Get used to stories like this. (Though, in truth, they have been unrelenting since the war began.)

But anything that can be used to further the perception that US troops are blood-crazed murderers of civilians will be gleefully seized upon by our one party media.

This latest story about the lack of x-ray vision and omniscience in some US soldiers is just the latest from the DNC's Associated Press:

Mother-in-law Rabia Mohammed Hussein grieves the loss of Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, a pregnant woman about to give birth, and her 57-year-old cousin Saliha Mohammed Hassan, who were killed as they were driving to a maternity hospital for Jassim to give birth in Samarra, Iraq Tuesday, May 30, 2006. U.S. forces apparently shot to death two Iraqi women, one of them pregnant, when they fired at a vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post in the town.

U.S. troops kill pregnant woman in Iraq

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday. Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.

"Shots were fired to disable the vehicle," the military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds … and one of the females may have been pregnant."

Jassim's brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital. Her husband was waiting for her there.

"I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped," he said. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. They have no regard for our lives."

He said doctors tried but failed to save the baby after his sister was brought to the hospital.

The shooting deaths occurred in the wake of an investigation into allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians in the western city of Haditha.

The U.S. military said the incident in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, was being investigated. The city is in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle and has in the past seen heavy insurgent activity.

"The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them," the military said.

The women's bodies were wrapped in sheets and lying on stretchers outside the Samarra General Hospital before being taken to the morgue, while residents pointed to bullet holes on the windshield of a car and a pool of blood on the seat.

Khalid Nisaif Jassim, the pregnant woman's brother, said American forces had blocked off the side road only two weeks ago and news about the observation post had been slow to filter out to rural areas.

He said the killings, like those in Haditha, were examples of random killings faced by Iraqis every day.

The killings at Haditha, a city that has been plagued by insurgents, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials, has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.

Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said last week.

In his first public comments on the incident, President Bush said he was troubled by the allegations, and that, "If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi told the BBC that the allegations have "created a feeling of great shock and sadness and I believe that if what is alleged is true — and I have no reason to believe it's not — then I think something very drastic has to be done."

"There must be a level of discipline imposed on the American troops and change of mentality which seems to think that Iraqi lives are expendable," said Pachachi, a member of parliament.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which Bush said he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

Once the military investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The incident has sparked two investigations — one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.

"People in Samarra are very angry with the Americans not only because of Haditha case but because the Americans kill people randomly specially recently," Khalid Nisaif Jassim said.

The driver didn't notice the blockade? The troops? He didn't see their signals nor hear their warning shots? This is all new to him? How big of a town is Samarra?

Notice how the AP jumps at the opportunity to regurgitate the allegations that Marines killed people in Haditha in cold blood. Of course the AP hopes that if they repeat it enough it will become true.

And sadly they are right. At least for too much of the world.

When the US does finally pull out of Iraq this self-same media will lay every subsequent death in the region at the feet of the US — for deserting the area. Just like they did after the first Gulf War.

By the way, have you ever noticed how the left treats an unborn child like a meaningless growth, like a wart, unless it can be used to forward their agenda?

Notice the organizations that Google considers to be reliable media outlets for news on the "Haditha massacre":

  

Web      Images      Groups      News      Froogle      Maps      Desktop      more »

Haditha Massacre Darting against Bush
Prensa Latina, Cuba - 56 minutes ago
Washington, May 31 (Prensa Latina) The indelible stain caused by the Haditha massacre continues to strongly shake the administration of US President George W. …

Haditha Massacre : Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military …
uruknet.info, Italy - 16 hours ago
… [includes rush transcript]. We take a look at the Haditha massacre and the aftermath, which has continued to rock the military and political establishments. …

Massacre at Haditha : how the occupation turned an Iraqi town into …
Socialistworker.co.uk, UK - 23 hours ago
… But this was not an isolated incident. The same Marine battalion involved in the Haditha massacre spearheaded the assault on western Fallujah in November 2004. …
Haditha Massacre : Iraq’s Mai Lai Aljazeera.com
The Few, The Proud, The Murderers Mathaba.Net

Haditha Massacre : Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military …
Democracy Now, NY - May 30, 2006
We take a look at the Haditha massacre and the aftermath, which has continued to rock the military and political establishments. …
Listen to the show Pacifica Radio

Haditha : The Iraq War "My Lai Massacre "
uruknet.info, Italy - May 28, 2006
The Haditha Massacre is today being compared to the infamous My Lai Massacre that occurred in the South Vietnamese district of Son My on March 16, 1968 during …

The Haditha Massacre : War Crimes Begin At Home
BTC News - May 26, 2006
… The Iraqi civilians murdered at Haditha died because George W. Bush needlessly put them in harm’s way. … George W. Bush put them in Haditha. …

  Zone 4 Tower Ad
Progressive.org, WI - 16 hours ago
… with increasing anger. It’s not a hopeful atmosphere. The Haditha massacre shows how badly things have deteriorated. For the first …
Zone 4 Tower Ad Progressive.org

Ayoon Wa Azan (The Ongoing Countdown)
Dar Al-Hayat, Lebanon - 4 hours ago
… The US forces used white phosphorus rounds in November 2004 and in the Haditha massacre in November 2005; They may be planning for a new massacre next November …
Blair has been blinded by an imperialist illusion Guardian Unlimited

Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq
uruknet.info, Italy - 20 hours ago
Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the …
Pattern of Force uruknet.info
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com uruknet.info

Press Release: Haditha Massacre Is Iraq’s My Lai
Bay Area Indymedia, CA - May 19, 2006
… Asked by. the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, Murtha said they were. Military sources. consulted by other media outlets have confirmed those claims. …

This Revulsion Will Not Be Televised: America Do You Think it’s …
Empire Burlesque, UK - 10 hours ago
Is the Haditha Massacre My Lai-esque enough to jolt the nation’s conscience out of its blinkered denial? America Do You Think it’s Bad Enough Now? …

A Higher Standard
Dissident Voice, CA - 1 hour ago
… committing war crimes. The most recent atrocity to come to widespread horror is the Haditha massacre. Associated Press describes …

ThinkFast: May 31, 2006
Think Progress, DC - 3 hours ago
Out of the loop: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said yesterday that Bush learned of the reported Haditha massacre after the press did. …

Bush & Blair’s hollow words
Workers World - 11 hours ago
… all the way to 4-year-old Abdullah—suffered a similar fate. (“In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre,” Washington Post, May 28). …

Antiwar activists take struggle to Capitol Hill: Massacre spurs …
People’s Weekly World - May 25, 2006
… The Pentagon attempted to cover up the Haditha massacre but Time magazine exposed it, forcing the US Navy to launch an investigation. …

Massacre at Haditha : Return of the Bad Apple Defense
PEJ News, Canada - May 28, 2006
Feral Scholar – Stan Goff – The Guardian Unlimited ran a story today about the Haditha massacre. It called the Marines who slaughtered …
Rogue Apple uruknet.info

Awol in Iraq
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates - May 29, 2006
… Incidents like the Haditha massacre in which 24 Iraqi civilians including women and children —as young as a 3-year-old were killed by Marines —is being …

Military Inquiry Contradicts Marines Account Of Haditha Deaths
MTV.com - 3 hours ago
… Marines have changed their story on what happened at Haditha several times … support allegations that the Americans carried out an unprovoked massacre (see "Bush …

The Iraqi My Lai? Tragically, Only Half So
Dissident Voice, CA - 1 hour ago
… The significance of the My Lai massacre in the political arena was that … movement, Americans’ justifiable revulsion at November’s events in Haditha is unlikely …

My Lai . . . Haditha. . . and America’s whitewashers
uruknet.info, Italy - May 29, 2006
… The incredible bottom line to this massacre was, however, that the only person found … the hamlets of Pinkville have given way to the streets of Haditha, and the …
My Lai… Haditha … and America’s whitewashers Middle East Online

MEDIA ALERT: SILENCE IN THE SERVICE OF POWER Media Protection Of …
uruknet.info, Italy - 17 hours ago
… It’s clear that what happened in Haditha is a … It must be assumed that more of this is going on." (Raymond Whitaker, ‘The massacre and the Marines,’ Independent …

Iraq: Horrific details of atrocities in Haditha emerge
uruknet.info, Italy - May 27, 2006
… Her article on the Haditha Massacre has made the rounds on very many blogs recently because of some of the details that emerge in her content.

"Nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib"
uruknet.info, Italy - May 27, 2006
… David M. Brahms is quoted in the Washington Post about the Haditha massacre (item below): "When these investigations come out, there’s going to be a firestorm. …  

Pentagon Tries to Cover Up Massacre in Iraq
Prensa Latina, Cuba - May 28, 2006
… on Sunday denounced the Pentagon´s efforts to cover up the massacre of Iraqi … investigated by US authorities, took place in the town of Haditha, 200 kilometers …

Marines massacred civilians in Haditha, Iraq
Workers World - May 26, 2006
… Iraqi sources consider the Haditha massacre a normal Pentagon operation. That’s why so many Iraqis join the resistance. What makes …

Probe presents evidence Marines killed Iraqi civilians
Aljazeera.com, UK - May 27, 2006
… to probe whether the Marines lied to cover up the event, which included the deaths of women and children, are expected to make the Haditha massacre the most …

And this is just scratching the surface. Check out any of the sites listed. They are all vehemently against the war in Iraq.

Prison Planet, Indymedia, Democracy Now, Pacifica Radio, Cuba’s Prense Latina, the Socialist Worker, the Peoples Weekly World, the Workers World — these are all "news outlets" according to Google.

Uruknet is a site which celebrates the "Iraqi Resistance."

The BTC is a minuscule hard left blog named "Betty The Crow" productions. (Its slogan is "if it says it’s news it must be true." Apparently that is Google’s philosophy as well.)

Google even features a blog run by Jason Leopold’s partner Chris Floyd, the Empire Burlesque – High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium. (Floyd started EatCrowDotOrg with and for the liar Jason Leopold.)

Obviously no site is too small or too far left or too mindless for Google to ignore — as long as it smears the US.

But what else can one expect from a company that gives MoveOn.org millions and wants to see it control the internet ?

From New York magazine:

A Very Late Checkout

New York’s last Katrina evacuees prepare to depart (under duress) from the JFK Airport Holiday Inn.

By Matthew Philips

This winter, FEMA put up over 300 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New York City hotels. Almost all of them have gone back to their lives, their jobs. But not Theon Johnson. He’s currently sprawled out watching Halloween 5 on one of the two full-size beds in his room at the JFK Airport Holiday Inn. He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city.

The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for places to live. But thanks to the city’s squatters-rights law, evacuees here were safe. Their rooms weren’t paid for, but since they’d been in them for more than 30 days, the hotels couldn’t just kick them out. Only a judge’s order could evict them.

And Johnson, 49, isn’t that motivated to leave. For one thing, AMC’s in the middle of its “Thrill Me” marathon. Next up, Gothika. “Halle Berry,” he says with lazy lust. These days he’s usually up all night—it’s hard to sleep on an empty stomach. When he has to, he’ll go outside and beg for change, but he doesn’t really like that too much. Most days he just showers and gets back in bed, showers and gets back in bed. Once a week he and another evacuee, a diabetic named Larry, walk to a church off the Van Wyck and get canned goods. When Johnson’s caseworker, Sharon, comes around, she gives him some bus passes and maybe a few bucks, but she’s getting frustrated. “They sit around on their butts watching TV. There’s only but so much I can do if they’re not willing to help themselves.”

After being flown here for free back in September, Johnson’s been at the Holiday Inn since Super Bowl Sunday. On April 21, the hotel served Johnson with three notices of occupancy termination, saying that it would begin court proceedings if he wasn’t out by May 9. He wasn’t, so it did. If the court boots him, Johnson could end up in one of the city’s homeless shelters. He’s been broke for over a month now. FEMA sent him $9,000 in housing aid, but he spent it all on booze, cigarettes, some clothes, and food—partying, mostly. “I spent my money just the way I wanted, and I think [FEMA] should send me some more,” he says. But it won’t. Johnson’s caseworker says FEMA offered to buy him a ticket home to New Orleans in February, but he didn’t take it. FEMA won’t now. So he’s stuck, at least until the Holiday Inn pays him to leave.

Attorneys with the Legal Aid Society have been negotiating a buyout deal for Johnson and the remaining evacuees, and expect a settlement—he heard about $1,200—imminently. He says he’ll use the money to get a room for a few nights and have some fun before flying back to his little house in New Orleans’ Third Ward. But for now, Gothika’s on. “Halle Berry,” Johnson says. “Halle . . . Berry.”

This is a surprisingly critical piece to come out of the very liberal New York magazine. It looks like even they are starting to lose patience with these grifters.

Still, I’ve got to check into that whole "squatters-rights" thing.

(Thanks to I Hate Scams for the heads up.)

From the DNC’s Associated Press:

Jury finds Muhammad guilty in sniper trial

By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer

John Allen Muhammad was convicted of six of the Washington-area sniper killings Tuesday after the prosecution’s star witness, Muhammad’s young protege, portrayed him as the mastermind of an audacious terror scheme in which phase two would have been bombings against children.

Muhammad, 45, is already under a death sentence in Virginia for a killing there. The most he can get for the six murders committed in Maryland is life in prison without parole.

The jury took slightly more than four hours to convict him after a four-week trial in which he acted as his own attorney.

As the verdict was read, Muhammad stood grim-faced, his arms folded across chest. He was led out of the courtroom, pausing to ask the judge, "Your honor, may I speak?" The judge answered, "No, sir," and Muhammad was taken away.

Ten people in all were killed and three were wounded in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., in the string of shootings that gripped the metropolitan area with fear.

The trial marked the first time Lee Boyd Malvo testified against the man prosecutors say was his mentor and manipulator. And Muhammad’s cross-examination of Malvo marked one of the most dramatic moments.

During two days of testimony last week, Malvo, 21, gave the first inside account of the shootings and described Muhammad’s elaborate plans for a reign of terror.

According to Malvo, Muhammad had a two-phase plan — six shootings a day for a month, followed by a wave of bombings of schools, school buses and children’s hospitals. Malvo said that when he asked Muhammad why, the older man replied: "For the sheer terror of it — the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."

Muhammad hoped to extort $10 million from authorities and use the money to set up a school in Canada to teach homeless children how to use guns and explosives and use violence to shut down other cities, Malvo said.

One of the attorneys who helped Muhammad with his defense said he was disappointed but not surprised by the verdict. Muhammad was blocked from presenting evidence he thought proved he was framed.

"When you give the jury only one side of the story, you can’t expect them to do anything other than what they have done," said attorney Jai Bonner.

Juror Scott Stearns, the White House correspondent for Voice of America, said Malvo’s testimony was particularly compelling. He noted that Muhammad frequently ended his questioning of witnesses by asking if they had eyewitness knowledge of his guilt. That question was glaringly absent from Muhammad’s cross-examination of Malvo, he said.

Muhammad was occasionally able to point out small inconsistencies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses, but "did not successfully discredit the case the government built against him," Stearns said.

Maryland prosecutors said they needed to put Muhammad on trial as insurance in case his conviction in Virginia was overturned. Some of the victims’ families had also sought a second trial, seeking an explanation for the random attacks on people as they went shopping, gassed up their cars and mowed lawns near the nation’s capital.

After the verdict, Vijay Walekar, brother of sniper victim Premkumar Walekar, said, "I wish they had the death penalty." Walekar said of Muhammad: "He stands up and denies everything up there. It was hard for us to take it."

Malvo’s testimony came after he agreed to plead guilty in the Maryland killings. He gave detailed descriptions of each shooting, even pointing out parking spaces where the sniper team’s car was parked.

Aside from Malvo’s testimony, Muhammad’s second trial followed much of the same blueprint as his first, with prosecutors telling jurors that Muhammad and Malvo roamed the area in a beat-up Chevrolet Caprice, firing .223-caliber bullets through a hole bored in its trunk.

The jury heard a torrent of evidence that linked Muhammad to the shootings — fingerprints, DNA evidence, and ballistics tests that connected the bullets used in the shootings to the Bushmaster rifle found in the car when Muhammad and Malvo were arrested.

Acting as his own lawyer, Muhammad claimed he and Malvo were simply roaming the Washington region looking for his children who had been taken away from him in a custody battle with his ex-wife. He implied that authorities framed him by planting evidence.

In an often testy four-hour cross-examination, Muhammad continued to refer to Malvo as his "son" even though the younger man tried to show during his testimony that he was no longer under the sway of his one-time father figure.

Malvo, who received no leniency in return for his testimony, told jurors he wanted to face the man who he said trained him to be a killer and coerced him to join his murderous schemes. Malvo called Muhammad a "coward" and, at one point, glared at Muhammad, saying: "You took me into your house and you made me a monster."

Malvo told jurors that he shot three of the 13 sniper victims, while Muhammad pulled the trigger on the rest. He said Muhammad was the shooter in all but one of the six Maryland murders.

In March, Muhammad persuaded Circuit Judge James Ryan to let him defend himself, despite statements from two psychiatrists who said he may be mentally ill.

During closing arguments, Muhammad grew wild-eyed and sometimes shouted as he quoted the Bible, Mark Twain and Groucho Marx.

He struggled to mount a defense, hampered by his failure to meet deadlines on calling witnesses. He originally wanted to call hundreds of people to the stand, but the judge limited him to just a few dozen because he failed to follow proper courtroom procedure.

Many witnesses did not want to take part in his defense, refusing to show up at court even though they were issued subpoenas by lawyers helping Muhammad with his case.

In Maryland, Muhammad was charged with first-degree murder for the deaths in Montgomery County of James Martin, Premkumar Walekar, James "Sonny" Buchanan, Sarah Ramos, Lori Lewis Rivera and Conrad Johnson.

Maryland prosecutors originally sought a death sentence, but dropped those plans earlier this year. Muhammad’s Virginia defense attorneys and some victims questioned whether it was necessary to reopen old psychological wounds from more than three years ago.

Muhammad could still face prosecution for earlier shootings in Alabama and Louisiana. He and Malvo are linked to other shootings in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia and Washington state.

It is good to hear juries doing their duty in this day and age. Though it is hard to see why the Maryland prosecutors didn’t go for the death penalty if they are trying to be a safety net in case the Virginia verdict is overturned.

The most newsworthy aspects it seems to me are the revelations of Muhammad’s plans, which involved targeting children:

According to Malvo, Muhammad had a two-phase plan — six shootings a day for a month, followed by a wave of bombings of schools, school buses and children’s hospitals. Malvo said that when he asked Muhammad why, the older man replied: "For the sheer terror of it — the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."

Muhammad hoped to extort $10 million from authorities and use the money to set up a school in Canada to teach homeless children how to use guns and explosives and use violence to shut down other cities, Malvo said.

Of course it is always instructive to see thinking of  a (supposedly former) member of the Nation Of Islam, and a follower of the Religion of Peace.

An amazing article, considering it is from the DNC’s own CNN. But then again, the embeds are the closest we’ve gotten to real journalism in this war:

A reporter’s shock at the Haditha allegations

By Arwa Damon
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; Posted: 1:57 p.m. EDT (17:57 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together — that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

I don’t know why it didn’t register with me until now. It was only after scrolling through the tapes that we shot in Haditha last fall, and I found footage of some of the officers that had been relieved of their command, that it hit me.

I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I’ve seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.

I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded — remarkably no one was killed.

I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn’t fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don’t know. But they didn’t.

And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians.

I’m told that investigators now strongly suspect a rampage by a small number of Marines who snapped after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb.

Haditha was full of IEDs. It seemed they were everywhere, like a minefield. In fact, the number of times that we were told that we were standing right on top of an IED minutes before it was found turned into a dark joke between my CNN team and me.

In fact, when we initially left to link up with the company that we were meant to be embedded with, the Humvee that I was in was hit by an IED. Another 2 inches and we would have been killed. Thankfully, no one was injured.

We missed the beginning of the operation, and ended up entering Haditha that evening. The city was empty of insurgents, or they had gone into hiding as they so often do, blending with the civilian population, waiting for U.S. and Iraqi forces to sweep through and then popping up again.

But this time, after this operation, the Marines and the Iraqi Army were not going to pull out, they were going to set up fixed bases.

Now, all these months later, while watching the tapes, I found a walk and talk with one of the company commanders that was relieved of his duty as a result of the Haditha probe.

After being hit by an IED, his men were searching the area and found a massive weapons cache in a mosque. Although it wasn’t his company that we were embedded with, the Marines had taken me to the mosque so we could get footage of the cache.

And so began the e-mails and phone calls between myself and my two other CNN crew members, Jennifer Eccleston and Gabe Ramirez: Do you remember when we were talking with the battalion commander and his intel guy right outside the school and then half an hour later they found an IED in that spot? Do you remember when we were sitting chatting with them at the school? And all the other "do you remember whens."

There was also — can you believe it? — the allegations of the Haditha probe.

Good for Arwa Damon.

I hope CNN doesn’t fire her.

The DNC’s Associated Press do their best to spin this awkward development:

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada called for Republicans to clean up the tainted relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists in the wake of the scandal involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff on Jan. 18, 2006. Meanwhile, Reid accepted free ringside tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission to three championship boxing matches while that state agency was lobbying Reid.

