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Announcing TBR Ebooks!

Starting with a new publication concerning the background behind the 9/11 attacks, TBR News will be presenting a series of interesting, informative and definitive works for our readers. Future titles will include the complete Voice of the White House with much more added material that was considered too controversial to post, the heavily-censored Armenian Holocaust of 1916, the Bush-Lay private correspondence, the Assassination of JFK,Pearl Harbor intrigues and rare documents, Malaparte’s inside study of the making of revolution, sensational selected articles from the German Rudolf historical revision files, unpublished before Rudolf’s arrest and forced deportation to Germany, World War II studies of holocaust history, taken from secret German files and much more. Please see the title page for more information.

The Editors

Descending Into Darkness: The Harring Report

A well-researched study into the background of the 9/11 attack: Who knew what and when did they know it. Russian and German intelligence material, not published before show that the U.S. had ample warning...and did nothing about it.

THE VOICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE

The full collection of the twice-weekly commentary of what is really going on inside the corrupt Bush White House. The spectrum includes the Gannon scandal, the planned invasion of Iran, many stories of stupidity and corruption coupled with biting sarcasm. Interesting to note that many, if not most, of the predictions have come true.

REGICIDE The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy

A landmark book that sold very well in hardback, this work contains actual intelligence documents concerning the inside U.S. plans to kill Kennedy; the reasons, the methods and the results.

The Final Reckoning: An Analysis of Demographics in Holocaust Literature

By Harold Kreig, Lt.Col, AUS ret.

This is the first rational, heavily documented work on the subject of the Holocaust. Colonel Krieg has taken thousands of documents, including the official SS concentration camp records from 1935 through 1945 and official U.S. government postwar analysis of the system and the casualties and causes of death and produced a book that is highly informative and readable.  Heavily footnoted and annotated, ‘The Final Reckoning’ is logical and compelling and is an historical work that should be read through by any student of the period and subject.

Coup D’Etat: The Technique Of Revolution

By Curzio Malaparte

First published in Italy by Curzio Malaparte in 1928, this is a seminal work on historical seizures of power from Napoleon through Hitler.

Gestapo-Chief: The CIA & Heinrich Müller by Gregory Douglas

                In 1948, the former head of Hitelr’s Gestapo was interviewed by senior officials of the CIA in Switzerland where Müller had been in hiding since the end of the Second World War. His interview, for Colonel James Critchfield of the CIA’s Gehlen Organization, runs to nearly a thousand pages and for years was hidden in the CIA’s files.

                This is a translation of a part of the interview, which was initially conducted in German and then translated into English for CIA use.

                It is a fascinating series of historical episodes covering both the Axis and Allied sides with comments on Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Winston Churchill, the 20^th of July bomb plot against Hitler, Bishop von Galen’s heroic, and successful, attacks on the Nazis and their euthanasia program, the concentration camps, the Duke of Windsor, the Roger Casement diaries and many more fascinating and insightful views of a man who ran the most effective counter-intelligence agency in modern times. 

                There is also extensive information on the attempts on the part of the CIA to silence or discredit the fact that the Gestapo Chief worked for the United States and eventually came to live in Washington, D.C. as part of the notorious “Operation Paperclip.”

                Fascinating inside views of many top Nazis and CIA officials. 

The CIA COvenant: Nazis in Washington

by Gregory Douglas

* From the end of World War II, the American CIA imported thousands of Nazis into the United States to work for them, many on the list of wanted war criminals

*One of the most important of these was Heinrich Mueller, once head of Hitler's Gestapo. Mueller was recruited by Colonel James Critchfield who ran the CIA's "Gehnel Organization' in Munich.

* Mueller kept journals and this book is a translation of three years (1948-1951) of notes and observations made of top CIA officials, President Truman, top U.S. government officials, plans for murder, thefts, kidnappings, wholesale thefts of public money and a terrifying pattern of uncontrolled ambition, unchecked by any person or agency.

* Also included are CIA and other agency's activities that have never been revealed.

*Mueller's deals in stolen Nazi art for the CIA are covered in detail.

*Also to be found are the steps the frightened CIA have taken to prevent the publication, sales or distribution of this work.

An Essay on the Principle of Population

by Thomas Malthus

The 1798 classic study of how supplies of food do not keep up with an expanding population

Malthus' theory is that population growth is geometric while the food supply increase is arithmetic.

A very literate and current study that clearly highlights present and current population problems

With the world's population higher than ever before, this is a work of great and current interest

CONSPIRACIES for Fun and Profit

Contents
The Evil Catholics Murdered Abraham Lincoln
TWA Flight 800: The Gathering of the Nuts
The Real Truth About the Kennedy Assassination!
The Great 9-11 Plot
Who is Sorcha Faal?
The Bush Indictments
Faked Conspiracy photos
The Sinking of the MV Estonia
The German Guy and the Destruction of Houston
The Great Contrail Conspiracy
Planet X
Remote Viewing unveiled

Notice!

