduras. From www.disinfopedia.org: "During Negroponte's tenure, U.S. military aid to Honduras, a country of five million, skyrocketed from $3.9 million to $77.4 million. Much of this largesse went to assure the Honduran army's loyalty in the battle against political leftists throughout Central America. Embassy reports to Washington singled out for particular praise army chief Alvarez, a School of the Americas graduate who was direct commander of Battalion 316"

MSNBC - Transcript for April 18: "MR. RUSSERT: Israel assassinated Hamas leader Rantisi. Do you support that assassination?
SEN. KERRY: I believe Israel has every right in the world to respond to any act of terror against it. Hamas is a terrorist, brutal organization. It has had years to make up its mind to take part in a peaceful process. They refuse to. Arafat refuses to. And I support Israel's efforts to try to separate itself and to try to be secure. The moment Hamas says, 'We've given up violence, we're prepared to negotiate,' I am absolutely confident they will find an Israel that is thirsty to have that negotiation.
MR. RUSSERT: On Thursday, President Bush broke with the tradition and policy of six predecessors when he said that Israel can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular homes. Do you support President Bush?
SEN. KERRY: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: Completely?
SEN. KERRY: Yes."

Guardian: "For years it has been my belief that the ideal US president for Middle East peace would be one who had the ethics of a Carter, the popularity of a Reagan and the strategic audacity of a Nixon. Alas, we have a president who has the ethics of a Nixon, the popularity of a Carter and the intellectual agility of a Reagan. "

Guardian: "Spain announced last night it was expediting the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, jolting its coalition partners after another weekend of heavy losses and setbacks. "

Gideon Levy: "The abysmal American-Israeli contempt for them, completely disenfranchising them from determining their own future, returns the Palestinians to the days of Golda, who declared that they are not a people. Thus, another nail is driven into the coffin of the Palestinian Authority and another significant boost is given to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others who reject negotiations. After all, what will the Palestinians negotiate about if everything is already decided between Sharon and 'the leader of the free world?' "

Pilger: "Even now, as the uprising spreads, there is only cryptic gesturing at the obvious: that this is a war of national liberation and that the enemy is 'us'. The pro-invasion Sydney Morning Herald is typical. Having expressed 'surprise' at the uniting of Shias and Sunnis, the paper's Baghdad correspondent recently described 'how GI bullies are making enemies of their Iraqi friends' and how he and his driver had been threatened by Americans. 'I'll take you out quick as a flash, motherfucker!' a soldier told the reporter. That this was merely a glimpse of the terror and humiliation that Iraqis have to suffer every day in their own country was not made clear; yet this newspaper has published image after unctuous image of mournful American soldiers, inviting sympathy for an invader who has 'taken out' thousands of innocent men, women and children."

Robert Fisk: By endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan George Bush has legitimised terrorism: "So President George Bush tears up the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and that's okay. Israeli settlements for Jews and Jews only on the West Bank. That's okay. Taking land from Palestinians who have owned that land for generations, that's okay. UN Security Council Resolution 242 says that land cannot be acquired by war. Forget it. That's okay. "

Oil from Iraq: An Israeli pipedream? - Jane's Middle East/Africa News: "It is understood from diplomatic sources that the Bush administration has said it will not support lifting UN sanctions on Iraq unless Saddam's successors agree to supply Israel with oil."

That would be pretty scanadalous. The Haaretz article in the pipeline is here.

Guardian Unlimited: "The abandonment of even the attempt to appear to be an honest broker in the Middle East, along with the doctrines of pre-emptive war and unilateralism, are departures from the post-1945 US consensus with no precedent.

It has a kind of logic: Bush knows that supporting Sharon will please his predominantly conservative Christian, pro-Israel constituency, and a foreign policy achievement can only help in an election year marred by bad news from Iraq. "

Palestinian anger as hopes are dashed: "In an interview for Canadian television, however, Mr Powell appeared to endorse Washington's new line against the return of Palestinian refugees. 'Frankly, those refugees should return to the new state of Palestine, which is what it was created for, not Israel.' "

"what it was created for"?
What about occupation, justice, guman rights, ...

washingtonpost.com: "In declaring that Israel should be able to keep some of the occupied territories and block Palestinian refugees from settling in Israel, Bush followed a familiar pattern of finding common cause with Jews and increasingly pro-Israel Christian conservatives. That Bush's move was good politics was evidenced by Democratic rival John F. Kerry's quick move not to let Bush outflank him among pro-Israel voters."

