News for 01-29-07

01-29-07 - Soldiers Against Iraq Desert To Canada "A lot of guys whose skin was melted off," he said. "A lot of guys who you couldn't recognize literally from their face to their feet. Missing arms, missing legs, couldn't breathe on their own, couldn't feed themselves. These kids, literally kids ? 17, 18, 19, 20. And this look in their eyes that ? Oh, I?m never gonna forget it. The look in their eyes when they finally come to understand that they're never gonna walk again. They're never gonna hold their wife and their children again. And having them ask me, 'Why?' Ya know ? a 'big-picture why.' And I couldn't tell them."



01-29-07 - US rejects Iran nuclear 'timeout' The US has rejected a call from the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog for a "timeout" in the showdown with Iran over its nuclear programme.


01-29-07 - Bush warns Iran, Syria, Hezbollah on Lebanon US President George W. Bush deplored recent violence in Lebanon and warned that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah must be "called to account" for trying to destabilize that country.


01-29-07 - On Iran, Bush confronts echoes of Iraq ** Washington: As President Bush and his aides calibrate how directly to confront Iran, they are discovering that both their words and their strategy are haunted by the echoes of four years ago ? when their warnings of terrorist activity and nuclear ambitions were clearly a prelude to war. It's what happens when people who stampede America to war under false pretenses are not held accountable. Read on: "It has not helped that even as the administration is making its case against Iran, the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was opening just a few blocks away." Is Fitzgerald going to be our savior? Will the Libby trial and all that comes with it deliver us from another major Middle East war?


01-29-07 - Bush Warns Iran Against Action in Iraq "If Iran escalates its military actions in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and - or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio.


01-29-07 - Fleischer recalls discussion about Plame Fleischer said Libby told him about Valerie Plame's job at the CIA over a lunch in the White House mess on July 7, 2003. But Libby has told investigators he thought he first learned about Plame on July 10 from NBC reporter Tim Russert.


01-29-07 - America ?Poised to Strike at Iran's Nuclear Sites' from Bases in Bulgaria and Romania** Sofia's news of advanced war preparations along the Black Sea is backed up by some chilling details. One is the setting up of new refuelling places for US Stealth bombers, which would spearhead an attack on Iran


01-29-07 - US must abandon Iraqi cities or face nightmare scenario, say experts Everywhere looms the shadow of Iran. In a "war game" testing US options, the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution found that, as the descent into civil war gathered pace, confrontation between the US and Iran intensified, and Washington's leverage on Tehran diminished. Why the Saban Center is so named.


01-29-07 - Bush's backdoor attack: Iran via Hizbullah New policy authorizing attacks on Iranian agents in Iraq also allows for covert ops against Iran-backed terror groups all across ME, including Hizbullah Evidently, the US just isn't doing enough to take out Israel's enemies.


01-29-07 - United States: Cut Off Cluster Munition Sales to Israel "We've investigated cluster munitions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but we?ve never seen use of cluster munitions that was so extensive and dangerous to civilians," said Steve Goose, director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch. "The issue is not whether Israel used the American cluster munitions lawfully, but what the US is going to do about it."


01-29-07 - Rep. John Conyers: "Congress Can Fire Bush!"


01-29-07 - No Substitute for Free and Unfettered News Gathering by Phil Donahue


01-29-07 - US studies Israel's cluster bomb use in Lebanon Opinion among US officials was divided, the New York Times reported at the weekend. The paper said some middle-ranking officials at the Pentagon and the state department were arguing that Israel had violated prohibitions on using cluster munitions against civilian areas......"What is shocking and completely immoral is 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," the UN humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, said soon after the war ended.


01-29-07 - Murdoch: Big media has less sway on Internet Big media conglomerates have less influence amid the continued explosion of news sites, blogs and podcasts, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in the session moderated by Charlie Rose and available via Webcast. "It's so pluralistic," Murdoch said. "We all have less power, much less...(we) the big companies." And that's a good thing. The power belongs in the hands of the people.


01-29-07 - Saudis to Keep Oil at $50 Barrel It's about time.


01-29-07 - Cluster bomb wounds two Belgian soldiers in Lebanon A cluster bomb explosion has wounded two Belgian soldiers on demining operations in southern Lebanon following last summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel, a UN spokesman said.


01-29-07 - Beirut family struggles with war's legacy echoing the views of Hizbullah leaders, this family's anger is aimed at Israel and the US, which many Lebanese and Arabs blame for not stopping Israel from systematically destroying Lebanon's infrastructure.


01-29-07 - Exclusive: IAF to buy US smart bombs According to defense sources, the funds for the deal will come from the IAF's procurement fund. The deal will not require congressional approval since Israel is exercising a previously approved option to purchase the system.


01-29-07 - Israel is the real winner of America's War on Iraq and Iran (If attacked)


01-29-07 - Former CIA chief: Let Pollard go "My view is that a 20-year sentence is enough," James Woolsey, who directed the spy agency from 1993-1995, told Arutz Sheva, an Israeli radio station. They're both traitors.


01-29-07 - Israel's existence is in peril, expert tells crowd at temple ''The goal is getting the Palestinians to give up,'' scholar and columnist Daniel Pipes told the crowd Sunday night. Pipes is a neocon.