Our new security system prevents email messages coming through the AOL server from being delivered to our address. This is because of the probability of unwelcome and problematical attachments to messages from this source, coupled with the fact that AOL’s voluntary cooperation with various American, and foreign, law enforcement groups makes contact with them in any form a risky business.  Correspondents wishing to contact TBR News are suggested to use another server. Ed.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people, On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
- H.L. Mencken

“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. The discrediting is not an automatic result of the blunders and abuses of those in power, but the deliberate work of men of words with a grievance.”
-Eric Hoffer The True Believer

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1.                    The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2.                    The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3.                    An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old, or too fat, to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4.                    George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Note: Brian Harring now supplies two free lists for interested viewers of TBR News.

The first file is the Department of Defense’s Supplementary Casualty Lists from 2003 through 2005. These official lists show the real deaths as opposed to the public ones.

The second file is the Auschwitz list that shows a complete roster of the dead and the causes of the deaths, plus much more, taken from the official German documentation now in the Russian State Archives and currently redacted by them at the urgent request of Jewish groups.

Readers may obtain these by writing to Brian Harring  brianharring@yahoo.com and they will be sent free of charge.

Editor

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., January 26, 2007: “The GRU and other Russian-based organs have completely penetrated the highest-level American codes (including satellite transmissions) and have been reading our military (DIA and Pentagon) and civilian (read CIA/USIA [and other]) messages being sent from Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Egypt and Italy.

From this, I was told, and shown copies of intercepts, that Bush and Israel are fomenting a new war in the Gulf area by either creating an "incident" (casus belli) or instigating one.

There are US intelligence units (small) now operating under cover in Iran and while the Iranians don't know the details, the Russians do. If, as reported, Bush is going to off Iranians in Iraq, the U.S. units in Iran will be offed as a quid pro quo. And videos of the executions made for U.S. domestic consumption!

Both Russia and China have supplied Iran (and from them the Iraqi Resistance people) with shaped charge small shoulder-held rockets that will blow up the biggest tank and, as happened several days ago, the biggest armored military helicopters?

The suggestion that Bush and Israel would attack Iran for his prestige and their safety might interdict the vital oil China must have and so the Chinese, too, have fully entered the game.

They don't keep the Russians courant.

The latter have also got agents planted with Israeli military and intelligence organs in Israel and these supply Moscow with a heavy stream of information concerning the Mideast political and military situation and most especially, projects that might be of interest to Russia and, through them, Iran. Any gen coming from the U.S. to Israel ends up in Moscow almost simultaneously!  Do much for the delusion that secrets are secrets.

Anyway, the Mideast pot is coming to a boil and this parallels the situation in Washington where Bush is facing growing, and entirely predictable, rebellion from the newly-empowered Democrats.

Remember the proverb about the house built on sand? The winds came and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall thereof? Nice simile and so true! “

Bush sanctions force against Iranian agents

January 26, 2007
by Mark Tran and agencies
Guardian Unlimited

The US today raised the stakes with Iran as the White House confirmed that George Bush had authorised US forces to take whatever actions were needed against Iranian agents in Iraq.

Both the US and Britain have accused Iran of supplying training, intelligence and equipment to insurgents in Iraq, particularly for making roadside bombs that have taken an increasing toll on American troops.

"The president and his national security team over the last several months have continued to receive information that Iranians were supplying IED (improvised explosive devices) equipment and/or training that was being used to harm American soldiers," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

As a result, American forces, when they receive actionable information, may take the steps necessary to protect themselves as well as the population."

The remarks followed a report in the Washington Post giving details of the more aggressive policy towards Iranian operatives in Iran.

The Post said the new "kill or capture" programme had been authorised by Mr Bush last autumn, along with other measures to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts.

The Bush administration's more aggressive approach came as UN officials said that Iran planned to start installing thousands of centrifuges in an underground facility next month. Such a move would pave the way to large-scale uranium enrichment, a possible prelude for making nuclear weapons.

US officials told the Post that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time, although there is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked US troops in Iraq.

Until the new policy, US forces in Iraq had secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, but set them free after a few days. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran.

Last month, US forces seized several Iranians after a raid on a liaison office in the northern city of Irbil. The incident sparked criticism from senior Iraqi politicians. Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the 130-member Shia bloc in parliament and one of Iraq's most powerful politicians, condemned the raid as an attack on Iraq's sovereignty.

Other Iraqi officials have hinted at their disquiet with America's more hawkish demeanour towards Iran. When asked about the recent US decision to deploy a second carrier group in the Gulf, the former Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said last month: "We don't want Iraq to pose a threat to any country. We also don't accept that any neighbouring country poses a threat to Iraq."

In raising the confrontational tone with Iran, the Bush administration has spurned the Baker-Hamilton recommendation that it engage Iran diplomatically as a way of extricating itself from Iraq.

Mr Bush today remained defiant in the face of congressional opposition to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq and challenged his critics to come up with their own ideas

"I'm the decision-maker," he said after a White House meeting with senior military advisers. "I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed. Some are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work."

