h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Sometimes it's hard to know who your friends are - even if they're helping you fight a war. President Bush, who hopes to coax more Iraq support from European allies next week, used to boast that some 50 nations had joined the United States in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Today, a public listing is nowhere to be found.

One thing, though, is clear: The coalition is shrinking. "I expect to see the coalition countries begin paring down their forces as they complete their contributions," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee this week.'

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SHRINKING_COALITION?SITE=NYSTA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

'For nearly three years, U.S. military authorities have been investigating evidence of torture at American prisons in Afghanistan. But instead of disciplining those involved, the Pentagon sent them to Iraq.'

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/03/03_2005_Bazelon.html

'The nomination of John Negroponte to the new post of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) caps a remarkable parade of Bush administration senior nominees. Among the most recent:
Alberto Gonzales, confirmed as attorney general: the lawyer who advised the president he could ignore the US War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions on torture and create a "reasonable basis in law...which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution."

Michael Chertoff, confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security: the lawyer who looked the other way when 762 innocent immigrants (mostly of Arab and South Asian descent) were swept up in a post-9/11 dragnet and held as "terrorism suspects" for several months. The dictates of PR trumped habeas corpus; the detentions fostered an image of quick progress in the "war on terrorism."

John Negroponte: the congenial, consummate diplomat now welcomed back into the brotherhood. Presently our ambassador in Baghdad, Negroponte is best known to many of us as the ambassador to Honduras with the uncanny ability to ignore human rights abuses so as not to endanger congressional support for the attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of Nicaragua in the eighties. Negroponte's job was to hold up the Central American end of the Reagan administration's support for the Contra counterrevolutionaries, keeping Congress in the dark, as necessary.'

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/021905C.shtml

Loosing allies and appoint those who sanction torture (sanction terror?) to high office. The War on Terror is going badly.

The USS Jimmy Carter:

'The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them. . . .

The Jimmy Carter, like other submarines, will also have the ability to eavesdrop on communications -- what the military calls signal intelligence -- passed through the airwaves, experts say. But its ability to tap undersea fiber-optic cables may be unique in the fleet.

Communications worldwide are increasingly transmitted solely through fiber-optic lines, rather than through satellites and radios.

"The capacity of fiber optics is so much greater than other communications media or technologies, and it's also immune to the stick-up-an-antenna type of eavesdropping," said Jeffrey Richelson, an expert on intelligence technologies.

To listen to fiber-optic transmissions, intelligence operatives must physically place a tap somewhere along the route. If the stations that receive and transmit the communications along the lines are on foreign soil or otherwise inaccessible, tapping the line is the only way to eavesdrop on it.'

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/02/18/submarine.secrets.ap/index.html

Screw privacy.

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What can I say? You've already put it very well.

'U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces launched a joint operation Sunday to crack down on insurgents in the volatile city of Ramadi.'

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/02/20/iraq-ramadi050220.html


hmmm. . .

More extraordinary renditions: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999272/site/newsweek/

And more bad intelligence gained through torture:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=612865

The thing that really burns my arse is that tens of thousands of people die completely avoidable deaths every single day due to the gross shortcomings of our global food distribution system and there's no 'War on Hunger'. Meanwhile, terrorism deaths, including the World Trade Center, Bali, and the ongoing shite in Iraq would be a tiny drop compared to the vast sea of corpses that hunger has produced in the last few years. Oh, but the terrorists threaten our lifestyle -- my fat arse they do!

'How is it that more than 40 percent of Americans still believe Iraq has weapons of mass destruction even though President Bush personally has admitted there are none?

How is it possible that millions of Americans believe the recent election in Iraq showed that Iraqis are in favor of the ongoing occupation of their country? In reality, the determination displayed by the roughly 59 percent of registered voters who participated in the election did so because they felt it would bring about an end to the U.S. occupation.

How do so many Americans wonder why more Iraqis each day are supporting both violent and non-violent movements of resistance to the occupation when after the U.S. government promised to help rebuild Iraq, a mere 2 percent of reconstruction contracts were awarded to Iraqi concerns and the infrastructure lies in shambles?