Sen. Reid accepted free boxing tickets

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

Tue May 30, 6:38 AM ET

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, who has criticized Republican ethics, accepted free ringside tickets to three professional boxing matches from Nevada officials who were trying to influence his federal legislation regulating the sport.

Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission.

Reid defended the gifts, saying they would never influence his position on the boxing bill and that he was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. "Anyone from Nevada would say I’m glad he is there taking care of the state’s No. 1 businesses," he told The Associated Press.

"I love the fights anyways, so it wasn’t like being punished," added the senator, a former boxer and boxing judge.

Senate ethics rules generally allow lawmakers to accept gifts from federal, state or local governments, but specifically warn against taking such gifts — particularly on multiple occasions — when they might be connected to efforts to influence official actions.

"Senators and Senate staff should be wary of accepting any gift where it appears that the gift is motivated by a desire to reward, influence or elicit favorable official action," the Senate ethics manual states. It cites the 1990s example of an Oregon lawmaker who took gifts for personal use from a South Carolina state university and its president while that school was trying to influence his official actions.

"Repeatedly taking gifts which the Gifts Rule otherwise permits to be accepted may, nonetheless, reflect discredit upon the institution, and should be avoided," the manual says.

Several ethics experts said Reid should have paid for the tickets, which were close to the ring and worth between several hundred and several thousand dollars each, to avoid the appearance he was being influenced by gifts.

Two senators who joined Reid for fights with the complimentary tickets took markedly differently steps.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., insisted on paying $1,400 for his ticket when he joined Reid for a 2004 championship fight. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., accepted free tickets to another fight with Reid but already had abstained from taking any votes or actions on the boxing bill because his father was an executive for a Las Vegas hotel that hosts fights.

In an interview Thursday in his Capitol office, Reid broadly defended his decisions to accept the tickets and to take several actions benefiting disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s clients and partners as they donated to him.

"I’m not goody-two-shoes. I just feel these events are nothing I did wrong," Reid said.

Reid had separate meetings in June 2003 in his Senate offices with two Abramoff tribal clients and Edward Ayoob, a former staffer who went to work lobbying with Abramoff.

The meetings occurred over a five-day span in which Ayoob also threw a fundraiser for Reid at the firm where Ayoob and Abramoff worked that netted numerous donations from Abramoff’s partners, firm and clients.

Reid said he viewed the two official meetings and the fundraiser as a single event. "I think it all was one, the way I look at it," he said.

One of the tribes, the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan, donated $9,000 to Reid at the fundraiser and the next morning met briefly with Reid and Ayoob at Reid’s office to discuss federal programs. Reid and the tribal chairman posed for a picture.

Five days earlier, Reid met with Ayoob and the Sac & Fox tribe of Iowa for about 15 minutes to discuss at least two legislative requests. Reid’s office said the senator never acted on those requests.

A few months after the fundraiser, Reid did sponsor a spending bill that targeted $100,000 to another Abramoff tribe, the Chitimacha of Louisiana, to pay for a soil erosion study Ayoob was lobbying for. Reid said he sponsored the provision because Louisiana lawmakers sent him a letter requesting it.

Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, has pleaded guilty in a widespread corruption probe of Capitol Hill. Reid used that conviction earlier this year to accuse Republicans of fostering a culture of corruption inside Congress.

AP recently reported that Reid also wrote at least four letters favorable to Abramoff’s tribal clients around the time Reid collected donations from those clients and Abramoff’s partners. Reid has declined to return the donations, unlike other lawmakers, saying his letters were consistent with his beliefs.

Senate ethics rules require senators to avoid even the appearance that any official meetings or actions they took were in any way connected with political donations.

Reid said he never would change his position because of donations, free tickets or a request from a former-staffer-turned-lobbyist.

"People who deal with me and have over the years know that I am an advocate for what I believe in. I always try to do it fair, never take advantage of people on purpose," he said.

Asked if he would have done anything differently, the Senate Democratic leader said his only concern was "the willingness of the press … to take these instances and try to make a big deal out of them."

Several ethics experts said they believed Reid should have paid for the boxing tickets to avoid violating Senate ethics rules.

Bernadette Sargeant, a former House ethics lawyer, said the Senate would have to examine the specific facts to determine whether Reid violated the gift ban. She said the clearer ethics issue involved Reid’s obligation to avoid the appearance that the free tickets and his official duties were connected.

"From what you are describing, it is such a huge risk that a reasonable person with all the relevant facts would say this creates the appearance of impropriety," she said. "The more cautious thing, the more prudent thing would be to either pay the tickets or fair market value or not accept the tickets in the first place."

Attorney Marc Elias, who has represented Democrats in ethics cases and was asked by Reid’s office to call the AP, said he believed Reid should not be penalized for trying to help his state. "There are varying degrees of gift givers," Elias said. "There is a difference between a gift from a state entity and a gift from a savings and loan."

Marc Ratner, executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission when Reid took the free tickets, said one of his desires was to convince Reid and McCain that there was no need for the federal government to usurp the state commission’s authority. At the time, McCain and Reid were pushing legislation to create a federal boxing commission.

"I am a states rights activist and I didn’t want any federal bill that would take away our state rights to regulate fights," Ratner said, adding that he hoped McCain and Reid, at the very least, would be persuaded to model any federal commission after Nevada’s body.

Reid said he remembered talking to Ratner briefly at the fights and knew Ratner was working with his Senate staff on the federal legislation. The legislation ultimately failed to pass in Congress.

McCain’s office said the Arizona senator felt an obligation to pay for the ringside tickets he got from the Nevada commission to attend the Oscar De La Hoya-Bernard Hopkins championship match in September 2004.

"Senator McCain has always paid for his own tickets to boxing matches and sees no reason to change that," aide Mark Salter said.

Ensign’s office said he attended one fight in the last couple of years with Reid and accepted the free tickets from the commission. But his office said Ensign already had removed himself from the boxing legislation that would have affected the Nevada commission.

Kathleen Clark, a Washington University of St. Louis congressional ethics expert, said Congress should re-examine the exemption allowing gifts by state and federal and local governments because they too can have interest in influencing federal lawmakers like Reid.

"I think he would want to be above approach even when it’s from a state commission and not a private lobbyist," Clark said. "I don’t think we should make any assumption about a government. The fact is government agencies can act as proxies for different interests. Here it happens to be the Nevada boxing commission, and I would guess it is aligned with certain industry groups."

Lest we forget, Reagan cabinet member Richard Allen was hounded from office by the Democrats and their media attack dogs for accepting a pair of cufflinks (or was it a wristwatch?).

As the National Republican Senatorial Committee has observed, "Dirty Harry" Reid accepted more money from Jack Abramoff’s clients than just about anybody, and four times what Tom Delay did.

The donations included:

• $19,500 from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of California.

• $5,000 from the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.

• $7,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

• $19,000 from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan.

In fact, Senator Harry Reid received at least $68,941 from Jack Abramoff’s groups. Which places him third behind only John Kerry ($98,550) and Patty Murray ($78,991) for the top score among Democrat Senators.

Meanwhile, Tom "the most corrupt man who ever lived" Delay only received $15,000 from Abramoff.

Furthermore, the moral paragon Reid refuses to give up his ill-gotten gain. Whereas wicked Tom Delay gave the filthy lucre he received to charity.

And yet Senator Reid regularly calls the Republican Congress "the most corrupt in history" and writes about "Republican organized crime."

But one would expect a man who is in the pocket of the mob represents Las Vegas to be an expert on corruption and organized crime.

From the DNC’s Associated Press:

An Afghan protester runs past a burning police vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, May 29, 2006. A deadly traffic accident Monday involving U.S. troops sparked the worst riot in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban regime, with hundreds of protesters looting shops and shouting ‘Death to America!’ At least eight people were killed and 107 injured, an official said.

Brake failure on U.S. truck caused crash

By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan – A road crash that triggered deadly anti-American rioting in Kabul occurred because a military truck lost its brakes coming down a hill and plowed into a line of cars, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Chanting "Death to America," rioters on Monday stoned the U.S. convoy involved in the accident, then headed to the center of Kabul, ransacking offices of international aid groups and searching for foreigners. Smoke billowed from burning buildings.

The death toll from the unrest rose to 11, most of them from gunshot wounds, according to three city hospitals. More than 100 people were wounded.

Up to five people were killed in the accident, but it wasn’t clear whether these deaths were among the tolls the hospitals reported.

Military spokesman Col. Tom Collins, in explaining the cause of the traffic accident, said the truck’s brakes "apparently overheated and failed" as it came down the long hill.

"The driver, very experienced in the operation of this type of vehicle, a heavy cargo truck, applied the primary and emergency brakes and took evasive action to avoid hitting pedestrians," Collins said.

The truck hit several unoccupied parked cars in an effort to slow, but it wasn’t enough, and the truck hit occupied vehicles at an intersection, he said.

"We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those killed and injured in this unfortunate traffic accident," Collins said.

The military will compensate the victims or their families, the spokesman said, adding that a full investigation is still under way.

The crash sparked the worst riots across Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Hundreds of Afghan and coalition troops took up positions around the capital Tuesday to prevent further unrest, and the city of 4 million was calm as stores reopened and residents went to work.

Many expressed dismay as they surveyed the damage from Monday’s riots.

"Where were all the security forces yesterday?" asked Asadullah Chelsea, who owns a supermarket popular with foreigners. "I have lost thousands of dollars of stock."

In other violence Tuesday, a gunman riding a motorcycle shot and killed three Afghan women working for an international aid group and their driver in northern Afghanistan, said Gov. Jama Khan Ahmdar of northern Jawzjan province.

The rioters claimed U.S. troops had shot and killed civilians at the scene of the accident.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition confirmed there was gunfire but said coalition personnel in one military vehicle only fired over the crowd. The coalition expressed regret for any deaths and injuries, and said there would be an investigation.

President Hamzid Karzai went on television Monday night to decry the violence, branding the rioters as troublemakers who should be resisted.

About 2,000 troops prowled the city to enforce an overnight curfew, which passed without incident, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman.

"The army has control of the city. We have tanks in the city for the first time," he said.

As the violence eased late Monday, embassies sent out convoys of armored vehicles to pick up their nationals from homes and buildings and bring them to foreign military bases where they spent the night.

During the rioting, an Associated Press reporter saw several demonstrators pull a man who appeared to be a Westerner from a civilian vehicle and beat him. The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators. Other Westerners escaped the protesters by driving at high speed and refusing to stop when the rioters tried to block their way.

Afghans often complain about what they call the aggressive driving tactics of the U.S. military. Convoys often pass through crowded areas at high speed and sometimes disregard road rules. The U.S. military says such tactics are necessary to protect the troops from attack.

"There was a traffic jam and all the vehicles were stopped," said one witness, 21-year-old shopkeeper Mohammad Wali. "The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were on the way. They didn’t care about the civilians at all."

Patience with the 23,000 U.S. soldiers and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is also fraying over recent deaths of civilians, including at least 16 people killed by an airstrike targeting Taliban fighters in a southern village last week.

The risk of civilian casualties appears to have increased amid some of the deadliest combat between security forces and militants since U.S.-led forces ousted the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001.

As many as 372 people have died in fighting since May 17, mostly militants who have been killed in airstrikes, according to Afghan and coalition figures.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which keeps track of coalition attacks that result in civilian deaths, said at least 135 Afghans have been killed by coalition fire since it started keeping track in mid-2003, although it does not consider its records complete.

An AP estimate of civilian deaths during major combat — from the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001 until about February 2002 — found that between 500 and 600 civilians were killed in that period. Other estimates put the toll much higher.

Since then, an AP count based on figures from Afghan officials, the coalition and witnesses shows at least 180 civilians have died in coalition military action.

Karzai took the unusual step last week of summoning the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, and telling him "every effort" should be made to ensure civilians’ safety."

Of course our one party media first gleefully reported that the US driver was drunk and that he drove away from the scene. And that story has made it around the world before the truth gets its pants on.

Still,  the Afghanis show their high regard for human life by killing eight people and wounding over a hundred others because of an accident.

And note that when the Taliban murder thousands or any other "freedom fighter" blows up a crowd of civilians, they don’t riot in protest. But then again, their imam masters and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission don’t tell them to.

Say, where was the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission under the Taliban?

Once again our one party media is pretending to have uncovered a story that is years old so to forward their agenda and have a tie in to the alleged Marine atrocities at Haditha.

From the DNC’s Associated Press:

A South Korean soldier stands guard at the tunnels of No Gun Ri. The west tunnel walls were resurfaced and reinforced at some point to prevent them from collapsing.

U.S. Policy Was to Shoot Korean Refugees

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and MARTHA MENDOZA (Associated Press Writers)
May 29, 2006

More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war’s chaotic early days has come to light – a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.

The letter – dated the day of the Army’s mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950 – is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all U.S. forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the U.S. government.

"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.

Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers’ estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.

The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.

The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were "an unfortunate tragedy" – "not a deliberate killing." It suggested panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals concealed enemy troops.

But Muccio’s letter indicates the actions of the 7th Cavalry were consistent with policy, adopted because of concern that North Koreans would infiltrate via refugee columns. And in subsequent months, U.S. commanders repeatedly ordered refugees shot, documents show.

The Muccio letter, declassified in 1982, is discussed in a new book by American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz, who discovered the document at the U.S. National Archives, where the AP also has obtained a copy.

Conway-Lanz, a former Harvard historian and now an archivist of the National Archives’ Nixon collection, was awarded the Stuart L. Bernath Award of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for the article on which the book is based.

"With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report’s interpretation (of No Gun Ri) becomes difficult to sustain," Conway-Lanz argues in his book, "Collateral Damage," published this spring by Routledge.

The Army report’s own list of sources for the 1999-2001 investigation shows its researchers reviewed the microfilm containing the Muccio letter. But the 300-page report did not mention it.

Asked about this, Pentagon spokeswoman Betsy Weiner would say only that the Army inspector general’s report was "an accurate and objective portrayal of the available facts based on 13 months of work."

Said Louis Caldera, who was Army secretary in 2001 and is now University of New Mexico president, "Millions of pages of files were reviewed and it is certainly possible they may have simply missed it."

Ex-journalist Don Oberdorfer, a historian of Korea who served on a team of outside experts who reviewed the investigation, said he did not recall seeing the Muccio message. "I don’t know why, since the military claimed to have combed all records from any source."

Muccio noted in his 1950 letter that U.S. commanders feared disguised North Korean soldiers were infiltrating American lines via refugee columns.

As a result, those meeting on the night of July 25, 1950 – top staff officers of the U.S. 8th Army, Muccio’s representative Harold J. Noble and South Korean officials – decided on a policy of air-dropping leaflets telling South Korean civilians not to head south toward U.S. defense lines, and of shooting them if they did approach U.S. lines despite warning shots, the ambassador wrote to Rusk.

Rusk, Muccio and Noble, who was embassy first secretary, are all dead. It is not known what action, if any, Rusk and others in Washington may have taken as a result of the letter.

Muccio told Rusk, who later served as U.S. secretary of state during the Vietnam War, that he was writing him "in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States" from such deadly U.S. tactics.

But the No Gun Ri killings – as well as others in the ensuing months – remained hidden from history until the AP report of 1999, in which ex-soldiers who were at No Gun Ri corroborated the Korean survivors’ accounts.

Survivors said U.S. soldiers first forced them from nearby villages on July 25, 1950, and then stopped them in front of U.S. lines the next day, when they were attacked without warning by aircraft as hundreds sat atop a railroad embankment. Troops of the 7th Cavalry followed with ground fire as survivors took shelter under a railroad bridge.

The late Army Col. Robert M. Carroll, a lieutenant at No Gun Ri, said he remembered the order radioed across the warfront on the morning of July 26 to stop refugees from crossing battle lines. "What do you do when you’re told nobody comes through?" he said in a 1998 interview. "We had to shoot them to hold them back."

Other soldier witnesses attested to radioed orders to open fire at No Gun Ri.

Since that episode was confirmed in 1999, South Koreans have lodged complaints with the Seoul government about more than 60 other alleged large-scale killings of refugees by the U.S. military in the 1950-53 war.

The Army report of 2001 acknowledged investigators learned of other, unspecified civilian killings, but said these would not be investigated.

Meanwhile, AP research uncovered at least 19 declassified U.S. military documents showing commanders ordered or authorized such killings in 1950-51.

In a statement issued Monday in Seoul, a No Gun Ri survivors group called that episode "a clear war crime," demanded an apology and compensation from the U.S. government, and said the U.S. Congress and the United Nations should conduct investigations. The survivors also said they would file a lawsuit against the Pentagon for alleged manipulation of the earlier probe.

The Army’s denial that the killings were ordered is a "deception of No Gun Ri victims and of U.S. citizens who value human rights," said spokesman Chung Koo-do.

Even if infiltrators are present, soldiers need to take "due precautions" to protect civilian lives, said Francois Bugnion, director for international law for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, global authority on the laws of war.

After reviewing the 1950 letter, Bugnion said the standard on war crimes is clear.

"In the case of a deliberate attack directed against civilians identified as such, then this would amount to a violation of the law of armed conflict," he said.

Gary Solis, a West Point expert on war crimes, said the policy described by Muccio clearly "deviates from typical wartime procedures. It’s an obvious violation of the bedrock core principle of the law of armed conflict – distinction."

Solis said soldiers always have the right to defend themselves. But "noncombatants are not to be purposely targeted."

But William Eckhardt, lead Army prosecutor in the My Lai atrocities case in Vietnam, sensed "angst, great angst" in the letter because officials worried about what might happen. "If a mob doesn’t stop when they’re coming at you, you fire over their heads and if they still don’t stop you fire at them. Standard procedure," he said.

In South Korea, Yi Mahn-yol, head of the National Institute of Korean History and a member of a government panel on No Gun Ri, said the Muccio letter sheds an entirely new light on a case that "so far has been presented as an accidental incident that didn’t involve the command system."

None of this is news.

The cable from Ambassador Mucio to Dean Rusk was uncovered back in 2005 by Profession Sahr. Its contents were reported by Sahr back in early 2005, as reflected in this July 2005 story from South Korea’s Kimsoft:

The Nogunri Incident Resurfaces as New Evidence Found

Lee Wha Rang

… The tragedy at Nogunri that happened so many years ago in 1950 was headed toward oblivion as most of the survivors died and their relatives went on with what left of their lives. Then early this year, a historian at the Harvard University (Sahr, Cinway-Lanz, 2005) published an article on Nogunri in Diplomatic History journal. Prof. Sahr uncovered a secret diplomatic cable from Ambassador Muccio to the State Department on a high-level decision to shoot Korean civilians, which directly and explicitly contradict the US Army report and Bill Clinton’s claim that the massacre was committed by a handful soldiers on their own.

The AP team did not see this cable, which was sent on the very day the massacre began. The cable states that a high-level meeting of US and Korean officials agreed to shoot Korean civilians if they approached US military positions. They would be warned first, though. The AP team was aware of this meeting but had no direct knowledge of its formal decision to shoot civilians. (Charles Henry, June 2005, Private communication)

Prof. Sahr (2005) states:

However, there exists an account of the meeting the Pentagon investigation and other inquiries have missed. On 26 July, the American ambassador to Korea, John J. Muccio, sent a letter to Dean Rusk, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, about the refugee problem in Korea. The letter described the problem as having developed ‘a serious and even critical military nature.’

The letter told Rusk the ambassador was writing because the military was "necessarily" deciding about the problem, and the implementation of these decisions had the possibility of repercussions in the United States. The letter described the military problems of clogged roads and infiltration the movements of refugees caused. It then reported to Rusk that a meeting had been arranged by request of Eighth Army headquarters at the office of the South Korean home minister on the evening of 25 July to address this problem.

The letter said the administration and personnel section (G-1), the intelligence section (G-2), the provost marshal, and the Counter-Intelligence Corps of the Eighth Army staff were represented at the meeting along with the American embassy, the ROK Home and Social Affairs ministries, and the director of the National Police.

The Pentagon report does mention the very meeting mentioned by Muccio but the report asserts that it was decided not to shoot civilians at the meeting – in direct contradiction of Muccio’s claim. Muccio’s cable to Rusk is quite specific on the decision made at the meeting:

"Leaflet drops will be made north of U.S. lines warning the people not to proceed south, that they risk being fired upon if they do so. If refugees do appear from north of U.S. lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot." The letter also reported that refugees would be warned that no group could move south unless so ordered and then only under police control. All movement of Korean civilians had to end at sunset or those moving would "risk being shot when dark come.

Prof.Sahr allows some benefit of doubt on behalf of the Pentagon. It is not certain that Muccio was at the meeting in person and it may be that he heard about the meeting second-hand. Or it may be that the food Ambassador’s memory was faulty. Prof. Sahr believes this unlikely because there are other independent sources that support Muccio’s claim. For example, the 8th Cavalry log states that the order to shoot civilians came from above. Several shooters claimed that they were ordered to shoot the women and children hiding under the bridge. In fact, evidence supports the claim that US troops killed civilians all across the war zone.

Professor Sahr said everything contained in today’s AP article in his article, Beyond No Gun Ri: Refugees and the United States Military in the Korean War, Diplomatic History (Vol. 29, Issue 1, pp. 49-82) which was published in early 2005.

Both articles give the same exact quotes.

So now Sahr has a book out with the same material. Good for him. But this is not news. And this "war crime" remains largely unproved.

But the AP has its mission. It must forward its DNC masters’ agenda. Which of course laying every possible atrocity at the feet of the US military.

And that goes double on Memorial Day.

From the laughable liars at the Communist rag, The Nation:

William Jefferson, D-Wall Street

By John Nichols

Nancy Pelosi has shown little interest in holding George Bush to account, as evidenced by House Minority Leader’s determination to distance herself from discussions of censuring – let alone impeaching – the president for the high crimes and misdemeanors that have characterized his tenure.

So it not all that surprising that Pelosi, despite her promise to "clean up" Congressional corruption, has been slow to demand genuine accountability from a member of the House Democratic Caucus. The minority leader has backed an ethics committee inquiry into charges against Congressman William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, the "star" of a Federal Bureau of Investigation tape in which what sounds like a bribe of $100,000 is accepted. But she so far has refrained from suggesting the obvious: that it is time for the severely scandal-plagued Jefferson to resign.

Let’s be clear, if Tom DeLay needed to go, so does Bill Jefferson.

What makes Pelosi’s refusal to cut Jefferson loose so disappointing is the fact that Democrats owes the congressan from New Orleans no loyalty. Indeed, if ever there was a member of Congress who merited abandonment by his party, official censure and a hasty exit from the legislative branch, it is William Jefferson.

Putting aside the bribery probe, Jefferson has a horrific record of breaking with his Democratic colleagues to sell out his constituents, his country and the poorest people in the world. He may be a Democrat, but on the issues that really matter Jefferson has served the Bush administration and Wall Street more diligently than a number of Republicans.

Jefferson’s has been one of the steadiest Democratic votes for the president’s foreign policy agenda. The Louisianan voted to authorize Bush to use force against Iraq, consistently supports emergency "supplemental" spending to maintain the occupation of that country, and favors deployment of the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. He voted for the USA Patriot Act when it was rushed through Congress in 2001, and was a big backer of Vice President Cheney’s national energy policy. And, though his record on social issues is mixed, Jefferson has on a number of occasions cast his lot with the White House and its social-conservative allies to help enact restrictions on abortion, school prayer initiatives and a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

But Jefferson’s deepest loyalty is not to the Bush administration. Rather, it is to big business. In a Congress where there are plenty of Democrats who are friendly to the legislative agenda of corporate America, Jefferson is devoted to it. This Democrat puts more than a few responsible Republicans to shame when it comes to doing the bidding of Wall Street.

After a key export tax break for U.S. manufacturers was identified as an illegal trade subsidy by the World Trade Organization, Jefferson and most — though not all — House Republicans voted to provide $140 billion in new corporate tax cuts for impacted businesses. He has voted again and again for bankruptcy law "reforms" that favor the interests of banks and credit card companies over those of working families. And he is the king of the dwindling circle of free-trade Democrats.

Jefferson was not just one of "The CAFTA 15" – the group of Democrats who cast critical votes to save the Central American Free Trade Agreement after the administration was abandoned by 27 Republicans when the agreement came up for House approval in July, 2005 — he was the chief Democratic cheerleader for that bad deal. When the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council sponsored a pro-CAFTA teleconference before the vote, there was Jefferson proclaiming: "I’m supporting CAFTA because I believe it’s in the best interests of our country."

The Louisiana Democrat, who is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee’s powerful subcommittee on Trade, did similar service during debates over trade deals with Chile, Singapore and Australia. And he was an essential Democratic supporter of normalizing trade relations with China in 2000, arguably the most devastating trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement of six years earlier, which Jefferson also backed.

But Jefferson’s most unsettling advocacy on behalf of corporate-friendly trade agreements that have undermined job security and wages, environmental protection and human rights in the U.S. and abroad came in 1998, when the congressman was an outspoken advocate for the African Growth and Opportunity Act. AGOA, as that deal was known, was dubbed "NAFTA for Africa" by the business press. Condemned by South African President Nelson Mandela and Africa trade unions that saw it as a move to make it even easier for multinational corporations to exploit the continent’s workers and resources, AGOA was described by a leading foe, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Illinois, as the "Africa Recolonization Act."

During the House debate on the issue, Jackson pointed out that, "The AGOA extends short-lived trade "benefits" for the nations of sub-Sahara Africa. In exchange for these crumbs from globalization’s table, the African nations must pay a huge price: adherence to economic policies that serve the interests of foreign creditors, multinational corporations and financial speculators at the expense of the majority of Africans."

The Illinois Democrat asked, "Whose interests will the AGOA advance? Look at the coalition promoting it — a corporate who’s who of oil giants, banking and insurance interests, as well as apparel firms seeking one more place to locate their low-paying sweatshops. Some of these corporations are already infamous in Africa for their disregard for the environment and human rights."

The coalition promoting African Growth and Opportunity Act was able to counter the criticisms from Mandela, Jackson and others by highlighting the enthusiastic support for the deal by a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus. That member, William Jefferson, gleefully declared that, "Africa is a reservoir of opportunities for American businesses."

(Among the bribes Jefferson is alleged to have accepted are more than $400,000 in payments to help telecommunications firms do business in Nigeria and other West African nations.)

The split in the black caucus back in 1998 helped secure passage of AGOA in a form that was much worse than might have been the case if Jefferson and others had echoed the honest concerns expressed by Jackson.

No wonder that, in his latest campaign finance filing, Jefferson reported that almost 79 percent of the political action committee contributions to his reelection campaign — $340,912 — came from business interests, while just 19 percent came from organized labor.

Even in his campaign coffers, William Jefferson has the profile of a Republican – and an unsavory Republican at that.

Sorry, Mr. Nichols, but Rep. Jefferson is not only a Democrat, he is a liberal Democratin very good standing.

According to the American Conservative Union, Mr. William Jefferson has an ultra low lifetime rating of 14 out of 100 possible points.

But don’t just take their word for it. Those keepers of then (America-hating) faith, the American Civil Liberties Union gave Jefferson a very positive 79% rating at the time of his last election.

But the folks at The Nation have always been liars. Like their hero Lenin they regard language as a tool to power and nothing else.

In fact, they are like Truthout, but without Truthout’s quiet dignity.

(Thanks to Professor Repulso for the heads up.)

More dot-connecting from the indefatigable investigator, Jennifer Verner:

Miracle at 122 Maryland Ave NW

A little blurb from the Stewart Mott Trust homepage (cached version, since the original is on the blink):

Stewart Mott originally bought 122 to house the various activities and projects of the Fund for Peace. Over the years, the building has been the first offices of the Center for Defense Information, In The Public Interest, the Center for International Policy and the Center for National Security Studies.

The house was the birthplace of the Women’s Campaign Fund and Friends of Family Planning PACs. Other tenants of note include the Campaign Against Nuclear War, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Pax Americas and the Military Families Support Network. The most recent tenant was the national DC office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Given Stewart Mott’s philanthropic interests, it is not surprising that most of the regular occupants of 122 Maryland Avenue are progressive in nature. This may have contributed to the Home’s reputation as “a citadel for hatching far-left plots” but in fact, it is a meeting place where do-gooders of all stripes of political and ideological opinion are regularly heard.

Stewart Mott likes to think of the Home as “a beehive of unconventional activity, skewed in favor of truth and justice, but tolerant of and interested in all points of view.

So let’s put this all together. Housed together in the little Mott house are the ACLU and the Fund for Constitutional Government–the two organizations most vigorously supporting whistle blowing and attacking the NSA.

Stewart Mott was also one of the founding founders of the agitprop organizations that sprung from the Institute of Policy Studies in the 1970s–including Center for International Policy where Dana Priest’s husband is the executive director.

CIP and 122 Maryland have a long history. Robert White, the president of CIP is currently on the board of directors of the Fund For Constitutional Government. Conrad Martin, the director of FCG–sponsor of Electronic Privacy Information Center, Government Accountability Project, and others–is also on the board of CIP AND the executive director of the Stewart Mott Foundation.

Did I mention that all of the above organizations are clients of Fenton Communications?

So, when you hear Secret gulags, black sites, NSA invasion of privacy, Cindy Sheehan, Truthtellers.org, whistleblowers, VIPS, or any any of the other numerous disinformation campaigns lodged against the Bush Administration–think Mott House. With a little help from their friends at Fenton Communications, the NYT, the Washington Post and ABC News–anything is possible at 122 Maryland.

*    *    *

Speaking of Fenton Communications, check out this cached link (yes, it’s been scrubbed) to a Fenton Communications news release on "Whistle-blowing."

Note the signers to the second letter. They include Larry Johnson, a number of other VIPS members, Ms. Ann Wright who appeared alongside Dana Priest, Joe Wilson and Mel Goodman at the CIP sponsored "Cowboy Diplomacy" conference, and Karen Kwiatowski from the "Iraq Uncovered" video.

Recall that David Fenton was a major supporter of the Christic Institute/Martha Honey law suit during the Iran-Contra days. Another very important supporter of the Christic Institute’s lawsuit was Aris Anagnos–a billionaire who still supports a wide range radical left causes including the Fund for Constitutional Government.

Currently on the board of FCG, along with Anagnos, is Robert White, President of the Center For International Policy (Goodfellow’s outfit). The Executive director of FCG is Conrad Martin–who serves on the board of CIP, in addition to a whole alphabet of others including HALT, as well as being the former Director of the Stewart Mott foundation. (Again, all fenton Communications clients)

Here’s the list of FCG’s " projects." Note the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Government Oversight Project. POGO and Open the Government.

So we have another link between the VIPS, CIP and Fenton. And we also have a link between the CIA Leaks on torture and secret gulags (Dana Priest) and one of the organizations that is leading the charge against NSA (EPIC).

And Larry Johnson has his hand in all of these organizations. Along with the rest of his VIPS pals.

The Mott slogan "let us be known by our deeds" is one I can agree with. Thankfully, intrepid researchers like Jennifer Verner are getting this information out.

It is appalling that hating America is such a lucrative full-time business for so many people.

Well, maybe not so many. Since the same usual suspects seem to show up under every rock that’s overturned.

The "Paper Of Treason," the DNC’s New York Times, is at it again:

Iraqis’ Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of Civilians

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and MONA MAHMOUD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 28 — Hiba Abdullah survived the killings by American troops in Haditha last Nov. 19, but said seven others at her father-in-law’s home did not. She said American troops shot and killed her husband, Rashid Abdul Hamid. They killed her father-in-law, Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, a 77-year-old in a wheelchair, shooting him in the chest and abdomen, she said.

Her sister-in-law, Asma, "collapsed when her husband was killed in front of her eyes," Ms. Abdullah said. As Asma fell, she dropped her 5-month-old infant. Ms. Abdullah said she picked up the baby girl and sprinted out of the house, and when she returned, Asma was dead.

Four people who identified themselves as survivors of the killings in Haditha, including some who had never spoken publicly, described the killings to an Iraqi writer and historian who was recruited by The New York Times to travel to Haditha and interview survivors and witnesses of what military officials have said appear to be unjustified killings of two dozen Iraqis by marines. Some in Congress fear the killings could do greater harm to the image of the United States military around the world than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The four survivors’ accounts could not be independently corroborated, and it was unclear in some cases whether they actually saw the killings. But much of what they said was consistent with broad outlines of the events of that day provided by military and government officials who have been briefed on the military’s investigations into the killings, which the officials have said are likely to lead to charges that may include murder and a cover-up of what really happened.

The name of the Iraqi who conducted the interviews for The Times is being withheld for his own safety, because insurgents often make a target of Iraqis deemed collaborators.

Haditha, a sand-swept farming town flecked with date palms on the upper Euphrates River, is in one of Iraq’s most dangerous areas, ridden with insurgents in the heart of Sunni-dominated Anbar Province.

Three months earlier, 20 marines from a different unit were killed around Haditha over a three-day span. Fourteen were killed by a bomb that destroyed their troop carrier. Six others, all snipers, were ambushed and killed on a foot patrol. Insurgents appeared later to rejoice and boast about the sniper ambush, releasing a video over the Internet that appeared to show the attack and the mangled and burned body of a dead American serviceman.

Haditha is under the control of insurgents that include Tawhid and Jihad, a name that has been used by the terrorist organization of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said Miysar al-Dulaimi, a human rights lawyer who has relatives in Haditha and who returned there two days after the killings and spoke to witnesses and neighbors. Mr. Dulaimi said that outside their bases, the Americans controlled almost nothing.

"People are so scared," he said. "They have lost confidence in the Americans. If the Americans show up in the neighborhood the insurgents will come and take away people they accuse of being stooges of the Americans."

But just over six months ago, 24 people in the Subhani district of Haditha faced a different death, witnesses and survivors say.

The killings began after 7:15 a.m., as the neighborhood was stirring awake, when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in Subhani that killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Tex., as his patrol drove through the area.

According to one United States defense official, who declined to be identified because details of the investigation are not supposed to be revealed, most of the subsequent killings are believed to have been committed by a handful of marines led by a staff sergeant who was their squad leader, although other marines are also under investigation.

In the home Ms. Abdullah escaped from, she said American troops also shot and killed a 4-year-old nephew named Abdullah Walid. She said her mother-in-law, Khumaysa Tuma Ali, 66, died after being shot in the back. Two brothers-in-law, Jahid Abdul Hamid Hassan and Walid Abdul Hamid Hassan, were also killed, she said.

In addition to Ms. Abdullah and Asma’s baby, two others survived. One, 9-year-old Iman Walid Abdul Hamid, said she ran quickly, still clad in her pajamas, to hide under the bed with her younger brother, Abdul Rahman Walid Abdul Hamid, when she saw what was happening.

"We were scared and could not move for two hours. I tried to hide under the bed," she said, but both her and her brother, Abdul Rahman, were hit with shrapnel.

Abdul Rahman, 7, said very little about that day. "When they killed my father Walid, I hid in bed," he said.

Hiba Abdullah assumed the two children had died, but she said they were later found at a local hospital.

One Haditha victim was an elderly man, close to 80 years old, killed in his wheelchair as he appeared to be holding a Koran, according to the United States defense official, who described information collected during the investigation. An elderly woman was also killed, as were a mother and a child who were "in what appeared to be a prayer position," the official said.

Some victims had single gunshot wounds to the head, and at least one home where people were shot to death had no bullet marks on the walls, inconsistent with a clearing operation that would typically leave bullet holes, the official added.

Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who leads the Armed Services Committee, pledged Sunday to hold hearings on the Haditha killings as soon as the military investigation is concluded.

"I’ll do exactly what we did with Abu Ghraib," he said on the ABC News program "This Week," referring to hearings. He added that there were serious questions of "what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers in the Marine Corps."

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former marine who has become a fierce critic of the Iraq war, said he had no doubt marines killed innocent civilians in Haditha and tried to cover up the deaths. Marine Corps officials, he said on the same television program, have told him that troops shot one woman "in cold blood" who was bending over her child begging for mercy.

In all, 19 people were killed in three separate homes in Haditha, and 5 were killed after they approached the scene in a taxi, survivors and people in the neighborhood said.

Hiba Abdullah said that after the killings in her father-in-law’s home, the American troops moved to the house of a neighbor, Younis Salim Nisaif. She said he was killed along with his wife, Aida, and Aida’s sister, Huda. She said five children were also killed at that home, all 3 to 14 years old.

There was one survivor, Safa Younis Salim, 13, who in an interview said she lived by faking her death. "I pretended that I was dead when my brother’s body fell on me and he was bleeding like a faucet," she said. She said that she saw American troops kick her family members and that one American shouted in the face of one relative before he was killed.

Military officials declined Sunday to comment on details of the killings described by survivors. "The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process," said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine spokesman.

David P. Sheldon, a defense lawyer advising a marine under investigation in the case, said what was publicly known about the case "raises a disturbing picture, but I think the situation was very confusing." He added that "the insurgent pressure in that part of Iraq has been particularly virulent" which caused "a very stressful environment."

Three days before a roadside bomb attack that preceded the Nov. 19 killings, another marine from the same unit had been killed when a bomb detonated under his vehicle in Haditha. It was the first combat death that the unit, the Third Battalion of the First Marine Regiment, had suffered on that deployment to Iraq.

Neighbors said that in the third home assaulted on Nov. 19, four brothers were killed by American troops. The wife of one of the brothers, who would identify herself only as the widow of a brother named Jamal, said the four victims were all between the ages of 20 and 38.

The troops forced women in the home to leave at gunpoint, the widow said. Afterward, she said the women heard gunshots coming from the home, but the troops forbade them from returning. Eventually, she said, they went inside and found the bodies of Jamal and three brothers, Marwan, Jassib and Kahatan.

Mr. Dulaimi, the human rights lawyer who traveled to Haditha two days after the killings, said neighbors told him the father of the four victims and owner of the home was Ayad Ahmed al-Gharria, who does odd jobs and has a shop in Haditha. The neighbors, Mr. Dulaimi said, told him the troops killed Marwan first. The three other brothers were killed after they came to see what was happening, he said.

Five more Iraqi men died that day after they approached the American troops in a taxi, according to people in the neighborhood. Four were students and the fifth was the driver of the taxi, and all were between the ages of 18 and 25, they said.

After the killings, Mr. Dulaimi said Haditha clerics and elders led a protest march on the American base near a dam on the Euphrates. From the city’s mosques, Mr. Dulaimi said, clerics condemned the killings and said the Americans "promise they will bring peace and security to this country, but what has happened is they are spreading panic, fear and terror among the people."

One person from the neighborhood, Salim Abdullah, said relatives from two of the families had taken compensation payments of as much as $2,500 per victim from American officials who later visited. Relatives of other victims have not taken payments, he said.

The United States defense official said the payments were also a focus of investigators trying to determine whether the killings were improperly covered up. On "This Week," Representative Murtha suggested that the decision to make payments was strong evidence that Marine officers up the chain of command had knowledge of the events. "That doesn’t happen at the lowest level," he said. "That happens at the highest level before they make a decision to make payments to the families."

The Marines also face an inquiry into the killing of an Iraqi man on April 26 near Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad. A preliminary inquiry found "sufficient information" for a criminal investigation, the Marines said. Representative Murtha said a marine fired an AK-47 rifle so there would be spent cartridges near the body, making it look as if the victim had been firing a weapon.

A spokesman for the First Marine Division, Lt. Lawton King, said several marines suspected of involvement in the incident had been put in the brig at Camp Pendleton, Calif., or restricted to the base.

The Times hires an unnamed "Iraqi writer and historian" to ask questions of the "victims"? Now we have unnamed reporters as well as sources. But doesn’t The Times have any of their own reporters in Iraq?

Or is The Times afraid that even their reporters might be tempted to base their stories on some kind of reality? Or confine their interviews to people who may have actually seen the killings or had some other first hand knowledge?

Of course that’s not much of a risk with Times reporters.

And can you believe they wrote this with a straight face:

Some in Congress fear the killings could do greater harm to the image of the United States military around the world than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Oh, my sides. We all know the New York Times is praying (as much as they ever pray for anything) that this story willdo more harm than Abu Ghraib.

Let’s see how many weeks The Times can keep it on the front page above the fold.

Get out your handkerchiefs. It’s time for another tear-jerker from the "Paper Of Treason," the New York Times:

The graves of William J. Jefferson’s parents, Angeline H. and Mose Jefferson, at Sweet Canaan Baptist Church in Lake Providence, La.

Target of F.B.I. Raid Had a Hard Path to Capitol Hill

May 29, 2006

By CHRISTOPHER DREW and ROBERT PEAR

NEW ORLEANS, May 27 — Representative William J. Jefferson has always liked to talk about growing up in an impoverished farm community, picking cotton for $3 a day and hitting the books hard enough to win his ticket out — a scholarship to Harvard Law School.

But even as Mr. Jefferson built a reputation as one of Louisiana’s brightest, most effective leaders, a less flattering view began to emerge, one signified by his nickname in political circles, "Dollar Bill."

Early in his career, as a state legislator, he was criticized for enriching his law firm with contracts from state and local agencies. He also ran stores that rented appliances by the month to poor residents, owned dilapidated apartment buildings and was sued by federal regulators over a defaulted loan.

Now, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on his Capitol Hill office on May 20, Mr. Jefferson, a 59-year-old Democrat, is under investigation for possibly turning his efforts to promote trade with Africa into another sideline worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — and has become the central figure in a political drama consuming Washington.

The unprecedented raid has set off a huge institutional showdown, with Republican leaders including J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the speaker of the House, challenging the White House and criticizing the F.B.I.’s actions. Democratic leaders have also stood by the speaker’s side.

President Bush has stepped into the fray, ordering the F.B.I. to seal any records it seized and calling for a 45-day cooling-off period to allow time to resolve the crisis.

The raid on Mr. Jefferson’s office took place barely a week ago. But in a sense, the questions circling him have long resonances in his career, which was shaped by a remarkable ascent from the deepest poverty and a quest for the comforts his family never had.

In a 95-page affidavit released after the raid, the F.B.I. accused Mr. Jefferson, an eight-term lawmaker, of demanding more than $400,000 in bribes to help iGate Inc., a technology company based in Kentucky, obtain lucrative contracts in Africa. The bureau said it had also videotaped him accepting a suitcase with $100,000 in cash and later found $90,000 of it in his freezer.

Though the details were blacked out, the affidavit also said the F.B.I. had "evidence linking Congressman Jefferson to at least seven other schemes" in which he "sought things of value in return for his performance of official acts."

Mr. Jefferson has vigorously denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. "I certainly did not sell my office," Mr. Jefferson said in a recent statement. "The government seems inclined to view the facts in the worst possible light, and to characterize events that could be explained, or are exculpatory, in ways that tend to incriminate."

Whether his actions were criminal or not, several people who have long known Mr. Jefferson said he had often seemed driven by a desire to escape his spartan roots.

"There was always a feeling among those who knew him as Dollar Bill that having grown up as poor as he did, his hunger for wealth always burned," said Allan Katz, a New Orleans political consultant.

Mr. Jefferson, a taciturn man who began his career as a favorite of good-government groups, has built a political empire in New Orleans, winning re-election by wide margins and helping his sister, one of his five daughters and many allies win public offices.

Standing outside a new post office that Mr. Jefferson helped bring to his district, one voter, Joyce F. Smith, said that if the accusations were true, "I’d be very disappointed because he’s been a very good congressman."

But many people here have been joking about his "frozen assets" and "cold cash." And Ms. Smith added, it is "hard for me to believe" that he would have stashed legitimate earnings in frozen-food containers and aluminum foil.

Mr. Jefferson was raised, along with eight brothers and sisters, on a small farm in northeast Louisiana, where, he said earlier this year, "our whole life revolved around that cotton field." His father left school after second grade, and his mother attended only through eighth grade.

As a child, Mr. Jefferson was such a good shot, his father once said, that when it came time to bag dinner, "if I wanted one rabbit, I’d give him one shell; and if I needed two rabbits, I’d give him two."

After he graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1969, Mr. Jefferson has said, he won his mother’s blessing to go to Harvard Law School — she had never heard of it — only by explaining that it had been John F. Kennedy’s college.

Mr. Jefferson has credited his parents with pressing the value of hard work. Elizabeth Brannum Trass, one of his high school teachers, said in an interview that he had always had the seriousness of purpose that helped catapult him onto a much faster track.

A clerkship with a United States district judge brought Mr. Jefferson to New Orleans in 1972. He got into politics as a campaign aide for Ernest N. Morial, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1978 and gave Mr. Jefferson the Dollar Bill nickname.

Friends of both men said the mayor thought Mr. Jefferson had tried too aggressively to collect legal fees for helping Mr. Morial win the election. But after Mr. Jefferson became a state senator in 1979, his political rivals began to use "Dollar Bill" to refer to his expanding financial ventures.

His rental business — which leased television sets and other appliances to people who could not afford to buy them — appeared on the delinquent list in a city sales-tax scandal in the 1980’s. And a day after he was elected to Congress in 1990, the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was trying to clean up the mess from the collapse of savings institutions, sued him for $160,000 over an apartment-building loan on which he had quit making payments. He later settled the suit, with friends saying his investments had been hurt by a faltering economy.

Still, once Mr. Jefferson became a close ally of President Bill Clinton, and then won a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, he was able to provide "absolute A+" support for city projects, said Marc H. Morial, one of Ernest Morial’s sons and the mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002.

Mr. Jefferson also became known as a strong advocate of freer trade and made at least nine trips to Africa to promote it, including one with President Clinton. He championed a 2000 law that extended trade benefits to sub-Saharan Africa. "Africa is a reservoir of opportunities for American businesses," he said then.

Over the years, Mr. Jefferson has received campaign contributions and free travel from individuals and companies seeking business in Africa, including iGate.

Campaign finance records show he received a $1,000 contribution as early as 2001 from Vernon L. Jackson, the chief executive of iGate, which makes technology to transmit high-speed Internet service across the wires used in some African nations. Mr. Jackson pleaded guilty this month to bribing Mr. Jefferson with more than $400,000 in cash and millions of shares of iGate stock.

Government documents show that Mr. Jackson told the F.B.I. that when he met Mr. Jefferson in late 2000, the congressman voluntarily helped promote iGate’s products — a normal and legitimate action for a government official involved in trade issues. But according to the F.B.I. documents, in early 2001, the congressman’s actions became improper when he said he would continue to use his influence on iGate’s behalf only if Mr. Jackson made payments to a company, the ANJ Group, run by the Jefferson family. The iGate payments were disguised as consulting fees, the F.B.I. said.

Mr. Jefferson says these were private business dealings that had nothing to do with his work on the House committee.

But as part of a 2003 deal to distribute iGate’s products, a Nigerian company, Netlink Digital Television, agreed to pay the congressman $5 per subscriber, the F.B.I. affidavit said, "in return for Jefferson’s official assistance if the deal was successful."

House records show that in February 2004, Mr. Jefferson led a business delegation to Nigeria and Cameroon as a co-chairman of the Congressional Nigeria Caucus and the Africa Trade and Investment Caucus. The trip, which cost $16,313, according to the records, was paid for in part by iGate.

In 2005, the F.B.I. said, Mr. Jefferson wrote to the vice presidents of Nigeria and Ghana, and traveled to Ghana, seeking approval for iGate projects. Within a week after returning, the F.B.I. said, Mr. Jefferson used his influence to help a Virginia woman, Lori Modi, who had invested $3.5 million in the Nigeria project. He introduced her to officials at the Export-Import Bank of the United States and urged them to provide financing for the project.

But by then, Ms. Modi had asked the F.B.I. to investigate the deal.

Investigators said that in negotiating the deals, Mr. Jefferson had often cited his desire to provide for his five daughters, three of whom also have degrees from Harvard Law School.

From December 2004 through June 2005, the F.B.I. said in its affidavit, Mr. Jefferson increased his demands for equity in one Nigerian company, to 30 percent, to be split among his daughters. He also told an investor that one of his daughters had to be retained to do legal work, according to documents in the case.

Then, on July 30, 2005, when Mr. Jefferson met Ms. Modi at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, the F.B.I. said it supplied her with a briefcase with $100,000 in marked bills. Mr. Jefferson had told her the money would be needed to bribe Nigerian officials, the affidavit said.

As the F.B.I.’s video cameras zoomed in on him, the bureau said, Mr. Jefferson drove off with the briefcase on the seat of his Lincoln Town Car. And when agents raided his home four days later, $90,000 of the money turned up again, in the kitchen freezer.

Funny how it’s only Democrats, illegal aliens, and other fellow travelers that The Times ever digs any sympathetic stories for.

And they are doing so serious digging here.

Such as this hilarious spin:

Mr. Jefferson also became known as a strong advocate of freer trade and made at least nine trips to Africa to promote it, including one with President Clinton. He championed a 2000 law that extended trade benefits to sub-Saharan Africa. "Africa is a reservoir of opportunities for American businesses" …

And crooked Congressmen with affirmative action degrees from Harvard Law.

The anti-Semitic America-haters at the BBC strike again with some more preposterous agit-prop:

British soldiers secure the site where a military vehicle (background) is buring in the southern city of Basra, on May 20. The BBC reported that at least 1,000 troops have “deserted” the armed forces since the US-led war was launched in Iraq three years ago.

At least 1,000 UK soldiers desert

More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted the armed forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the BBC has discovered.

It comes as Parliament debates a law that will forbid military personnel from refusing to participate in the occupation of a foreign country.

Some 900 have evaded capture since the Iraq war started, official figures say.

But the Ministry of Defence says the numbers going missing from the army have stayed constant in recent years.

MoD figures show 2,670 soldiers went "absent without leave" in 2001, with the figure rising to 2,970 in 2002 and falling in 2003 to 2,825. In 2004 it rose to 3,050, falling back again in 2005 to 2,725.

Court martial

But BBC world affairs correspondent Jonathan Charles said going absent without leave and desertion were not the same, adding a soldier who has gone absent without leave for more than 30 days could be considered as deserting.

He says figures showed 377 people are still missing after deserting during 2005 alone, with another 189 on the run so far this year.

And Labour MP John McDonnell said "I think what the MoD is saying flies in the face of all the other evidence and the experience of soldiers on the ground."

He believes there are "a lot more seeking to avoid service, through different mechanisms".

On Monday Mr McDonnell told Parliament the number of desertion cases had tripled over the past three years.

There is no hard fact to suggest that our engagement in Iraq is actually causing people to leave the service
Former defence minister Don Touhig

The MoD defines desertion as "going absent intending not to come back", or "going absent to avoid active service".

A spokeswoman said the soldiers currently missing were considered to be "absent without leave", not to have deserted. They would have to be court martialled before they could be found guilty of deserting the army.

She said only one person had been found guilty of deserting since 1989.

Former defence minister Don Touhig told BBC Radio Five Live there were no "hard facts" to suggest the Iraq conflict was prompting increased numbers to leave the forces.

I am approached regularly by people who are seeking to absent themselves from service
Justin Hugheston-Roberts

Our correspondent says it is unclear how many troops are deserting because they do not want to go to Iraq and how many are doing so for personal reasons such as family problems.

Lawyers say they are increasingly being contacted by people wanting advice about getting out of having to serve in Iraq, even if they do not want to desert, our correspondent adds.

‘Illegal acts’

Justin Hugheston-Roberts was the solicitor for Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith who was sentenced to eight months in prison for refusing to follow orders in connection with a deployment to Iraq.

He said: "I am approached regularly by people who are seeking to absent themselves from service. There has been an increase, a definite upturn."

Military law expert Gilbert Blades, who represents soldiers at courts martial, said the numbers leaving because of Iraq were often obscured as they were not counted as conscientious objectors.

"One can’t help thinking that what’s behind every absence is the problem in Iraq and I would think that if the real truth was told, then the Iraq problem has contributed to a huge number of people going absent," he told BBC Radio Five Live.

Our correspondent says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from military personnel that they are demoralised by the Iraq conflict and by the fact that, despite their best efforts, they see little improvement in the situation there.

There’s a lot of dissent in the Army about the legality of war and concerns that they’re spending too much time there
Ben Griffin

Former SAS member Ben Griffin was allowed to leave the military after telling his commanding officer he was not prepared to return to Iraq because of what he believed were illegal acts being carried out by US forces.

He says: "I was disturbed by the general day-to-day attitude of the American troops. They treated Iraqis with contempt, not like human beings. They had a complete disregard for Iraqi lives and property."