Two of his sternest critics, the new Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and representative John Murtha, were in the Iraqi capital today at the head of a delegation of House members on a fact-finding mission.

"We come out of the meeting with a greater understanding of the others' point of view," Ms Pelosi said.

The Green Zone Follies

Baghdad, 25 Jan 07: “We have been undergoing a mortar attack. I know there are rah-rah morons stateside that hate this kind of news because they, in their retarded way, think their military, president and workers can do no wrong. We have these creeps here, mostly neatly dressed droolers from the Pentagon’s PR branch who hear no evil, see no evil and print trash designed for Mom and Dad at home to comfort them. Of course their beloved son just lost one leg, both of his testicles and one eye due to a rocket attack but at least he is still alive, unlike thousands who are not.

My co-worker, who sends my messages out on the official system late at night when the other knuckle-draggers have gone off shift, was nearly blown to bits two days ago when a heavy mortar shell slammed into a building inside the Green Zone.

The new troops arriving as I speak, are only part of a much larger contingent that Bush is going to shore us up with. A few at first and then sneak in thousands more when no one is looking. That’s his plan and it won’t work but I can imagine the uproar and panic when the Guard and Reservists stateside get their up-coming notices to report for Iraq duty! Bush and Cheney put this off until after the elections, hoping to snow everyone as they usually do.

I will be amazed if the U.S. covers this latest attack as they totally wiped the really serious Falcon attacks right off the blackboard.

An Israeli light colonel caught a piece of shrapnel in his ass during another mortar attack here and you could hear him screech all the way across the compound.  After he recovers, he can go to Gaza and shoot more Arab children to feel better. The IDF has a contingent here and they are all praying, beanies and all, that Bush finally attacks Iran for them. Given the attrition of vehicles, to include helicopters, tanks, light skinned vehicles and APCs and add this to the mutinous attitudes now more and more prevalent in the grunts and now, among many officers, I doubt if we could mount an attack on a mosque full of worshipers. Which has happened but we blamed the Sunnis for it!

The local partisans are using small, shaped-charge rockets on Humvees, tanks and other vehicles that move on the local roads and with terrible effect. The warhead burns through any armor and blasts off inside, turning the crew into ragged cat meat. It was one thing when they used cell-phone activated roadside bombs but now we are suffering the same kind of attacks our Really Stupid CIA encouraged their friends, the Taliban, to perform on the Russians in Afghanistan.

And to all of your viewers who send me greetings via your website, sorry but I can’t answer. They watch for things like that. But thanks anyway.”

Huge explosion rocks central Baghdad after mortars slam into Green Zone

January 25, 2007
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq: A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad just be for sunset Thursday and a massive plume of black smoke was rising into the air along the east bank of the Tigris River.

The blast occurred shortly after two heavy mortar shells slammed into the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The public address system inside the zone, where the U.S. Embassy is located, could be heard warning in English that people should take cover, "this is not a drill."

Heavy gunfire rang out throughout the center of the city in the aftermath of the explosion, likely to have been a car rigged with explosives, thundered across the city and was especially heavy in the Karrada district. Sirens on emergency vehicles wailed through the region.

Initial reports from police said two people were killed in the explosion.

Comment: The resistance could mortar the Green Zone for a week without letup and we would be told by FOX News idiots that three people were lightly injured. Below is an analysis of the current situation from the Arab side. It makes interesting reading as you see almost none of this in our precious media. BH

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 24 January 2007

-Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org

Wednesday, 24 January 2007

Heavy fighting rages on Hayfa Street and in the al-Fadl district of Baghdad Wednesday morning. Two US troops, 30 local civilians reported killed. Muslim Scholars denounce “genocidal campaign” by US in the Baghdad district.

In a dispatch posted at 3:10pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that fierce fighting raged between Iraqi Resistance fighters and US troops accompanied by their puppet Iraqi army allies in the areas of Hayfa Street and the al-Fadl neighborhood of central Baghdad on Wednesday morning.

The Baghdad correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses on Hayfa Street and in the al-Fadl neighborhood as saying that US and puppet Iraqi army forces attempted to penetrate into the two areas early Wednesday morning, but Resistance men intercepted them and held them back.

The witnesses reported that the Resistance men fired rockets and light and medium machine guns and lobbed hand grenades at the attacking Americans and their allies. Some witnesses also said they heard the sound of mortar shells landing among the attacker forces.

The ferocious resistance put up by the defenders of Hayfa Street and the al-Fadl neighborhood forced the US and puppet Iraqi army attackers to call in helicopter gun ships in order to press their attack, Mafkarat al-Islam reported.

The Egyptian-based Islamic News Agency reported that in the course of the Wednesday assault by US and puppet Iraqi army forces on Hayfa Street and al-Fadl, a total of 30 civilians were killed and 27 others arrested, including three Egyptians and a Sudanese. The INA reported that two US troops were killed in the fighting in which three US helicopter gun ships took part.

In an earlier dispatch Wednesday, the INA reported that US forces had sealed off the area around Hayfa Street and al-Fadl, preventing journalists from getting into the area. INA reported eyewitnesses as telling al-Jazeera satellite news agency by telephone that “US warplanes are bombing civilians and local residents of Hayfa Street who have risen to defend themselves or have taken cover in defensive positions.”

The witnesses reported that “bodies are strewn about the streets. No one can evacuate them particularly after the occupation forces banned ambulances from getting into the area where the Americans are carrying out their offensive. This has driven the local residents to flee their homes.”

The witnesses told al-Jazeera, as monitored by the INA, “the women and children cannot get out into the streets to find food or other supplies,” noting that the American “occupation army has cut off water and electricity from the area and shut down the shops in the street.”

A very severe blockade has been imposed on the neighborhood. The witnesses told al-Jazeera, as related by the INA, that the Americans “banned individuals and cars from entering or leaving, paralyzing life in the area which has grown more difficult due to the lack of food and water and the shortage of fuel.”

The INA reported that the aim of the US occupation forces is to clear the Hayfa Street area and the al-Fadl district of all men, whether by killing them or arresting them, producing an extremely grave situation in the area.

In a dispatch posted at 12:53GMT Wednesday Quds Press reported that the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq had issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that the residents of Hayfa Street and the districts of ash-Shaykh ‘Ali, al-Mushahadah, and al-Fahhamah are currently the victims of a campaign of genocide and obliteration being carried out by US and puppet Iraqi forces.

Quds Press quoted the AMSI statement as saying that the US and Iraqi puppet forces “after midnight last night launched a savage assault on these areas using all the weapons they had, killing and wounding people and destroying houses over the heads of their occupants, turning their nights and days into an unbearable hell, as if they were in a war between vast armies.”

The Association of Muslim Scholars stated that the attack on Hayfa Street was a clear indication of the nature of the so-called “New Security Plan” and strategy that US President George Bush plans to implement in Iraq. The Association called on all international humanitarian agencies and the media to move to end this campaign of genocide and obliteration. US and puppet Iraqi military forces on Wednesday under heavy air cover from helicopters continued for a second day their military assault on the Hayfa Street and al-Fadl areas of Baghdad, Quds Press noted.

At least five US troops reported killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad Wednesday.

In a dispatch posted at 9:32pm Makkah time Wednesday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance fida’i fighter drove an explosives-laden car into a joint patrol of US and puppet Iraqi policemen in the Baghdad district of al-‘Amiriyah at 9:30am local time Wednesday morning. The explosion disabled one American vehicle, killed four puppet policemen and wounded three American troops, witnesses said.

About 15 minutes after the car bombing, an Iraqi Resistance bomb exploded by a US Marine column on al-‘Asl Street in al-‘Amiriyah. That blast killed one Marine, witnesses told Mafkarat al-Islam.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance bomb also went off by a US patrol in Baghdad’s al-Yarmuk district. The explosion killed one US soldier and wounded three more of them. One of the wounded men had his leg blown off, according to witnesses who were standing near the Mosque of Ibn Taymiyah at the time.

Four Iraqi Resistance bombs exploded in the southern Baghdad suburb of ad-Durah on Wednesday, all targeted on US patrols, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. One of those bombs missed its mark, killing a man and wounding two more. The other three explosive devices, however, exploded by their intended American targets. Witnesses said that one of the bombs destroyed a US military vehicle on Abu at-Tayyarah Street.

A large land mine exploded under a US foot patrol in the ‘Arab Jabbur area of Baghdad. Local witnesses told Mafkarat al-Islam that the blast killed three US troops and wounded two more of them. The injured Americans were evacuated by helicopter to a US base south of the Iraqi capital for treatment.

Two Palestinians, Lu’ay Yusuf and Murad Mahmud Hammudi, who had been abducted by pro-Iranian Shi ‘ sectarian forces were found dead in Baghdad on Wednesday.

US soldier reported killed by Resistance sharpshooter on Hayfa Street in Baghdad Tuesday.

In a dispatch posted at 2:36pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance marksman shot and killed a US soldier on Hayfa Street in Baghdad on Tuesday. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a source in the puppet “Iraqi National Guard” who asked to remain anonymous as saying that a US soldier was shot and killed instantly by a “skilled sharpshooter” of the Iraqi Resistance on Hayfa Street Tuesday.

Nuri al-Maliki regime helped prominent Jaysh al-Mahdi leaders flee to Iran, avoiding US capture.

In a dispatch posted at 3:26pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that informed Iraqi sources had indicated that the regime of puppet “Prime Minister” Nuri al-Maliki had helped a number of prominent leaders in the pro-Iranian Jaysh al-Mahdi Shi‘i sectarian militia to escape from Iraq. Mafkarat al-Islam reported that sources told Quds Press that 12 members of the Jaysh al-Mahdi were given passports under false names so that they could slip across the border undetected.

The sources said that the al-Maliki regime was eager for the Jaysh al-Mahdi leaders to escape abroad quickly after it was reported that the main spokesman for the Jaysh al-Mahdi, ‘Abd al-Hadi ad-Darraji, who was arrested by the Americans about a week ago, had made admissions that might lead to the arrest of more leaders of the pro-Iranian organization – something that the US-backed “Prime Minister” Nuri al-Maliki is eager to avoid at the present time.

For more than four days, the sources said, major leaders in the Muqtada as-Sadr movement and its armed wing the Jaysh al-Mahdi have been out of the country, most of them in Iran.

The regional hegemonic regime in Iran is seeking to secure its hold in Iraq by using Shi‘i sectarian leaders and organizations in the country. It hopes to step into the shoes of the American occupation authorities whose grip on the country has been weakened by three years of increasingly severe Resistance attacks. Although the US has made extensive use of pro-Iranian sectarian groups and individuals in taking control of Iraq, if now finds itself increasingly competing with Tehran for control of the country. To forestall Iran’s attempt to replace America as colonial power in Iraq, the Iraqi Resistance continues its battle against pro-Iranian as well as US and pro-US groups and facilities.

Resistance fighters gun down Jaysh al-Mahdi supporter, prominent businessman in Baghdad.

In a dispatch posted at 2:02pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that four Iraqi Resistance fighters attacked the store run by Muhammad Sakr, also known as Abu Haydar, a prominent member of the pro-Iranian Jaysh al-Mahdi Shi‘i sectarian militia in Baghdad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the four Resistance men sprayed Sakr’s store with machine gun fire, killing him. Sakr was the owner of a large commercial market in the upscale Zuyunah district of Baghdad. He was also a member of the Jaysh al-Mahdi movement and encouraged sectarian attacks on Sunnis, the correspondent reported.

Resistance fighters ambush motorcade of puppet “Higher Education Minister.”

In a dispatch posted at 2:16pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Resistance fighters ambushed the motorcade of the puppet “Iraqi Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research” in Baghdad, killing and wounding a number of his guards.

The Baghdad correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a puppet police source as saying that the  Resistance mounted a major attack on the motorcade of ‘Abd Dhiyab al-‘Ujayli near the agricultural parks on the highway in the southern Baghdad suburb of ad-Durah. The source said that the attack left two of the “Minister’s” body guards dead and four more of them wounded. Al-‘Ujayli himself was unscathed.

Puppet “Shock Troops” arrest six Sunni youths Tuesday.

In a dispatch posted at 1:08pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that puppet “Iraqi Interior Ministry Shock Troops (Maghawir)” carried out a large campaign of house-to-house raids in the Baghdad district of Zuyunah on Tuesday.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported local resident al-Hajj Murtada Muhsin as saying that the puppet “Shock Troops” control Zuyunah and launched a sweep of the area in which they picked up a large number of local youths. A few hours later they released all the Christians and Shi‘ah but kept the six Sunnis whom they took away to an unknown destination. Ostensibly they were trying to gather information on an Iraqi Resistance sharpshooter who has been killing puppet “Shock Troops” in the area.

The Growing Triumph of George W. Bush

Bush Continues to Unite the World... Against Him

January 23, 2007

by Jim Lobe

InterPressService

Despite two years of a concentrated effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her public diplomacy major- doma Karen Hughes to boost Washington's global image, more people around the world have an unfavourable opinion of U.S. policies than at any time in recent memory, according to a new BBC poll released here Monday.

The survey, which polled more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, including the U.S., between November and January, found that a 49 percent plurality overall believes the U.S. is playing a "mainly negative" role in the world today, compared to less than a third (32 percent) who said Washington's influence was "mainly positive."

And in the 18 countries where respondents were asked the same question in each of the past two years, the latest poll found a substantial drop in the percentage who said they viewed U.S. influence as positive, from 40 percent in 2005, to 36 percent last year, to 29 percent in 2007.

"According to world public opinion, these days the U.S. government hardly seems to be able to do anything right," said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) which, along with Canada-based Globescan, conducted the survey.

Germany and Indonesia, where nearly three out of four respondents said they had a mainly negative opinion of U.S. influence, were the least favourable, while 69 percent of French and Turkish respondents agreed.

The sharpest drops in positive ratings over the past year were found in Poland (62 percent in 2006 compared to 38 percent in 2007), Indonesia (40 percent to 21 percent), the Philippines (85 percent to 72 percent), and India (44 percent to 30 percent).

Respondents in the United States also showed greater opposition to their government's policies than in previous years, according to the survey.

Another Washington Post-ABC News poll, released on the eve of President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday, found that 65 percent of respondents oppose the so-called "surge" of more than 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, while 48 percent called the war the most important issue today.

The findings of the BBC poll echo those of another major survey of 14 foreign countries released last June by the Pew Research Centre's Global Attitudes Project. It found that Washington's global image had slipped over the previous year, particularly in Europe and Asia, as well as predominantly Muslim countries, and that Washington's continuing intervention in Iraq appeared to be the main cause.

The new BBC poll found that the most negative views were evoked by policies pursued by the Bush administration in connection with its "global war on terror" and the Middle East.

