Headlines for 10-15-07

Putin set for historic Iran trip While he has visited Gulf Arab states, his journey to Tehran marks the first visit to Iran by a Kremlin leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.


Pentagon, FBI misusing secret info requests: ACLU The Pentagon has misled Congress and the US public by conniving with the FBI to obtain hundreds of financial, telephone and Internet records without court approval, civil-rights campaigners said Sunday.


No Legitimate Justification for War with Iran: By Scott Ritter ** there is simply nothing transpiring in Iran today that constitutes categorization as an imminent threat to the national security of the United States, and as such nothing about the Iranian situation can be interpreted as providing justification for any accelerated military action that seeks to circumvent due process. However, the reality is that the United States continues to plan to initiate and sustain a military strike against Iran.


Iranian threat "overly exaggerated" - Margelov Military methods are unacceptable in tackling the Iranian problem, Mikhail Margelov, the head of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, has said.


Oil hits $86 on Turkey tensions


U.S. Builds Air Base in Iraq for the Long Haul The U.S. military base in Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, is rapidly becoming one of the largest American military installations on foreign soil.


Ron Paul Stings Hillary Clinton on Iraq War, Warns of Draft Sounding like a candidate that can win his party's nomination, Paul said, "She voted for the war now she says she can?t get the troops out until 2013 and she won't rule out a military first strike against Iran."



WMD Chaser, Scott Ritter, Spreads Anti-War Advice ** Ritter also warned that preventing war with Iran should be liberals? top priority because that war would be far more dangerous than the war in Iraq.The Bush administration is heating up the rhetoric against Iran and making false claims that the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons, Ritter said. "The American public is being imprinted to accept at face value" that Iran poses a threat.



'Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control' ** Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control. They are rebelling against Bush and Cheney...I regard the Israelis as opponents of a war with Iran which would involve them Excellent. Keep it up! As to the last statement in the excerpt: of course Israel won't fight that war: that's why she's getting US to do it for them (again).


US 'wants Palestinian state now' Condoleezza Rice said reaching a two-state solution was a priority for her and US President George Bush. Has to do with garnering Arab support for forthcoming action on Iran, methinks.


Report: Syrian president to visit Turkey on Tuesday


Merkel assails Iran over Israel Germany should never accept Iran's threats against Israel, Angela Merkel said.


U.N. watchdog asks Syria about "undeclared" atom plant The U.N. nuclear watchdog did not know about any undeclared atomic plant in Syria and has asked Damascus about information that such a site was targeted by an Israeli air strike, a spokeswoman said on Monday.


GOP candidates set to make pitches to Bush's Jewish loyalists Not invited were long-shots U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter of California, Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Ron Paul of Texas. Paul was rejected because of his consistent voting record against U.S. assistance to Israel and his criticism of the pro-Israel lobby. Ron Paul - one of the brave few that dares to put America first.


Separation of families "priority humanitarian issue" - ICRC official Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, sections of the Golan were captured by Israel. While most of the villages were depopulated, four Druze villages and one Alawi village remained inhabited. 'Depopulated' doublespeak for ETHNIC CLEANSING.


On U.S. tour as defense minister, Barak's focus on security over peace In Washington this week for talks with Bush administration officials and congressional leaders, Barak is trying to promote joint U.S.-Israel missile defense projects and exchange views on the threats posed by Iran's nuclear program.


Hopes of prisoner exchanges after Israeli civilian's body returned home The body of an Israeli civilian was swapped last night for those of two Hizbollah militants and a live Lebanese prisoner in a move that Israel indicated could presage further prisoner exchanges.


Egypt playing negative role as peace parley approaches Ironically, some Israelis believe the chances of an accommodation with Syria are now greater in the wake of the reported Israeli airstrike against a nascent Syrian nuclear facility in September. Top Israel Defense Force generals believe there is now a real chance for a dialogue with Syria and Israel should explore it. In farewell interviews, the outgoing deputy chief of staff, Maj.-Gen Moshe Kaplinsky , argued that detaching Syria from the Iranian-led "axis of evil" was a vital Israeli and American interest.



'Mideast peace is high on our agenda' An exercise in Israel asskissing by the US presidential candidates. Disgraceful. Only one nation in the world gets this kind of kowtow fest - Israel.


What 'Safe' Cluster Bombs Do In Lebanon Lebanon has a devastating cluster bomb problem. Hit hard during the final days of last summer?s conflict with Israel, hundreds of thousands of unexploded munitions are strewn throughout the south?s rural towns and fertile fields and valleys. Although there have been 255 civilian and de-mining casualties to date, official requests for Israel?s cluster bomb strike data have gone unanswered. ?The reality of the situation is we simply don?t know how many there are, and we will never know until the Israelis tell us how many they fired,? says Chris Clark


Small gathering protests group's Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Brenda Jernigan of Duncanville said she isn't positive the Muslim group holding Sunday's event is tied to terrorism. But she's positive her conservative Christian values are under attack. Morons.


Columbia Professor Calls Bollinger White Supremacist In a flare-up of old tensions between the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University and the school's administration, a leading Iranian scholar at the university is labeling its president, Lee Bollinger, a white supremacist whose harsh rebuke of President Ahmadinejad of Iran reeked of "mind-numbing racism."


Clinton: Pullout from Iraq will facilitate peace between Israel, Palestinians


Why are the Israelis lying about striking a "nuclear facility" in Syria? ** It also, I believe, prefigures, on a much smaller scale, the sequence of events likely to trigger war with Iran: an Israeli strike, Iranian retaliation via Hezbollah, followed by American intervention, which would be practically inevitable. Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Giraldi has a similar article in the current (October 22) issue of The American Conservative. Israel wants to include Syria on the hitlist in any possible attack on Iran by the US, IMO. And she's looking for a pretext, any old one will do. This was a dry run. As we inch closer to a(nother) Israel-Palestinian 'peace agreement', we inch closer to WWIII.


Lebanon detains group for trying to bomb UN troops The Lebanese army says it has detained members of a "terrorist network" who had tried to bomb UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon.