UPDATED: Reporting in to Byron York: outrage not sighted; back to you….

Byron York at NRO wants to know where the outrage is, regarding the apparent attempt to assassinate Vice President Dick Cheney in Afghanistan.

I am also wondering about that; I went out into my neighborhood and looked around, asked a few people, and so far, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it. I’ll keep looking. I understand President Bush is kind of searching around his office for it, also.

Outrage is in kind of short supply these days, Byron, especially amongst your people. And a lot of it is being used…you might contact these people, and I understand these folks might have some….

back to you……

Oh, and by the way, Patrick Fitzgerald wanted me to ask: was Mr. Cheney hanging out in Afghanistan because they don’t have an extradition treaty with the US? (call me…..)

UPDATE: Dick Cheney was sent halfway around the world to get out of the spotlight during the CIA leak case trial and during congressional budget hearings. Since he is a warmonger, he went around warmongering, and continued to in essence call anyone who questions his policies a traitor. He had no business going into a dangerous war zone, and in fact took copious and unusual precautions because he knew it was dangerous. The explosion occurred a mile away from where he was.

By his many actions, Dick Cheney has exposed not just himself but all Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, to great hazard when they travel abroad, and possibly even at home. He has participated in the decisions to make assassination an integral part of American foreign policy. Hundreds of thousands of human beings have died because of Mr. Cheney’s actions and millions have been displaced. By his misuse of our finite resources, he has made for lost opportunities to save lives instead of end them, and Mr. Cheney’s connections with Halliburton, which received massive amounts of those resources, are well known. America’s reputation has been dragged through the mud, and its position in the Middle East and the world may never recover. Unlike most others who have been involved in this greatest human tragedy since Vietnam, Cheney is totally unrepentant.

Furthermore, by his own actions, he has removed himself from the traditional position of vice-president, and attempted to become something else.

I condemn anyone trying to blow anyone else up. Mr. Cheney should think about the doctrine of personal responsibility for his actions. The role he has assumed under the guise of vice-president makes for the deafening lack of outrage, imho.

But I could be wrong. Check with the rest of America, Byron. Let me know what you find out.

If we had a smart president, he’d be lookin’ into this…

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There are very few animals, possibly none, on the earth more important to us than these little guys.

In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

“I have never seen anything like it,” Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”

The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country.

Animals, schmanimals, right, George?

The cuts are part of the agency’s five-year plan for a 20 percent reduction in the work force nationally. The Fish & Wildlife Service, which oversees a system that consists of 544 refuges covering 96 million acres, has been working on smaller budgets in recent years.

countdown to US attack on Iran: X minus 32 days: Thanks for the oil, Shiites, see ya later.

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The Iraqi cabinet has apparently come to an agreement on a National Oil Law, which sets the terms on which the national wealth of Iraq will be plundered. Multinational corporations (British and US headquartered, of course) will actually sit on the Oil Board and decide who gets the contracts (excuse me, but I have to utter the expression “duh” at this moment).

As far as the Iraqis are concerned, mark it zero, Dude.

Now, I am no expert in oil matters, and unlike my usual practice, I will not pretend to be. But what is clear is that this issue of the oil law is of primary importance to the US, as reflected in the fact that this was the only real area of agreement between Bush and the Iraq Study Group. And of course, Dick Cheney is WAY on board with this:

By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies.
—Dick Cheney, CEO of Halliburton, 1999

In essence, we are now seeing the transition from GRABBING the Iraqi oil, to KEEPING the Iraqi oil (and maybe grabbing the Iranian oil as well). Now that the purple fingered Iraqi Shiites (a rather motley bunch, and increasingly either nationalistic or tied to Iran) have handed over control of the oil, Bush and Cheney are most happy to rid themselves of the Shiites and resume partying with their old authoritarian and oil-rich pals, the Saudis and the other oil rich Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf region. The Shiite leaders in the Iraqi government are already starting to fall to mysterious illness and assassinations, and those outside the formal government have been forced into hiding.
Whatever government security forces can be scrounged up are being used to attempt to beat insurgents (who happen to be largely Sunni) into at least leaving Baghdad temporarily, so that the US can declare victory or at least show “progress,” and thus defeat Congressional proposals to defund the occupation of Iraq.