Nearly three in four respondents overall (73 percent) said they disapproved of Washington's role in the Iraq war. Opposition was particularly intense in Egypt, France, and Lebanon where more than three out of four respondents said they "strongly disapprove(d)".

At the same time, more than two out of three (68 percent) overall said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East provokes more conflict than it prevents. More than four out of five respondents in three Latin American countries -- Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico -- and in two mainly Muslim countries -- Egypt and Indonesia -- took that position.

Conversely, only 17 percent overall said they thought Washington's military presence exercised a stabilising influence in the Middle East. The most positive views on this question were found in Nigeria, the only country where a plurality (49 percent) said it was stabilising, the Philippines (41 percent), and Kenya (40 percent).

Perhaps not coincidentally, the same three countries were the only ones, aside from the U.S. itself, where majorities of respondents said Washington's influence in the world was "mainly positive."

On related issues, 67 percent of all respondents said they disapproved of Washington's handling of detainees at Guantanamo, while only 16 percent, concentrated in Kenya, Nigeria, India, the Philippines and the U.S., said they approved.

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents overall also said they disapproved of U.S. policy during last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, compared to 21 percent -- again concentrated in the same five countries -- who said they approved.

Opposition to the U.S. role in the conflict, during which Washington strongly backed Israel and repeatedly defended it in U.N. Security Council deliberations, was particularly intense in Argentina (79 percent "strongly disapproved of the U.S. role), Egypt (78 percent), Lebanon itself (76 percent), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (71 percent), France and Brazil (63 percent).

Sixty percent of respondents overall said they disapproved of Washington's handling of Iran's nuclear program, while 28 percent, including majorities in Kenya, Nigeria the Philippines and a plurality in India, said they approved. Disapproval was most intense in Argentina and three predominantly Sunni countries -- Egypt, UAE, and Turkey -- while opinion was most polarised in Lebanon where 26 percent "strongly approved" of U.S. policies and 54 percent "strongly disapproved."

While disapproval among all respondents of U.S. policies on Middle East issues ranged from 60 percent (Iran's nuclear program) to 73 percent (the Iraq war), somewhat smaller overall majorities said they disapproved of Washington's handling of North Korea's nuclear program (54 percent) and global warming (56 percent) while compared to 30 percent and 27 percent, respectively, who said they approved.

On North Korea, U.S. policies enjoyed the support of majorities in the two African countries, and the Philippines, and pluralities in India and Poland. A plurality in Australia disapproved, as did a small majority in South Korea. Significantly, in China, 56 percent of respondents said they disapproved, while 27 percent voiced approval.

On global warming, opposition to the Bush administration's policies was highest among European nations, particularly France and Germany (86 percent), Britain and Portugal (79 percent), and Italy (74 percent), all of which have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. In Australia which, like the U.S., has not ratified the treaty, 68 percent of respondents said they opposed Washington's policies, while in Russia, which has ratified Kyoto, a plurality of 46 percent agreed.

Majorities of Filipino, Kenyan, and Nigerian respondents and pluralities of Chinese, Indian and South Korean respondents said they approved of U.S. policies on global warming, while, within the developing world, disapproval was most widespread in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Lebanon, Turkey, and the UAE.

A 54 percent majority of U.S. respondents said they also disapproved of U.S. policies on global warming.

Overall, 57 percent of U.S. respondents said the country's overall influence on the rest of the world was "mainly positive," compared to 28 percent who disagreed.

On specific policies, 57 percent said they disapproved of their government's handling of the Iraq war and of the Israeli-Hezbollah war; 60 percent said they disapproved of its handling of Guantanamo detainees; and 53 percent said they believed the U.S. military presence provokes more conflict than it prevents.

A plurality of 50 percent of U.S. respondents said they disapproved of the government's handling of Iran's nuclear program, while the same plurality said they approved of its handling of North Korea's.

Only Impeachment Can Prevent More War

January 22, 2007
by Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch

Everyone knows that Bush's Iraq "surge" will not work. Even the authors of the plan, neoconservatives Frederick Kagan and Jack Keane, have emphasized that the plan cannot work with any less than an addition of 50,000 US troops committed to another three years of combat. Bush is only adding 40% of that number of troops, and Defense Secretary Gates speaks of the operation being over by summer's end.

On January 18 a panel of retired generals testifying on Capitol Hill slammed Bush's surge plan as "a fool's errand." Even the easily bamboozled American public knows the plan will not work. Newsweek's latest poll released January 20 shows that only 23% of the public support sending more troops to Iraq and that twice as many Americans trust the Democrats in Congress than trust Bush.

A majority of Americans (54%) believe Bush to be neither honest nor ethical, and 57% believe that Bush lacks "strong leadership qualities."

Nevertheless, Bush defended his surge plan, telling a group of TV stations last week, "I believe it will work."

Bush is correct that it will work--indeed, the surge is working. We have to be clear about how the plan works. It does not mean that 21,500 more US troops will bring order and stability to Iraq. The surge is working, because it is deflecting attention from the Bush Regime's real game plan.