It's because overall, mainstream media reportage in the United States about the occupation in Iraq is being censured, distorted, threatened by the military and controlled by corporations that own the outlets.'

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/212320_jamail17.html

Sad, isn't it?

'Afghanistan has made remarkable progress since the demise of the Taliban government in late 2001, but the fragile nation could easily slip back into chaos and abject poverty, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) concludes in a report released today.

Without addressing basic human needs by providing jobs, health services and education, Afghanistan could once again become a failed State, posing a threat to its own people and the international community, the report warns.'

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13406&Cr=Afghanistan&Cr1=

'The secret meeting is taking place in the bowels of a facility in Baghdad, a cavernous, heavily guarded building in the U.S.-controlled green zone. The Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam Hussein's regime and the senior representative of the self-described nationalist insurgency, sits on one side of the table. He is here to talk to two members of the U.S. military. One of them, an officer, takes notes during the meeting. The other, dressed in civilian clothes, listens as the Iraqi outlines a list of demands the U.S. must satisfy before the insurgents stop fighting. The parties trade boilerplate complaints: the U.S. officer presses the Iraqi for names of other insurgent leaders; the Iraqi says the newly elected Shi'a-dominated government is being controlled by Iran. The discussion does not go beyond generalities, but both sides know what's behind the coded language. . . .

The engagement strategy faces another obstacle: the new Iraqi government. Leaders of the victorious political parties say they have no interest in continuing dialogue with the insurgents. "The voters gave us a mandate to attack these insurgents, not negotiate with them," says Humam Bakr Hammoudi, a political strategist for the dominant SCIRI party. U.S. negotiators say they believe the new government will eventually realize that only a political settlement will subdue the insurgency--which may soon direct its wrath at the new Iraqi rulers if it believes its interests are being ignored. While some in the Bush Administration might find the idea of backing an accord with archenemy Baathists distasteful, the Western observer says, "I think you've got a pretty flexible [U.S.] government." Now it's up to the others to follow.

The Iraqi's very presence conveys a message: Members of the insurgency are open to negotiating an end to their struggle with the U.S. "We are ready," he says before leaving, "to work with you."

In that guarded pledge may lie the first sign that after nearly two years of fighting, parts of the insurgency in Iraq are prepared to talk and move toward putting away their arms--and the U.S. is willing to listen.'

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1029862,00.html

'A bomb rips through a women's hair salon, shattering wall-length mirrors and shredding posters of various coiffures.

In another neighborhood, gunmen fire wildly into a busy barbershop, killing the owner and three teenage boys as they wait for haircuts.

At yet another shop, a masked visitor presses a note into the palm of a horrified haircutter. The message: "Our swords are thriving for the neck of barbers."

Iraq's insurgency has long targeted other Iraqis - police, government leaders and national guardsmen - as a means of destabilizing the nascent democracy, but now guerrillas have taken aim at a far more unlikely line of work.

In what some describe as a Taliban-like effort to impose a militant Islamic aesthetic, extremists have been warning Iraqi barbers not to violate strict Islamic teachings by trimming or removing men's beards. Giving Western-style haircuts or removing hair in an "effeminate" manner, they say, are crimes punishable by death.'

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=51107


Freedom is on the march.

' "I feel more secure during Saddam's time than now. People are threatening my life just for doing my job. I used to make more than 50,000 dinars a day (about $40), but now I make less than 10,000."

Mahmood, the 28-year-old who was threatened, has quit cutting hair after eight years and now works as an armed bodyguard for Western clients. He considers his new job less dangerous than cutting hair.'

from the same piece.

An outcome like this from the election was predicted, sigh... Does W. never listen?

Here's another piece by Scott Ritter:

'"Freedom is on the march," Mr. Bush has said. Unfortunately for the United States, North Korea and Iran don't see it that way. And if America keeps marching, it could very well be in the direction of a nuclear apocalypse.'