At the moment, the US is looking for a strongman in the mold of Saddam to take over Iraq. Once they have selected a likely candidate, and the oil law has been approved by the parliament, probably in May, the present Iraqi government will “fall.”

In the meantime, the major Shiite power in the region, Iran, must be silenced and neutralized. In the event that the current US “pressure” fails to convince the Iranians that they should roll over for the US, it seems quite certain that a massive air and naval attack will level whatever infrastructure they might have that his not protected by at least 20 feet of reinforced concrete.

Before May.

You do the math.

Previous countdown posts:
x-40
x-39
x-38
x-37
x-36
x-35
x-34
x-33

USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike force to “operate in Western Pacific after leaving Sasebo”

According to this report the whereabouts of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and its strike force will probably be unknown after it leaves Sasebo, Japan, on Feb. 28::

The aircraft carrier will operate in the western Pacific on standby after leaving Sasebo, reports said.

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mustin, which is equipped with the most advanced Aegis missile guidance system, will also make a call at southern Japan’s Nagasaki Port in early March.

Anonymous sources: Iran responsible for American foot odor

also for

…tooth decay, body odor, obesity, sloth, ignorance, vanity, masturbation, snoring, bad breath, dirty fingernails, truancy, masturbation, hail, traffic jams, and insensitive husbands

and that’s just today’s list.

I would give a link but that would make it less anonymous. sorry.

More Bush/Cheney anti-Iranian propaganda: domestic terror threats

For the news media to report this crap as coming from an anonymous source is completely irresponsible. Were the subject not so serious it would laughable.
March 5, 2007 issue of Newsweek:-

Increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran have revived New York Police Department concerns that Iranian agents may already have targeted the city for terror attacks. Such attacks could be aimed at bridges and tunnels, Jewish organizations and Wall Street, NYPD briefers told security execs last fall, according to a person with access to the briefing materials who asked for anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter.

UPDATED:Pulling the wool over our eyes in Iraq, chapter 62

I actually don’t know what chapter this is.

The United States is not only the bastion of free enterprise and free trade, it is by far the number one weapons seller in the world, weapons that have only one function: to kill human beings. Weapons, like auto parts, end up anywhere and everywhere there is a demand and enough money to buy them.

The governments of Iran and Iraq are on good terms. Both countries are predominantly Shiite. The insurgency in Iraq is not Shiite nor Iranian in origin.

Of course the Bush/Cheney administration knows these things. But the efforts to pull the wool over the eyes of the world continues:
From the NY Times:

The cache included what Maj. Marty Weber, a master explosives ordnance technician, said was C-4 explosive, a white substance, in clear plastic bags with red labels that he said contained serial numbers and other information that clearly marked it as Iranian.

But while the find gave experts much more information on the makings of the E.F.P.’s, which the American military has repeatedly argued must originate in Iran, the cache also included items that appeared to cloud the issue.

Among the confusing elements were cardboard boxes of the gray plastic PVC tubes used to make the canisters. The boxes appeared to contain shipments of tubes directly from factories in the Middle East, none of them in Iran. One box said in English that the tubes inside had been made in the United Arab Emirates and another said, in Arabic, “plastic made in Haditha,” a restive Sunni town on the Euphrates River in Iraq.

The box marked U.A.E. provided a phone number for the manufacturer there. A call to that number late Monday encountered only an answering machine that said, “Leave your number and we will call you back.”

By the way, I see that the Times found somebody with a brain to report on this stuff. No offense, Michael Gordon.