Mr Griffin would never have considered deserting but says his views are shared by many others in the British military.

He told the BBC: "There’s a lot of dissent in the Army about the legality of war and concerns that they’re spending too much time there".

He says Iraq is different to other conflicts because, in other operations, the main aim is to improve life for the local population and he believes that is not what has happened in Iraq.

Mr Griffin says: "There’s contempt for the locals. We don’t even know how many have been killed."

His advice to others is not to desert – but to follow their conscience and speak out if they think the conflict is wrong.

Major General Patrick Cordingley, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade Desert Rats in the first Gulf war, said servicemen’s views on Iraq prompted some to leave but "good leadership" would avoid it reaching epidemic proportions.

He said those who had been to Iraq before or whose families were unhappy about them going were among those who might not want to serve there.

"If you have such a person in your unit you have to discuss things with them… you do not necessarily want people with you if they have that particular view," he added.

The documentary Conscientious Objectors will be aired on BBC Radio Five Live at 1830 BST.

Note this paragraph:

MoD figures show 2,670 soldiers went "absent without leave" in 2001, with the figure rising to 2,970 in 2002 and falling in 2003 to 2,825. In 2004 it rose to 3,050, falling back again in 2005 to 2,725.

So the AWOL numbers did not go up, but have been on average the same since the start of the war in March 2003. But those casually skimming the headlines would never know that.

And of course throughout history there have been those who have tried to leave the service when faced with actual combat duty. But the article would never mention that detail.

The headline and the general implications of this article is simply propaganda of the most reprehensible kind.

And so typical of the terrorist-loving BBC, which represents the England of George Galloway rather than Winston Churchill.

From the DNC’s Associated Press:

Ahmed, left, cries, as his mother, right, and aunt, left, attend to his grandmother who lies injured in Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, Iraq Saturday, May 27, 2006 after a bomb in a parked car exploded near a busy bus station in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora killing at least four civilians and wounding seven, according to police.

Iraqi athletes killed for wearing shorts

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death this week in Baghdad because they were wearing shorts, authorities said Saturday, reporting the latest in a series of recent attacks attributed to Islamic extremists.

A U.S. Marine AH-1 Cobra helicopter, meanwhile, crashed Saturday and its two crew members were missing in Anbar province, a volatile area west of the capital where insurgents are active. Hostile fire was not suspected as the cause of the crash, the U.S. military said.

In the Baghdad incident, gunmen stopped a car carrying the Sunni Arab coach and two Shiite players, asked them to step out and then shot them, said Manham Kubba secretary-general of the Iraqi Tennis Union.

Extremists had distributed leaflets warning people in the mostly Sunni neighborhoods of Saidiyah and Ghazaliyah warning people not to wear shorts, police said.

"Wearing shorts by youth are prohibited because it violates the principals of Islamic religion when showing forbidden parts of the body. Also women should wear the veil," the leaflets said.

No one claimed responsibility for the slayings, which come amid worries that Islamic extremism is spreading in the war-torn country.

Sunni cleric Eid al-Zoubayi denounced the attack.

"Islamic religion is an easy religion and it allows wearing sport shorts as long as they don’t show the forbidden parts of the body, so the acts that are targeting the sport are criminal," he said.

It was the second incident involving athletes in just over a week. Fifteen members of a taekwondo team were kidnapped in western Iraq while driving to a training camp in neighboring Jordan on May 17.

More than 30 people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Saturday, including four who died when a bomb in a parked car exploded near a busy bus station in southern Baghdad. Seven people also were wounded in the blast, which bloodied passers-by and damaged a local restaurant.

The Marine helicopter went down while on a maintenance test flight and search and rescue efforts were under way for the missing crew members, the U.S. command said in a statement.

"We are using all the resources available to find our missing comrades," said a Marine spokesman, Lt. Col. Bryan Salas.

The U.S. military also reported that a Marine was killed Friday by "enemy action" in Anbar province. The death raised to at least 2,466 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi politicians continued to bicker over candidates for the key defense and interior ministry posts, leaving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government incomplete a week after it assumed office.

"We hope the agreement will be reached within two or three days," Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi told reporters. "I think that to linger and take some time in choosing the ministers is better than rushing into it."

Filling the two posts is a contentious matter, especially after the recent surge in sectarian violence.

Political parties have agreed that a Sunni will head the Defense Ministry, which controls the army, and a Shiite will run the Interior Ministry, which oversees police forces. But they are struggling to find a consensus on who should get the jobs.

A senior Iranian official visited Iraq’s Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, where he met with Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was wrapping up the second high-level visit by an Iranian delegation since the ouster of Saddam Hussein three years ago, praised al-Sistani for his efforts to maintain unity in Iraq amid rising sectarian tensions.

Mottaki’s trip to the southern cities after meeting with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Friday highlighted the warming ties between the two countries, both of which have Shiite majorities. Saddam’s regime was dominated by Sunnis, and Iraqi Shiites were repressed during his reign.

Also Saturday, a senior U.S. military official said coalition forces could begin transferring security control over some Iraqi provinces to civilian authorities and police by the end of summer, but Baghdad would not be handed over before the end of the year.

The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, estimated that provisional control could be handed over to local governors in the relatively peaceful provinces of Najaf, Karbala and Babil by the fall.

In other developments Saturday, according to police and hospital officials:

• Two roadside bombings in Baghdad killed four policemen and wounded five people.

• In four separate shootings in the capital, gunmen killed a garden store owner; a grocer; a taxi driver and his son; and the owner of a glass store.

• Gunmen and Iraqi soldiers fought at a checkpoint west of Baghdad, killing a teacher caught in the crossfire.

• Attackers ambushed the convoy of the office manager of the Diyala police chief south of Baqouba, wounding the colonel and killing five of his guards.

• A former Iraqi army colonel and his nephew also were fatally shot near Baqouba.

• In Baqouba, drive-by shooters killed four policemen and one civilian, while masked gunmen killed four workers and wounded another at a metalworking shop.

• A policeman was shot to death and two officers were wounded north of Tikrit.

• Gunmen stopped a minibus carrying college students from Mosul, killing one of the students.

• A man suspected of belonging to Saddam’s former Fedayeen militia was slain west of Mosul.

• The body of a man who had been shot in the chest was found floating in the Euphrates river near Hillah.

I know that the murder rate in Iraq is probably lower than in Detroit or Washington, DC. But still.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

From the Vacaville Reporter:

A gravestone now marks Casey Sheehan’s resting place at Vacaville-Elmira Cemetery in Vacaville.

Casey Sheehan’s grave receives its headstone

By Julie Kay/Staff Writer

Memorial Day will be different this year at the Vacaville-Elmira Cemetery, where Casey Sheehan, a soldier from Vacaville, lies buried.

Until this week, more than two years after his death in Iraq, Casey’s grave has been marked only by a small plaque. On Thursday, it received a headstone.

The elegant marble slab is thick and emblazoned with a cross and delicate thickets of trees on both sides.

"Our Casey," reads an inscription on the front. "Ever faithful, kind, and gentle, good son, beloved brother, brave soldier, dear friend, you loved your family and lived your life serving others to the end." Six icons grace the other side, representing a military insignia, the theater, Eagle Scouts, Van Halen, the World Wrestling Federation and Superman.

Also on the front are Casey’s name and the dates of his life and death, which reveal an uncanny synchronicity. In addition to Memorial Day, Monday will also be Casey’s birthday, the day on which he would have turned 27.

The installation of the headstone on Casey’s grave is likely to get more notice than the vast majority of such installations. Casey’s mother, Cindy Sheehan, has become a well-known anti-war activist since Casey’s death, frequently in the spotlight in front of a highly divided crowd.

The absence of a headstone on Casey’s grave became fodder for Sheehan’s critics last year, who accused her of being negligent and disrespectful. Sheehan did not publicly respond for the first several months of such charges. But on April 10, she wrote a blog entry excoriating her critics and recounting the torturous experience of burying her son.

"I didn’t want to put a tombstone on my son’s grave," she wrote, capitalizing the letters of the word "tomb." "I didn’t want one more marble proof that my son was dead."

For the first year after Casey died, wrote Sheehan in the entry, she referred to the place he was buried not as a cemetery, but as "Casey’s Park." During that time she visited the cemetery nearly every day, she wrote, placing fresh flowers weekly on Casey’s grave.

Sheehan also said that her estranged husband Patrick had taken on the responsibility of handling Casey’s gravesite.

On Friday, Sheehan answered questions about the headstone via e-mail from Australia, where she has spent the week speaking out against the country’s support of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.

Sheehan said she had paid for the tombstone herself and was part of a family effort to put it up, even though its installation saddened her.

"It is important for the rest of Casey’s family to have one," she wrote Friday. "I guess the pain of seeing it etched in marble that he is dead is another pain I will have to deal with."

That pain, said Sheehan, stems from her belief that Casey should still be alive.

"I still feel he was killed for lies," she wrote.

The headstone was very expensive, Sheehan wrote. She said that the government should have paid for it because of its responsibility for his death. But Sheehan said money is not the main issue.

"It’s about the lies that are still killing our children and innocent Iraqis," she wrote. "It’s about unnecessary tombstones all over the world because of the Bush regime."

The new headstone on Casey’s grave won’t impact her relationship with her son, concluded Sheehan.

"Casey’s shell lies in the grave in Vacaville," she wrote. "He is with me always and in the hearts of people all over the world who know his story and are working for peace."

Patrick Sheehan did not return phone calls by press time Friday.

I find this part impossible to believe:

For the first year after Casey died, wrote Sheehan in the entry, she referred to the place he was buried not as a cemetery, but as "Casey’s Park." During that time she visited the cemetery nearly every day, she wrote, placing fresh flowers weekly on Casey’s grave.

In fact within weeks of Casey’s death, Mother Sheehan began spending a lot of her time on the road propagandizing for the people who killed her brave son.

For instance, her appearance in Santa Barbara on Labor Day, 2004.

These parts too are very likely lies:

Sheehan said she had paid for the tombstone herself and was part of a family effort to put it up, even though its installation saddened her…

The headstone was very expensive, Sheehan wrote. She said that the government should have paid for it because of its responsibility for his death. But Sheehan said money is not the main issue.

From earlier accounts, the government would have paid for it, if Cindy could have taken the time to fill out a form.

Moreover, earlier reports from the mortuary owner indicated that Mother Sheehan refused to pay for anything. And that he ended up paying for much of Casey’s funeral expense, even though the Sheehan had received more than a half million dollars in various death benefits.

Also, earlier accounts indicated that her former husband, Patrick Sheehan, had actually taken over getting the headstone. So this was probably his doing.

(Thanks to reader JLO for the heads up.)