TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Watching Bush's Back. Literally.
Also: Britain Formally Acknowledges Gallipoli "Not The Best Place" To Strike At Ottoman Menace British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced yesterday that Britain has formally withdrawn its claim that Saddam was capable of deploying WMD within 45 minutes of giving the order, one of the key points in Tony Blair's argument for war. Um, isn't that a little redundant, coming, as it does, a week after Charles Duelfer told the U.S. Senate that there were no WMD in Iraq whatsoever? Well, as long as we're admitting long-since-past mistakes, I want an apology for torching the White House in 1813.
The Daily Mayhem: Iraq Edition Four American soldiers were killed today in bombing attacks in Iraq, as insurgents and occupation troops battle it out in the run-up to Ramadan.
Oh Mama, This Ain't Good Not only have nuclear materials in Iraq been disappearing - whole fucking buildings used by Saddam's nuclear program are vanishing, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Now, the first thing that's probably leapt to mind is, "Shit - terrorists are building some kind of obscene dirty bomb." Perhaps, but I doubt that guys who still consider beheading the height of guerrilla warfare technologically equipped to dismantle a building. No, I think there's only power in Iraq right now with that kind of stroke...any chance we'll hear of "Saddam's nuclear weapons program found!" by November 2?
FBI vs. Indymedia The International Federation of Journalists, which represents more than 500,000 journalists worldwide, is calling for an investigation into the FBI seizure of Indymedia servers in Britain (the FBI in Britain? Is that more of the dreaded "internationalism" the Republicans are telling us we should fear) that brought down 21 of the organization's 140 worldwide web sites. The IFJ contends that the seizure is related to the U.S. election, in particular to a successful effort by Indymedia San Francisco to fight off an attempt by Diebold to have the group remove documents from its site showing huge problems with black box voting.
Get Ready to Vomit in Terror James Baker, the Bush family's sinister Tom Hagen figure, is on pace to provide a new definition of the word chutzpah. Baker has been enlisted by Bush to persuade the world to forgive Iraq its crushing, $200 billion debt. At the same time, he is being retained by the Carlyle Group to force Iraq to pay $27 billion in money it owes to Kuwait; the Carlyle Group stands to make millions in fees. The naked, unashamed evil of this leaves me speechless. Insert your own outraged comment here: ________________________________________________________.
-Consider Arms
