US Army Admits to Shooting Iraqi Civilians

The Headline:

U.S. soldiers shoot 4 Iraqi civilians, one killed

The punchy opening hook:

U.S. soldiers mistakenly shot four Iraqi civilians, killing one, during operations against al Qaeda militants, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

The Story:

U.S. soldiers had detained a suspected al Qaeda fighter in Tarmiya, 30 km (20 miles) north of Baghdad, on Monday when they were approached by a car that did not obey an order to stop.

The readers eyes roll:

As if this is a rare news story. Doh!

The Google Results: approached car stop fired Iraq

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Security guards fire on Iraqi car

Security guards open fire on car, kill two Iraqis Oakland Tribune ...

U.S. soldiers attempted to warn the occupants of a car carrying a freed Italian journalist before troops opened fire, ...

ABC News: Pregnant Iraqi Woman Shot Near Security Checkpoint

Worldandnation: U.S. troops fire on car, killing 2 civilians (Jan. 2005)

A shooting after nightfall -- Newsday.com
The car rolled to a stop. It was not the first time soldiers in Iraq have fired on vehicles driven by people who were either uncomprehending of the danger ...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - Middle East
In western Baghdad, an Iraqi police officer said an American patrol fired at a group of civilian cars as they approached a bridge, killing two people. ...

What Iraq's checkpoints are like | csmonitor.com

I could go on, but there are over a million links.

The Links: CLICK HERE

The Head Shakes:

*sigh*

Sources:

Reuters, U.S. soldiers shoot 4 Iraqi civilians, one killed, December 4, 2007.

Silencing the Deeper Attorney Firing Plot

The establishment media would have you think the US attorney firings are a "scandal" highlighted by whether or not Justice Department officials misled Congress or broke laws, whether they replaced attorneys who would more closely implement Bush policies, or at worst, whether the White House was involved. This is the superficial story.

The real story, reported by this blog, is that a much deeper plot is beginning to unravel. That plot has two complimentary elements: 1) To suppress Democratic voters, and 2) A long-range plan to elevate political operatives, "loyal Bushies," to federal judge positions by first appointing them to be US Attorneys, thereby giving them credentials in the future (as if the US Supreme Court isn't already tainted by political operatives).

One small aspect of the story is that, after firing the "eight US Attorneys," the Justice Department tried to silence them. This part of the story IS coming out in the establishment press.

According to the Associated Press, "Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty [who recently resigned], is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors."

Among other things, Elston is becoming known as the hatchet man who tried to silence the fired US prosecutors. As AP puts it, "Elston was accused of threatening at least four of the eight fired U.S. attorneys to keep quiet about their ousters."

According to statements from the fired US attorneys, released by the House Judiciary Committee, Elston was involved in a silencing operation.

Paul Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Nevada, was given the impression that Attorney General Gonzalez threatened to make public statements about Charlton's poor performance. According to Charlton:

I believe that Elston was offering me a quid pro quo agreement: my silence in exchange for the attorney general's.

AP reports that, "John McKay, former top prosecutor in Seattle, said he perceived a threat from Elston during his call."

And Carol Lam, U.S. attorney in San Diego, said that:

during one phone call, Michael Elston erroneously accused me of 'leaking' my dismissal to the press, and criticized me for talking to other dismissed U.S. attorneys.

Lam's office indicted Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a senior CIA official and contractor Brent Wilkes who were involved in the Congressman "Duke" Cunningham Scandal. According to AP, "The New York Times has reported that Lam was actively investigating Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis at the time of her dismissal."

A fourth former U.S. attorney, Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark., had made a similar accusation in an e-mail released in March, 2007.

Murray Wass reports, "In the e-mail, which he sent to five of his fellow prosecutors, Cummins said that the "essence of [Elston's] message" was that if any of the fired U.S. attorneys had pressed their case in the media or before Congress, senior aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales might "feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off" and accuse the prosecutors of ineptitude or poor management."

According to Murray Waas, confidential Congressional testimony reveals that "Elston said that his boss, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, directed him to place calls to fired U.S. attorneys Paul Charlton of Arizona, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, and John McKay of Seattle, all of whom said they felt pressured to keep quiet."

The US Attorney Firings Expose a Deeper Plot

The US Attorney firings have exposed two major plots: 1) To supress Democratic voters, and 2) A long-range plan to elevate political operatives, "loyal Bushies," to federal judge positions by first appointing them to be US Attorneys, thereby giving them credentials in the future.

There's far more to this plot, but here's an outline:

The Plot

1. Timothy Griffin helped steal the 2000 election as the legal advisor to the Bush-Cheney Florida recount. Removing Floridians from the voter rolls was a key element in the 2000 election subplot.

2. Timothy Griffin, helped steal the 2004 election, working under the direction of Karl Rove [a] for the Republican National Committee (RNC). Griffin runs a caging list operation [b] to suppress the Democratic vote by removing people from voter rolls and creating false evidence to 1) use in challenging voters and, 2) create an impression of wide-spread voter fraud. Caging is illegal and the RNC has been caught doing it in the past.[c]

3. Republicans inserted a provision into the reauthorized USA PATRIOT Act allowing US Attorneys to be appointed without Senate confirmation. Does this action originate with Karl Rove?

4. Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzalez's Justice Department lead a campaign to create artificial concerns about individuals committing voter fraud. [d]

5. With hyped-up concerns of voter fraud swirling, Rove's operation influences State legislators to pass "Voter ID" laws designed as another prong in the plot to suppress Democratic votes. [e]

6. The Justice Department and White House (Karl Rove) develop a list of US attorneys to be fired, which consists of attorneys who would not go along with the plot to suppress Democratic votes

7. Timothy Griffin was appointed US Attorney in Arkansas, replacing Bud Cummins. The hope being that one day Griffin would become a federal judge to do the bidding of the dark side. He could be counted on to do thier bidding because the dark side has dirt on him (his role in this plot).

The Plot Unraveling:

- Fired US Attorneys are instructed not to speak about the subject publically, but they do speak.

- Fired US Attorney David Iglesias testifies to Congress that New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici illegally called to pressure him to file criminal charges against a Democrat before the 2006 election. Iglesias, the military attorney upon which the Tom Cruise charicter in "A Few Good Men" is based, reports he felt "sick" after Domenici hung up on him.

- Greg Palast interviews former US Attorney Iglesias and reports on DemocracyNow. In addition to not filing charges on behalf of the RNC before the November 2006 elections, Iglesias reports,

They were telling Rove that I wasn’t doing their bidding. I wasn't filing these voter fraud cases.

- The Seattle times reports on Washington Attorney John McKay,

Some believe McKay's dismissal was retribution for his failure to convene a federal grand jury to investigate allegations of voter fraud.

- Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, initiates investigation of Timothy Griffin.

- Timothy Griffin resigns as US Attorney.

- Former Karl Rove aide, Sara Taylor, is subpoenaed to testify to Congress. White House counsel, and failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, is also subpoenaed.

- The US establishment media remains silent, but that can't last too much longer on a story this big, or can it?

- The unraveling continues....

Notes:

[a] This is known because e-mails with caging lists attached were obtained by BBC when the e-mails were accidently sent to GeorgeWBush."ORG" rather than ."COM" These e-mails include the many sent by Karl Rove from RNC computers that he claimed had been lost.

[b] Cagging works this way to suppress approximately 3 million Democratic votes: Huge numbers of people are identified as likely Democratic voters (using ethnic names and other demographic indicators) who are also likely to be away from their address when the letter arrives (people who use a homeless shelter address as their primary residence, students on vacation and US military personnel in Iraq). Certified mail is sent to them with instructions, "Do Not Forward, Return to Sender" if the person isn't at the address. The returned mail was used by the RNC to develop a "caging list," used to either petition for removal of people from the voter lists or challenge the votes during the election. Duped or corrupt secretaries of state, like Ken Blackwell who oversaw elections in Ohio, go along with the plot. The BBC, and now the US Congress, have these caging lists.

[c] Caging people by ethnicity is a felony under the Voting Rights Act. In addition, the RNC was caught caging in the 1980s and, to avoid criminal prosecution, the RNC
signed a consent order not to engage in any form of caging with the courts. The RNC has surely created means of plausible deniability in this case, but is significantly exposed at this time.

[d] At the direction of Washington, US Attorneys across the Country hold press conferences to generate hysteria about individuals committing voter fraud, despite very little evidence that significant fraud is occuring. Some US Attorneys conduct prosecutions on thin evidence, others refuse to initiate cases despite pressure from the Justice Department.

[e] Although State legislators might have been duped by the intent of Rove plotters, many of the state voter ID laws suppress Democratic votes. For example, the RNC plotters know that, statistically, inner city poor people tend not to have ID and tend to vote democratic. Thus, by requiring two forms of ID, many inner city people who don't have drivers licenses and may not maintain good records, e.g., birth certificates, are prevented from voting.

Sources:

Thanks to the investigative work of Greg Palast for BBC

Ring of Fire, June 9th, 2007

Democracy Now, May 14, 2007, Investigative Journalist Greg Palast Reports on the Firing of New Mexico Attorney David Iglesias

David Bowermaster, "Was McKay ousted over 2004 election?", Seattle Times, February 16, 2007.

Why Did Fox News Fire Larry Johnson?

Larry Johnson got fired by FOX News for sharing insights that didn't conform with their right-wing, false view of the World.

According to transcripts cited below, Larry Johnson was an intelligence officer with the CIA from 1985 to 1989. He served in the State Department's Office of Counter-Terrorism from 1989 to 1993. He now provides consulting services and helps the U.S. train military forces carrying out counterterrorism missions.

Unfortunately, Johnson has a loose definition of terrorism, which undermines the intellectual integrity of his cause. He considers the 1995 Iraqi attempted assasination of George H.W. Bush to be a terrorist act. Assasination of a head of state shouldn't be categorized as "terrorism." Terrorism traditionally involves attacks on civilian targets to influence a political goal.

So, back to why FOX News fired Larry Johnson:

I would like to say I was one of those who, before the [Iraq] war started, said, "this is a crock." I didn't. However, I did get fired from the Fox News network as a news analyst for having the audacity in November of 2002 to say, that if we went into Iraq, it would be a diversion in the war on terror.

Of course, we all know, and Johnson should too, that the "war on terror" is also a crock. It's surprising how long it takes some insiders to catch on.

Johnson continues with a commentary on the value of blogs:

And in January of 2003, I put together a paper — this was in my pre-blog days. I'm convinced, if I'd known more about blogs then, and there were more blogs active, we might have stopped the war.

Sources:

No Quarter Blog, May 24, 2007. The transcript is to appear in the in the May 25, 2007 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.