Headlines for 05-30-08

US soldier suicides the highest on record: army


Rice says Iraq war was right thing to do Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended on Thursday the Bush administration's record in Iraq after sharp criticism of the war in a new book by a former White House spokesman.


Senior Iran cleric slams IAEA over alleged nuclear studies Senior Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday branded as a trap the UN nuclear watchdog's demand that Iran come clean over its past atomic work suspected of weaponisation studies.


Pentagon To Shift Funds To Pay for Iraq War The Pentagon plans to shift $9.7 billion of its overall budget to pay for war operations but warned on Wednesday it will run out of money if the U.S. Congress does not approve more funding by mid-July.


The road to peace in Iraq runs directly through Tehran To some, this may all sound like dancing on a pinhead. But Scott McClellan, Bush's former press secretary, has just accused his former boss of manipulating the truth and mounting a dishonest propaganda campaign against Iraq before the invasion. We ignore similar efforts against Iran at our peril.


Talking to Hamas As for the latest announcement that Syria and Israel are prepared to open peace talks again, Mishaal said that he supports Syria's decision but that he believes these talks will come at the expense of the more difficult and complicated Palestinian negotiations.....Mishaal acknowledged that the Carter visit was "fruitful," and he repeated his pledge to Carter that Shalit would be allowed to write a letter to his family. "The president requested the letter, and it's out of respect for Carter we have agreed to that. We requested from our brothers in Gaza that they allow that letter, and it will be coming soon."


Are Ahmadinejad's Days Numbered?


Is President Bush becoming irrelevant? by Patrick J. Buchanan Neoconservative ideology, not U.S. national interests, McClellan is saying, motivated Bush to launch one of the longest and most divisive wars in U.S. history.....Israel has ignored Bush's demand that it stop building and expanding settlements on a West Bank that is to be the heartland of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been secretly negotiating with Syria for the return of the Golan Heights in exchange for peace. Another gem by Mr. PJB.


Chertoff: Hezbollah Makes Al Qaeda Look 'Minor League' JERUSALEM ? Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the radical Islamic group Hezbollah "makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team," and poses the greatest threat to national security. WHOSE national security would that be? He's utterly insane if he was referring to the nation that he is SUPPOSED to be serving - AMERICA.


Murdoch Goes After Condi, Urges Blockade Against Iran both Stephens' column and Feith's op-ed were relatively tame compared to Wednesday's opinion pages. In the lead editorial, entitled "Punxsutawney Condi," the newspaper called for the U.S. drop its diplomatic efforts to get Tehran to freeze its uranium enrichment program and instead mount a "month-long naval blockade of Iran's imports of refined gasoline" - a clear act of war - in order to, in its words, "clarify for the Iranians just how unacceptable their nuclear program is to the civilized world."


AIPAC draft agenda: Iran, peace, terrorism Much of a draft proposal obtained by JTA focuses on backing existing efforts in Congress and elsewhere to further isolate Iran until it ends its suspected nuclear weapons program. The agenda also promotes Israel's qualitative military edge in the region and the peace process.


Neo-Cons Silent on Hagee Repudiation by McCain it was the neo-cons, mainly Irving Kristol and Commentary?s former editor, Norman Podhoretz, who, like the Likud party (whose then-leader, Prime Minister Menahim Begin, gave the late Jerry Falwell his first private jet), saw Christian Zionists as a key political constituency in the U.S. that would mobilize effectively against any inclination by a future U.S. president to pressure Israel to dismantle Jewish settlements on the West Bank or remove Jewish settlers from East Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians


DHS Looks to Adopt Israeli Airport Security Methods While in Jerusalem for a conference attended by public and homeland security ministers from around the world, Chertoff signed an agreement with Israel to share technology and information on methods to improve homeland security. An incredibly unwise move. That's the last thing we should be doing.


Hezbollah says ready to discuss defense strategy but not give up weapons


Syrian source: Israel did not ask us to sever ties with Iran


Britain looked to Israel when studying military deception After Egypt blocked the strategic Straits of Tiran and expelled U.N. forces from the Sinai Desert, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes on June 5, 1967, against Egyptian and Syrian air forces, destroying them on the ground. In six days of one-sided battles, Israeli forces captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and Sinai from Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In an unsigned, top secret military document, that war was cited as "an example of how deception can be employed in the modern era and in such a way that the enemy decision making process is placed at a severe disadvantage."




Jewish GOPers to broadcast board Halperin of New Jersey is a former chairwoman of the Republican Jewish Coalition and once led a campaign against perceived anti-Israel bias at National Public Radio, one of the institutions that receives CPB funding.


Search Is Urged for Syrian Nuclear Sites The Bush administration is pressing U.N. inspectors to broaden their search for possible secret nuclear facilities in Syria, hinting that Damascus's nuclear program might be bigger than the single alleged reactor destroyed by Israeli warplanes last year. The 'evidence' of that alleged reactor destroyed by Israel was largely provided BY ISRAEL, according to former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Giraldi.


Bin Laden turns his mind to Israel in one recent statement he called Palestine "my nation's pivotal issue". It was, he declared, "an important factor in giving me since childhood, and giving the 19 free men (who carried out the 9/11 attacks), an overwhelming feeling that we must stand by the oppressed and punish the unjust Jews and their backers."In fact, Palestine has never been an operational priority for the group.