Schlesinger: "Why was President Bush, as both Richard Clarke and the former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill have testified, so obsessed with Iraq? I do not think it is for petty reasons. Mr Bush very likely buys into the neo-conservative fantasy that the victory of democracy in Iraq will democratise the entire Islamic world and establish his own place in history. 'A free Iraq,' as President Bush said yesterday, 'will stand as an example to reformers across the Middle East.'
Other reasons - oil, Israel, the search for military bases in place of Saudi Arabia, liberation of Iraq from a monstrous tyrant - are secondary compared to the historic mission for which the Almighty has chosen him."

The New York Times: "On Sunday, a Marine tank fired 18 rounds into a house a suspected insurgent was firing from, said Jeremiah Day, a combat engineer from Minnetonka, Minn.
'And afterwards the guy was still standing,' Corporal Day said. 'It was like Scarface or something.'
That same day, Brent Bourgeois, a 20-year-old lance corporal from Kenner, La., said he had seen an American helicopter fire a missile at a man with a slingshot.
'Crazy, huh?' the corporal said."

Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Guardian: "'Sharon must come home with some assurance that the United States does not see it as a first step towards evacuation of most of the settlements,' said Menachem Klein of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. 'He also wants to be able to say that Washington will back him if he wants to use Apache helicopters to fire on the Gaza Strip after the pull-out.' "

Bring on the Apaches.

Aljazeera: "'But I may add that some fighters are 100% ready to put themselves in hospitals, schools and houses. As a result, there were civilian casualties, which is something tragic. We prefer if those fighters would come out into neutral zones to fight against the coalition forces.'"

I think they want to follow Marquis de Sade rules. Man to man. High in the sadle, 20 paces yada yada. Of course they would like them to come out in the open and then have a daisy cutter dropped on them. The US much prefers that form of warfare. Is it so strange that a movement of resistance to occupation is embeded in the occupied occupation?

Thomas Friedman is so deep: "I have nothing but respect for the Kurds of Iraq. They have a democratic soul."

Haaretz: "Israel will not be asked in the future to withdraw to the 1949 cease-fire lines (the Green Line) on the West Bank, according to a letter U.S. President George Bush is to present to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington this week.
According to the letter, the determination of borders in a final status accord will take into consideration "demographic realities" on the ground."
So, better get on quickly with beefing up those stettlements 'man of piss".

NYT: "Mr. Bremer, in an interview on CNN today, pledged to arrest Mr. Sadr.
'He believes that in the new Iraq, like in the old Iraq, power should be with the guy who's got the guns, and that's an unacceptable vision for Iraq,' he said. 'He represents a fundamental challenge to the rule of law in Iraq, and it will not stand.'
American and Iraqi forces that have amassed on the outskirts of Falluja have begun conducting raids in the city in what Donald H. Rumsfeld, the United States defense secretary, called 'a methodical effort' to find and capture the people responsible for killing the four American military contractors last week in Falluja."

I continue being amazed at the lack of irony. First we are told that the evildoers believe that power lies with "the guy who's got the guns" then we are told of US use of force....

Islam Online- News Section: "Shiites' spiritual leader Sistani, in the meantime, voiced his solidarity with Sadr, Aljazeera satellite channel quoted a close aide to the veteran Shiite leader as saying.
Sistani said "the demonstrators' demands are legitimate" and "condemns acts waged by the occupation forces and pledges his support to the families of the victims", he said."

Naomi Klein on the riots: "US forces pointed tanks at the crowd while a loudspeaker told them that 'demonstrations are an important part of democracy but blocking traffic will not be permitted'"

Teaching the Iraqis democracy...

Guardian: "'I would like to direct my words to the father of evil, Bush,' he said. 'Who is against democracy? Is it the one who calls for peaceful resistance, or the one who bombs people, sheds their blood and leads them away from the leaders under feeble and dirty pretexts?'"

Mirror mirror on the wall who is the evilest of them all?

Haaretz: "True, the press mirrors European public opinion, which according to the polls largely believes the United States is pursuing a deceptive, one-sided policy; it itself supports the Palestinian position and is opposed to Israel.

Nevertheless, the polls also show there is a minority in Europe that thinks otherwise: Fifteen percent of the French and 22 percent of the Germans do not think the United States 'is not honest,' and there is also a minority that supports Israel. "

Haaretz: "The United States will assure Israel that it will not have to withdraw to the Green Line in a future permanent settlement with the Palestinians.

The promise appears in a letter of guarantees drafted by the American administration in exchange for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan."