I had never seen this quote before and now I have seen it twice in the last 5 days: “The student is gone; the master has arrived.” Apparently this became a very popular saying after we invaded. I saw it in the aforementioned article and also in this Center for Economic and Social Rights report entitled, Beyond Torture: U.S. Violations of Occupation Law in Iraq. Now we were always told before the war what smart people the Iraqis were and this saying just goes to prove that point. It also goes to prove that they already knew what some may have only learned last week, if you didn't watch the mainstream media but stayed informed, that the current mess we are in can all be blamed on Ronald Reagan.

I listen to NPR on the way in and home from work. This only started in the last year or so as I swore off any station owned by Clear Channel. Now NPR has always been thought of as liberal like PBS because it is publicly owned. Well it looks like the public is now owned by not so liberal entities now. I also had a chance to hear slant for myself today. This morning Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt was interviewed about Iraq. They keep referring to the handover at the end of the month as a "transfer of sovereignty" even thought it is not. If they do not press this issue then they are allowing this lie to become a truth. He also referred to today's car bombing as an attack on the persons and the infrastructure of this country even though he said just before that the target of the attack was a "coalition convoy of civilian vehicles", in other words foreign civilian contractors. Not Iraqis last time I checked. He also kept referring to those that carried this out as "terrorists". Now I'm sure we are all familiar with the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" argument but just think if you were in dire circumstances like this how you would feel:

It isn’t the huge bombs -- the ones make the news, horrendous as they are -- that have the greatest impact on Iraqis. It is the ongoing, daily suffering of the Iraqi people. People dying from bad water and starving to death because there aren’t enough jobs just don’t grab the attention that bombs demand from the media.

With people dying from things that can be cured or prevented easily might cause you to take up a gun and start trying to make some justice. On last thing that Kimmitt said it was the fact that the "peaceful resolution of The situation in Fallujah" might be a template for future conflicts in Iraq. Did he mean this Fallujah?

Fallouja's status as an autonomous fiefdom — where local people say insurgents rule the streets and an increasingly austere brand of Islamic law has taken root — could embolden other towns, particularly in like-minded Sunni tribal areas, to challenge the legitimacy of the country's transitional government as a scheduled hand-over of power to Iraqis

So no matter how you spell it I don't think the "coalition" wants to use it as a template. NPR which I once heard stood for National Palestinian Radio because it actually reported on the Palestinians side is trying to make sure the Republican run government doesn't take its money away and therefore will not challenge the falsehoods from the General. I guess I won't be able to listen to the radio at all anymore if this keeps up.

Oh yeah, Cheney is a crook
White House Officials and Cheney Aide Approved Halliburton Contract in Iraq, Pentagon Says
In the fall of 2002, in the preparations for possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton Company to develop secret plans for restoring Iraq's oil facilities, Pentagon officials have told Congressional investigators.

I always like to see headlines like this
Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go
A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November.

Update on a Bush administration lie
State Department cooks the books
As previously discussed, the State Department had to retract their terrorism report after it was clear it had undercounted the number of terrorism attacks in 2003.

Powell hit the Sunday news shows to argue that the undercount was not politically motivated.

One last thing today hundreds more prisoners were released from Abu Ghraib. As the article says as many as 1,400 will have been released by June 30th. The question I have about this is: If those imprisoned in Abu Ghraib were terrorists why are they now being released in such large groups?


- posted by Mom/Dad @ 12:30 PM