The real game plan is to orchestrate a war with Iran and to initiate wider conflict in the Middle East before public and military pressure forces the Bush Regime to withdraw US troops from Iraq.

Two US carrier attack groups have been deployed to the Persian Gulf. US missile systems are being sent to oil producing countries to counter any incoming missiles from Iran should any survive the US attack. Israeli pilots have been training for an attack on Iran. US war doctrine has been changed to permit pre-emptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear countries. US attack aircraft have been deployed at bases in Turkey. A neocon admiral who attends AIPAC events has been made commander in chief of US forces in the Middle East. Obviously, the ground war in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the focus of the Bush Regime's new military deployments. The Bush Regime is focused on attacking Iran.

In CounterPunch (January 16) Col. Sam Gardiner reports that the Bush Regime has put into operation a group led by National Security Council staff whose mission is to create and foment outrage against Iran. Col. Gardiner details various signs of the Bush Regime's escalation and indicates some of the final deployments that will signal an imminent strike on Iran, such as "USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria" in order to position them for refueling B-2 bombers on their way to Iran.

Both Michel Chossudovsky (ICH Jan. 17) and Jorge Hirsch (CounterPunch Jan. 20) have recently documented evidence that the Bush Regime is orchestrating a crisis with Iran that can lead to the use of nuclear weapons to attack Iran.

Civil libertarians who have observed the Bush Regime's concentration of dictatorial powers in the presidency expect that war with Iran, especially if fearful nuclear weapons are used, will be accompanied by Bush's declaration of a state of emergency. The Bush Regime will use the state of emergency to grab more arbitrary and dictatorial powers in the name of protecting "national security interests" and American citizens from "terrorism."

As the Regime's crimes against the US Constitution and humanity will be monstrous, dissent will be throttled in ways that will make Americans afraid to speak, or even to think, the truth. By stifling dissent, the Bush Regime will escape accountability for launching wars on the basis of blatant lies. It will complete its destruction of the civil liberties that protect free speech, dissent, and Americans from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention without charges or access to attorneys.

Congress is wasting precious time with non-binding resolutions and debates over cutting off war funding. The Bush Regime is rushing the country into a war and a domestic police state. Writing in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick reports that one of the main goals of the so-called "war on terror" (essentially a propagandistic hoax) is to achieve a massive expansion in unaccountable executive power. This is a long-time goal of VP Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. It is also the main goal of the "conservative" Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers from whose membership Republican judicial nominees are drawn.

American public opinion is being manipulated. In the name of protecting "American freedom and democracy," the Bush regime rides roughshod over both as it ignores both the public and Congress and proceeds with a catastrophic policy supported by no one but the Bush Regime and a cabal of power-mad neoconservatives.

Nothing can stop the Regime except the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This is America's last chance.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01222007.html

Senate panel votes against Bush on Iraq

January 24, 2007
by Anne Flaherty
Associated Press

The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as "not in the national interest," an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.

The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.

"We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder," said Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, the sole Republican to join 11 Democrats in support of the measure.

Sen. Joseph Biden D-Del., the panel's chairman, said the legislation is "not an attempt to embarrass the president. ... It's an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq."

The full Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the measure next week, and Biden has said he is willing to negotiate changes in hopes of attracting support from more Republicans.

House Democrats intend to hold a vote shortly after the Senate acts.

Even Republicans opposed to the legislation expressed unease with the revised policy involving a war that has lasted nearly four years, claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops and helped Democrats win control of Congress in last fall's elections.

"I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed," said Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, senior Republican on the committee.

But he said in advance he would vote against the measure. "It is unclear to me how passing a nonbinding resolution that the president has already said he will ignore will contribute to any improvement or modification of our Iraq policy."

"The president is deeply invested in this plan, and the deployments ... have already begun," Lugar added.

He suggested a more forceful role for Congress, and said lawmakers must ensure the administration is "planning for contingencies, including the failure of the Iraqi government to reach compromises and the persistence of violence despite U.S. and Iraqi government efforts."

Divisions over the war were on clear display as the committee met.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he wanted to change the measure to say flatly that the number of troops in Iraq "may not exceed the levels" in place before Bush announced his new policy. The suggestion failed, 15-6.

Sen. Norm Coleman ,R-Minn., sought to amend the legislation to show support for an increase troops in the Anbar province in western Iraq, but not in Baghdad, where the sectarian violence is particularly fierce. His proposal also fell, 17-4.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., chastised fellow lawmakers, accusing them of being reticent to respond to Bush's plans. He said he would seek passage of legislation at a later date cutting off funds for the war.

Hagel's remarks were among the most impassioned of the day, and he was unstinting in his criticism of the White House.

"There is no strategy," he said of the Bush administration's war management. "This is a pingpong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans; they're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."

A Vietnam veteran, he fairly lectured fellow senators not to duck a painful debate about a war that has grown increasingly unpopular as it has gone on. "No president of the United States can sustain a foreign policy or a war policy without the sustained support of the American people," Hagel said.