UPDATED: The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 27) even chimes in:

U.S. Find Stokes Fears of Iraqis’ Bomb-Making Ability

by Yochi J. Dreazen.

Baghdad, Iraq — An American military raid in southern Iraq uncovered a makeshift factory used to construct advanced roadside bombs that the U.S. had thought were made only in Iran. The find raises fears that Shiite Muslim insurgents across Iraq may be able to manufacture large quantities of such weapons on their own.

The Saturday raid in the small town of Jedidah marked the first time U.S. forces found evidence that militants inside Iraq are assembling “explosively formed penetrators,” or EFPs, which can punch through the armored shells of U.S. military vehicles. U.S. officials said they found components for building about 150 of the devices, one of the largest caches of such weapons found to date in Iraq.

This find — separate from one made in the southern city of Hilla a week ago — is forcing U.S. officials to reassess their belief that such bombs were being built in Iran and smuggled fully assembled into Iraq. U.S. commanders briefing reporters here said Iraqi militants appear able to construct the bombs out of materials purchased locally or shipped into the country from Iran.

“We originally thought these came into Iraq already created, and now that intelligence has been totally relooked,” said Capt. Clayton Combs, who led the raid. “It’s like a playground kit you get in the mail: You can plot the instructions and start putting it together on- site, and that’s what we have here.”

UPDATE: On Tuesday CIA Chief Mike McConnell testified with a slighly different twist, that the Iranians are TRAINING Shiite bombers:

Iran is training anti-American Iraqi Shi’ites at sites inside Iran and Lebanon in the use of armor-piercing munitions blamed for the deaths of 170 U.S. troops in Iraq, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, newly installed U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said it was “probable” that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shi’ites.

In describing Iran’s role in Iraq, he stopped short of he stopped short of saying the Islamic Republic was directing EFP attacks on U.S. forces.

“We know there are Iranian weapons manufactured in Iran.
We know that Quds Forces (of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) are bringing them (into Iraq),” McConnell said.

“Is there a direct link from Quds Forces delivering weapons, to the most senior leadership in Iran?” he said. “I would phrase it as ‘probable’ but, again, no direct link … I am comfortable saying it’s probable.”
Under questioning by Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, McConnell tersely acknowledged that the United States has evidence showing that Iran is training Iraqi Shi’ites at sites outside Iraq to use EFPs.

And some of that training is occurring in Iran?” asked Lieberman.

“Yes, sir,” McConnell replied.

“If Iran is training Iraqi militants in the use of Iranian weapons which are then being used to kill Americans in Iraq, I think that’s a very serious act and one that we ought to consider taking steps to stop,” Lieberman said.
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You didn’t know this:

Harpers:

Chances that a Guantánamo detainee was turned over to Coalition forces by an Afghan or Pakistani citizen: 9 in 10

Average reward that leaflets airdropped over their countries promised for every “terrorist” turned in: $5,000

Peter Pace or Robert Gates: one of ‘em is nipping at Bush’s heels

It’s pretty clear neither one of these guys wants a war with Iran, both want a more responsible way of dealing with our soldiers. The question here is which one leaked this? from Crooks and Liars:

Barbara Starr: Well you know Holla, yes, yet again another indication on that question of just how stretched thin the US Military is right now — Afghanistan, Iraq and a number of other commitments around the world. What is the indication? Well, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, has sent a classified report to the Secretary of Defense, and now to Capitol Hill, that says the risk is now “significant,” that’s the word, “significant,” of the US Military being able to meet its obligation if in fact a third crisis now were to break out. This all has led under the law for the requirement now for Secretary Gates to come up with what they call a “mitigation plan” – once the risk is “significant” the Secretary must report to Congress on what he’s doing about it.

Now, Dick Cheney and his yapping dogs could try and make out like this leak is some sort of big deal. I’d like to see em try.

This they do in your name….

Go read this story by peterr at Firedoglake, on the families imprisoned by immigration authorities after the raids on Swift meat packing plants.