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.policy22feb22,1,408431.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

'A US marine, captured on film shooting a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during last year's assault on Falluja, will not be formally charged.' http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5C41ABE7-A613-47D1-AB91-C5298491BBFA.htm

I don't know what to think.

I have to say, that when I heard about that on the news last night, I was horribly unsurprised! Fume and and !!!!!

An Australian perspective:

'Major General Alan Stretton said the Government would eventually bow to public pressure and withdraw the troops, leaving behind a bloody mess.

Prime Minister John Howard has rejected comparisons with Vietnam, saying such analogies are misplaced.

Maj Gen Stretton, who served as chief of staff of the Australian force in Vietnam from 1969-70 but is best remembered for his role heading relief operations in Darwin following Cyclone Tracy in 1974, said there could never be democracy in Iraq.


He said the Government was being irresponsible in sending even more troops.

"I really believe it will go the same way as Vietnam," he told the John Laws radio program on 2UE.

"It will get no better &#8211; (only) worse &#8211; and eventually public opinion in both the US and Australia and elsewhere will demand our troops come back and when they do they will be pretending that the locals can handle it all themselves, and we will just leave a bloody mess.'

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12356131-29277,00.html

Funny how so many people have been saying this all along.

The U.S. military's recruitment strategy: No Child Left Behind.

'No Child Left Behind, the educational policy touted by the Bush administration, requires that recruiters and college representatives have equal access to students.' http://www.amsterdamnews.org/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=54103&sID=4

'Today, military recruiters have unprecedented access to public schools. The little-known Section 9528 of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 grants the Pentagon access to directories of all public high schools (supplying them with student names, addresses and phone numbers) to facilitate contact for military service recruitment.

A student or parent wishing to protect privacy must actively contact the school to opt out and protect their personal information. In some districts, it can be difficult to withhold information specifically from recruiters, yet still allow this information to be used for other purposes that parents and students may approve of, such as honor rolls or school TV shows.

Additionally, military recruitment efforts are omnipresent inside our public schools. Recruiters walk freely around high school cafeterias in uniforms and talk to students. They hang posters on the school walls. They loiter in the parking lots. A recent Richland 1 career fair for eighth graders, held at Fort Jackson, had those representing careers other than the military confined behind tables and answering three short questions, while military personnel operated in groups wandering around, intercepting and talking to children at will.

Earning money for college while traveling around the world, driving Humvees and jumping out of airplanes can be attractive to a high school student. However, recruiters, posters and advertisements accentuate the positive and exaggerate the potential benefits. When recruiters (with their glossy posters and exciting slogans) say that you can get up to $70,000 for college, they seldom stress that this large amount of money is only available for GIs who take military jobs that are very difficult to fill. Nor do they stress that in order to qualify for any aid at all, you must pay a $1,200 nonrefundable fee to the military.'

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/columnists/10967504.htm

An all-volunteer force, indeed.

' A British newspaper reported Sunday that secret military documents it has seen indicate that nearly 50 British servicemen could face prosecution for murder, assault and other crimes committed in Iraq.

The documents, which informed ministers about police investigations in the cases, indicate that the 50 servicemen include at least 12 British soldiers who face charges of murder, manslaughter or assault in Iraq, The Sunday Telegraph reported. That includes two cases in which Iraqi civilians were allegedly deliberately drowned by British soldiers, the paper said.'

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050226/w0226100.html

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Oh, this is terrible. Eighth grade is what, 14 year olds?

'New evidence suggests that British Prime Minister Tony Blair committed himself to the invasion of Iraq nearly a year before the US-led assault began in March 2003, according to a UK newspaper.'



http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A740A770-28AF-437A-97EC-BC0F89A3192C.htm

'A senior U.S. State Department official, keeping up Washington's pressure on Syria, said Sunday that Damascus must pull its 15,000 troops out of Lebanon "as soon as possible" and stop interfering in its affairs.'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148868,00.html

and how many U.S troops are where? and in how many countries' affairs is the U.S. interfering?


They really don't here the irony dripping from every word they say.