At least eight other Republican senators say they now back legislative proposals registering objections to Bush's decision to boost U.S. military strength in Iraq by 21,500 troops.

The growing list- which includes Sens Gordon Smith, George Voiniovich and Sam Brownback- has emboldened Democrats, who are pushing for a vote in the full Senate by next week to rebuke the president’s Iraq policy.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Bush urged skeptical members of Congress to give the plan a chance to work.

Many lawmakers remained reluctant.

"I wonder whether the clock has already run out," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine. She said she was worried that U.S. troops in Iraq are already perceived "not as liberators but as occupiers."

Bush did get a word of support from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of the 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls.

"I believe we should give the president the support to do this. I want us to be successful in Iraq," he said Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I know how important it is to the overall war on terror. Success in Iraq means a more peaceful world for America, it means a victory against terrorists. Failure in Iraq means a big defeat against terrorists and the war on terror is going to be tougher for us."

But Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., appearing on the same show, said, "I think all of us are talking about a phased redeployment which would leave American troops in the region to send a strong message, not only to the Iraqi government that we want to help them, but also to neighbors, like Iran, that we're not abandoning the field."

Failure to judge mood leaves president isolated

January 25, 2007
by Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian

In the signature phrase from his state of the union address, George Bush asked for one last chance to turn around events in Iraq. By yesterday morning, however, it became clear that chance was gone.

The last two years of a two-term presidency are a challenge for all US leaders, but Mr Bush is at a particular disadvantage when it comes to remaining relevant to American political life.

He has lost the support of nearly two-thirds of the country. Democrats control both houses of Congress and are in no mood to support his plan to deepen America's military commitment to Iraq at a time when their grass roots are so strongly opposed to the war.

With the election season heating up, even fellow Republicans are balking at Mr Bush's plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. Meanwhile, the race for the White House in 2008 is already well under way, with five Democrats and Republicans declaring their candidacy within the last week.

"I wonder whether the clock has already run out," Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine who opposes the war plans, said yesterday.

Mr Bush has more than 700 days to run in his presidency, but he is beginning to look like history.

"The political dynamic has moved on to the Congress, and to the candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination," said Thomas Mann, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"The speech was devoted to defending and pleading for a policy that has little support in the country. The president is going to pursue it in any case, but no one is listening."

Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist, attributes Mr Bush's waning powers to his failure to realise he needed to change tack after the Republicans' defeat in the mid-term elections. "Bush chose to do nothing after the wake-up call," he said. "By not changing anything he did not demonstrate that he had heard from voters." That, more than the substance of Mr Bush's policies, accounts for the weakness now, and the move by Republicans to distance themselves from the White House on Iraq, he argued.

On the domestic front, too, Mr Bush appears to have made little headway with his proposals on alternative fuels, energy conservation, and healthcare.

The doubts represent a dizzying reversal for Mr Bush, whose popularity was once so overwhelming even Democrats tried to ride his coat tails.

In his most celebrated state of the union address, the 2002 speech that introduced the phrase "axis of evil", his approval ratings were in the mid-80s, 50 points higher than today.

But he still has the power of the White House. The first troops of the planned surge are already on the ground or making their way to Baghdad. Although Congress and most Americans believe it is time to draw back from Iraq, Mr Bush clearly thinks otherwise.

"It won't stop us," the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told CNN yesterday. "In terms of this effort the president has made his decision."

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research

Americans Would Veto Iraq Surge in Congress

January 24, 2007

Angus Reid Global Monitor –

Many adilts in the United States are unconvinced about their government’s new strategy for the

coalition effort, according to a poll by Opinion Dynamics released by Fox News. 57 per cent of respondents would vote against funding the increase in U.S. troops in Iraq if they were members of Congress.

The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March, 2003. At least 3,056 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 22,900 troops have been wounded in action.

In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister.

On Jan. 10, U.S. president George W. Bush introduced his new course of action for the coalition effort, which includes an increase in U.S. troop levels. 52 per cent of respondents would vote to continue funding the current level of U.S. troops in Iraq, while 41 per cent would attempt to force a troop withdrawal.

On Jan. 23, Republican Virginia senator John Warner- a former chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee joined a group of Republican and Democratic senators who oppose Bush’s plan of sending more troops to Iraq

Senator Susan Collins, (R-Maine) and  Senator Norm Coleman, (R-Minnesota) co-sponsored the resolution which states: “The Senate disagrees with the ‘plan’ to augment our forces by 21,500, and urges the president instead to consider all options and alternatives for achieving the strategic goals set forth below with reduced force levels than proposed.”

Polling Data

If you were a member of Congress, how would you vote specifically on increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq- would you vote for or against funding the increase in troops?

Regardless of how you would vote on sending more troops to Iraq... If you were a member of Congress, would you vote to continue funding the current level of U.S. troops in Iraq, or would you vote against funding the war altogether to try to force a troop withdrawal?

Source: Opinion Dynamics / Fox News

Methodology: Telephone interviews with 900 registered American voters, conducted on Jan. 16 and Jan. 17, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.